The Dominion - Geordie Gwalgen Dent

Another Site 41?

Moira Peters — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:02:32 +0000

Landfill in southern Ontario starts legal battle

TORONTO—After years of blockades and campaigning, another battle to protect wetlands and water in southern Ontario is going to court.

Cayuga is a small community on Six Nations territory south of Hamilton. For five years, protesters, First Nations and Cayuga residents have been trying to stop the development of a landfill by SF Partnership Chartered Accountants and Haldimand Norfolk Sanitary Landfill Inc. On October 2, preliminary hearings to stop the site's development occurred.

“There have been blockades to stop trucks coming in twice,” most recently in late 2008, says Jody Orr, co-chair of Haldimand Against Landfill Transfer (HALT). “What happened in 2007 was an attempt to bring garbage in and some members of the Haudenosaunee and our group stopped it. Since then, there has been little activity on the site. We keep a watch on it.”

Blockades and legal battles around dump sites and development have been numerous this summer in Southern Ontario. Site 41 in Simcoe County was slated to have a dump site built on top of it for garbage from the surrounding area. Unfortunately for residents in the area, it would also be on an aquifer containing the “purest water in the world.” Protesters and members of the Council Of Canadians filed an injunction claiming the site was operating illegally in July of 2009 and on September 22 Simcoe County councilors voted to stop construction and development of the site.

Just a few weeks earlier, development at the Hanlon Creek Business Park (HCBP) in Guelph was halted for 30 days by a court injunction. The site had been occupied beginning in July by Guelph and Six Nations protesters. Recently, the City of Guelph voted to halt construction until July 2010.

Both situations mirror developments at the Edwards landfill site in Cayuga.

The Edwards site is within the Haldimand Tract, land granted to Six Nations in 1784. The site was opened in 1959 as an industrial and commercial landfill and has maintained sporadic activity as a dump site since.

Serious contamination of the site occurred between the late 1960s and late 1980s when the St. Lawrence Resin Products Plant was dumping industrial waste there. Thousands of tons of toxic chemicals have been found in the site including toluene, ethylstyrene, xylene, ehtylbenzene, ethyltoluene, methylstyrene, cymene and divinyl benzene.

When the site was opened again as a landfill in 2004, HALT was formed by Cayuga residents hoping to stop continued contamination from the use of the site. “We had tried different steps and had gone through a legal process, and despite that the trucks were still coming in,” says Ann Vallentin, another co-chair of HALT.

In 2007 blockades against trucks associated with Haldimand Norfolk Sanitary Landfill Inc, the company owning the site, began.

“We didn't see another route to go at that point, says Vallentin. “We were not exited but it was a last-resort effort at that point. The blockade was done by Six Nations members and activists at the road at the time.” Eventually an injunction was put against anyone trying to stop the trucks.

The blockades were successful, at least temporarily. The company, having spent a considerable amount of money on site preparation, was unable to deliver garbage. Shortly before, it had gone into bankruptcy and was put into receivership. Receiver Brahm Rosen, of SF Partnership Chartered Accountants in Toronto, has been trying to “operate the landfill and sell it as is our mandate...as receiver.”

“But we can't do it," said Rosen, speaking in the Hamilton Spectator. Rosen was unable to contact this author by deadline.

Similar to Site 41 and HCBP, a collaboration between First Nations and white activists has been key to the success of stopping the Edwards site from further use.

According to Orr, “In HALT, there are people that do not agree with what is happening with a number of issues (such as land claims). Some will be supportive, but not others. On this issue, everyone sees a reason to come together. I don't want to leave my grandkids this kind of legacy. I think that the involvement of the Haudenosaunee was critical in stopping garbage. If it had not been for their decision, I'm not sure what the outcome would have been.”

In 2007, Six Nations spokesperson Ruby Montour said the Haudenosaunee Development Institute had not been informed about revival of the dumpsite and told the Hamilton Spectator: "This is Haudenosaunee land and it's not for garbage. Why should the people who live around there have to fear that?"

The Hoskanigetah of the Grand River, a group within the Haudenosaunee, have made repeated announcements that they will not allow the “reactivation of the Edwards Landfill” promising to “undertake the supervision of our own Environmental Review of contamination.”

Wilf Ruland, a professional geoscientist, says serious contamination at the site exists. Conducting a “Review of 2006 Monitoring Report for Edwards Landfill,” Ruland found that “the existing hazardous wastes on the Edwards Landfill property pose an ongoing threat to both groundwater and surface water quality for as long as they remain on the property.“

The Hoskanigetah have outlined concerns regarding premature births, miscarriages and deformities, pointing out that “the integrity of the same liner used at Edwards Landfill has been breached at other sites including [in] the US, where it has been used.”

