March 10, 2003
"Thrown out with the dish water." That’s how OPIEU local 343 union steward Gary Connolly describes what is happening to the locked-out Toronto Greenpeace Door Canvass.
Connolly could have added "thrown out with the dish water after bringing in millions of dollars to local Greenpeace coffers".
"We are 13 employees with up to 8 years’ seniority who have been illegally and unfairly locked out. One of our members still faces court charges for being arrested on a Greenpeace action," states a union flyer.
The brutal winter of 2003 has been experienced firsthand by the tiny group of canvassers who picket outside Greenpeace’s posh and warm Dundas St. West headquarters.
"Many of our canvassers have not found other work, and many have not had a cheque since October 15, 2002. Some of us are getting pretty close to the edge," Connolly told CanadaFreePress.com.
As Connolly and Local 343 brave this winter’s sub-zero temperatures with sidewalk pickets, there’s a principle at stake.
The 13-member local is not only the tiniest among Canadian unions, as far is as known, along with inside Toronto office staff, it represents the only unionized Greenpeace local anywhere in existence, worldwide.
In mighty trade union history, the Toronto Greenpeace Door Canvass embodies an ongoing and up-against-it, David-against-Goliath fight for justice.
Locked out and virtually ignored by Greenpeace brass both here and abroad, the canvass currently awaits a second formal hearing before the Ontario Federation of Labour.
Their cause has become "a call for justice in solidarity with the union movement and all social justice movements in general."
Undisputed giant in the global environmental lobby, Greenpeace is also the only national environmental group that has (Toronto) unionized staff.
The current contract for the canvass staff was signed about a year ago and has another year to run. There is every expectation that when it expires, anther contract will be agreed upon as normally happens.
In its decade of existence as a union local, there was only one strike for OPIEU’s 343.
"In our door canvass, we had not had a raise in base daily pay for 10 years, and we had to vote to go on strike several years ago to get a modest pay raise," says Connolly.
The office staff of Greenpeace Canada in Toronto has been unionized sine the early ‘90s, and there has never been a strike or lockout.
Given they are heart and soul of its well-oiled money machine, no one on canvass duty expected to be locked out by Greenpeace.
But between canvassers and management, somewhere along the way came a sudden sea change.
Peter Tabuns, Executive Director of Greenpeace Canada explains the sea change between Greenpeace and canvassers as "a shift away from a door canvass".
It was the door canvass that brought in literally millions of dollars to Greenpeace coffers.
Local 343 members want to know "If there was a shift away from a door canvass, why does the non-unionized Montreal canvass remain open, and why does Greenpeace use the non-unionized Caring Together agency to canvass in other cities?"
The only reason the shift has occurred is to get out of this union contract, canvass members respectfully suggest.
The canvass is not the only fundamental shift by movers and shakers of the powerful environmental giant.
"The first hint that Greenpeace Canada was having internal troubles emerged last year," Bruce Livesay wrote in Canadian Dimension in August, 1994. "Stan Gray and Gord Perks, a pulp and paper campaigner, complained to Toronto’s media about the organization’s plans to lay off staff, arguing that it was a smoke screen for union-busting. For their candour, both men were fired."
"A few months earlier, in December of 1992, a dozen members of Greenpeace’s Toronto support and campaign staff had formed a union, called the Toronto Greenpeace Staff Association (TGSA), in response to the arbitrary manner in which staff were given the chop. ‘When it came to layoffs, there was neither rhyme nor reason why someone was let go. They picked whoever they wanted,’ says Gray.
"It was glaringly evident that Greenpeace’s management was unhappy and alarmed about having a union in their midst. Given that Greenpeace is a white, middle-class organization with few links to working people, this was not unexpected.
"David Perla, 35, a forestry consultant who joined Greenpeace Canada in 1990, and built the organization’s west coast forestry campaign before he quit two years ago, says Greenpeace functions as a ‘web of intimacy’, whereby cliques of like-minded friends run the organization. If you fall out of the web, he says, you are considered an enemy. (Greenpeace leaders) were very threatened by a union because it threatened the intimacy."
Mercenary to a fault, it seems that Greenpeace has always rated the green of the big buck a top priority.
Greenpeace Canada’s revenues had tumbled from a high of $11.5 million in 1991, to under $8 million by 1993.
The organization seemed well off the mark when it predicted that growth would continue through the 1990s, in spite of the well underway recession.
According to Livesay, "At the same time its fundraising operation was being mismanaged."
"Consequently, donations dropped dramatically in 1992, down to $7.8 million. At one point, Greenpeace Canada considered declaring bankruptcy, and only survived with a loan from Greenpeace International."
Greenpeace has not only become as corporate as the corporations it campaigns against, its female staffers have long complained against sexism in the workplace, while Greenpeace’s leadership is usually described as "arrogant, cliquish, elitist and insensitive to class and racial concerns. "
"’There is as lack of human management, to say the least,’" observes Christine Houghton, 33, a former Greenpeace toxics campaigner. "’Yet they aren’t supposed to be this huge corporate entity which casts people aside.’"
"Greenpeace is also weak on racial sensitivity," Livesay claims. "When its seal campaign was in full swing in the 1970s, little concern was paid to the impact on Natives. Indeed, the Innuit communities on Canada’s East Coast saw their markets for seal pelts dry up and local economies shattered."
The David against Goliath battle being played out by Connolly and Company in front of Greenpeace headquarters at 250 Dundas West is now six months old.
"Our canvass staff are spending countless hours in protest over this issue unpaid," says the union steward. "Greenpeace management and their lawyer are spending countless hours on this issue, paid for by Greenpeace donations."
Meanwhile, if you believe in unions, or even in the underdog and the little guy, there is only one way to help the locked out Greenpeace canvassers: Slam the door when members of the canvass replacement, Caring Together Agency come collecting for Greenpeace.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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