The September convention of
Region 1 of the International
Woodworkers of America,
representing 48,000 members in
, _B.C., had its positive and negative

sides.

For example, it was positive that
delegates left the convention at

signs calling for a boycott of all
Canadian trade with Chile. On the
other hand, we must record as
negative the fact that outside of a
special resolution on Chile, the only
other resolution dealing with inter-
national affairs to be debated was
one giving full support to the noisy
: and malicious campaign in support
JACK MUNRO .. .. reflects in- Of the so-called Vietnamese boat
creased membership concern People.

wma Joba, seepurces. The Vancouver Sun of

e e September 15 carried a photo of a
Picketing

meagre audience of 300 people at a
charity concert for the boat people
e@ e@ e
injunction
condemned

in the 2,800-seat Orpheum theatre.
The B.C. Federation of Labor

Only 80 people purchased tickets at
$7.50 each and the remainder were
last week wired labor minister Allan
Williams condemning the in-

noon one day and paraded with .

admitted free of charge. The Sun
terference by the courts into the

reported that the phone number of
Vancouver’s refugee co-ordination

dispute between the Municipality of

Delta and the Canadian Union of

center was flashed on Vancouver
Public Employees.

response was reported from benefit
concerts across the country.

However, a line of contrasting

is using.

television screens during the show
but one person at the centre

described the reaction as

“pathetic”. This same lack of

The courts issued an injunction type, about half way through the
Sept. 24, on behalf of Rempel, news story, carried this message:
owner of Haul-Away Garbage ‘‘IWA votes to aid refugees, page
Disposal Company, severely Al12’’.
limiting the number of pickets
CUPE Local 454 can put up around
the makeshift dump Rempel’s firm

According to the story, ‘“‘a
solidified IWA’’ voted to aid Asian
refugees. 4 “es
~ CUPE members. criticized the The report said that the resolu-
decision, pointing to Rempel’s close tion was opposed by two or three
ties with the right-to-work move- delegates whom it described as
ment in B.C. Rempel and his members of the Communist Party
brother, owner of a private concrete of Canada, who particularly ob-
contracting firm, are leading jected to a section in the preamble
members of the Independent Con- stating, ‘Many thousands of people
tractors and Businessmens’ are being forced by government
Association (ICBA). pressure to leave Vietnam.”’

Currently under contract to the
Delta municipality, Haul-Away
Garbage has been using land near
Highway 10 in Delta that is private-
ly owned by designated as a park
area, aS a temporary dumping
ground.

The injunction limits pickets to
four at each of the five entrances to
the dump. The municipal dump
normally used by CUPE workers
when unloading the garbage con-
tinues to be used by Vancouver
municipal employees, in line with
the agreement reached between the
two CUPE locals. :

**This is just one more instance of
the courts’ encroachment on the
jurisdiction of the Labor Relations
Board,’ Federation § secretary-
treasurer Dave MacIntyre charged.

According to the news story, Lyle
Kristiansen who was an NDP can-
didate in Kootenay West in the last
provincial election, also opposed
the resolution. He argued that it
was discriminatory because it
treated one group of refugees better
than other refugees and immigrants
to Canada.

From what I have been told, Kris-
tiansen put Syd Thompson, presi-
dent of the Vancouver local, in his
place very neatly. Thompson, in
the course of a demagogic speech in
support of the resolution, implied
that those who were opposing it
were politically suspect. Krist-
tiansen told the convention, ‘‘You
all know where I stand politically.
Unlike some people, I haven’t

Carpenters delegation

back from USSR tour

William Zander, president of the
15,000 member B.C. Council of
Carpenters, said the Canadian
delegation “thoroughly enjoyed”’
its 12-day tour of the USSR.

Guests of the Building and Con-
struction Material Workers of the
Soviet Union, the 13-member
delegation headed by Zander and
including Rick Ferrell, Bill Gannon,
John Harper, Peter Maloff, Fred
Scholz and Colin Snell, ‘‘visited
several construction sites. We
toured the second largest hydro and
irrigation dam in the USSR at
Nurek (Tajikistan) amongst
others’’ Zander said.