In an email, Jennifer Hall, Regional Communications Advisor for the Ministry of the Environment, stated that “the newly constructed landfill cell meets the stringent requirements of Ontario’s landfill design standards.”

HALT disagrees and is now taking the receiver to court, seeking an injunction to stop the development of the site.

“When the receiver got an injunction against the protesters, the CoA [certificate of approval] from the Ministry of Environment had a number of provisions that had been violated,” says Orr. HALT then filed a counter-injunction which stopped work on the site and mandated that protesters would be notified of subsequent work.

“In 2008, a number of conditions still had not been met. The Ministry of Environment was allowing things to go ahead without proper approval. There’s a lack of detail on the decontaminating plan for a very toxic site.”

Like the Hoskanigetah, Orr and HALT have concerns about the integrity of the liner and charge that there is no monitoring of the quality of water and no annual report on environmental plans, as mandated by the certificate of approval. “We’re seeking in court, for prosecution, that this site is operating illegally,” says Orr.

According to Hall, “There were some minor items of non-compliance regarding preparation of the site to receive waste that have since been resolved. The ministry is satisfied that the receiver is in compliance with their CoA and the court order.

“The CoA requires the site owner to monitor ground and surface water on the site for impacts caused by the landfill site. The ministry is confident that the terms and conditions of the CoA will protect groundwater and surface water.“

Though the legal process to stop the site is in its early stages, neither Orr nor Vallentin are optimistic that the site will be permanently closed any time soon.

“Will [the legal work] be effective? I don't know,” says Vallentin. “We were told by people when we started that it was going to happen so there was no reason to try to stop it. But we felt that if it was bad then we have a duty to try to do what we can do. Typically in situations like this companies will keep trying until they wear out people on the ground. Site 41 took 25 years, I hope it wont be the same thing here.”

Geordie Gwalgen Dent is a contributing member of the Toronto Media Co-op.

A version of this article was originally published by the Toronto Media Co-op.

Edwards site protester

Workers Rising

hillarybain — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:22:36 +0000

Hotel union strikes, rallies and demands social change; gets contracts

“I feel great,” mused Abdul Husseini, a server at the Holiday Inn restaurant on Toronto’s airport strip. On July 15, he was in the middle of a hotel walkout, part of a series of spontaneous rolling strikes aimed at securing an agreement in three Toronto airport hotels. Two weeks and one strike later, tentative agreements had been reached at all three hotels.

Victory for Husseini’s union, UNITE HERE Local 75, was the result of an intense and aggressive campaign, targeting the remaining three member hotels without a contract: the Radisson, Holiday Inn and Fairmont Royal York. Most of the UNITE HERE hotels in Toronto had already settled with the Local 75 “standard contract,” according to Husseini, but Westmont Hospitality Group, who owns or operates these three hotels, had been holding out since 2007, leaving their staff some of the worst paid on the airport strip. “Cooks in my restaurant are paid $4 less than other hotels,” said Husseini.

Working standards in the hotel industry, where most workers are from immigrant communities, are not high to begin with. Heavy workloads, low job security and exploitation are rampant, according to union representatives. “Most days, I don't have time to take a break,” Radisson Suite Hotel room attendant Delsie Morgan was quoted as saying in the Toronto Star. Morgan was making
$13.17 an hour compared with $15 at other hotels.

At the same time, Toronto hotels are enjoying a period of strong economic growth. Westmont Hospitality Group, the Radisson Hotel, the Holiday Inn and the Greater Toronto Hotel Association did not return calls to the Dominion and publicly refused to comment on the strikes. However, speaking in the Toronto Star, Andrew Weir, Vice-president of Communications for Tourism Toronto stated that “hotel occupancy rates were up three per cent in May and another one per cent in June compared to last year.”

Even given the David and Goliath scenario, UNITE HERE’s July actions were unusually militant: spontaneous, rolling strikes are rare in the hospitality industry. More often strike-notice is used as a pressure tactic; it also gives the employer time to prepare for the possibility of a strike. Without notice, managers are left scrambling to cover positions, clean rooms and attempt to calm dissatisfied customers.

If tough tactics like these seem out of the ordinary for a hotel union, it’s not the only thing that UNITE HERE does differently. The seemingly quick victory in July is part of a long-term strategy to engage communities in making change.

