LABOR —

Now in position to strike

CUPW demands absolute
job security in post office

OTTAWA — If management of
Canada Post Corp. wants to avoid
4 country-wide strike by the
23,000-member Canadian Union
Of Postal Workers, early in
March, it will have to address the
Union’s firm demands for total job
Security in the post office.

Postal mediator Stanley Hartt
Presented his report to federal
Labor Minister Bill McKnight
Feb. 28 detailing his recom-
Mendations to the government on
What it will take to avoid the
Strike. The presentation of. his
brief has been accompanied by a
great deal of ballyhoo in the
Media, with Hartt claiming that
the parties are very close to a
Settlement.

Whether there is any substance
to Hartt’s claim, or whether it’s a
Ploy to set up the postal workers
Union as the villain in case the
talks fail, this will become evident
SOmetime next week when
McKnight releases the report of-
ficially to Canada Post Corp., and
CUPW.

_ From the beginning of negotia-
ions last June, and since the ex-
Piry of the old agreement at the
end of September, CUPW has
Stood firm on its demand for job
Security and the abandoning of
the crown corporation’s plans to
Teach financial self-sufficiency on
the backs of postal workers over
the next three years.

- The union has pointed out that

Canada Post has eliminated 2,000
jobs over the past two years in
spite of a 20 per cent increase in
the volume of mail. Current plans
at Canada Post Corp. call for the
elimination of another 3,000 jobs.

JEAN CLAUDE PARROT

CUPW will be in a legal strike
position seven full days after
McKnight releases the mediator’s
report to the parties. This means
that CUPW members could be on
the streets as early as March 8,
and that Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney’s planned economic
summit and labor-management-
government dialogue could be
taking place on a background of a
country-wide postal strike.

CUPW maintains that rather
than slashing jobs and services at
the post office, new jobs can be
created and new services im-
proved and added. A recent-letter
to the leaders of the Canadian
labor movement explains the

union’s plan to accomplish these
goals.

The union says that jobs can be
created through expanded ser-
vices and what it calls ‘“contract-
ing-in’’ of work.” At the centre of
its job security fight is the demand
for shorter worktime with no re-
duction in pay, ‘‘as a means of
distributing work and providing
workers with a share of the bene-
fits of new technology.”

CUPW maintains in its letter to
the labor leaders that ‘‘on the is-
sues of jobs and job security, the
employer has been intransigent.””

Union president Jean Claude
Parrot goes on to share CUPW’s
belief that ‘‘the Conservative
government is applying consider-
able pressure on Post Office
management not to negotiate any
provisions which might be con-
sidered precedents’.

The letter also refers to the
Liberal government’s back to
work legislation to crush the 1978
strike, and recalls that, “‘it is clear
that the Liberals took this action
in the belief that postal workers
would not be supported by the
labor movement.”

CUPW has been keeping the
leadership of the CLC fully up-
dated on the talks. It’s clear that if
it comes down to a strike in 1985,
CUPW will be looking to all of
labor for solidarity and support
for a struggle on an issue that’s
fundamental to all workers.

DeHavilland workers dig in
for another lengthy strike

TORONTO — With deHavilland management
asking for more contract concessions than the
Number of demands Locals 112 and 673 United
Auto Workers have on the table, the 2,700 aircraft
Workers who struck the crown corporation, Feb.
22 are digging in for another long strike.

Unless deHavilland gets serious and begins to
Negotiate, Local 112 president John Bettes has
Said, the company could be looking at a possible
four or five-month long strike.

The current walkout is the fifth strike at deHavil-
land in the past 13 years. In 1972 the workers
Stayed out nine months before winning an accept-
able contract. It took four months in 1975, four and
a half months in 1978, and three and a half days in
1981, to get the workers back on the job after
Contract talks broke down. :

Both locals have been bargaining jointly, and

ave waited eight months for the company to come
UP with a contract. Job security, better pensions
and benefifs and wages are the top issues in the
Strike.

On the first item, deHavilland is opposing the
Union’s claim that senior workers whose jobs are
Phased out should have bumping rights on the jobs
of the lowest seniority workers in the plant. What
deHavilland wants is the right to decide who gets

umped regardless of seniority.

Contracting out is another contentious issue.
The 400 office workers represented in Local 673
Say the company is subcontracting jobs to non-
Union workers at lower wages. They're also con-
Cerned that the company has introduced computer-
Ized office equipment, but is only training
Management personnel to operate it, and not the
People in the bargaining unit. The strikers see this
aS a move by deHavilland to slash jobs and under-
Mine the union. :

_The company hasn’t offered the workers in
Cither local a single dime in wage increases since

the old contract expired in June, and the workers
haven’t had a wage increase since June 1983.

DeHavilland workers gave their unions a strike
mandate last June, but they weren’t set into motion
because at the time the company’s financial picture
wasn’t the best. However, the situation has
changed dramatically since then, with the high-
demand Dash-8 commuter aircraft built here. The
company also produces the Buffalo, Dash 7 and
Twin Otter turbo prop short takeoff and landing
craft, (STOL).

