| _ 16 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 30, 1986 FEATURE \ ee 7 -FORE i I: LESS CA © of #42 Radek * ale inst i reer Ks bE TEeKURT ELECTRIG CO. OF CANADA LTD. EAD Sy < Plaintifé ! ‘ J ae le ee TG OR ONT an ARTES r LAI. oe Shy ROASTS Se CS mikes A ° On ° 1h. OR emleshut — ll ts RB Ne Cs els Gy Bere eS Pate Malate Zane 7018 HONOUR JUDGE Coury UVOM Tr 5 Wan Bete Ear tae njt Oe cats trce the Affidavit of uncti By SEAN GRIFFIN t had begun almost spontaneously, ignited by an arbitrary memorandum from the employer, unilaterally cancelling an agreement that no overtime would be worked while negotiations were in progress. By the end of the day, more than 250 workers, most of them women assembly workers, had walked off the job. Within two days, the 257 workers had been fired and any efforts by their union, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, to win their reinstatement had been spurned. That was April 27, 1966. And it was only the beginning. The company was Lenkurt Electric Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of one of the largest multinationals in the U.S., General Telephone and Electronics of New York, linked, though another GTE subsidiary, with B.C. Telephone Company. B.C. Tel’s chairman J.E. Richardson had already been named publicly as chairman of the newly- established employers’ group the Commer- cial and Industrial Research Foundation (CIRF) and there were few: in the trade union movement who did not see a connec- tion between the employers new co- ordinating group and management’s pro- vocative action at a closely related company. But of far more immediate importance to most unionists at the time was the re- emergence — in increasing numbers — of an old anti-labor weapon — the injunc- tion, particularly the ex parte variety granted by a judge on the sole application of the employer. Within a week of the Lenkurt workers’ walkout, two injunctions had been issued banning picketing outside the Bur- naby plant, each one of them pinned up on telephone poles in the vicinity of the plant. Before the year was out, four trade union- ists were in jail for contempt of court in upholding labor’s historic night to picket. Although the injunctions issue had a long history for the labor movement, both in this province and across the country, it was thrust into dramatic prominence in 1959 with the passage of Bill 43, the Trades Union Act, by the Social Credit govern- ment of W.A.C. Bennett. It banned any picketing beyond the site of a strike or lock- out, including secondary picketing and sympathy pickets, prohibited the issuing of - unfair or hot declarations and, breaking with long standing legal traditions, made unions legal entities liable for damage suits. ‘Shipping Company in June, Its most immediate and devastating result was to “turn the courts into an injunc- tion mill,” as Pat O’Neal, the president of the B.C. Federation of Labor, commented. Initially, the B.C. Federation of Labor hesitated in confronting the legislation and, on the advice of legal counsel, published an advertisement in the paper which stated: “All trade union members are warned to refrain from acts which can be described as unlawful under Bill 43...Bill 43 confirms the position of the B.C. Federation of Labor to the effect that just labor laws can be obtained only through a political party that is prepared to serve the interests of all the people of British Columbia.” Three months later, the strike of North- land Navigation and the actions of the Can- adian Area of the International Longshore- men’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), turned that notice into a mere footnote i in history. Members of the National Association of Marine Engineers struck the West Coast 1959 but within hours, their picket line had been banned by a court injunction. In solidarity, members of ILWU Local 509 refused to accept dispatch to the company. When the company brought in willing members of the Seafarers’ International Union as scabs, the ILWU was faced with the choice of defying the law or caving in. They took the former course. Craig Prit- chett, then president of the ILWU Cana- dian Area recalls that he and several others “went down to the union hall and got together two or three hundred men and marched down to the Northland dock to bring the scabs out. And then we went back to the street and set up the ‘observer’ pickets.” But it wasn’t just getting longshoremen LOUGULED HIGUWAY IN THE MUNICIPAL Try | OF; BURNABY