Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 13, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press january Page 3 Patrick City editor natives vow fight for tax jobless rate to economists by Terry Weber Cadillac Fairview cannot Stop a Money losing business from emptying its Portage place a judge ruled yester the which owns the downtown Winnipeg asked Justice Scott Wright of court of Queens Bench to Grant an interim injunction barring Shorney optical from removing its Stock until a full hearing on the dispute can be but Wright saying he cant Grant that right to Cadillac its All a tempest in a he told lawyers for the two the judge asked Shorney to consider removing Only essential Stock until the full Case goes Cadillac Fairview rushed the motion into court yesterday after Shorney gave notice that it would abandon its operation in the mall within two when shop employees began packing up Portage place Security guards showed up and barred them from court was Cadillac Fairview lawyer Kelly Dixon argued that allowing Shorney to pull its operation so suddenly would cause irreparable damage to the malls she said the mall landlord had lived up to its end of a 10year lease and intended to ensure Shorney did the Dixon asked for a temporary injunction until the corporation had time to prepare its Case for a hearing next by removing its inventory and failing to restore its scope and the business is clearly in breach of its she Shorney Tony Palmyn countered since All of the merchandise is already ordering it to remain in the store would do Little to preserve the shops outward Palmyn agreed to the judges request that at least some of the Stock remain in the outlet until the matter is settled in outside Janet area manag Wayne free press judge rejects mall owners bid to prevent store from removing Stock or for the optical said the Portage place outlet was closed because of continual losses since it opened in Conner also blamed much of the stores problems on its location in the while glasses Are now considered by Many As fashion the shop is at the service end of the building and Doest attract enough she the store repeatedly asked Cadillac fair View to switch but the landlord she they Budge on permit freeze sought doer wants report on toxic waste first cutback bid spurs protest by Donald Campbell ten Union members occupied an office at the Canada employment and immigration commission in Winnipeg Early charging the Federal Agency plans to close smaller regional offices throughout the the move was part of a coordinated Effort by the unions National executive to occupy Ceic offices to protest the planned closing of a regional Branch in similar protests were held in Vancouver and wherever else members of the Canada employment and immigration Union could sneak into locked Winnipeg police were called to the Eaton place office of the commissions regional director to remove the who left peacefully under threat of tip of they read the riot act to said one Union who left the office with a sleeping bag Over his Union workers have occupied the Trail unemployment office since say ing the planned shutdown signals the be ginning of government plans to close offices throughout Canada that dont process More than i claims a the government wants to move the Trail workers to about 85 Kilometres because the Trail office processes Only claims Trail is the tip of the Manito Bas regional Union Bruce who spoke by cellular phone from the sealed under that Cri there would be offices in Only Brandon and Winnipeg in the Manitoba Saskatchewan the unions National executive agreed wednesday night that dramatic action was needed to drive Home its Point to the government and the protesting Union members leave after occupying the Canada employment and immigration this government Doest listen to let ters or pickets weve seen that with the Post office and via Mackay but Orville Manitoba regional director general for employment and in dismissed any suggestion that the closing of the Trail office Means others will not Only do i not think i know it he Trail was a local decision made in the circumstances Here Are not department officials were Quick to beef up Security at the seventh floor Eaton place an employee stood guard the Entrance and forcibly ejected a free press grabbing him roughly by the Arm without he want there to throw anybody out he was there not to let anybody Buffie the workers were threatened with disciplinary action by who showed up for work five minutes late and found his office Mackay the Union is More than willing to discuss the Issue with government its National cres said yesterday from but he said the govern ment made no Effort to discuss its plans to move the cutting 16 jobs in the Community of if they move this they be making Trail a second class Pascucci people would have to travel along a Mountain to get to in the its covered in Snow and there has been no response from employment and immigration minister bar Bara Ottawa on verge of bankruptcy funds for health in manness warns the Federal government is on the verge of Manitoba finance minister Clayton manness predictions that millions of dollars in fed eral Transfer payments to support pos Sec Mondary education and medicare will run out May not just be opposition he if you look at the trend and it does not arrest itself or someone Doest step in to Stop it then you could build a Case that the Cash flow would drop to he they Ottawa Are on the verge of they Are in dire manness made the comments in response to questions from Liberal Leader Sharon Carstairs on whether the province had any sense of where the Mulroney government was Carstairs said projections from Quebec indicate All Cash Transfer payments for health care will cease by 1998 if current trends similar projections were made by new Brunswick and with both predicting an end to the payments by the year if we dont get Cash transfers from the Federal government for it will double the Cost of running our healthcare system in this she when Are we anticipating this for Mani Toba manness said he had not asked his depart ment to make specific calculations because he cant imagine that Ottawa would Ever opt out of the program at the same manness said the Federal government has done Little to ease growing fears that the provinces will be hardhat in the coming years because of of Tawas critical financial he said provincial finance ministers have repeatedly asked for some sense of future and offered last year to work with Ottawa to orchestrate National Bel tighten ing there was no and that led to great uncertainty and manness they didst take our request manness said Manitoba budgeted for million in Transfer payments 76 per cent of which goes to health and 24 per cent to pos secondary education for after it will receive while increases have generally been in the four percent Range in the last few they Are expected to drop to three or lower in the coming years especially with warn Ings that Ottawa next possibly in will