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    • Sat Jan 12th 16:56 PM | Rating: 0 0
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      Hedge Unwinding by Petro-Canada Should Boost Cash Flow
      Petro-Canada has locked-out its hourly-paid workers but it has also locked-in it’s salaried employees. Under threat of reprisals, the staff were told they had to stay at the refinery 24 hours per day 7 days a week. They were warned not to call out to anyone using their cell phones as the company has bought scanners and is monitoring all cellular traffic. There are a majority of these salaried employees who are on the side of the hourly paid but don’t dare speak out for fear of losing their jobs. This climate of fear has reigned for months and moreover these salaried employees have been kept in the dark as to the real goings on at the negotiating table. Any information released to them has been in the form of propaganda aimed at discrediting the union, the executive and the membership.
      Families are being torn apart because Petro-Canada has decided to crush the Montreal Union local. If you want the true story you should contact the wives, husbands and children of these imprisoned employees. Under the guarantee of anonymity you will get the truth. There is no more concern for the ones inside than for those of us locked-out. Pool tables and surf and turf dinners don’t guarantee a happy life, but they make for good press.
      Former employees(retirees)bot... staff and hourly-paid have been brought in to work as scabs and this in direct contravention to Quebec’s labor laws. Replacement workers from Ontario, Nova Scotia and Alberta have been identified and are being monitored. The company is obliging its staff to do the jobs of the hourly paid. An example of this is someone who is a spokesperson is now opening valves in the field. The company went on a spree promoting hourly paid workers to salaried posts to ensure they had a supply of scabs to run the plant. This is also in direct contravention to the labor laws of this province. The law states that any persons promoted after the beginning of negotiations are not allowed to do the work of the hourly paid. This has not been respected.
      A great deal has been made of the fact that the average salary in the energy sector is $32.00 per hour. It all has to do with the working conditions, such as continued exposure to known toxic and cancer-causing chemicals and hydrocarbons. The refinery workers for the most part, work out of doors and this is year round. You are responsible in every sense of the word, for the safe operation of the refinery. Shift work in itself is difficult to deal with. There is the inherent and ever-present danger of fire and explosion in such a plant and employees are expected to help combat fires and are trained to do so.
      On the other hand Ron Brenneman has a salary of $28,000,000 and this translates into more than $14,000.00 per hour. He receives all that money for sitting in his palatial office and telling everyone including the press and the government what to do and when. Those unions get away with murder it seems. Petro Canada has threatened the contractual workers and the companies who hire them, telling them they will be kicked out if they don’t do as they are told. An onsite cafeteria privately operated out of a building belonging to Petro-Canada was condemned as no longer fit for this use. Despite repeated requests by the employees to repair the building the company refused saying it was too costly. Lo and behold when negotiations became difficult the company had the cafeteria completely refitted but only for the use select salaried employees. No hourly-paid employees could buy a meal from there.It will be torn down and not rebuilt when the conflict is over. The behavior of the management at this refinery is shameful and worse yet is the fact that Petro-Canada which came into being using yours and my tax dollars is run by a callous self-serving elite who think nothing of tossing their workers into the street. Ron Brenneman was at Esso when their Montreal refinery was shut. Could it be he is trying to do the same with PetroCanada.
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