The possibility of disciplinary action against a health and safety representative who posted his concerns on a company bulletin board spurred a brief protest recently at a manufacturing shop in Guelph, Ontario. The action followed a meeting earlier this month between officials at Hitachi Construction Truck Manufacturing Ltd and the worker representative on the joint health and safety committee.
In his posting, the representative made reference to an incident weeks ago in which a crane used to lift truck frames was damaged and presented a safety concern, confirmed Robin Dudley, chair of Local 1917 of the Canadian Auto Workers union. “It turned out the crane was damaged, the chains were stretched at the end of the day and the cable had to be replaced,” he added.
Dudley says “there had been some flak from the guys to the rep and myself that nothing was being done about the situation.” A report was sent to the Ministry of Labour arguing that, “. . . the supervisor should be removed” due to incompetence, Dudley said. “He posted his comment sheet on the bulletin board saying that they had very little faith in the supervisor and felt he should be terminated.”
During the resulting meeting, Dudley notes company officials said “they were going to write him up” by the end of the work shift and could even terminate him, which trickled down to the shop floor. “The guys got word of that and stood behind their rep and out they went,” Dudley said.
About 50 or 60 workers protested, spending approximately 45 minutes in the company’s parking lot before agreeing to return to work. Dudley says the union rep has not been written up to date, but was asked to remove the bulletin board posting, which he did. Company officials declined to comment on any possible disciplinary actions, saying that “we do not review or discuss personnel issues with people not directly involved in such matters.”
Dudley acknowledges that “in our contract, it does say that anything that is posted on any company bulletin board is supposed to be reviewed by the company.” However, he adds, “I’ve been the chairperson for nine years and I’ve never reviewed a thing with them.” (workersxzcompxzkit)
Company officials and the union met again soon after, but the issue had not yet been resolved, Dudley reported.
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