Unity needed against CLRA stand |

The Construction Labor Rela-
tions Association, representing the
employers in the construction
industry, is demanding 16 cuts in
the existing collective agreements
with the construction unions. That
is in line with the general offensive
by big business which is shaping up
as wage controls are being phased
out.

According to a bulletin issued by
the B.C. Provincial Council of Car-
penters dated May 1, the main cuts
demanded by the CLRA are as
follows:

eA _ three-year agreement —
with no retroactive pay. (This
means that when a wage increase
is agreed to, it is to become effect-
ive from the date of acceptance by
the two parties, or from the date of

e Standardization of union
security provisions;

e Payment of downtown parking
fees by the employer;

e A “dummy company” clause
to prevent union firms from estab-
lishing non-union companies;

e Improvement in allowance for
transportation to and from out-of-
town jobs.

The 1978 negotiations will be a
test for the new Building Trades
Bargaining Council. The best we
can say about the council is that it
represents a compromise betweén
two groupings in the leadership of
the 17 unions, between those who
favor centralized joint bargaining
and those who favor a = Gees of
loose co-ordination.

signing the agreement — and not =—™

from the day after the old agree-
ment expired.) ;

e An increase in the regular
hours of work from the seven-and-
one-half to the eight-hour day and
the 40-hour week;

e A substantial weakening of the
job steward system;

e Extension of the right of the
contractors to select workers by
name, in order to bypass the hiring
list where a union handles its own
dispatching to the jobs.

The same bulletin lists the main
contract demands of the Car-
penters, a list that tallies with
published reports of what the key
demands will be for the newly es:
tablished Building Trades
Bargaining Council:

e A one-year agreement;

e An across-the-board wage in-
crease of $1.70 an hour, to include
wages, health and welfare con-
tributions, effective May 1, 1978;

eA guaranteed 32-hour work
week with no loss in take-home
pay;

e A two per cent increase in
Statutory holiday pay for some
unions who suffered a rollback by
the Anti-Inflation Board;

LABOR.

COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

If any one man fathered the com-
promise, it is Paul Weiler,
chairman of the Labor Relations
Board. Under the new system for
bargaining, ratification of a pro-
posed settlement will require
majorities in two-thirds of the
unions, plus an over-all majority in
the industry on the basis: of one
worker one vote. Presumably,
there will be similar provisions for
strike votes. In the -judgment
handed down by the Labor Re-
lations Board on February 15,
there was the following:

“The basic principle of multi-
trade bargaining is that before any
such action is taken in respect of
negotiations for one trade, the
other trades must have a voice in
the matter, since unilateral action
in any one trade inevitably spills
over to everyone else. Thus, in
bate strike votes and/or

ratification votes in this industry
must be based on majority verdict
of all tradesmen working for CLRA
contractors.”

So the employers and the pro-._ :

vincial government got what they
wanted: a set of rules to prevent
one union, or a minority group of
unions, from legally declaring a
strike and closing down all con-
struction sites under the jurisdic-
tion of the CLRA.

Those in the construction in-
dustry who favor joint bargaining
also made an advance even though
they still have a long way to go.

For example there will be key
demands (issues affecting all
unions) and trade demands
(peculiar to individual unions).
The policy committee representing
all the unions will decide when to
hold joint negotiations on key
demands.

However, the rules are such that"
individual unions will be able
simultaneously to carry on

' separate negotiations on the same

demands, provided they are bound
by the decisions of the Bargaining
Council in respect to ratification
votes.

Some union leaders regard the
key demands (like wages) not as
common demands, but as the
minimum for each union to ad-
vance in its separate negotiations.
That explains why in some cases
the membership have not been
informed of the key demands
agreed to at a wage and policy
conference of the building trades.
These demands are supposed to be
kept a “‘secret’’, I am told, with the
stupid idea that if the employers
are kept in the dark, it will be
easier for some unions to make a
better deal than other unions. The
result is that. the employers have
learned all the details through
their sources of information, but
the membership of most unions
have been given ‘very little in-
formation. aS daily press, of

CONSTRUCTION LOCKOUT, 1972.

looking to reduce gains made in past

course, got the essential facts from.
its sources and wrote them up. In
the meantime, the rank and file are
not being mobilized for the tough
fight that lies ahead if the demand
for the 32-hour week is to be taken
seriously by the employers.

It is reliably reported that the
leadership of Plumbers Local 170,
who have been opposed to joint
bargaining, ‘have sent a letter to
the CLRA stating they would not
participate in any joint bargaining.

It is also reported that when a
delegation from the Building
Trades later met with the chair-
man of the Labor’ Relations Board
on this matter, the chairman gave
the opinion that it would not be
“technically possible’ for one or
all of the unions not to participate
at the big table (joint)
negotiations.

In short, the name of the game,
as far as some leaders are con-
cerned, is to sabotage the joint
negotiations and get a few extra
crumbs for their members.

Those leaders in the plein

. this year, the employers are
negotiations.

trades who have a_ responsible
attitude to joint bargaining seem
be playing it-cool, with the ide?
that time and the experience of thé
membership will lay the basis fot
the kind of unity that will best
serve the interests of all con:
struction workers.

There is no easy solution to such
difficult problems. Every advance
has to be made the hard way. What
should be borne in mind is that big
business is on the offensive against
the trade union movement, with”
the building trades as a prime
target.