be a Tough we can Forsee a time when the Cash growth will be at he manness there in dire Straits by Pauline Comeau nip Leader Gary doer has called for a moratorium on the approval of new licences to handle hazardous wastes in Manitoba until after a government advisory committee has handed Down its doer made the Call yesterday after learn ing people involved with a Boniface chemical recycling Plant that was destroyed last year in an explosion have applied to the environment department for a new licence to establish a hazardous waste Transfer Sta As environment officials Are review ing a request by another prime motor oils to expand it operations to take Over some of the work previously done by the destroyed Solvith resources doer said All applications should be put on hold until the labor departments work safety and health review committee hands in its final report on the Solvith Inci expected in about six what we fear is not that companies Are Good or but that we Are going to have an and Banda id policy for the disposal of dangerous and hazardous he i believe it was we have not Learned one thing from the government Doest have any guidelines but the owner of Solvith said in an interview from Toronto that there is no need for such a moratorium because government regulations and guidelines had nothing to do with the destruction of his i do not feel it is a mistake that i made that caused the Neil Webb nothing that we did caused i believe it was i believe it was last the Filmon government decided to hand Over the provincial fire commissioners report on the june 15 explosion to the advisory committee for further the bulk of the Long awaited document focused on fire code and other infractions at As Well As a Lack of coordination Between various government departments and lax enforcement of government guide damage to the site was so extensive that the exact cause of the fire and explosions will never be the report three possibilities a solvent equip ment and arson were at the very doer the govern ment should Stop approving new licences until the advisory boards recommendations Are environment minister Glen Cummings said stopping people from getting into the hazardous waste business would be Short does he doer want this stuff dumped in sewers Cummings employment standards needs not bark Bob who Heads up the provinces employment standards tells me his division Fields about complaints every year from workers who Haven been paid or have been shortchanged by their but Only three to four companies Are prosecuted under the payment of wages act each that tells me i suspect the number of prosecutions is Small because when the companies finally do pay up quite often months Down the causing awful hardship Moggey Branch lets them off the Hook instead of hauling them into it strikes me that if a company pays its despite claims of mitigating maybe its time to change All time for the Branch to Stop spending months investigating time to make considerably examples than three or four a Moggey does admit to a but outside of saying it takes about a month to 45 Days before any Contact is made with the he didst seem inclined to expand on he denied the Contact takes six months which one of his officers apparently told a representative of the Mike Ward Manitoba organization of nurses saying he thought that claim was a Little bit one sure Way of reducing the number of complaints and the backlog whatever its size is for the Branch to Send out a Clear message to employers that its going to Start laying Down the and the Best Way to get that message across is to select a few High profile companies and then Alert the news heres one to launch the departments get Tough image the huge extend care corporation that owns and operates care Homes with some Beds across the the Chain includes Tuxedo Villa Here in where 200 people Are this is How it treated eight Tuxedo Villa nurses and 17 nurses aides at the worst possible Christmas and new the All shift were told on 21 that a local payroll error meant their next pay Cheque include the hours they would be working Between 20 and because Christmas Day fell on a extend cares head office in Toronto had asked for projected hours to prepare wages for the 28 pay the cutoff Day being dec so Tuxedo Villa was alerted to the problem but employees who opened their pay cheques 28 found the mistake haunt been and they were told it be until the next pay this past the wages lost ranged up to 32 causing financial problems to employees with mortgages or rent to especially single on Debbie Schick of Mona called Tuxedo Villa to advise its Heather that the company would be in violation of the payment of wages act if it withheld pay until Mona president Verna Chernecki said Schick then contacted the employment standards Only to be told that by the time the Branch got around to doing the staff would have been Debbie also was told the Branch had a six month she so Why didst someone at the Branch pick up the phone and Call Tuxedo Villa or extend care and Lay Down the Law Moggey says he cant track Down who Schick spoke Chernecki says Call Shell Tell you Moggey told you also have to appreciate that the Branch receives about complaints a everybody that comes to us is desperate for their i think in most cases we do try and respond to these complaints in a timely we do like a formal complaint to be filed with the setting out these but we do have a Telephone and letter program in place to try and Deal with complaints to solve them to achieve an Early not in this it seems Carl Vic president of extend care operations in admitted his company was wrong when i spoke with him in he did so quite eloquently and with profuse the Long and Short of it is we dropped the we goofed and we owe a lot of people an we didst respond too Well to a situation and i feel dreadful about we shall be writing letters of apology to All those of none of this had been brought to Hunts personal attention until after i spoke to Crockett and extend cares communications Linda Hunt insisted that had our people in Winnipeg picked up the phone and called to say weve got a real problem we need some cheques out then the company would have acted As it told me she did Contact head office because she solve the problem herself As she Doest have authority to sign she added that in some cases she wrote letters to employees Banks saying the Money was held the employees received their Money from extend care on Mona wants the employment standards Branch to charge extend care because it breached the the maximum Fine is can you believe that five Hundred Bucks Small potatoes to companies like this but at least it provides a stronger message to other employers that the Branch Means business instead of its current do nothing five thousand workers a year having to wait months for their pay because the Branch prefers conciliation Over that has to victim of an injustice that bureaucracy write alike hell took into it 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