HALIFAX - CEP Local 1520, representing the 105 members working at the Maritime Paper plant in the Burnside Industrial Park, walked off the job on Friday, March 9th. At stake, according to local president Rob Schwartz, is management's refusal to back down from a new, two-tiered, pension system. Maritime Paper wants all new hires to go to a "defined contribution plan," meaning the plan would be open to market volatility, rather than keeping the current "defined benefit plan," which pays a certain sum to retirees per month, regardless of market fluctuations.
"We're going to bat for the younger people that are working here right now, the under-forty group," says Schwartz. "Because the way we see it they will not retire on a defined benefit plan as-is...they're going to be stuck with a defined contribution plan and probably not be able to retire."
While the local strikes, Maritime Paper, which produces corrugated cardboard, is being run by management. Contracts, such as one with food-product giant McCain, continue to be honoured. Whether this is a money-saving manoeuvre by the company is not known, although it certainly flies in the face of the term loan, worth $2.1 million, and the four-year, $201,375 payroll rebate, given expressly in order to improve competitiveness and productivity, that the company received from the Dexter government in 2011.
Of course, nothing could be brought into or out of the plant itself without the assistance of one man, who, judging by the reaction of striking workers, is less than popular with local 1520. While local drivers for trucking company Armour have all refused to cross the picket line, a certain "Herman from New Brunswick" appears to feel no solidarity with the strikers. According to the strikers, Herman crosses the lines "four or five times a day."
Members of local 1520 also point out a potential similarity between their situation and the continued clashes between management and workers that have recently earned Halifax the moniker of "strike city."
The similarity comes in the form of one Brian Johnson Q.C., partner at Stewart McKelvey lawyers. Johnson, whose homepage notes that his work has included "developing union avoidance plans for national employers", appears to have become Maritime Paper's lawyer of choice in developing their new, and newly rejected, contract offer. Johnson has been busy during this season of the strike, and has been sighted behind the scenes of the prolonged transit workers' strike, as well as at the narrowly-avoided Dalhousie professors' strike.
It would be impertinent to attribute the generic chasm between employer and employee in Halifax to one individual, but Johnson, who happens to bill among the highest in the province, certainly has nothing to lose from having employers prolong the need for his services. While some might decry guaranteed pensions and worker benefits as money-losers for employers in the modern day, time might be better served by examining who exactly is benefiting from these long, legally-intensive negotiating sessions and strikes that have recently plagued Halifax.
