Betsy Kline
Castlegar News
The West Kootenay Labour Council and affiliated unions celebrated International Workers’ Day — also known as May Day — Friday with a gathering outside Castlegar city hall.
Volunteers served free hamburgers and hotdogs to over 300 people while musicians provided live entertainment.
Representatives from the United Steelworkers were on hand encouraging visitors to sign a petition calling for a public inquiry into the Babine sawmill explosion in Burns Lake on Jan. 20, 2012.
A USW handout stated: “We created the petition because the public deserves the full facts of the case. Workers and their families deserve answers, not a cover-up.”
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers was also circulating a petition calling on the federal government to keep and expand public post offices instead of opening privately-run offices or franchises.
The petition listed several reasons behind the request including: “Public post offices play a key role in our social and economic life by providing the stable infrastructure that healthy communities need to thrive and businesses need to grow.”
