(left to right) Local 513 members Mark McLean, John Bruce, Scott Strachan, Rich MacNeil, and Mike McCourt work at Pepsi in Canton, Massachusetts.

The 111 RWDSU Local 513 members employed at the Pepsi distribution center in Canton, Massachusetts, ratified a new four year contract on June 18. The new contract contains significant hourly wage increases, increases the pension benefits, and keeps health care benefits intact.

Tim Hudak is the new leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party after being elected to the position at the party convention this past weekend. For labor leaders and workers in Canada, his election alone stands as a reason to oppose Progressive Conservative party candidates and platforms.

With thousands gathering in Washington to protest for health care reform, RWDSU President Stuart Appelbaum is blasting U.S. merchants for what he termed “shameless indifference to a crisis they helped create.”

Appelbaum’s comments came in response to a threat by National Retail Federation Vice President Neil Trautwein to fight any health care reform legislation that requires employers to provide health insurance to workers.

Click to read story in New York Observer

The Canadian Labour Congress has released a list of proposed changes to the country’s unemployment insurance program, advocating improvements that could help 1.55 million unemployed Canadians.

According to CLC President Ken Georgetti, unemployed workers are being hurt by government delays in improving the system.

“We have been advocating for improvements for months,” Georgetti said. “We know what has to be done to fix unemployment insurance. Putting off changes for months does not help unemployed workers or their communities.”

The Protecting America’s Workers Act, proposed in the House of Representatives in April, would expand OSHA coverage to over 8 million additional U.S. workers.   The original Occupational Safety and Health act of 1970 did not cover flight attendants, railway workers, federal, state, or local public employees. 

Write your representatives and tell them to put health and safety first for America's workers.

In May, the paid-on-call firefighters in Petawawa, Ontario, voted overwhelmingly to join the RWDSU Northern Joint Council. The 33 firefighters, who work other jobs but drop everything to fight fires when they are needed, are members of Local 431, the dedicated local for paid-on-call firefighters within the Northern Joint Council.

The Petawawa firefighters were concerned about a lack of input on the job.

Recovery efforts are over and the investigation has begun in Garner, North Carolina, where a Slim Jim plant exploded on Tuesday morning, killing three and injuring over 40 at the ConAgra owned factory. Over 300 workers were inside the plant at the time of the explosion. Employees at the plant are represented by UFCW Local 204.

A 25-person team of criminal investigators, forensic specialists and engineers has arrived in Garner to try to determine what caused the blast.