Niagara News Bulletin March 1-15 2012

* The family of a mentally disabled worker won a Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario judgment against a wine bottler for unfairly firing all of their mentally disabled workers. The tribunal ordered back pay, but only at the illegally low $1.25/hour equivalent the workers were being paid as a training honorarium. The company had been built on the super-exploitation of mentally disabled workers over a decade, and then fired them without cause once it didn’t need them.
* Yet another virus/bacteria outbreak has been declared at a Niagara Hospital, Welland this time, after tens of deaths and infections in wave after wave despite the administration not restoring staffing, beds, and service to the pre-cuts level.
* Brock University has reached contract settlements with CUPE Local 1295, which represents maintenance and trades employees at Brock, and with CUPE 2220, which represents staff at Rodman Hall. Talks are continuing between the University and three other campus unions.
* Welland’s 78 outside workers (CAW Local 523) negotiated successfully for raises between 1 and 2 percent over several years, while including security on hours and vacations.

People's Voice Niagara Bureau

Niagara News Bulletin February 16-28, 2012

by People's Voice Niagara Bureau

* Yet another patient at a Niagara Falls hospital died from the latest C-Difficile outbreak, with 16 more still infected there, and 19 in other Niagara hospitals. The deaths continue, after 38 died in previous outbreaks, while the administration responds with anything other than restoring services, staff, and beds which were cut earlier. Hospital workers and unions have warned that without the resources they need the root cause won’t be addressed.
* 8,000 Port Colborne residents whose land was poisoned by Inco have filed their case with the Supreme Court of Canada, after an Ontario court overturned their reparations because even though Inco is responsible it was within environmental laws.
* The Niagara Catholic District School Board is still refusing to recognize Gay-Straight Alliances and is trying to side-step the issue of homophobia by instead having “Respecting Differences” clubs, which dilute the issues of homophobia and patriarchy into bullying in general.
* Students occupied Brock University’s Schmon Tower lobby on Feb. 1 as part of a movement to reduce tuition fees.
* St. Catharines is considering reducing Sunday bus service because uploading services has not been done sufficiently to relieve the municipal budget.

Niagara News Bulletin February 1-15, 2012

by People's Voice Niagara Bureau


* The Niagara Health System mysteriously announced that six top managers are no longer working for the NHS because of unspecified restructuring, despite the provincially appointed supervisor explaining he is for transparency. The supervisor was appointed after complaints about cutting local services to move them over an hour away to a P3 (public-private-partnership) hospi t a l ,  ove r  30 pa t i ent s  dying  f rom hospi t a l - acquired infections, and patients being asked to call 911 from within the hospital for care.
* The Ontario Ministry of  Health  is into its fifth year of not answering for why a for-profit company failed to build a nearly 100 long-term care bed facility in Welland despite granting all approvals, contributing  to one of   the longest waiting lists in the region.
* CAW Local 523 steelworkers at Lakeside Steel in Welland are still waiting to learn the terms of a proposed buy-out, buyer unknown because of a “confidentiality agreement”, after the union agreed to concessions earlier last year.
* 110 meat processing workers of UFCW Local 175 were laid off at the end of a shift, after the new owner decided to keep the business and machines but not the employees who had made the company successful. The press release announcing the sale to the familyowned chicken-processor said the company is committed to staying in Ontario but said nothing about the layoffs, which one worker told reporters was a “total shock” and caused tears on the last shift. The sale was approved by a producers’ organization, Chicken Farmers of Ontario, who said they expect the buyer to honour “the relationships and contractual obligations” with growers, but were silent about the workers.

