Locked out CF workers draw Michael Moore

							Locked out CF workers draw Michael Moore
TORONTO (September 15, 2009) -- As he entered the Toronto International Film
Festival this week, filmmaker Michael Moore was welcomed by locked-out Cadillac
Fairview workers, who have asked him to come and speak at their picket line. See the
YouTube video on the workers’ Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=129967363285

The 61 Toronto Dominion Centre employees, who were locked out and then fired by
their employer, Cadillac Fairview, need your support too. Click here to support the
locked-out members of CEP Local 2003 by sending this letter by regular mail (pdf to
print - http://www.cep.ca/reg_ontario/files/cadillacfairviewletter.pdf) or cut and paste
(http://www.cep.ca/reg_ontario/files/cadillacfairviewletter.html) it to send by e-mail to
the President and CEO of Cadillac Fairview: Peter.sharpe@cadillacfairview.com. Please
be sure to sign your name.

Cadillac Fairview Corporation announced the mass termination of all of its maintenance
and skilled trades employees at the TD Centre in mid-July. The members of CEP Local
2003 were locked out by the company on June 14 after it tabled a final offer that
proposed to eliminate employees, force workers to re-apply for their jobs, restrict union
representation and undermine bargaining rights.

After four weeks of a lockout, the company sent a letter to all locked-out employees
stating that it was pleased with the contractor hired to do the union members’ work and is
terminating all 61 employees, including those on sick leave and long-term disability.

The workers are long-term employees with an average of more than 20 years’ service.
“A number of you have committed your entire working life to this employer and to be
tossed out on the street and terminated as if you had no rights whatsoever is outrageous
and we won’t stand for it,” CEP’s Ontario Regional Vice-President Bob Huget told a
rally in support of the workers, Aug. 27th. Click here
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDQQTua53Zs) to watch the video of the August
27th rally.

Cadillac Fairview has assets of $16 billion and is this last fiscal year was its most
lucrative ever with nearly $1 billion in profits. Company properties include the TD
Centre, Eaton Centre, Pacific Centre, Sherway Gardens, to name a few. The company is
wholly owned by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan.

At the rally, V-P Huget praised the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation and
the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario for their unwavering solidarity and efforts
to convince the CF Board of Directors to get back to the bargaining table.

Huget noted that the entire Toronto labour community has really come together,
including CUPE 79 and 416, the Toronto District Labour Council, the OFL, OPSEU,
NUPGE, the Canadian Media Guild, USW and the NDP. “These brothers and sisters
regularly support us on the picket line and offer their valuable time and resources,” he
said.

Local 2003’s Shop Steward, Steve Craig has learned one very important thing out of all
this -- “albeit at great cost to the group and me,” he said. “Although it may be your skills
and abilities that land you a job, if the employer decides for whatever reason to toss you
out on the street it will be solidarity that gets you back inside to the bargaining table.”

In September, the CEP and CF are scheduled to attend the hearing before the OLRB on
the bad faith bargaining charges brought by the union.