‘*We saw education and training
centres for trades people in both
restoration and construction work,

and had the opportunity to visit a
nursery school, sanitaria, and holi-
day facilities for workers, trade
union cultural centres,’” he added.

“What has been most moving
during our visit has been the consis-
tent appeal by our hosts for trust,
mutual respect, friendship and
peace between all peoples.”’

He added, ‘‘Our delegation
agrees with the sentiments express-
ed by our Soviet brothers and sisters
and have pledged to take this
message back to Canada. We
welcome the opportunity to meet,
develop cooperation, exchange
ideas, in an open and friendly way.
We are looking forward to our
Soviet colleagues’ visit to Canada in
1980.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— OCTOBER 5, 1979— Page 12

changed.”’ This was an obvious
reference to Thompson, a former
member of the Communist Party
who switched to the NDP during
the cold war period.

Provincial NDP leader Dave Bar-
rett. told the convention,
“Thompson was once the leading
radical in B.C. But Thompson
hasn’t changed, society has caught
up with him’’. We can assume from
this accolade that Thompson is the
kind of radical who is acceptable to
Dave Barrett, which doesn’t place
him very far to the left on the
political spectrum.

On the positive side, the conven-
tion passed resolutions calling for:

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

@A committee to study shorter
working hours and another to
prepare for technological change in
the industry. (However, critics of
the administration maintain this
could be yet another study with no
action unless there is wide-scale
pressure from the membership.)

e@Criticism of the industry for
not living up to an agreement to in-
denture new tradesmen apprentices.

e Fair hiring policies.

The contentious issue of the rate
of pay for IWA tradesmen was
defused, at least temporarily, when
the delegates voted overwhelmingly
for a resolution to hold a represen-
tative conference of tradesmen to
discuss their grievances. In the
course of the debate on this issue,

Jack Munro, who has never been

‘known for elegant speech, said he
resented being called ‘‘a fink, a
double-dealer and a_back-door
dealer and having to continually
read it in the newspapers.”

While he didn’t
resolution, he bluntly told
the convention ‘‘the idea of a con-
ference is not for me to get booted
around by a couple of hundred
tradesmen.”’

oppose the

A leaflet published recently by
the Woodworkers Rank and File
Caucus, based on Vancouver Island
and made up largely of fallers, put
another interpretation on the ques-
tion of special occupational con-
ferences within the IWA:

“‘It has been said that the [WA is
one of the most democratic unions
in B.C. However, the regional ex-
ecutive ruled out of order two
resolutions calling for tradesmen’s
and fallers’ conferences anyway.
The tradesmen went on strike, tied
up some camps and mills for several
weeks. Why? Because the leader-
ship refused to call a conference
and listen to the tradesmen’s com-
plaints. ‘‘The tradesmen’s strike
was an expression of the frustration
the group has been subjected to due
to the bureaucratic attitude of the
leadership. Thousands of workers
lost money due to this action. Who
is to blame? The leadership!”’

The leaflet also issued a blunt
warning to the tradesmen: ‘‘It looks
as thought the tradesmen are mak-
ing the mistake of forming their
own organization. We know this is
a mistake because the fallers tried it
and lost. Going off into separate
groups results in isolation from the
majority of the membership which
in turn, causes bad feelings. The
fallers also found that their leaders
became black-listed. Some of these
people are still out of the industry
with no hope of coming back in.
We must see to it that this type of
isolation does not occur again.”’

WA still needs action policie

Whether the WRFC will play a
positive and viable role in the future
remains to be seen and I hope to
deal with that in another article.
However, the warning against for-
ming separate, structured organiza-
tions within the IWA, or breaking
away from the IWA, is very sound.

The jurisdictional dispute bet-
ween the IWA and the B.C. and
Yukon Building Trades Council
was disposed of by a resolution call-
ing upon the IWA to meet with the
Building Trades in an effort to
work out. a jurisdictional agree-
ment. This contradicted an earlier
statement by president Jack Munro
when he told Building Trades
leaders to ‘‘go jump in the lake.”’

