Contact: Joe Drexler, USW Strategic Campaigns, 416-434-7907
Bob Gallagher, USW Communications, 416-544-5966, 416-434-2221, bgallagher@usw.ca
MIAMI, 30 October 2013 – The campaign to end an eight-week strike against Crown Holdings in Canada escalated in a major way today, as the United Steelworkers (USW) leafleted the headquarters of Carnival Corporation in Doral, Fla., to protest the role of CEO Arnold Donald, who also is a Crown Holdings director.
The expanded campaign against packaging giant Crown Holdings is targeting all of the company’s directors, including Donald. The leaflet handed out to Carnival employees today as they arrived at work calls on Donald to act to end the Crown Holdings strike and ensure employees get a fair deal.
U.S.-based Crown Holdings provoked a strike by USW members at its Toronto manufacturing plant in early September. The USW believes that by supporting Crown Holdings in its forced strike, Arnold Donald is undermining Carnival’s business model that relies on good wages and employer-paid leave to fill Carnival’s ships.
Donald’s role in the Crown strike is bringing unwanted attention to Carnival at a time when the company is recovering from numerous setbacks and blows to its image due to the Costa Concordia disaster and other major incidents of cruise ships malfunctioning at sea, stranded passengers and on-board fatalities.
USW members were asked to stop the leafleting today, but they refused after reminding Carnival’s security personnel that they were on public property outside the headquarters.
A main issue in the Crown strike is corporate efforts to impose a permanent lower wage scale for new and younger workers.
USW members are lining up support throughout the labor movement for their global campaign.
Letters to Mr. Donald protesting his role in the Crown strike were sent by Ken Georgetti, President of the Canadian Labour Congress, which represents three million workers in Canada and by Jyrki Raina, General Secretary of IndustriALL, a global union federation representing 50 million workers worldwide.
The USW has been meeting with other labor organizations to discuss expanding the campaign.
The USW is also working closely with the Turkish trade union movement, whose members also have been under attack by Crown Holdings.
View the leaflet distributed at Carnival headquarters here: Carnival flyer
For more information, visit www.usw.ca/crownholdings.
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