THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER:

IN SASKATCHEWAN:

CREDIT UNION DOCUMENT
SHOWS HOW TO SCAB STRIKES

Nadine Hunt, Saskatchewan
Federation of Labour presi-
dent, said that the document
recently circulated to Saskat-
chewan Credit Unions regard-
ing actions to be taken in the
event of work stoppages are
‘shocking.’

The 10-page document in-
ternally circulated to credit
unions in Saskatchewan was
developed at a June meeting of
directors from some of the
larger credit unions in the
province. The document not
only outlines contingency plans
in the event of a work stoppage
at either of the two unionized
credit unions in the province,
but it also lists the risks from
withdrawal of accounts to
name calling involved in
providing scabs. On top of it
the paper compares wages
between the various credit
unions and the banks in
Saskatchewan with a notation

of which branches
organized.

“It's hard to believe that
credit unions who have always
prided themselves as being the
people’s organizations could
come up with proposals that
basically amount to union
busting,”’ Hunt charged. ‘All
the fancy rhetoric about
‘human resources’ is nothing
more than a polite word for
scabbing.”’

The document discusses the
movement of employees from
one branch to another in the
event of a work stoppage as
‘supplying human resources.’
During a work stoppage,
whether a strike, a study
session or a lockout, employees
would be offered a $1,000 per
month, $16 per day for hotel
costs and meals and—or .20
cents a mile for travel if they
were willing to strikebreak.
Currently, normal salaries

are

The Candian Labour Con-
gress says itis up to.the federal
government to ensure that the
provinces are adhering to the
four principles they accepted
when they opted into medicare
— especially the principle of
universal accessibility.

A delegation comprising
CLC president Dennis McDer-
mott, UAW Canadian director
Bob White, BRAC president
Bill MacGregor and the CLC’s
Community and _ Social
Development director recently
met with David Crombie,
minister of health and welfare
to outline the labour move-
ment’s concerns with
medicare.

In a 17-page brief presented
to Crombie the delegation said
that the government ‘has both
an obligation and the leverage
to stop the erosion of medicare.

“Tt only requires that you
have the will to act, by, if
necessary, suspending federal
medicare payments to the
offending provinces’ until they
_ stop extra billing, deny
payments to those who opt out
of medicare, and eliminate
user fees.

Stating that the Canadian
medicare system is basically
sound and its costs reasonable,
the brief said that this was
despite the misallocation of
resources to costly forms of

medical treatment and the ©

reluctance to develop a

preventive and community-
oritented health care delivery
system. ‘

The brief charged that ‘‘both
misguided and ham-handed

efforts to control costs through
budgetary cutbacks has only
served to place the burden on
health care workers and
consumers.”

The CLC said that ‘‘health
care workers have _ experi-
enced increased workloads to
their detriment and to that of
the quality and availability of
service while at the same time
doctors, resentful of their
relative decline in income
compared to others, were
encouraged to challenge the
system and to undermine it by
extra billing and by opting
out.”

Consumers are not only
faced with closed hospitals or
reduced availability of beds,
but to ‘‘add insult to injufy
many consumers are having to
pay extra to doctors as well as
deterrent fees for using their
medicare plan,” the brief says.

The CLC reaffirmed its
belief that doctors like other
health care workers are en-
titled to a decent standard of
living and that all health care
workers should be bound by an
agreement achieved through
the collective bargaining
process. arose

The CLC warned _ the
minister that the affiliated
unions along with the
provincial federations of
labour have urged the Con-
gress to take all measures to
save medicare.

Consequently, the CLC has
organized a national confer-
ence in Ottawa to determine
what actions are necessary to
save medicare.

The earliest horse type was about the size of a fox terrier

and had four toes on its front feet but only three on its

back feet.

range from $748 per month to
$1500 per month.

A form attached to the docu-
ment and to be returned, asks
credit union managers to
outline their labour force and
to ask for a commitment of
‘human resources supplies’ in
the event of a work stoppage
somewhere else. }

Hunt said that Cliff Karst,
director of human resources
for the Credit Union Central
and author of the document,
would be well advised to spend
his time more profitably
determining how to prevent the
conditions which create work
stoppages, rather than writing
lengthy documents detailing
how to keep wages down and
undermine workers who are
forced to take strike action as a
last recourse.

“The mentality displayed
throughout Mr. Karst’s docu-
ment is, unfortunately, the
same type of mentality that too
often characterizes manage-
ment’s attitude throughout the
country. In a nutshell, they
seem to think that any pro-
posals put forward by a union
will be irresponsible. Going
into collective bargaining with
that kind of an attitude is what
creates the very work stop-
pages they fear,’’ Hunt stated.