On a more positive note, Munro,
in his presidential address, called
for the defeat of the Tories for at-
tacking medicare and for its pro-
gram of more stringent cutbacks in
unemployment insurance.

Reflecting the increased emphasis
of the provincial NDP leadership in
getting a better return for the peo-
ple from the natural resouces of
B.C., Munro made a strong state-
ment: ‘‘We have given away our
best timber, our most precious
mineral resources...of incalculable
value...and there isn’t a contract
obligating anyone to provide a
single job.”

When pressed for his solution to
this complicated problem he sug-

gested tht legislation should b
adopted to guarantee that th
number of jobs would become thé
subject of negotiations with thé
production union involved in a
ticular industry. Layoffs,
argued, could then be controlled b
these negotiations instead of com:
panies having the arbitrary right tO
order layoffs.

Irrespective of whether or nol
Munro has the solution to the pro-
blem, it is significant that he raised

over the exploitation of our naturé
resources and also demanded t
unions be given the right
negotiate on the issues of jobs a
layoffs. :

Allin all, it was a most interesting
convention. Despite its obviou!
shortcomings, the conventiol
demonstrated that as the econom!
and political crisis of capitalism
deepens, the trade union movement!
is increasingly compelled to ado}
poitions in opposition to monopoly
and the multinational corporatio

A stronger left in this union an@)—
in the trade union movement as 4)
whole would assist in developing
better sense of direction and a more |
precise articulation of the polici¢
that are required in the diffi
period that lies ahead. A strong
left would also be a positive fa
in unifying the trade union mo
ment around an action program

Women, youth first —
on Ul chopping block

Continued from page 1

the legislation expected in this ses-
sion, she said.

In a related matter, Federation
secretary-treasurer Dave MacIntyre
announced this week that a schedul-
ed meeting between Federation of-
ficers and the Tory caucus
September 30 was cancelled when it
was learned that the caucus had
been instructed ‘‘to refuse to

' discuss anything to do with changes

in UIC regulations.

““We were led to believe that the
Conservative caucus was interested
in discussing openly with us any
subject of concern to the B.C.
Federation of Labor,’’ MacIntyre
said in a statement. ‘‘It is clear to us
now that they simply wanted to put
on a public show for the media to
try and convince people they could
get along with labor.

‘‘The Federation has serious con-
cerns about the UIC regulation
changes, as well as other issues, but
we refuse to be involved in a
publicity stunt dreamt up by some
caucus staff person.”’

CLC president McDermott was
also critical of the manner in which
the Tories are handling the review
of the system. ‘‘The manner in
which this consultative process is

being undertaken suggests that the__

government’s mind is already made

Address
City or town
PostalCode. ns

NNN NS NON INONG SS

. changes in entrance requireme?

Namess.. us cee

1 am enclosing:
1 year $10 (0 2 years $180 6 months $6 0
OldO New Foreign 1 year $12 0
Donation $........

ALAA AEA SE RET

up and that labor and business
being brought in so government c@
say they were consulted,’’ he said 0
his letter to Atkey. ;

The review document suggest
changes in regulations according
three priorities: ‘‘priority issues ™
quiring early action’’, ‘‘issues
quiring decisions within eightee™
months”’ and “‘issues requiring &
amination over a longer tim
frame.’’

The first priority area sugges”
changes for claimants who quit Jo”
or are fired for misconduct,
“‘repeaters’’ and new entrants tO
labor force, and. for pregn
women.

The second priority area sugg'
minimum insurability and ™
eligibility of fishermen.

The long term priority sugg'
limiting ‘‘which types of employ
ment are insurable under the PE |
gram”’, and ‘“‘qualifying conditl
of eligibility for benefit” and “’
level and duration of benefits.”

The Greater Vancouver Reg!®
Committee of the Communist
of Canada this week expre*
alarm over the proposed cha ni
and called on its membership 19
Greater Vancouver area to tur!
in force to the Federation rally
the PNE Gardens.

eeeee