National President Judy Darcy has sent an open letter to CAW president Buzz Hargrove that stresses the strong history of collaboration and solidarity in defence of workers and their rights between the CAW and CUPE and repeats CUPEs position that a negotiated resolution to the dispute between the CAW and the CLC is the best solution.
The letter was prompted by recent attacks on CUPE and on Sister Darcy by Hargrove in the media and at CAW membership meetings across the country. The letter responds directly to those accusations.
Your statements not only misrepresent CUPEs position with respect to the CAW/SEIU/CLC dispute, writes Darcy, they also constitute an unprincipled and personal attack on the leader-ship of another union and on CUPE itself, a union whose record of standing up for its members and of progressive, activist, democratic unionism is second to none in this country.
The six-page letter goes on to clarify CUPEs past dealings with SEIU and the role CUPE has played to try and find a resolution on the current dispute that has led to sanctions against the CAW.
The full text of the letter can be found on CUPEs web site at www.cupe.ca.