LABOR

Court quashes A-G writ

Continued from page 1
acting for the HEU, filed a motion June 3
asking that the court quash the govern-
ment’s writ on the basis “that the proceed-
ings disclose no reasonable claim; are
unnecessary, frivolous and vexatious; and
abuse the process of the court.”

In his ruling Wednesday, Justice Mere-
dith granted that motion, which had also
been sought by lawyers for the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor and the Independent Cana-
dian Transit Union.

Justice Meredith agreed with Berger’s
claim that the attorney-general’s endorse-
ment on the writ was seeking to use charges
laid out in the “‘civil disorder” section of the
federal Criminal Code in an attempt to
obtain a civil injunction.

In that endorsement, filed in B.C.
Supreme Court June 4, the provincial
government had sought “interim, interlocu-
tory and permanent injunctions” to prevent
the B.C. Fed and others named from
“advocating, or circulating any writing
advocating the use of force, including work
stoppages, slow-downs, study sessions,
breaking and inducing breaches of contract
... aS a means of accomplishing a govern-
mental change in the province of British
Columbia ...”

But that endorsement uses “language ...
borrowed from provisions of Part II of the

Safeway
picket
June 13

Vancouver’s East End Con-
cerned Citizens Committee has
launched a boycott of Safeway
food stores and plans a picket of
the city’s two main east side stores
on Saturday, June 13.

The picket and boycott have
been called to protest Canada
Safeway’s decision to occupy a
plaza in the east side being built by
anti-union developer Costa Penn
and contractor J.C. Kerkhoff and
Sons.

Committee representative Sue
Lockhart said -the community
action has become all the more
significant with the knowledgethat_ -
Safeway plans to be the chief ©
tenant in another non-union pro-
ject in Clearbrook.

Penn’s Westbuild company is
developing the Vancouver store at
First Avenue and Renfrew Street.
The Clearbrook project is run by
Shroeder Development, one-half
owned by Penn.

“Safeway was always known as
a union employer, and now there’s
this,” said Lockhart, who asserts
that Vancouver’s east side working
class community objects to pro-
jects constructed by notoriously
anti-union firms.

Saturday’s picket, at the Nan-
aimo and Charles streets store, and
the East Broadway store near
Commercial Drive, begin at 2 p.m.
Store customers and passers-by
will be handed leaflets, Lockhart
said.

On Tuesday a group of local res-
idents, unrelated to the East End
Concerned Citizens, led media on
a tour of their properties and city
lands adjacent to site to show |
damages they said have been’
caused by Kerkhoff’s construction.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 10, 1987

Criminal Code of Canada,” Justice Mere-
dith ruled.

“Tn the present case, the attorney-general
has not charged the defendants with crime,”
he stated. “But when he borrows language
from the Criminal Code to allege that the
defendants have committed civil wrongs, it
must be supposed that he contends that the
provisions of the Criminal Code referred to

GEROW BERGER

give rise to civil rights and that these in turn
are subject to protection by means of a civil

injunction. He seeks therefore to deter what

he describes as the use of force for the pur-
poses alleged, not by criminal prosecution,
but by means of a civil process,” he said.
“T content myself on this subject by say-
ing that, on legal authority, there is good
reason to doubt that the relevant strictures
of the Criminal Code give rise to rights and
remedies which would be recognized in the
civil court,” he added. “The machinery of
the civil court could hardly be appropriate
to deal with the degree of turpitude con-

templated by charges of sedition and intim- ,

idation by force and violence.”

The Supreme Court Justice’s ruling also
emphasized that the government statement
of claim, which was filed in court June 5 ,
and which attempted to modify the earlier

LRB decisions upheld but...

The B.C. Supreme Court ruled May 29
that an important Labor Relations decision
upholding the right of unionists to refuse
the handle hot products should stand
— but virtually closed the door to the
board ever making such a decision again.

Ironically, those same rights will be
stripped away if Bill 19 becomes law.

Justice J.C. Bouck turned down a peti-
tion from Pacific Press, publishers of the
Vancouver Sun and Province, to quash two
earlier decisions by the LRB which ruled
that the unions had the right to refuse to
handle advertising from strikebound com-
panies as spelled out in their collective
agreements.

But he also determined that the LRB
panels had erred in law and ruled that any
refusal to handle hot products must be con-
sidered a strike under the amendments to
the Labor Code brought down in 1984.

The case originated in the 1984 strike by
members of the Theatre Employees Union
against Famous Players. Following the issu-
ing of a B.C. Federation of Labor hot decla-
ration against the theatre chain, the
Newspaper Guild, the Vancouver Typo-
graphical Union and other unions at Pacific
Press refused to handle advertisements from
Famous Players, effectively preventing the
company from publicizing movies in the
two newspapers.

