For 36 years, Jim Smith has reported to the old Lever Brothers soap factory at the foot of the Don Valley Parkway. For 14 months, a padlocked gate has kept him and more than 100 other striking workers outside.
Today, Smith and the other workers will dismantle the picket line – actually a shantytown of wood panels and tarps – and he'll walk away from the now-bankrupt plant for good.
To where, he doesn't know.
"A lot of us have been trying to go out and get jobs, but we don't have much skills," the 59-year-old said of his fellow workers, many of whom have been working at the plant for more than 30 years with little more than a high school diploma. "We just know that factory. That's it."
The drawn-out strike is to end today. The plant's owner, Korex Don Valley, has filed for bankruptcy, leaving the 110 remaining workers – members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada local 132-0 – searching for work. Full story at thestar.com
This story just reaffirms what I have always said. A union will see a business go under, rather than settle. I'm sure they are all quite happy to have gained absolutely nothing and have lost everything. Idiots! You can't imagine how much sympathy I have for the moron who has to live off his poker winnings now!
