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LABOUR
Buzz Hargrove was sounding a little testy Tuesday at a meeting of 1,000 autoworkers.
The CAW prez isn’t taking kindly to hints that his old enemy, the Steelworkers, is aiding the union the CAW is accused of raiding.
The Service Employees International Union has been getting outside help to sign up its own members to keep them out of the paws of the CAW.
Hargrove says Steel and other unions are using the dispute to “cut the ass out of our union. We’re not going to sit idly by — we will defend our union,” Hargrove says to applause.
For his part, Harry Hynd of District 6 of the Steelworkers says there’s no campaign to target the CAW, although individual Steel members may be helping SEIU.
One of them is Peter Leibovitch, a Steel activist at Stelco who’s joined SEIU at a couple of contested workplaces.
“Buzz has been in the paper every day attacking the labour movement, saying we’re undemocratic and bureaucratic, and now that people are defending themselves he’s getting sensitive.”
