Employees at the Canadian Electrolytic Zinc Ltd. refinery outside of Montreal have voted to reject the final contract offer from the their parent company after nearly eight months on strike. Among the issues at stake for the 371 workers, who are members of the United Steelworkers union, is their defined benefit pension plan. The union suggested […]
Brink’s Canada Ltd. employees are pushing back again the company’s proposal to move them from a defined benefit pension into a defined contribution plan. The pension change is one of the central issues prompting members of Unifor to vote overwhelmingly to strike. In Ontario, 800 union members have voted 98 per cent in favour of […]
Pension plan administrators should get used to dealing with requests for their actuarial documents while lawyers duke it out over just how confidential they are, according to a pension lawyer. Natasha Monkman, a pension lawyer at Hicks Morley Hamilton Stewart Storie LLP, says plan administrators have traditionally viewed financial information filed with their provincial regulators […]
The parent company of Northstar Aerospace Inc. is rejecting as accusation that it has abandoned pensioners who are facing a 24 per cent cut as it moves to close its Milton, Ont. facility in September. “Heligear does not control the pension design or its investments, which are the responsibility of the pension board,” said Greg Harper, […]
Montreal police officers have voted in favour of a new contract that puts an end to a long-running dispute over pension reforms. The city’s police union, the Montreal Police Brotherhood, says 95.3 per cent of officers who voted approved the new agreement, which is retroactive to Jan. 1, 2015, and extends until Dec. 31, 2021. […]
An 18-month strike by staff at the Halifax Chronicle Herald is over after the paper and unionized workers reached an agreement that provides for an eight-year employment contract. Following a tentative deal reached last Saturday with the help of a provincially appointed mediator, 94 per cent of the workers voted in favour of ratifying it. The vote came […]
Unifor members from Northstar Aerospace’s Milton, Ont., operations are occupying the plant and halting production in a dispute over a 24 per cent shortfall in staff pensions. The takeover of the plant began before dawn this morning, with workers and their supporters maintaining a picket line. The Illinois-based company is planning to close the Milton location in […]
Workers about to lose their jobs at Northstar Aerospace’s operations in Milton, Ont., are now facing the prospect of a 25 per cent cut to their pensions. After returning from the holiday break last year, workers “were given the notice that they were going to actually close the plant,” says Cammie Peirce, a national representative in […]
More than 700 airport workers employed by Swissport Canada Handling at Toronto Pearson International Airport walked off the job last week in a dispute over benefits, a pay freeze and volatile schedules. The employees, who perform flight operations, handle baggage, tow planes and clean cabins, are striking due to a number of claims Swissport’s management […]
Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. and its unionized employees at the company’s aluminum smelter in Kitimat, B.C. signed a tentative contract on Tuesday night, narrowly averting a strike. The new four-year agreement covers key issues such as the defined benefit pension plan, health benefits, wages and contract language. The 900 members of Unifor Local 2301 will […]