| the bill contains

LABOUR ~

ead

Special to the Tribune

The Alberta government is entering a
pitched battle with labour over proposed
changes to the province’s labour code.

Ironically, Bill 60, scheduled for the
‘spring session of the legislature, is in
response to union demands for changes to
the code following the bitter Gainers strike
of 1986. But unions are calling the Tory
remedy a move from bad to worse.

Alberta Federation of Labour president
Dave Werlin has adamantly rejected the
bill. Organized labour will “absolutely not
adhere to that re-
gressive law. I told
the minister (lan
Reid) that I may be
the first to be put in
jail but I won’t be
the last,” he told the
media.

Labour has said

measures to under-
mine trade union
rights, including
compulsory tripartite “consultative proce-
dures” and “work councils” on which
employees would be obliged to sit. Support
pickets would be banned; individuals would
be able to claim exemption from union
dues; and scabs and past employees would
be eligible to vote in union certification
drives.

In a Jan. 11 presentation to the labour
minister, Werlin called the bill ‘an ill-
advised, improper response to the labour
relations problems in Alberta that gave rise
to the review of labour laws in the first
instance.”

The AFL called for changes to end spin-
offs and other features of labour legislation
that permitted the construction industry to
dump unions; a ban on the notorious 25-
hour lockout which allows a company to
terminate unilaterally a collective agree-
ment; the prohibition of strikebreakers’
pension protection; revisions to the certifi-
cation process and restrictions on the use of
the courts and police in labour disputes.
They also called for a sharp increase in the
$3.80 per hour minimum wage.

The Alberta Tories have set up a review
committee to prepare the way for Bill 60
and under pressure from organized labour
held public hearings throughout the pro-
pTGesr >

“Unfortunately, there is very little evi-
dence that the review committee, or those

WERLIN

who drafted Bill 60 paid any attention to
our submission, or to the vast majority of
those appearing before the committee who
demanded substantial improvements to the
protection of workers’ rights in Alberta,”
Werlin said.

The AFL said the bill fails to address any
“of the major causes for the breakdown of
labour relations in this province” and
should be rejected.

“Bill 60 adds to the anti-union orienta-
tion of the legislation, which is already a
main source of labour relations problems,”
the brief stated. The proposed legislation is
“designed not to protect workers, but to
make the labour relations scene in Alberta
secure for the entrepreneurial sector of the
provincial economy.”

Reference in the legislation, to a “compet-
itive world market,” implies a “willingness
to lower general level of employment terms
and conditions to the abysmal level neces-
sary to be competitive with such labour
hell-holes as South Korea, Taiwan, the Phi-
lippines and the southern United States.”
As such, said the brief, “they are totally
inappropriate to an introduction to a labour
code.”

Labour has accused the Tories of putting
obstacles in the way of collective bargaining
and paving the way for government to inter-
fere in union-management relations.

Section 175, Commencement of Bargain-
ing, “would require the parties to negotia-
tions to exchange written proposals with a
specified time limit and would tie the hands
of negotiating committees by denying the
introduction of any subsequent proposals.”

Only “persons resident in Alberta” can
engage in collective bargaining. Section 178
allows either party, or the minister, to
appoint a mediator 60 days after the initial
exchange of bargaining proposals. Section
181 (2) undermines the union by permitting
the minister to order a vote on the Media-
tion Board’s recommendations — whether
the union is in favour or not.

Under the section on strikes and lock-
outs, the AFL says the new bill “restricts a
union’s timing by requiring that a strike or
lockout occur within 90 days of the super-
vised vote.” Also that “no strike or lock-out
vote may occur after two years from the
time mediation procedures were exhausted.”
This it describes as “a completely unprece-
dented and unjustified time limit on the
right and ability of employees to strike.”

In addition to the requirement of a 72-
hour strike notice the new bill provides for a

Judge’s remark termed
‘patronizing and racist

The Alberta Federation of Labour has
called for the dismissal of a provincial judge
for “racist, patronizing” remarks made
while convicting two northern union acti-
vists.

The demand arose out of a statement by
Justice A.T. Cooke in commenting on the
case of Mike Pisak and Bob De Leeuw,
convicted of criminal charges in connection
with a strike at Feedler Forest Products
near Slave Lake about 300 kilometres
north-west of Edmonton.

Cooke said, “It would appear to the
bench ... that in most cases these were sim-
ple Native persons from a small northern
Alberta community, many of part Native
blood, without experience in matters of
labour disputes.”

The remark drew angry responses from
labour and Native spokespersons. “The

___ judge has shown a biased and condescend- ..
- ing.attitude toward small town Alberta and

an incredible bias against unions and Native
peoples,” charged Alberta Federation of
Labour president Dave Werlin.

Werlin has sent a letter to attorney gen-
eral Jim Horsman demanding this office
investigate the matter. A call has also gone
out to AFL affiliates asking them to write or
phone Horsman. The Alberta Indian Asso-
ciation and local Metis organizations have
joined in the call.