Niagara News Bulletin January 1-31 2012

* Four migrants from Caribbean and African countries being held
indefinitely at the Niagara Regional Detention Centre launched a
rotating hunger strike to demand medical attention and due process
for their release. A phone-in and petition campaign succeeded in
getting them liberated from segregation, where they were confined for
daring to strike about their conditions.
* Three Mexican farmworkers in Niagara have sued the federal
government and their employer as well as the go-between for being
unfairly dismissed without due process. This is the first Charter rights
lawsuit of its kind in Ontario, filed after an investigation by the Niagara
Migrant Workers Interest Group, which includes the UFCW and
newcomer organizations. The farmworkers claim their travel pay was
improperly deducted twice, among other violations. The farm had
received a provincial government award of $50,000 shortly before
firing the three workers.
* Protesters marched as part of International Day to End Violence
Against Sex Workers under slogans such as “sex work shouldn’t
equal murder” and held a memorial including a roll call for “stolen
sisters”.
* A patient died from bacterial infection in the Niagara Falls hospital
as part of a new outbreak, with six patients still suffering from hospitalacquired
infections. A previous outbreak during the provincial
election killed 37 patients. Nearby Welland has also declared an
outbreak infecting eight patients and twelve workers, and two St.
Catharines patients have died. Administration has repeatedly declared
the crisis over, while workers and their unions warn the deaths will
continue because of cuts in beds, staff, and services. At the other end
of the region, at a coroner’s inquest into the death of a teenager last
winter, paramedics said that the closures of local emergency rooms
create extra stress since they have to drive further to give care to
patients.
* Port Colborne cut a Saturday bus service pilot project as part of
moves to reduce taxes by 0.5%, after the McGuinty Liberals failed to
keep a promise to reverse the downloading of services by the former
Conservative provincial government. Nearby Fort Erie is hiking bus
fares 25%, part of which will go towards private profits as the local
bus service is contracted out.

Coverage of St. Catharines Communist Party candidate in Vapaa Sana, a Finnish-Canadian newspaper

SALEH WAZIRUDDIN - NIAGARA COALITION FOR PEACE, CANADIAN PEACE CONGRESS, COMMUNIST CANDIDATE FOR ST. CATHARINES
by Sofia Vuorinen for Vapaa Sana


I first encountered Saleh Waziruddin at a luncheon meeting of the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association.  I took particular note of him because he was carrying an armful of People's Voice.  He is the co-convenor of Niagara Coalition for Peace and a member of the Canadian Peace Congress executive council.  There are occasional Niagara News Bulletins in People's Voice.  In the November 1-15, 2011, Saleh wrote an article titled in the paper entitled "Canadian Peace Alliance campaign for "Peace and Prosperity, not War and Austerity."  


The Canadian Peace Alliance held its bi-annual convention in Toronto on October 14-16 this year.  The theme of the convention was on "Peace and Prosperity not War and Austerity."  They were agitating for shifting public money from militarism and war into public services, jobs, and the environment.  Postcards can be signed on-line at www.acp-cpa.ca/en/Peace and Prosperity.html.


Several resolutions were passed, including support for the campaign to let U.S. War Resisters stay in Canada, helping students counter military recruitment, and participating in elections by encouraging peace candidates and clear anti-war positions.


I was particularly interested in getting in touch with Saleh when I was informed that he was going to run as a Communist candidate in St. Catharines in our October provincial election.  He had been campaign manager in 2008 in the federal election and in 2007 in the provincial election.  He also ran as a candidate in both the federal and provincial elections this year.


Saleh was born in Montreal to an Indian father and a Pakastani mother.  He lived in the U.S. for 12 years and has now returned to reside in Niagara Falls, Canada.  I wanted to know how he was received in the election as a Communist candidate.  He gave me some very interesting information.  He was approached by different people before the debates who had recognized him from his previous federal candidacy.  After the debate, one individual who was actually working for the Progressive Conservative party told Saleh that he made the most sense of all the candidates!

One of the major issues that he addressed was about the situations in local hospitals in the Niagara area.  The Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) has been cutting emergency rooms in favour of  P3 (public-private partnership) hospitals and mismanaging a bacteria outbreak linked to over 30 deaths.  


