MONTREAL — DHL Express Canada, an international package delivery company based in Germany, locked out its 2,100 workers across Canada June 8. Workers voted down the bosses’ contract offer by 97% in May. The central issues are winning wage increases that keep up with rising prices and defeating a series of concessions demanded by the company that union officials say amounts to “more work for less pay.”
The workers — including call drivers, warehouse workers, mechanics, call center operators and DHL-contracted owner-operators — are members of Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union. After the lockout, they went out on strike, picketing five days a week across the country.
When negotiations began last October, DHL refused workers’ demands for a 15% increase over a three-year contract. They countered with a 15% increase over five years. The company reports an annual profit of 4.6 billion Canadian dollars ($3.4 billion). “Practically everyone here needs at least two jobs to survive or to put some money aside,” Eric Bondell, picket captain and union delegate at the Lachine terminal outside Montreal, told the Militant June 20.
For two weeks DHL bosses tried to maintain operations by busing in scabs, many of whom weren’t told they were replacing striking workers. But the long lines of parked trucks at DHL distribution centers across the country show that business was hard hit by the strike.
On June 20 DHL shut down all operations across Canada, blaming a new federal labor law that prohibits the use of scab labor during a strike or lockout of workers covered by federal regulations adopted last year. The bosses then urged the federal government to exempt the company from the law, citing DHL’s 50,000 customers in Canada.
If DHL gets its way, drivers would only be paid for the drive to pick up their cargo if they had to travel over 100 kilometers (62 miles) to get there. Other issues include accommodation for injured workers, access to clean washrooms and electronic surveillance of workers by management.
The bosses “don’t show us any respect,” Gilles Charbonneau, who works in the Lachine Customer Service department, told Militant worker-correspondents as we joined the picket line in solidarity June 10.
Alain Daigle, Unifor Local 700 president, addressed a rally there saying, “We’ve organized picket lines across Canada. Solidarity is key.”
“The unions need to defend the right to strike against the attacks of the governments in Ottawa and Quebec City, as well as the use of scabs as DHL is doing,” he told the Militant.
The Canadian government has stepped up use of anti-labor laws to impose mandatory back-to-work orders on 70,000 rail, port and postal workers across Canada who went on strike.
For many workers here this is their first strike ever, and they say it has changed them. “Before I got involved with the union I tended to just focus on my work,” Dipiti Patel, Unifor Local 700 vice president, told the Militant. “But now I see how the company treats the workers, and I jump in to defend them.”
“Show your solidarity for striking and locked-out Unifor DHL Express Canada members by visiting a picket line!” the union says, calling for support.