Posted: Thursday, 29 October 2009

Museums, a significant part of our national heritage, have a responsibility to all Canadians. For the past five weeks the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation (CMCC) which operates the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the War Museum has blatantly abandoned that responsibility by failing to negotiate a fair collective agreement with its workforce.

For the past five weeks, 420 PSAC members employed by the two Museums have been on strike to secure a collective agreement that ends the precarious employment practices of the CMCC and affords its employees some job security. Employment practices that have resulted in: 38% of the CMCC workforce being employed on a term/temporary basis; CCMC's constant contracting-out of PSAC members’ Museum jobs; and, CMCC Museum workers being paid 30% less on average than other federal government Museum workers doing the same or similar jobs.

In light of the above, the CLC calls upon its three million members from coast to coast to coast to not visit these Museums until such time as the workers have secured a fair collective agreement.

The CLC calls, as well, on the government of Canada to force the CMCC and its CEO, Victor Rabinovitch, to negotiate a collective agreement that ends the precarious work practices used by the Corporation.

Learn more by reading our news release on October 28.