Labour

The release of the annual report last
month made it official: the notorious
name of Kerkhoff is out of the heavy con-
struction business in B.C., the result of a
$7.37 million loss that the Kerkhoff Con-
struction Group took in the year ended
May 31, 1988.

The anti-union company, which now
issues annual reports following a public
stock issue in 1987, stated that it would
“no longer bid on low margin public or
private sector projects.

“Instead,” it said, “the construction
operation will re-direct its activities
towards projects developed internally by
Kerkhoff Industries real estate subsidiary,
as well as by other design/build projects.”

The decision was welcomed by the
Building Trades unions which justifiably
took some credit for the decision. Com-
pany president Bill Kerkhoffeven acknow-
ledged that himself, telling one business
editor that it had been “very damaging” to
have had such a high profile in the cam-
paign against the unions in the construc-
uon industry.

But what is perhaps more revealing is
Kerkhoffs candid explanation in the
annual report of the reasons the company
began its low-bid entry into the construc-
tion industry — and the reason the com-
pany is now getting out.

In 1987, as the report notes, the con-
struction wing of Kerkhoff was the prim-
ary generator of company revenues and
the main contributor to the company’s
$4.2 million dollar profit that year. The
reason for the handsome profit was the
“competitive advantage” the company

Sean Griffin

enjoyed over unionized companies in the
construction industry.

Kerkhoff’s practice has always been to
bid just slightly below the union contrac-
tors’ price while paying wages that are
substantially lower than union scale. The
significant spread is what generates the
hefty profit margin.

A major contributing factor. to Kerk-
hoff’s success was the slump in construc-
tion in the early 1980s which threw
thousands of Building Trades members on
to the unemployment rolls — and pushed
many of them to the non-union employers
as the only place to make a living. The
provincial government completed the pic-
ture with its anti-labour legislation and
low-bid policy on government construc-
tion projects.

Asa result, Kerkhoff had a unique win-
dow of opportunity — a time when con-
struction prices, set by union companies
over a period of high volume years, were
still high, and a time when skilled workers
could be obtained for substandard wages
because of the economic downturn.

Of course, Kerkhoff took the moral
high ground in the public arena, insisting
that he was bringing sanity back into the
industry, reducing costs and _ forcing
unions to accept that their wage levels
were out of line with reality.

But the fact was that he was milking the
public purse at his workers’ expense. He

NEWS ANALYSIS

didn’t submit bids that were reduced by
the same percentage as his wage levels —
they were always just below the union
bids, allowing him to pocket a sizeable
profit. And on several occasions when
public policy dictated that he pay a fair
wage scale, he flouted the policy.

Now those same opportunities don’t
exist any more — and that’s why Kerk-
hoff is getting out.

The company knew — as Building
Trades workers pointed out at the time
Kerkhoff first moved into heavy construc-
tion — that once the low-bid policy got
underway, there was no bottom. Compan-
ies would keep undercutting one another
— and cutting workers’ wages to keep
pace — in an endless downward spiral.
Where Kerkhoff miscalculated was in how
long the process would take in this pro-
vince.

He had intended all along to get out
when the big profit margins were eroded
by the intensified competition. But that
came sooner than he thought.

“The construction segment’s. manage-
ment did err in one aspect,” the company’s
annual report notes. “It misjudged the
‘amount of time necessary for the Western
Canadian construction industry to make
the transition to a free-market — and less
srofitable — industry. Instead of a slow
and gradual evolution, the changes took

Kerkhoff’s quick: buck anti-unionism catches up to him

place in just a few short years.”

That miscalculatidn was compounded
by blunders on a number of big jobs that
Kerkhoff was involved in during the year.

Of course, Kerkhoff’s exit won’t end the
assault on Building Trades wage and con-
ditions by the non-union sector. But it
certainly marks a change. And Colin
Snell, secretary of the Provincial Council
of Carpenters, notes one significant
move —a Japanese consortium which
purchased a $13-million project sold by
Kerkhoff is turning the construction work
Over to a unionized company, Dominion
Construction.

There’s another more important point
to be made in assessing the rise and fall of
Kerkhoff Construction. If the Building
Trades had accepted the line that conces-
sions had to be made to counter the non-
union companies — as some wanted
them to do and as, in fact, Alberta union-
ists initially did — the history of the last
few years would have been very different.

‘At the end of the day, Kerkhoff would
still have found profit margins too small to
stay in the game, but in the process the
trade union movement would have lost
much of its effectiveness and union wages
and conditions would have been eroded
throughout the industry.

Instead, the Building Trades resisted
concessions and although there were some
Opportunities missed to take decisive
action, the fight it maintained against non-
union construction was ultimately deci-
sive. With Kerkhoff gone, the next target
will be the government legislation which
opened the door for him in the first place.

CBC action against radio host spurs protest.

bias on Goldhawk’s part in his radio job
and in fact none could be made.

ACTRA lodged a vigorous protest with
CBC, calling management’s action “repre-
hensible and fundamentally anti-democratic.