“This is institutionalized racism showing
up in the courts,” Werlin told the Tribune.
“Tt reinforces Ontario studies which indi-
cate the courts are a far nicer place if you are
middle class and white.”

Strikers Pisak and Deleeuw are still
awaiting sentencing. The pair were two of
the few members of Local 1-217, the Inter-

. national: Woodworkers of America, Can-

ada, still honouring the strike which began
in April, 1986 to fight contract concessions.

14-day “‘cooling-off period.” “The net effect
of the additions in Bill 60 is that if all the
steps were to be exhausted by a determined
employer, union members could be forced
to wait a minimum of 151 days after the
commencement of bargaining before finally
being in a legal strike position.”

The federation accused the government
of giving with one hand while taking with

~ AFL rejects Alta. labour law changes

the other. ‘“‘While the code appears to res-
trict the courts’ role in such traditionally
contentious areas as granting of injunctions,
the effect of this is largely offset by Section
204 which allows the courts to interfere in
cases of ‘reasonable likelihood of danger to
persons or property.” In fact, this will have
the practical effect of retaining the status

”

quo.

Both the nurses of Alberta, and the
employees of the Canadian Imperial
Bank of Commerce in Antigonish, Nova
Scotia, have been locked in bitter strug-
gles with their bosses. Both groups of
workers are up against powerful employ-
ers who are on the leading edge of neo-
conservative reaction in this country.

Both groups of strikers have declined
to surrender, have refused to continue
putting up with their plight in the same
old way, but rather have opted to fight
like hell, against almost overwhelming
odds.

Both battles are led by women.

» Coming on the heels,of the recently

Toronto, the emergence of women at the
forefront of the class struggle is more
than worthy of note. Notice is being
served that the gross indignities being
heaped on workers, especially those who
have long been oppressed by those in
authority, will not be tolerated much
longer. There is a new day approaching.

In Alberta, the nurses have had their
legal right to strike revoked by the Tory
government’s punitive Bill 44. But the
nurses have gone on strike anyway. The
judge has ordered the nurses back to
work but the nurses have stayed away
almost unanimously. The community
appears to be behind the nurses, as indi-
cated by large demonstrations in every
major Alberta centre.

While the government hypocritically
argues concern for health care, it refuses
to discuss staffing requirements with the
nurses. While is raises the musty argu-
ment about essential services, it refuses to
pay salaries reflecting the skilled and vital
service nurses offer.

History has already concluded that
banning strikes does not prevent them.
Premier Don Getty, who everyone
knows takes his history lesson from that
mental titan in next-door British Colum-
bia, has so far not absorbed the obvious:
the: way to settle strikes is to bargain
collectively in good faith. But he will
learn, or earn the fate of those who refuse
to learn.

In Nova Scotia, the contest has been
unequal as well. The strategy of those
who resist unionization in Canada’s lar-
gely unorganized financial sector has
been to allow the bank clerks to languish
on the bitterly cold picket lines, unable to
match the economic power of Canada’s
second largest financial institution.

But the leader of the 11 strikers, Mar-
ion MacDonald, shocked the financial
barons when she invaded their cozy

concluded McGregor Socks dispute in-

Nurses and tellers
are new voices of
labour’s militancy

annual meeting in Toronto this month to
place the strikers’ challenge before bank
chair, Don Fullerton. Implicit in all the
publicity surrounding MacDonald’s
action was the rallying of public sym-
pathy behind bank employees, and
against the banks who everyone knows
have been “ripping off’ both employees
and customers for too long. MacDonald
was able to tap the natural empathy
between the two.

The bank has quickly agreed to a
resumption of contract talks, and
engaged in a public relations damage
control operation. The Canadian labour
movement. will.watch carefully to ensure
a proper settlement, due to the Antigon-
ish workers, is forthcoming.

Both the experience of Alberta and
Nova Scotia have interesting sidelights.
Nurses and bank employees for genera-
tions have been outside the mainstream
of the working class and the trade union
movement. Like other “professionals,”
these sections of the population often
stood between the working class and the
bosses.

Labour in
action

George
Hewison

Today, the tremendous growth of the
public and service sectors of the econ-
omy; the use of new technology: the tre-
mendous influx of new workers, large
numbers of women and new Canadians,
into the work force; the wage gap
between men and women in the work
force; and the increased drive for profit
by big business — all have contributed
to the “proletarianization” of these
hitherto middle groups.

In many ways, conditions for these
groups are worse than for those who
have been unionized for years.

The B.C. teachers, after years of with-
drawal from the trade union movement.
in face of Premier Bill Vander Zalm, and
his Bills 19 and 20, and the rest of his
neo-conservative agenda, are opting for
unionism in record numbers.

This process will likely continue. It’s
good news for unionists, and should be
warmly greeted and supported. It’s trou-
ble for the likes of Vander Zalm. Getty.
Mulroney and Fullerton,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 3, 1988 e 7