Retiree Chairperson’s Report– November 2017
Well, November has arrived and we had our first cold snap last week. Things have been going good at the meetings of our local union’s executive board even though we were running short of members in order to make quorum. But the election for members of the executive board held last month has taken care of that problem. I am looking forward to working with the newly elected members of the executive board.
The Trans Pacific Partnership is back on the hot burner and staring us in the face. We as a union will have to take on the fight against it again and right away.
The NAFTA negotiations appear to be up and down every day. Trump wants to have just about all automobiles and trucks built in the USA. You cannot make a deal on trade if the other party is saying it is their way or highway. So, it is presently very hard to see what the outcome of the NAFTA negotiations will be.
In 1988 we as union fought against the Tory free trade agenda and then against NAFTA. But here we as a union are trying to improve and save NAFTA 29 years later. I, as a retired worker, do not understand what has changed. We were totally against NAFTA back then.
The USA is still the big dog in North America and Canada is the tail. I think at the end of it all Canada will not be able to make a deal. This is because we are having to deal with Trump’s view of the world which amounts to saying I want it all and you get none. Maybe it is time for us as Canadians to go to warm weather locations somewhere else in the world. Somewhere that is a safer place in the world to vacation that has some gun controls and no weekly mass shootings. We can let our money take a walk with us. That sounds like a way to deal with Mr. Trump. The Sears pensioners, all 16,000 of them, are in for a long, hard fight to save their pensions. The Sears Executives were paid millions in bonuses. In response the governments of the day are doing nothing to fix this great injustice. The situation shows that our governments are servile to corporate interests. All of them. If you are asked to sign a protest letter in support of the Sears pensioners please do it. We as retirees have no choice but to help each other out in this such an obvious time when there is a need for solidarity.
In closing I want to announce that in December we will have the annual turkey draw. So come out and win a turkey for Christmas. We will see you then.
Fred Dougan