It appears that. the strategy of :
the CLRA is to press hard for all of
their counter-demands, to play one
group of unions against the othef
and to get a cheap settlement. 1
they have to give one or two unions”
a few minor concessions to achieve
that goal, it will still be a good deal,

from their point of view. In the last
analysis, this only proves the
correctness of the unity policy
advanced by the responsible union
leaders.

UFAWU Seven ta

Continued from pg. 1

of an organization representing an
important segment of the fishing
industry in British Columbia.”

' The’ six, however, had
“requested that their action be
kept confidential.”’

Also in the introduction. ‘to the
document was the conclusion of a
legal study of the investigation by
the federal Department of Justice
which stated that ‘“‘the alleged
activities of the United Fishermen
and Allied Workers’ Union were
not exempted by Section 4 of the
Act.”

Section 4 of the Combines In-
vestigation Act purports to exempt
“combinations of workmen or
employees” as well as fishermen
bargaining for conditions or
minimum fish prices, from the
provisions of the Act.

Accompanying the introduction
which also outlined the events
surrounding the December, 1976
hearings, was a detailed list of

evidence which Wapniarski ad--

mitted under cross-examination he
had given to two other witnesses,
Frank Roseman and Hugues
LeDue, prior to the trial.

The Combines officer also ad-
mitted that he had made seized
Vancouver Sun_ photographs,
specially marked so as to facilitate
identification of the UFAWU
defendants, available to other
Crown witnesses, and had shown
witnesses the news film of the
hearings seized from BCTV.

Earlier in the trial, another
Combines investigator, Hugues
LeDuc, admitted under cross-
examination that, in February or

March of 1977, he had received a
copy of the detailed document
prepared by Wapniarski, and that
he had looked it over several times
since then.

Restrictive Trade Practices
Commissioner Frank Roseman
was not questioned about his use of
the document since he was stood
down as a witness before the
existence of the document became
known to the defence. Wapniarski
said, however, that a copy had
been sent to him.

Other Crown witnesses, in-

cluding Clare Savage and Robert
Steeves, both executives with the
Department of Consumer and
Coroporate Affairs under which
the Combines branch operates,
admitted to having received half-
tone photocopies of the Sun pic-
tures and told the court that they
had been present.on April 27 when

. Wapniarski showed the news film

in his hotel room. They said that
others had also been there in-
cluding LeDuc and security guard,
and earlier Crown witness, George
Webster.

Questioned by Rankin, Savage
acknowledged that he would not
have been able to identify the
UFAWU members if he had not
had access to the photographs
seized from the Sun files and
subsequently given to him by
Wapniarski.

Both Savage and Steeves said
that they had also seen the BCTV
news film onan earlier occasion
shortly after its seizure. Steeves
added that ‘‘names had been put to
faces” during the screening of the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—May 12, 1978—Page 12

film in Wapniarski’s hotel room.

A contentious piece of evidence
from its first introduction, the
BCTV news film was finally
allowed as evidence by Judge
Hume Monday, although a few
segments were deleted which the
Crown had suggested were not
relevant to its case.

In the case for the seven
unionists all took the stand and
outlined their version of the events
of December 6, 7, and 8 of 1976, an
account which differed markedly
from that presented in the
document prepared by Combines
officer Wapniarski.

All seven told the court that they
had appeared at the hearings
called by the Restrictive Trade
Practices Commission to voice the
demand that any hearings be held
in public...

UFAWU secretary and then
business agent George Hewison
said, ‘‘All of us were very con-
cerned that our union would be
dismembered in private.”

Challenged under  cross-
examination by Crown prosecutor
Arthur MacLennan who asked if
the UFAWU lawyer had told him-
that the union ‘‘would have an
opportunity to answer any
charges,’”’ Hewison replied:

“He may or he may not have told
us that. But we certainly had a lot
of discussion about what others
here have called a ‘star chamber
inquiry’ — in which you get nothing
else but the verdict.’”

Several of the defendants also
testified that, during the second
day of scheduled hearing on

ce stand in Combines trial.

December 7, most of the ‘‘pushing
and shoving’”’ alleged by the
prosecution was prompted by the
actions of the staff at the Pacific

' Centre, notably security guard

George Webster.

The Crown has. contended that
the “pushing and shoving” and
“abusive language’ compounded
the impediment to the hearing but
has argued that ‘‘anything which
stopped the hearing from being
held in private’ and ‘anything
which showed a ‘common design’
to stop the hearing from being held
in private,” constituted ‘‘impeding
the inquiry.”

In summing up _ defence
arguments, although lack of time
prevented him from analyzing the
evidence in the case, Rankin did
advance the legal and technical
grounds for his case.

He contended that an in-
vestigation under. the Combines

and suggested that Wapniarski and
Roseman had ‘‘intermingled those
steps in a totally illogical way,”’ by
stating that the December
hearings were ‘‘an examination
leading to an inquiry.’

Because the steps are distinct, he
said, what was in process if
December, 1976 was an
“examination’’. “If the seven are
guilty of anything they are guilty of
impeding an examination, not of
impeding. an inquiry,’ Rankin
declared.

Rankin also argued that the

Restrictive Trade Practices
Commission should have gone to a
court and obtained a ruling as to

whether the hearings should be

public: or private, when the
UFAWU made representation for
public hearings.

action, Rankin said, citing an

analogous Supreme Court case aS —

precedent.

Act consisted of five distinct stages

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