We are coming together to build a green movement for all across Greater Toronto with good jobs, equity and social justice, and environmental sustainability.

Greed is good. For a few people, at least. Greed has certainly been good for Canwest executives and directors who have been looking after themselves while ordinary workers get screwed as the company restructures.

When Canada’s largest media conglomerate filed for court protection against creditors for a portion of the company on Oct. 6, 2009, dozens of recently laid-off employees learned they would lose promised severance pay.

For Pat Vanderburg, who has worked for CHBC TV in Kelowna, B.C. for the past 23 years, this will amount to a loss of  over $95,000.

About 80 non-union retirees will lose promised Canwest-paid medical, dental and life insurance benefits. In addition, 120 former employees are facing reduced pensions.

Unions are stuck in a rut that seems to be getting deeper every day. We are losing members to layoffs, plant shutdowns and to bankruptcies that are the result of a worldwide financial crisis. Our membership and influence are shrinking at exactly the moment when union power is needed to protect millions of workers from wage rollbacks, outsourcing, unemployment and the devastation of entire communities dependent on single industries.