From 5,400 workers in 1981, the company
plummeted to 2;800 in 82, and has built the work
force back up to 3,700 today, including about 1,000
non-union, supervisory personnel.

It’s the Dash 8 that has helped deHavilland
bounce back. Since coming off the line last year,
the 36-seat commuter craft has been in great de-
mand, and this year’s production is already sold
out.

The workers had given the company a signal of
their dissatisfaction with the bargaining posture by
a protest walk out prior to the Feb. 22 strike. Nego-
tiations resumed as soon as the unions struck offi-
cially, and there were some signs of possible
movement on the company’s part that drew a bit of
optimism from the workers.

Howe ver, by the end of the week, and as a result
of what Local 112’s Bettes would only describe as
‘*something’’ that happened in the talks Feb. 27,
the general report from the union side was that the
negotiations had gone ‘‘from bad to worse”’, rais-
ing the possibility of a collapse.

The company is making a show of putting the
1,000 non-union staff to work in the production of
the Dash 8, but management concedes they’re only
able to put the final touches on work already
started by union members.

The UAW has only been able to achieve one
contract without a strike in the 22 years it has
represented the deHavilland workers.

Labor Briefs

CLC LAUNCHES
EATON’S STRIKE FUND

OTTAWA — Every union member affiliated to the two-million
Canadian Labor Congress is being called upon by president
Dennis McDermott to kick 55 cents into a special strike fund for
the members of the Retail Wholesale and Department Store
Union fighting for their first contract at Eaton’s. The goal of the
fund is to top one million dollars. The CLC leader said the
credibility of each and every union member and everyone who
fights for social and economic justice is on the line in the Eaton’s
strike. It is a strike Canadian labor can’t afford to lose, he said.

Predicting a long strike, McDermott, in a letter to local unions
said: ‘‘I want these strikers to know and, equally important I
want Eaton’s to know that the women and the men of the Cana-
dian trade union movement will carry this campaign through for
as long as it takes.

‘*The courage of these strikers commands our unswerving
solidarity and support’’, the CLC president said. ‘‘It is our re-
sponsibility to ensure that they and their families are fed, housed
and clothed until such time as they secure an honourable settle-
ment.”

UAW COMMITTEE
DISCUSSES SPLIT

TORONTO — March 11 is the scheduled date for the second
meeting of the international committee drafted by the United
Auto Workers to hammer out the details of the creation of an
independent Canadian auto workers union. The first meeting,
involving committee members Owen Bieber, UAW international
president, Bob White, director for Canada, UAW treasurer Ray
Majerus, and Ohio regional director Joe Tomasi, took place as
the AFL-CIO executive council was meeting in Bal Harbour
Florida, Feb. 20.

White, who was accompanied at the meeting by his executive
assistants Bob Nickerson and Buzz Hargrove, described the
meeting as a good exchange of positions, but “‘very much a
preliminary discussion,’’ where all the issues that have to be dealt
with were laid out.

‘*No conclusions were reached, but a great deal of information
regarding items such as staffing and finances were exchanged,”
he said.

In another development, last week, former UA W international
president Douglas Fraser, speaking to a business luncheon in
Detroit joined the chorus of right wingers attacking the Cana-
dians’ move to independence. Fraser, who as president intro-
duced concessions agreements into the North American auto
industry said Canadian autoworkers would be “‘burning their
bridges’’ by going for independence, and said the move would
hurt Canadians because the industry’s decision-making takes
place in the U.S. headquarters of the auto corporations.

Interestingly, top General Motors officers, and auto analysts
have said that the creation of a Canadian union would have no
significant negative effect on the industry.

Fraser did admit, however, that in his opinion a referrendum
vote by Canadian UAW members would overwhelmingly sup-
port the move for independence.

QUEBEC COMMON FRONT

PLANS DAY OF PROTEST

QUEBEC — March 20 has been set as a day of protest against
proposed Quebec government legislation that will wipe out the
right to negotiate for 360,000 public sector workers. The Com-
mon Front of unions, including all four provincial labor centrals,
met here Feb. 27 and drafted a letter on behalf of the 19 organi-
zations represented, to premier Rene Levesque demanding a
meeting with thim.

The Common Front was formed in December after Treasury
Board president Michel Clair unveiled government plans to draft
laws to completely dismantle the bargaining mechanism created
in the public sector over the past two decades.

The main thrust of the new laws would ban strikes on money
issues, kill the current Common Front set-up by transfering
negotiations on non-monetary issues to local talks, where dis-
putes would be settled through arbitration. The government also
intends to set up a pay research bureau that will compare public
sector wages to pay levels in the largely-unorganized private
sector. The law would also give the government the power to set
wage levels by regulation if talks break down.

The government smashed the last round of public sector con-
tract talks in 1982, when it cut salaries, banned strikes for three
years and imposed agreements on the public sector unions. These
contracts expire in December.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 6, 1985 e 5

stots