LABOR

About 500 angry fishermen
confronted federal fisheries
minister Romeo LeBlanc in
Delta Thursday as the Tribune
went to press.

The demonstrators were led
by west coast troller fishermen
who bussed to Delta from Vic-
toria where 200 boats had ‘‘sail-
ed in” to the inner harbor on
Wednesday in a dramatic pro-
tect action. Joining the trollers
in Delta were Fraser River gill-
netters, also faced with massive
closures.

The demonstrators converg-
ed on the Delta River Inn where
LeBlanc was attending a meet-
ing of the West Coast Advisory
Committee on fishery policy.

United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union president Jack
Nichol, a member of the advis-
ory committee, was to appeal to
LeBlanc to go outside and meet
the fishermen.

UFAWU Vancouver Island
organizer Frank Cox, a spokes-
man for an ad hoc committee of
trollers which organized the
protest action told the Tribune
Wednesday that the major is-
sues the trollers intended to con-
front LeBlanc on were the pro-
posed salmon interception trea-
ty with the U.S. and the failure
of the federal government to
stop the Amax molybdenum

mine from dumping tailings in-
to Alice Arm.

The failure of LeBlanc and
the Liberal government to pro-
tect Canadian interests in nego-
tiations with the U.S. and to
protect fishery habitat from in-
dustrial pollution ‘‘is the real
reason for the closures and cut-
backs,”’ he said.

The trollers, usually smaller
boats which fish by lines and
hook for salmon, have been hit

Union trawler fishermen will
tie up their boats for a one day
work stoppage Saturday, May
16 to demand that the fish com-

panies return to the bargaining
table and conclude a collective

agreement.

United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union president Jack
Nichol and waterfront organiz-
er John Radosevic told a press
conference Wednesday that if
the one-day strike doesn’t pro-
duce results, ‘‘we are looking at

_ a full scale tie up.”’

The UFAWU represents
about 90 percent of the trawler
fishermen on the coast who fish
“bottom fish’? such as cod,
snapper, polluk, perch and
hake. The fishermen have been
without a price agreement for
bottom fish for three years and
there has been almost no in-

have soared and trawlers have
taken a significant cut in in-
come, said Radosevic. He cited
fuel costs which are now equal
to one third of the gross income
of a boat.

Another union grievance
concerns ice and unloading
charges’ which is supplied to

Trollers confront
LeBlanc in Delta

Trawlers tie up Sat.

-agenda.

with a series of restrictions this
year which will drive many from
the industry.

Among the restrictions are
large area closures on the west
coast of Vancouver Island anda
two-licence system which forces
trollers to choose between fish-
ing ‘‘outside”’ George Strait or
*“inside.”’

Although taken in the name
of conserving stocks, the fisher-
men claim that the new restric-
tions will only reduce their in-
comes while U.S. fishermen will
harvest the salmon without re-
strictions.

The sail-in to Victoria and the
demonstration in: Delta were
“unprecedented actions,’’ said
Cox, as they drew together
broad sections of fishermen in-
cluding fishermen and non-un-
ion fishermen.

The overwhelming response
to the call for the sail-in is also a
sharp rebuff to the Pacific
Trollers association, long
known for its strikebreaking
role in fishing industry strikes.

_ The PTA claimed credit for
proposing the restrictions on the
troll fishery, and LeBlanc re-
jected union opposition on the
basis that only the PTA repre-
sented the trollers.

The PTA also supports the
proposed salmon interception
treaty which will freeze an im-
balance of five million salmon
each year in the U.S.’s favor.

The new ad hoc committee of
trollers was formed Apr. 26 at a
meeting in Nanaimo and in-
cludes members of the
UFAWU, members of the PTA
and unorganized fishermen.

In a statement the committee
declared its intention to ‘‘unite
trollers coast-wide around a
fightback program.”’

salmon and herring fishermen
at company expense, but which
trawlers are forced to pay for.
The major issue is prices.
Fishermen are presently receiv- -:
ing a mere 17 cents per pound
for grey cod, 18 cents per pound
for red snapper, 8 cents per
pound for polluk and 13 cents
per pound for perch. Wood-
ward’s food floor May 13 retail-
ed red snapper at $1.79 per
pound and cod at $2.09 and
$2.19 per pound.

The UFAWU is demanding
an immediate across the board
increase of 10 cents per pound
for ground fish, but the fishing
companies, led by the industry
giant B.C. Packers, has refused _
to negotiate price or other
issues.

“Tt seems the only way to get
them to the bargaining table is to
cut off their stocks, ” said
Nichol.

About 50 boats are expected
to tie up in Vancouver Saturday
for a union Trawl membership
meeting. A fullscale strike anda
public campaign to expose the
more than 1,000 percent mark-
up between the fishermen and
the retail counter will be on the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— MAY 15, 1981—Page 12

Living costs hike sparked |
militance of GVRD strike _

The 13-week strike of some
9,000 civic employees in the Lower
Mainland is over. This struggle will
be remembered for a long time as
one of the high points of 1981, a
year of militant fight-backs by or-
ganized labor in this province. As
in the case of other struggles, the
civic employees’ strike was note-
worthy because of the high degree
of support given by other unions
who respected the picket lines. Es-
pecially significant was the support
of building trades workers.

There were 10 locals of the
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees (CUPE) plus the independ-
ent Vancouver and Municipal Re-
gional Employees Union involved
in joint negotiations with the Labor
Relations Department of the
Greater Vancouver Regional Dis-
trict. CUPE started with two, sep-
arate bargaining committees, with
the independent VMREU associat-
ing itself with one of these commit-
tees. Later, an overall, central ne-
gotiating committee was formed
which functioned throughout the
strike.

