Vol. 75/No. 19      May 16, 2011

Quebec convenience store workers
demand right to union
MONTREAL—Workers at the Couche-Tard convenience store chain in Quebec are fighting to be unionized. So far workers at four stores have won certification with the Confederation of National Unions. A total of 5,000 workers are employed by the chain.

John Phan, who has worked at the Couche-Tard at Jean-Talon and Iberville for three years, told the Militant, “We want better conditions: insurance, sick days, more respect in the way employees are talked to, better wages, more protection from work accidents.” The company closed one store where workers had applied to be part of the union.

“We are doing this to get respect,” Anne Cleary, who has worked at the Couche-Tard in the village of Saint-Liboire for four years, told La Presse. She makes Can$9.95 an hour, just 30 cents more than the minimum wage in Quebec (Can$1=US$1.05).

—Joe Young

Workers protest bosses’ lawsuit
against Bay Area dockworkers
SAN FRANCISCO—“Pacific Maritime Association: Drop the Charges Against Local 10!” was the demand of more than 100 unionists who rallied outside the Pacific Maritime Association’s downtown offices here April 25. They were protesting a lawsuit by the employer association accusing International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 of conducting an illegal strike. As part of nationwide protests in solidarity with workers in Wisconsin, Longshoremen at the ports of Oakland and San Francisco didn’t work April 4, the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.

“The longshoremen move the goods, we move the people,” said Dorian Maxwell, a public transit bus driver and member of the Transit Workers Union. “Without us, the bosses can’t make money. We need to stick together to stop them from busting up our unions.”

—Eric Simpson