Unique membership, leadership

When asked why he and his co-workers decided to organize with Local 75, Husseini says that “Local 75 is very well known in Toronto.” Husseini, who used to belong to the Steel Workers Union, says that UNITE HERE is much better than other unions when it comes to “dealing with communities.” “They provide services to their members: money for training, culture funds…they provide help for the young.”

Few unions have such a high proportion of immigrants as members. “We’re part of the movement for immigrant rights in Toronto and the hotel industry,” says J.J. Feuser, a researcher with UNITE HERE Local 75. “Seventy per cent of our workers are immigrants to Canada.” The union also says 48 per cent of members are women and 53 per cent are visible minorities.

“It’s sometimes an interesting challenge organizing people from different communities with low union density,” says Feuser. “We have to be good at making people absorb the fact that they have rights.

“Our focus is on developing leadership in the rank and file. In every case, workers sit on the negotiating committee at every level of negotiations. Our executive board and solidarity committee…works with the community and take on the role of organizer in the workplace,” says Feuser. This approach empowers the communities and individuals involved with the union, and according to UNITE HERE organizers, makes the union more powerful in the workplace and beyond. “Increasingly we can act on facing problems in the hotels, political fights, helping our members, etcetera,” says Feuser. “We can do that on a dime.”

One of the fights UNITE HERE locals in Canada and the US took on last year is the “Hotel Workers Rising” campaign. The aim of the campaign is to improve working conditions across the board, but most significantly, to have all hotel-worker contracts settled on the same calendar year: 2010.

Though contracts at unionized hotels are common, the fact that so many are now coming up for renewal in 2010 means that UNITE HERE workers are in position to undertake connected labour actions across the continent. A general strike or attempt to increase wages across Canada and the US could be in the works. “[This is] continent-wide: Boston, Honolulu, and Los Angeles,” says Feuser.

With 100,000 of UNITE HERE’s 450,000 North American members being exclusively hotel workers, settling all hotel workers' contracts by 2010 would be a significant accomplishment. According to Feuser, the union is already well on its way.

“Local 75 represents 40 hotels in Toronto. Thirty have been negotiated until 2010,” he says. “The goal is to have the other 10 negotiated to that date as well.”

“Broader issues defining the union”

Andrea van der Heever, an organizer with UNITE HERE based in New Haven, Connecticut, believes that the union’s forays into community activism are what most set it apart from other unions. “I think what distinguishes UNITE HERE is that…the union is not confined to conflicts at the workplace. The union has a role in where people live and in communities. Local 75 is at the forefront in transforming the way a lot of locals are looking at their communities. The broader issues are starting to define the union.”

In Toronto, these "broader issues" include fighting gentrification and demanding rights for immigrants.

Local 75 has begun influencing commercial developments in Rexdale, one of the poorest communities in Toronto. Guled Warsame, an organizer with the union, says that in December 2006 communities in Rexdale found out about an open-house for Woodbine Live: a major expansion of the local race track. "People started asking about local benefits,” says Warsame. “The first big meeting [of coalition partners] was in May 2007; over 600 people came.” Then the Community Organizing for Responsible Development (CORD) campaign was launched. UNITE HERE local 75, the Toronto Social Planning Council and other organizations signed on to support the campaign.

CORD’s goal is to obtain concessions for the Rexdale community. The campaign is modeled after one in the United States in which “everything that the neighbourhood wanted got written into the agreement,” including provisions for parking, housing, hospital debt, jobs, training and asthma reduction, says Van der Heever, who worked with the CORD initiative in New Haven.

When asked about the objectives of Toronto’s CORD campaign, Sima Sahar Zerehi, Communications Specialist with Local 75, says that the Rexdale community has similar goals. “We have a huge shopping list; it’s exhaustive. More jobs, better services, youth services, etc.”

Summer of hope

Beyond its participation in the CORD campaign in Rexdale, UNITE HERE has also joined the “Summer of Hope” campaign.

“The Summer of Hope is a campaign aimed at bringing together members across Toronto to fight for the rights of immigrant workers,” says Zerehi. Tactics have included the union job actions as well as a rally at City Hall on July 31 entitled, 'We Are the New Majority'.

Feuser believes that UNITE HERE’s bargaining tactics, community work and high immigrant membership will eventually gain the support of most workers in Toronto. “It’s in everyone’s interest that service industry jobs are good jobs. Manufacturing jobs are decreasing [in Ontario] and service sector jobs…these are the jobs that are going to be the jobs that stay.”

Unite Here

Unite Here 2