Backed by the Business Council, Pacific
Press applied to the LRB in November,
1984 to have the ad embargo declared an
illegal strike according to the 1984 amend-
ments to the Labor Code. Company lawy-
ers argued that because the definition of the
word “strike” was broadened to include any
cessation or slowdown of work, the ad boy-
cott constituted an illegal strike.

However, a board panel determined that
the 1984 amendments broadening the defi-
nition of strike were intended specifically to
deal with events such as the 1983 Solidarity

endorsement, was “of an entirely different
character” from the original endorsement.

“There is in the statement of claim no
allegation or hint of the charges levelled in
the endorsement on the writ; no assertion of
force or reference to force... and fio allega-
tion of criminal intimidation and conspi-
racy as is suggested by the endorsement.” he
stated.

“The present allegations contained in the
statement of claim are a far cry from the
contentions implicit in the endorsement,”
he stated, adding that, in such circumstan-
ces, the law assumes that the plaintiff “has
abandoned” the allegations.

Meredith concluded: “As none of the
allegations contained in the endorsement
are now pursued by the Attorney-General,
the action founded upon the writ and
endorsement must fail and be dismissed.
Otherwise, in the present case at least, the
charges against the defendants would
remain extant but in limbo.

The court decision was clearly a blow to
the government’s strategy which had been
to deflect the labor movement’s campaign
against Bill 19 and to turn public support
against the trade union movement with
widely-publicized allegations that the feder-
ation’s one-day general strike constituted a
“seditious conspiracy.”

In fact it had the opposite effect. The
government’s writ demonstrated the extent
to which the government was prepared to
trample on democratic rights in its efforts to
impose its legislation on the province.

As a result, the writ provoked an outcry
from circles far beyond the labor move-
ment.

It also provided unionists with a preview
of what they could expect under Bill 19,
underscoring the opposition to the anti-
labor legislation.

strikes and, as such, did not prohibit any
boycott.

The unions’ position was again upheld
when Pacific Press appealed the decision for
full board review.

But although Justice Bouck declined to
overturn the two LRB decisions, he did
determine that the board erred in law in
making those decisions.

The new definition of strike does, in strict
interpretation, rule out job action by unions
in refusing to handle hot products, he said.

But “‘just because I arrived at a different
conclusion from that reached by the two
panels of the board does not necessarily
mean their decisions are now quashed... A
court can only set aside a decision of such a
tribunal as jurisdictional error if it is ‘pat-
ently unreasonable.’

“In my view,” he added, “the rulings of
the LRB were mere ‘errors in law’ which did
not amount to a patently unreasonable
interpretation of the Labor Code.”

In his summary, Justice Bouck stated:
“The 1984 amendments to the Labor Code
are sufficiently explicit to prevent work
stoppages or strikes as a result of hot or

‘Objective of employers in this province

hard by the bill which eliminates union suc-

Fed moving
to widen
fight on bill

Continued from page 1

But many unionists have emphas-
ized that the government is isolated
from the public over the contentious
Bill and the possibility still exists to-
have it derailed.

Several unions had urged that the
federation consider some form of
petition to keep up the pressure on
Premier Bill Vander Zalm and the
Social Credit government to scrap the
legislation and to demonstrate that
the government has little public sup-
port for its stand.

That has become glaringly appar-
ent in recent public opinion polls
including a poll conducted by BCTV —
last week which found that 73 per cent
of respondents oppose Bill 19 in its

. present form.

The same poll found that 66 per -
cent considered Vander Zalm con-
frontational. Actual support for both
Vander Zalm and the Socreds had
also dropped to an all time low of 40
per cent, the poll revealed, while sup-
port for the New Democrats had risen
to 51 per cent and for NDP leader
Mike Harcourt to 54 per cent.

Harcourt was to meet with Vander
Zalm at Tribune press time although
Vander Zalm’s obdurate stand in
going into the meeting indicated that
little would likely come of the discus-
sions.

unfair declarations, even when a collective
agreement may prevent such activity.”
That ruling, while it will not affect past
cases, will almost certainly result in the LRB
declaring any refusal by unions to handle
hot goods as an “‘illegal strike.”
That same effect —a longstanding

— will also be brought about by Bill 19 —
which specifically prohibits hot declarations
and voids all existing hot goods clauses in
unions’ collective agreements.

But Justice Bouck’s ruling, if it is fol-
lowed by the LRB, could presumably result
in any job action by Building Trades
workers using their non-affiliation clauses
being declared an illegal strike.

Ironically, the right to use their non-
affiliation clauses — on construction sites
only — is virtually the only right left to
Building Trades workers under the terms of
Bill 19. fe

They would be hammered particularly

cessor rights in corporate re-structuring and
opens the door wide to allow unionized
companies to set up non-union subsidiaries. —

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