Booths like this went up at shopping malls all over the province this
week as the B.C. Federation of Labor launched its campaign against
unemployment, leading up to the citizens’ lobby in Victoria at the time
of the. opening of the Legislature. Here, UFAWU-members Heather
Keely (left) and Susan Jorgensen explain the campaign at a booth in

Vancouver's Champlain Mall.

—Sean Griffin photo

Labor council break
without CLC authority

An official of the Kamloops and
District Labor Council has refuted
reports that the Canadian Labor
Congress has withdrawn the
council’s charter and turned it over
to a breakaway group of unions
that walked out.of last Monday’s
regular Labor Council meeting to
declare themselves as a new Labor
Council.

In a telephone interview with the
Tribune Wednesday, Kamloops
Labor Council first vice-president
Bill Ferguson said that the council
had received no official com-
munications from the CLC and that
it was continuing its business as
normal.

Ferguson said that media
reports which said the breakaway
group had seized the council’s
charter and books were false.

In Vancouver, CLC represen-
tative Art Kube also denied
knowledge of any official CLC
decisions.

Ferguson told the Tribune that
Kamloops CLC representative
Dick Larson led the delegates from
the United Steelworkers, Oil
Chemical and Atomic Workers,
and from two non-affiliated unions,
the B.C. Government Employees
Union and the International
Woodworkers of America out of the
hall, after a vote rejected an order
from CLC president Joe Morris.

The BCGEU and the IWA had
quit the council several months ago
over differences in policy, but had
decided to reapply for mem-
bership. The labor council insisted
that the two unions pay six months
back dues before being read-
mitted, a decision the unions ap-
pealed to Morris. The CLC
president ordered the labor council
to readmit the unions without the
back dues stipulation, but the labor
council questioned the con-
stitutionality of the ruling and
voted to stick by its position.

However the breakaway group’s
claim to CLC authority has so far

been unsubstantiated. The group
has been quoted widely in the
Kamloops press, posing, them-
selves as “‘moderates’’ as opposed
to the “militants” in the leader-
ship of the labor council.

The majority of unions remained
in the labor council meeting and
elected Bob Ashton of the
Telecommunications Workers
Union to the president’s post for
1978. John Harper, carpenter’s
delegate, was elected secretary-
treasurer; CUPE delegate Bill
Ferguson was elected first vice-
president; and CBRT-GW delegate
Rocco Salituro was elected second
vice-president.

Last October 21, Paul Weiler,
chairman of the Labor Relations
Board, made a speech drawing
attention to the failure of the B.C.
and Yukon Building Trades
Council to develop a common front
bargaining structure for 15 in-
ternational unions in the con-
struction industry. In his opinion,
the unions didn’t have the ‘“‘legal
glue’”’ to establish a structure to
match the highly centralized
structure on the employers’ side.

Shortly after that speech, the
provincial minister of labor in-
structed the Labor Relations
Board to conduct a hearing under
Section 57 of the Labor Code on the
advisability of ordering all con-
struction unions to join one
bargaining council. Weiler, who is
already on record as favoring such
a council, is in the position that if a
hearing is held under his chair-
manship in compliance with the
request by the minister, he will be
open to charges of having
prejudged the case.

On the labor side, it is possible
there will be non-compliance with
requests from the Labor Relations
Board to make written sub-
missions or to: appear before the
board during its consideration of
this matter. Both the B.C.
Federation of Labor and the
provincial Building Trades Council
are solidly on record as being
opposed to the setting up of a
council of unions by decisions from
outside the trade union movement.
Their position is that such councils
should be based on voluntary
agreement, should be demo-
cratically structured and should
have as their main purpose the
creation of a more effective
procedure to serve the interests of
the participating members, in
collective bargaining and in
related problems requiring joint
action,

Some union officers have worked
hard to set up a voluntary joint
council in the construction in-
dustry. The closest they came to
success was in 1976, after the
dispute between the unions and the
employers was settled. Out of the
15 unions directly involved, 14
signed a document known as the
Common Front Industry
Bargaining structure. The In-
ternational Brotherhood- of
Electrical Workers did not sign.

TWU plans rally Sat.

Continued from pg. 1
conference. ‘There is now no
question that the company is not
prepared to bargain but will only

“agree on their terms.”’

Donnelly also noted that the B.C.
Tel president, by his placing of
conditions on any return to work
“deliberately created a situation
that he knew would leave the union
in no position to recommend a
return to work.”

The union would have given
serious consideration to the
request made by federal labor
minister John Munro, Donnelly
said, but the company stand made
a return to work “‘impossible’’.

Although the appointment of
Hurcheon came after lengthy
consideration by the federal labor
department, there was little in-
dication that his intervention
would have significant effect on the
dispute since the company has
demonstrated that it is not
prepared to accept the findings of
any commissioner should his
recommendations be similar to
those of Dr. Hall.

Hall, after studying the issue of

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 13, 1978—Page 8

contracting-out for some time,
recommended last May that there
be no change to the present con-
tracting-out clause, a position
which the company has refused to
accept.

