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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

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canada’s only Daily Student Newspaper • founded 1906

Volume 106, Issue 91

Liquor flow threatened by LCBO strike vote Cam Smith News Editor

Andrei Calinescu GAZETTE

In what might be an event tantamount in horror to a student apocalypse, the LCBO is facing a workers’ strike after the union decided to vote on the issue following the LCBO’s decision to implement a four-year wage freeze, among a list of other grievances. “[The wage freeze] is an issue, but of equal concern to our members is that 60 per cent of our retail employees are part-time workers,” Greg Hamara, communications officer for Ontario Public Service Employees Union, said. “The four-year wage freeze essentially amounts to an eight per cent cut in wages, because of inflation. They also want to ‘review benefits’ and what that really means is ‘cut back on benefits.’” Compounding the issue is the LCBO’s unwillingness or inability to provide full-time opportunities to employees. “We have in our contract

language [something] that allows them, under restrictive conditions, to move into permanent full-time positions, which is what the vast majority of them really want, like most people,” Hamara explained. “The LCBO is making that movement more restrictive than ever. The number of permanent jobs that have increased in the last five years is 156. The number of part-timers has increased by almost 1,000.” According to Hamara, this has nothing to do with fiscal shortages, because the LCBO’s profits continue to grow. “This is a company that earns almost $1.6 billion in profit annually and they have had 17 consecutive years of increased dividends to the province,” he said. “They could afford a very modest fairness in some of the things we’re looking for.” However, the LCBO contends that despite this profit, extending wage growth and allowing for more full-time positions is just not feasible. “Compensation restraint is a

key part of the government’s plan to eliminate the deficit and has been accepted as necessary by OPSEU in previous negotiations with the Ontario Public Service. Recent public sector settlements have included zero per cent wage increases,” Heather MacGregor, media relations coordinator for the LCBO, said. “LCBO must negotiate in the context of this economic reality, the current retail climate and taxpayers’ expectations that we operate efficiently and that includes managing labour costs.” MacGregor also noted the LCBO’s disappointment in the union for leaving the bargaining table after only 10 hours of negotiation. “We are disappointed that after only 10 hours of face-to-face bargaining, the Liquor Board Employees Division of OPSEU has put talks on hold to issue a media release about their plans to obtain a strike vote,” she explained. “Bargaining had originally been agreed to and scheduled to continue over the next two weeks.”

London begins charging up for electric cars Jeremiah Rodriguez Gazette Staff On Monday, as part of London’s green initiative, the city bumped up the number of electric vehicle charging stations to nine–with three new stations being placed in the downtown core, encouraging Londoners to consider driving electric. Fully charging an EV at the three new stations would be free for the first six months of the one-year pilot program. The three new stations are outside Budweiser Gardens and in the underground parking lots in Covent Garden Market and city hall. The $20,000 installation cost was mostly shouldered by Sun Country Highway, ChargePoint and HD Supply Canada Inc. with the city only putting up 25 per cent of the costs according to Harold Usher, Ward 12

councillor. “The world is moving toward a greener world and London is no exception. Even our buses aren’t electric yet, but we’re getting started with hybrids first—the same with these electric cars. We have to start somewhere,” Usher explained. Jay Stanford, London’s director of environment, said the program has been in the works for about six months and monitoring would be through customer surveys, user statistics and discussions with other cities following similar avenues. Awareness seems to be critical to mass implementation, Christopher Misch, vice-president of Sun Country Highway, indicated. His goal is to have 90 cent of the population accessible to an EV infrastructure within just the next year. “What we really wanted to do was

to get people used to seeing them around [in London]—sending a strong, greener message,” Misch said. According to a recent Harris/ Decima poll done for the Canadian Automotive Association, problems facing EVs include how 65 per cent of Canadians had a lack of knowledge about EVs, grossly overestimating the cost of ownership and unreliability compared to gasoline vehicles and finally how they didn’t know where most EV networks were. “The cost ranges on the status and size of battery, but generally it’s about a cup of coffee to charge. Or a latte, for more sporty cars,” Misch amended. To put the charging cost in perspective, the City of London has only put aside $500 to cover the six-month period of free EV charging.

Andrei Calinescu GAZETTE


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