“The CBC is attempting to muzzle jour-
nalists who exercise their right to participate
fully in the activities of their union,” said
ACTRA secretary Garry Neil. “This is an
assault on freedom of the press, freedom of
association and, most emphatically, free-
dom of speech.” :

That position was echoed by a number of
national unions, including the U.S. Screen
Actors’ Guild and the Irish Actors’ Equity
Group as well as the Writers’ Guild and
Actors’ Equity in Britain, which wrote to
CBC to protest the decision.

ACTRA decided at an emergency execu-
tive meeting Dec. 4 and 5 to proceed both
with an unfair labour practice application
before the Canada Labour Relations Board
and a further application to the courts. In
conjunction with other organizations, the
union is pressing for a judicial declaration
that CBC breached the Charter of Rights in
taking the action it did against Goldhawk
and that its interpretation of CBC’s Jour-
nalistic Policy is “a threat to freedom of
expression, association and democratic

parties to include those identified with
“pressure groups.” It states: “The hiring of
persons identified with political parties or
pressure groups may only be authorized if
the person concerned has resigned his/her
functions within the political party or pres-
sure group and has refrained from public
activity in the party or group of ina related
capacity for at least two years.”

“The CBC is trying to send a chilling
message to our members — the writers,
performers and broadcast journalists: if you
want to keep your job, stay away from your
union,” said Neil, adding that ACTRA “is
not a pressure group.”

Acting ACTRA president Sean Mulcahy
noted following the union’s emergency
executive meeting that the action taken
against Goldhawk “may represent the first
stage of a major shift of corporation policy,
the effects of which will be to attempt to
muzzle free expression by and through the
CBG

Throughout the dispute CBC manage-
ment has denied that the issue was anything ©
other than a simple conflict of interest. But
Michael McEwen, vice-president of CBC
English Radio, did note in a letter to the

Lawyers for the Association of Canadian
Cinema. Television and Radio Artists
(ACTRA) are preparing applications to
both the Canadian Labour Relations Board
and the courts in what may prove to be one
of the most important cases in many years
involving journalists at CBC.

At issue imme- a
diately is the case of
Dale Goldhawk, the
host of CBC Radio’s
Cross-Country Check-
up, and until he was
given an ultimatum
by CBC manage-
ment last November,
the national presi-
dent of ACTRA. ; a

First elected to
the union post in GOLDHAWK
January, 1988, Goldhawk continued in his
position as host of the popular CBC phone-
in show without incident until Nov. 6 when
a column appeared in the Ottawa Citizen
written by Charles Lynch.

Lynch — a writer known for his close
Tory connections — attacked Goldhawk
and criticized CBC for not making an issue
of the fact that the radio show host was the
president of a union which had been an

Globe Jan. 11 that Donna Logan had told
the National Radio Producers Association
meeting that the “best defence against
charges of liberal-left bias in the CBC was
for the producers to be absolutely sure that
the material presented was fair and bal-
anced according to the CBC’s journalistic
policy.”

Significantly, Logan expressed no con-
cern about a “right-conservative” bias and
the need for CBC to respond to that. In fact
CBC has frequently been the target of Tory
government members for its “left-liberal
slant” and those attacks increased during
the debate on free trade as CBC’s informa-
tion ae ks gave equal voice to both
opponents and advocate: -
USS. trade deal. oo

Critics have also noted that appoint-
ments to CBC’s board of directer Hoe
marked a shift towards the Tories and that
policy at the corporation is being shaped to —
conform to the Tories’ version of the role it
should play.

Alan Borovoy, general counsel of the
Canadian Civil Liberties Association has
also warned Canadians about the implica- —
tions of the CBC policy. q

outspoken opponent of free trade. rights.” 2 a A ee
ues by Lynch’s column, CBC At issue as well as Goldhawk’s position INTR ODUC TORY H
Radio management raised the issue with in ACTRA\Is the new “Journalistic Policy SUBSCRIPTION OFFER i
Goldhawk who then withdrew voluntarily introduced by CBC in 1988 which adds new $6 f I
from the show for the remaining three stipulations for CBC staff, including a new ‘or 6 months i
ks of the election campaign. But that section on “credibility.” The section states 2 1
pata . nbuph. paig that in assigning people to work in informa- a PIB UNE !
Two days after the Nov. 21 vote, CBC tion programs, “the organization (CBC) ————— i
Radio program director Donna Logan gave must be sensitive to their published views, See sage sgh East Hastings Street 1
Goldhawk an ultimatum and three hours to _ their personal involvements and their asso- a m- Fhane 261-4186 i
make his decision: resign as ACTRA presi- _ciations and backgrounds in order to avoid Nama ose. es ES ae I
dent or give up his job as host of the radio any perception of bias or of susceptibility to Piddyp he oe ht bee ene tt Zit nga ay ey i
show. Faced with the prospect of being undue influence in the execution Otthe: MP TPP Pe fc Se in NE SP a a tees aki alge eee |
without work in his profession, Goldhawk professional responsibilities.” 2 6 oh ete : Pree’ Slee 17" peeps Postal Code ...... ae
resigned from the union position. The new policy also broadens the former am enclosing 6 mos. $60 1 yr. $200 I
Significantly, CBC made no claims of __Festrictlons on hiring people from political J

12 e Pacific Tribune, January 23, 1989