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John Barker
Northern News Services
The IBEW, which has members in the United States and Canada, is divided into 11 districts, with all of Canada forming the 1st District. A member of the Canadian house of labour, the IBEW re-affiliated with the Canadian Labour Congress in 1997.
Specifically, Gryba will tell you about a small construction and maintenance IBEW local in New Brunswick where about 200 of their 300 members are currently without work.
The local executive still voted to make a donation to their striking telecommunications brothers and sisters in Northern British Columbia, the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Country-wide support
The IBEW international provides no strike pay to the strikers, although a hardship fund exists for the neediest workers on the picket line.
Gryba says in addition to IBEW locals across Canada making voluntary donations, thousands of dollars have been donated for their cause by other unions across the North.
NorthwestTel provides telephone service to 110,000 customers in 96 communities across almost four million square kilometres, from Grise Fiord in Nunavut to Fort Nelson, B.C.
"We're receiving solid support from IBEW locals across Canada," says Gryba, a 14-year NorthwesTel employee and the local's strike spokesman.
The IBEW has represented NorthwesTel workers since 1985 and have been on strike since May 27 -- the first strike in the 380-member bargaining unit's 17-year history.
About 120 of those striking members are walking the picket line here in Yellowknife, while 161 are on strike in Whitehorse, NorthwesTel's headquarters, Gryba says.
The remaining 40 or so employees are scattered throughout the NWT, the Yukon, northern B.C. and Nunavut.
Their contract expired last Dec. 31. Casting mail-in ballots, almost 87 per cent of the membership voted for strike action earlier this spring.
Talks, initiated this time by NorthwesTel management, Gryba says, resumed in Whitehorse late Wednesday with the aid of Vancouver-based federal mediator Bill Lewis, who has met with the two parties on and off since last February. The Canadian Industrial Relations Board has jurisdiction over the federally regulated telecommunications industry.
Those talks continued into the early morning hours yesterday and after a few hours break resumed again.
With full union and management negotiating teams now at the table in Whitehorse, the strike may be at a critical turning point. Gryba says he's cautiously optimistic a deal could be reached this weekend.
Behind the local headlines, the hard-fought NorthwesTel strike involves a clash of two corporate and union titans.
Company history
In 1947, the federal government contracted Canadian National Telegraphs (CNT) to maintain and operate the landline telephone network that had been installed during the construction of the Alaska Highway. NorthwesTel came into existence in 1978, when CNT became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Canadian National (CN).
Three years ago, NorthwesTel became a wholly-owned subsidiary of telecommunications giant Montreal-based Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE).
On the other side of this labour dispute is the Washington, D.C.-based 800,000-member strong International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, headed by International President Edwin D. Hill.
The IBEW was founded by 10 men, who were electrical workers, at Stoley's Bar in St. Louis on Nov. 28, 1891, only 10 years after Thomas Edison established the first public electric supply station at Pearl Street in New York City.
The IBEW says the need for a union was apparent as one in two electricians died on the job in the 1880's and early 1890's.
Originally, entirely American, it was first known as the National Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (NBEW).
The first women were admitted into the union the following year in 1892.
It became an international union when it extended its jurisdiction to Canada in 1899 and changed its name to the IBEW.