Members of the independent:

Greater Vancouver Regional Dis-
trict Employees Union (outside
workers) and the independent
(composite) West Vancouver Mu-
nicipal Employees Association also
came out on strike, along with the
CUPE members employed by the
Burnaby school board, the Surrey
school board and the municipality

of Surrey (inside and outside). Al-.

though the Surrey workers were
not involved in the joint bargain-
ing, they added substantially to the
pressure on the GVRD to settle.

Before the Lower Mainland
strike began, a spokesman for
CUPE said the main issue was
wage parity with the International
Woodworkers of America. At that
time, the basic laborer rate for an
outside civic worker was $8 an
hour, as compared with $9.96 for
an IWA woodworker. However,
the IWA contract on the coast was
due to expire June 14 of this year,
which made the parity proposition
rather nebulous. Who could fore-
tell what the [WA would eventually
settle for? Then, a wage demand

_ was advanced for a basic increase

of $3 an hour in a one-year agree-
ment. :
The big strike began in the

_ Lower Mainland when 9,000 civic

employees refused to accept a final
offer from the GVRD. The pro-
posed general wage increase in that
offer averaged out to 15 percent
over one year, plus an adjustment
for trades categories. However, the
GVRD tacked on to that offer a re-
vised benefit package that would
have made the majority pay for the
first two weeks of sick leave, in-
stead of the employer.

Once the strike got under way,
the issue of equal pay for work of
equal value came into sharper
focus.

The problem facing the unions
was how to win acceptance of the
concept that hundreds of jobs per-
formed exclusively by women
should be evaluated in relation to
basically different jobs performed
exclusively by men, in order to
achieve a common base rate. That
would have meant raising the low-

_ est entry rate for women by $2.33

per hour (for clerical work) to pro-
vide parity with outside laborers,
before the application of a general

wage increase. If thishad beencon- .

ceded, it would have meant that
other clerical rates up the line
would then need to be reassessed in
relation to the base clerical rate.
The unions proposed that this
should be done over a period of
three years, but that proposition
was rejected.

As it turned out, a number of
school boards settled with their
non-teaching employees in the area
of $3 to $3.18 over two years, with
some upward adjustments for
lower paid clerical employees.
Then came the Surrey municipal
settlement which provided $3.25 an
hour over two years with some

movement towards parity for
women clerical workers.

All this, along with the fact that
the long strike in the Lower Main-
land built up pressure for a settle-
ment, led to a resumption of nego-
tiations with the GVRD and a set-
tlement. Outside workers received

a staged increase which will boost
the final rate by $3.15 an hour in a
two-year agreement, plus a special
adjustment for tradesmen. The
general wage increase averages out
at 31 percent over two years. Cleri-
cal employees received an average
increase of 17.22 percent in 1981,
14.69 percent in January, 1982 and
another 1.5 percent on July 1,
1982. All workers received a $400
cash bonus for signing.

In addition, thereis a guaranteed
increase for clerical employees of
$260 a month in 1981. This means
that a clerk-typist 2 will receive an
additional $111 a month in 1981,
over and above the general wage in-
crease. However, this bonus is a
one-shot deal and will not be rolled

into salaries. Parity was not won,
but the issue will inevitably come
up in future negotiations. A good
start has been made.

Now that the strikeis over, views
are being advanced on how to im-
prove the bargaining climate for
future negotiations. Some muni-
cipal council members are propos-
ing that municipalities should con-
duct their own negotiations, which
would mean breaking away from
centralized negotiations through
the Greater Vancouver Regional
District. Newspaper writers have
called for accreditation, that is, the
replacement of the present volun-
tary structure represented by the
GVRD labor relations committee
by a compulsory structure as pro-
vided for in the Labor Code. While
municipal councils can opt out of

Labor Comment
Jack ="

_ nicipal councils found good reason }_
to be unhappy with the position (
they found themselves in asa result 7 |;
of the division and competition on

RisbUuNE

their current contract with the
GVRD, they could not opt out of

an accreditation without permis-
sion of the Labor Relations Board. —

Although the idea of each muni- —

cipal council negotiating directly

with its own employees through
their union(s) may seem desirable, _
the unions might want to have a
good look at that..Wedon’t haveto —
go back too many years to remem- —
ber a time in the Lower Mainland

when certain municipal councils _
were able to set patterns by offering —

minor concessions to this or that

union, in exchange for accepting a4
poor, overall package. In some

cases local unions went on strike to 4
break such patterns and ended us ‘
getting very little more.

Tomake matters worse, in ferris
of union solidarity, the extras they

won were usually extended to the \ |

unions that did not go on strike. ~

There were even secret deals where

one or more unions settled with the ©
proviso their members would ate
anything extra won by other un- —

ions. This tended to set union _ ‘
against union. In many cases, mu- — |

the part of the unions.

Overlooked by a number of an- §

alysts is the fact that the cost of liv-

ing rose by some 21 percent during ~

the 1979-80 agreement, and is con-
tinuing to zoom upwards. This,
along with the growing awareness —
of the women employed by the mu- —
nicipalities, created a wide base of —

support for militant struggle. If the _ a4

joint bargaining form had not been 4
available, it would have been neces- 4
sary to create it, or a substitute in 4
the form of very close co-ordina- _
tion. |
Wecould examine this or that A

7

aspect of the strike and offer sug- =
gestions as to how it might have —

been done better. However, we
should remember that each of the
10 CUPE locals enjoys a wide
degree of autonomy and that col-
lectively, the 10 locals had to work —

with a number of unaffiliated —

unions. This relationship created —

many problems throughout the —
strike. Nevertheless, a wide degree :

in action was achieved.

I have no doubt that the unions
will be making their own assess-
ment, including the questions of

leadership during the strike and 4

membership involvement.

iy Se

Vancouver, B.C.

SATAN
Es
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