Federal mediator Mike Collins,
appointed last month to mediate in
the dispute, was also unable to
bring about any change in the
company’s stand.

Despite the track record,
however, Munro apparently is
continuing to look to further
mediation attempts rather than
direct intervention to compel the
company to accept the Hall report.

Whether that situation will
change is not yet known, although
the expiry of Justice Hutcheon’s
term as inquiry commissioner
coincides with the reopening of the
Parliament.

Meanwhile, the TWU has
stepped up its picketing and
demonstrated with more than 300
members outside the B.C. Tel
offices in New Westminster

“Tuesday. A mass rally is also

planned for downtown Vancouver
Saturday.

The bargaining structure was
basically designed to overcome the
splits between the unions that
surfaced in 1976 and to serve as a
tool for carrying out industry-wide
bargaining in 1977 and thereafter.

In the 1977 negotiations, 10
unions bargained jointly and
achieved a settlement which
served as a basis for settlements
by the other unions. The key de-
velopment was not the fact that the
14 unions which originally signed

[TABOR 2
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

the common front document in 1976
were reduced to 10 in collective
bargaining in 1978 (although this is
indicative of the divisions), but
rather that 10 unions, representing
the majority of workers in the
industry, were able to unite on a
voluntary basis and negotiate the
pattern settlement.

Now, faced with a threat of
compulsion, some unions are
calling for new efforts to achieve
unity in order to establish a viable
and effective joint bargaining
structure, on a voluntary basis.
According to usually reliable
sources, the B.C. Federation of
Labor has come into the picture.
The Federation is concerned that if
a council is established by com-
pulsion, it will be another step
along the road to state control over
the internal affairs of the trade
union movement. In the near
future, it could result in the setting
up of councils in other industries
where the trade unions are not in
favor of changing their present
bargaining structures which work
reasonably well.

James Kinnaird, who served as
industrial inquiry commissioner in
the 1976 dispute and is now
president of the provincial
Building Trades Council, pointed
out then that centralization has
“proceeded more rapidly on the
management side of the con-
struction bargaining table than
among the craft unions. Further,
he stated: ‘‘Centralization has not
caught on with the construction
craft unions as it has with the
contractors. Inter-trade jealousy
has largely precluded the for-
mation of one organization
representing all craft unions. . . To
date only rather frail pacts of
unions have been established and
none has been able to weather the
internal frictions which develop
during one set of negotiations.”

The 1976 Kinnaird report said
that craft unions, and even locals
within the same craft, will seek
and settle for quite different wage
and fringe packages, thus _in-
creasing inter-trade jealousies and
friction and providing arguments
in favor of catching up or getting a

-membership.”’

bit more to restore former dif:
ferentials. ‘‘At each round 4
negotiations,’’ Kinnaird wrote, |
‘the leadership of each trade union}
tends to lie in wait for the other
trades to settle first. This tactic)
allows them to hold out a little’
longer and obtain a greater or al.
least an equal settlement which h
can be easily presented to
According
Kinnaird, this tends to preve
settlement and compounds rathel
than facilitates collective
bargaining. ‘
However, a piece of advice in the”
Kinnaird report is worth repeating
at this point: ‘‘While sound general
reasons exist for greater cen
tralization of collective bargaining
within an industry, it is a decep-|
tively simple “tactic which cal
sometimes compound rather thal”
cure labor relations problems.
It is reported that officers of the
B.C. Federation of Labor aré
currently meeting with unions if
the building trades in an attempt to
put together a voluntary council of

unions that will have eno a
“glue’’. 4
The best outcome of these :
discussions would be a unanimous
agreement to set up a viable
council that will stand the test of
time. Failing this, the labo!
movement will have the duty 0
supporting the Federation if
devising effective measures to
oppose compulsion by the Labor
Relations Board. There is no doubt —
that both the employers and the ~
government, each for their own
reasons, want a_ centralized
bargaining structure on the union
side. It is equally true tha
spokesmen representing the)
majority of the workers want a
common bargaining structure to —
reduce division and disruption and
to be able to do a better job in
collective bargaining. However, i
would be in opposition to fun
damental trade union’ principles.
and harmful to the whole trade ~
union movement, if the Socred —
government, acting through the |
Labor Relations Board, was
conceded the right to regulate —
internal structures and rules of
construction unions, by default or .
otherwise. F

‘Energy File’

“The Energy File,’ a new
publication in British Columbia —
concerned with energy production
issues has rolled its first issue off —
the press.

The 16-page news magazine will
be published every six weeks by 4
the Community Information |
Research Group and the B.C.
Inter-Church Committee on™
Energy. :

Subscriptions to the ‘Energy —
File” cost $5 for six issues. The —
address is: “Energy File,’ 105- — |
2511 East Hastings Street, van
couver, B.C.

erie

Back the paper that fights for labor —
PACIFIC TRIBUNE

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Clip and mail to:

101 - 1416 COMMERCIAL DR., VANCOUVER, B.C.

eee ee ee ee ee eee

V5L 3X9
$4.50 — 6 mos.

Ce ee ees