Junior hockey union targeting Cape Breton team
Canadian Hockey League Player's Association has begun a drive to unionize 1,300 players
CBC News
Posted: Oct 31, 2012 3:52 PM AT
Last Updated: Oct 31, 2012 7:10 PM AT
The newly organized Canadian Hockey League Player's Association has begun a drive to unionize 1,300 players and they're getting it started in Nova Scotia.
The group has applied to certify the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles. The leader of Nova Scotia's Progressive Conservative party said the CHLPA getting their drive started in Nova Scotia is no surprise.
Bobby Smith is the President of the Halifax Mooseheads. (CBC)"In all of Canada it was Nova Scotia that was chosen for the start of the union drive and that is because we have an NDP government here who has passed legislation like first contract arbitration," said PC leader Jamie Baillie. "That has made Nova Scotia a playground for union drives."
Screaming Eagles management says there is no need for players to sign union cards.
"We treat our players well," said Screaming Eagles Chairman Stuart MacLeod. "We have a top notch education program, a billet program and a scholarship program over and above the league."
The CHLPA is also supporting 19 year old Josh Desmond of Musquodoboit Harbour. He's filed a complaint against the Halifax Mooseheads. Desmond played in 52 games as a defenceman with Halifax last season in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
Desmond's complaint came as a surprise to Mooseheads management.
"He thought it was fine last year when he was playing on the team," said Halifax President Bobby Smith. "Once the CHLPA guys started talking to him he realized all the things he could have gotten so I thought that was quite telling."
Desmond alleges his former team owes him close to $12,000 if minimum wage standards applied to junior hockey. Desmond is playing this season in the Maritime Junior Hockey League with the Yarmouth Mariners.
Bobby Smith sees it differently.
"We maintain that the benefits we give our players from their stipend to room and board and education and tutors are far more valuable than what minimum wage would be," said Smith.
Baillie said the Player's Association hopes to sign enough Screaming Eagles team members to certify a union by the end of this week.
The lawyer for the CHLPA said the organizing drive is more about protecting educational benefits than it is about the money.
The Canadian Hockey League, which governs 60 teams in Canada and the United States, including the Screaming Eagles and Mooseheads, issued a statement saying it regards players as "amateur student athletes".
Share Tools
Latest Nova Scotia News Headlines
- Speaker of the House speaks about Zinck's resignation
- Speaker of the House Gordie Gosse talks to CBC News about former MLA Trevor Zinck's resignation. more »
- Missing woman's relationship was ending, say friends
- Friends of a woman who disappeared three months ago say Reita Jordan's relationship with her live-in partner, the man charged with second-degree murder in her disappearance, was coming to an end. more »
- Rash of Dartmouth break-ins terrifies neighbourhood
- A young Dartmouth mother had a terrifying encounter Tuesday night in her home after surprising a brazen thief in her kitchen. more »
- Trevor Zinck held on to MLA seat until bitter end
- Trevor Zinck, the embattled MLA who pleaded guilty to fraud and breach of trust earlier this month, told CBC News he won't resign from the legislature. more »
Must Watch
Top News Headlines
- Obesity now recognized as a disease
- The American Medical Association has voted to recognize obesity as a disease, while doctors in Canada say they also treat it as such. more »
- B.C. First Nation sets fires to save bison
- A First Nation band is reviving the age-old practice of controlled burning in order to improve the health of forests and restore the population of the wood bison in a corner of northeastern B.C. more »
- 1 in 8 bird species threatened with extinction
- One in eight bird species worldwide faces the threat of extinction, according to a report released by Birdlife International. more »
- Canada buys rare War of 1812 collection for $573K
- The government of Canada was the winning bidder for a large collection of letters, maps and other papers that once belonged to Sir John Sherbrooke, the lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia who conquered Maine for the British during the War of 1812. The collection sold for $573,000 at auction in London. more »
- Imperial Oil refinery in Dartmouth to close
- Trevor Zinck held on to MLA seat until bitter end
- Trevor Zinck resigns
- Digby man blames race for police assault
- Strangers rally to buy quadriplegic man a wheelchair van
- Man charged with 2nd-degree murder in Reita Jordan case
- Co-workers fundraise for crash victim's family
- Man, 21, dies in northern Cape Breton crash
- Rash of Dartmouth break-ins terrifies neighbourhood