“Unions are organizations of
working people, who, for pur-
poses of obtaining better wages
and working conditions, have
come together to approach
employers in an impartial and
democratic way,’ she said.
Hunt said that the SFL must
respond in favour  of-
the employees at credit unions
and she demanded an im-
mediate retraction from Mr.
Karst and the Credit Union
Central. In the absence of a
retraction the trade union
movement will have to re-
consider its present support
and use of credit unions she
said.

“ADOPT
A FAMILY”

The Ontario Federation of
Labour has come up with a
novel way to help the members
of the Lumber and Sawmill
Union Local 2693 weather the
second winter of their strike
against the Kenora and Fort
Frances operations of Boise
Cascade Canada Ltd.

The Federation is asking its
larger affiliated local unions to
“adopt” a striking family at a
cost of $70 per week. The
money, dispersed by the local
on the basis of need, will sup-
plement strike pay to allow the
workers to continue their
battle.

“We cannot allow the com-
pany to starve these men and
women into defeat,’’ said
Federation secretary-
treasurer Terry Meagher.
“The issues underlying this
strike are understandable to
any trade unionist: foreign
control of our economy, anti-
union management tactics and
inadequate protection under
our labour laws.”

Raise?? You need a raise 7

. . is that all you people

think of is money?

Saying that it is “time to get
tough with the foreign giants
who control our energy indus-
try,’’ Ed Broadbent called for
the establishment of a per-
manent commission to control

prices and profits (COPP) of

the multinational oil com-
panies.

“The exorbitant third quar-
ter profit increases reported
recently are simply additional
and irrefutable evidence of the
need for price and profit con-
trols on the major companies
operating in the Canadian oil
industry,” he said.

He stated that the four
largest subsidiaries operating
in this country — Imperial,
Gulf, Texaco and Shell — had
an average increase in profits
of 55 per cent on their Canadian
operations in the first nine
months of this year.

Speaking to an Ottawa press
conference, the NDP leader
said that ‘instead of trembling
before the demands of the oil
giants and promising them
even more handouts and con-
cessions if they will agree to
develop and sell us our own
energy resources, the Prime
Minister should make it clear
to them that the rules of the

’ game are changing in Canada,

just as in the U.S.”

In the U.S., he noted, Presi-
dent Carter and Congress have
agreed on the need for an ex-
cess profits tax to protect their
future interests, and the
American Council on Wage and
Price Stability is now in-
vestigating the profit situation
of the multinationals.

“Meanwhile, the Canadian
government has done nothing

multinationals

to impress upon these firms

that their behavior is un-
acceptable and will no longer
be tolerated. Instead, while
preaching a tough message to
consumers, the Prime Minister
has indicated on several recent
occasions the need for even
further tax concessions, des-
pite the fact that no other in-
dustry enjoys the preferential
treatment given the foreign oil
companies.

“Tt is time to get tough, and
the best way to protect Cana-
dians is to monitor closely and
control strictly the prices the
multinationals charge, and the
profits they make in Canada.”

Mr. Broadbent said the
Commission on Oil Prices and
Profits, reporting to the Minis-
ter of Corporate and Consumer
Affairs, should be empowered
to investigate prices and pro-
fits of the oil industry from the
wellhead to the retail level, to
obtain financial information
from the oil firms, and fo roll
back unjustified prices and re-
cover excess profits.

He said COPP’s mandate
would be effective starting
Jan: 1, 1979, but when the Com-
bines Investigation Branch re-
ports on its six-year study into
price collusion and other unfair
marketing practises by the oil
in Canada,
COPP should also be em-
powered to take any action that
might be needed as a result of
the findings of that study.

Mr. Broadbent said COPP
should be established immedi-
ately and issue a preliminary
public report by Christmas on
nie ae criteria to be
used.

BOYCOTT ADAMS
LABORATORIES—B.C. FED.

The British Columbia Feder-
ation of Labour urged its
260,000 members of affiliated
unions to intensify a boycott
against Adams Laboratories in
the Surrey suburb east of Van-
couver where a bitter strike
has been dragging on since
Feb. 21.

Secretary-treasurer Dave
MacIntyre called on trade
unionists to stop buying
Adams’ health foods, vitamins
and other products, most of

which are sold under the Lon-
don Drug label.

The federation’s call follow-
ed a charge by Al Peterson of
the striking Retail, Wholesale
and Department Store Union,
Local 580, that
fired six of the strikers

registered mail, sa’

= guilty of Fon acts.
e were bargaining with

them when the letters were de-

livered,” Peterson said.

habe

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