Niagara Falls residents have protested three bacterial outbreaks including C-Difficile with several deaths where the outbreak was declared late. The Health Minister Andrews denies that the  cause is funding cuts but adds that they will have to find money to deal with the outbreaks and added housekeeping staff.  


Saleh felt he did very well in certain high schools.  In one, he had the second most votes of any party.  Keep up the great work you are doing in many aspects of your life. Further details of "A People's Agenda for Ontario" is available at www.votecommunist.ca.

Niagara News Bulletin Dec 1-31

People's Voice Niagara Bureau

* A second Niagaran has died from the second hospital infection
outbreak, after the previous one in October led to 35+ fatalities.
Local 26 of the Ontario Nurses Association issued another warning
that nurses could not provide the standard of care necessary
because of understaffing, despite the province saying earlier cuts
were not the cause of the health crisis. McMaster University
released a survey showing 50% or more of residents in municipalities
covered by the Niagara Health System (NHS) don’t trust it, up to 80%
in Ft. Erie. Meanwhile the inquest continues into the role of moving
emergency rooms to a more distant P3 hospital in the death of a
teenager who could not be treated locally because of the cuts. The
Region has also released a “Let’s Start a Conversation” video which
shows that local health care problems are rooted in poverty and the
economy, copying a similar documentary from Sudbury.
* A Niagara Falls fast food worker has started a campaign to ban
smoking from drive-throughs, since the health of service workers
is left unprotected by the Smoke-Free Ontario Act. The local Liberal
MPP thinks it’s a good idea, but wants to leave it to businesses to
self-regulate.
* CUPE-affiliated Steel City Solidarity, a Workers Action Centre
organized to extend labour’s support to non-unionized workers,
picketed a Grimsby restaurant where the manager had not paid a
worker almost $2,000 in wages despite being ordered a year ago by
the Labour Board to pay up. Scheduled to be open, the restaurant
was closed up during the picketing.
* Rural Niagara residents were again warned they might see soldiers
running around with weapons and military vehicles on exercises in
civilian areas as part of militarization.
* A city councillor has denounced the Niagara Regional municipal
council as a “dictatorship”. The council refused to hold a byelection after a councillor representing Welland was recently elected
as a provincial MPP. Calling a by-election “financially irresponsible”,
the regional body tried to appoint a replacement despite opposition
from Welland council.
* As part of municipal cuts from provincial underfunding and
downloading, St. Catharines will stop shovelling the driveways of
seniors and the disabled, originally implemented to make it a
“walkable city.”

Niagara News Bulletin Nov 15-30

Niagara News Bulletin
by PV Niagara Bureau

* Welland food banks are reporting that they are getting 200-400 more people per month, 30% of them children, than they were designed for and it's expected to get worse this winter as EI runs out for those recently laid off from profitable plants allowed to shut down and move equipment out of Canada because of a lack of anti-plant-closing legislation with enforcement.
* An educational concert remembering the Underground Railroad, “human smugglers” of the 19th century who went through Niagara and lead in part by St. Catharines's Harriet Tubman, is being performed in Welland. Stephen Harper wants to criminalize the “human smugglers” of today's underground railroad.
* Despite Ontario appointing a supervisor to take over the local hospitals, who has already said he won't undo any of the re-structuring decisions such as selling off public hospital sites, Niagara Falls City Council and Port Colborne's Mayor are joining activists in pressuring the supervisor to re-open local emergency rooms and review the re-structuring plan.  Meanwhile a coroner's inquest has started into the death of a teenager who was in a car crash shortly after local emergency room closures and had to be driven over half-an-hour away by highway.
* The District School Board of Niagara is looking at merging or closing local schools because of lower enrollment instead of decreasing class sizes.
* A local video-game company touted as the next “GM” for the region's “new” economy, which received $4 million in federal loans plus another $4 million in provincial grants and was highlighted by St. Catharines Tory MP Rick Dykstra as an example of delivering for the riding, announced it is laying off over half of its workforce, like the “old” economy.  The company president had said the funding would have a “profound and long-lasting” effect only last year.