IN THE PROVINCE or BRITIS} Monday the nktrtstrike f APPLICATION of the | et Motion ke Frace Ce out on the picket line that was at issue. Although some officers of the federation turned out themselves, “Roy Smith and some of the others (from the ILWU) went and got the rest of the federation officers out,” says Pritchett. The die was cast. Breaking from its ear- lier stated position, the federation not only publicly declared support for the ILWU but also issued a hot edict against Northland —in direct defiance of Bill 43. And although it was not stated openly at the time, trade unionists were mobilized to keep the picket lines up 24 hours a day. On July 16, just three weeks after it began, the strike ended in victory for the Marine Engineers and for the labor move- ment which had successfully thwarted efforts by the employers to use the new weapons handed them by the Socred government. The B.C. Fed had also set a pattern of resistance that would stand for a long time to come. But the climax in the battle against injunctions was still several years away. That same year — 1959 — the Social Credit government gained new infamy for its anti-labor legislation when, for the first time in Canadian history, a newspaper edi- tor was jailed for contempt of court. George North, 15-year editor of The Fisherman, the voice of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union, was sentenced to 30 days for his editorial “Injunctions won’t catch fish nor build bridges.” His comments were in turn directed against another injunction issued against Local 97 of the Ironworkers, instructing the union to order its members to work on construction of the Second Narrows bridge — work they considered unsafe. Three years later, in 1962, ex parte injunc- tions inflamed what began as a routine strike at Allied Engineering, a Vancouver manufacturer of hot water heaters and boil- ers. The Marine Workers and Boilermakers Industrial Union began a legal strike in November, following the breakdown of negotiations, and set up union pickets. But in an action that epitomized the ready access employers had to court injunctions, plant owner Walter Husband filed an affi- davit alleging that he had been spat on by pickets — and secured an injunction ban- ning all picketing by the union. With the line { COLUMIIA Defendants ~ | Mg 2nd Day of a am \ Yeay Lim. Plaintiff AND UPON ed herein the 28th day of herein Arnold Gorcon Liddle OnS tions granted in labor disputes mot issued the 28th forced down, he brought in scabs 10 ™ — the operation. f In response, hundreds of supportets#” scores of other unions as well as the couver Labor Council and the B.C: formed citizens’ pickets along the natt roadway that separated the two build! ding the plant. It was a new application Oa “Northland formula” and again it WO | although this time, the punitive side Be nett’s anti-labor law became me Scores of Vancouver city police with Py dogs were massed outside the plant crea a series of ugly confrontations that overshadowed the issues of the strike: Worse, two men — Dave West a? of Hendsbee — were handed sentences ® months each for assault in incidents 4 out of the strike while two others wee 30 days for “creating a public mischi ae Four others were fined for “ume” — assembly.” : There were also disquieting signs the leader of the New Democrati¢ f Robert Strachan, who told a meeting © Duncan Chamber of Commerce “schemers of the far left moved in 10¥ ig }y mote discord and violence” during Allied Engineering strike. B Despite the discordant note, thé Federation of Labor declared its ine to uphold its right to strike and to pic nd it did not, B.C. Fed secretary Pat O warned, and if the strike weapon were! blunted, “labor will be left impotent: of Throughout the first six years ° 0s 1960s, the injunctions piled up, the Bo paper creating formidable legal parrie® igh picketing in defence of trade union 927 and jobs: A survey conducted by the fot Federation of Labor in 1966 found th! iat the years 1955-65, the number of i? ws quadrupled to 297 over the previous | year period in the districts of vanor a New Westminster, Cranbrook, and of loops. Of those, 239 were applied fo! parte — with only the employers’ Ee heard — and only two were of Maclean’s magazine noted that emplo? could virtually get injunctions in labo! putes simply “by reciting the conten® dinner menu.” ; The year 1966 was significant for ! 4 that year that the employers’ dema® court intercession on their behalf reach?