ppm EE A RN CRANE AE NR SEAT SN SA RRS I SRST AC TI Tat

| NABET strike is
| for union rights

By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORON TO — The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation isn’t §
oping well with the country-wide strike by 2,100 members of the §
National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians |
(NABET) which began almost one month ago.

At NABET’s request, June 15, talks were adjourned until June é
23. The central issue in the strike is the CBC’s anti-union demand §
for a rollback in the collective agreement with NABET that ie
would permit the corporation to contract more programming out §
to freelance production crews. z

NABET refuses to accept this proposal. The old agreement §
stipulated that the CBC must ensure all NABET members are §
working on productions before outside contractors can be-hired. ey

The CBC has said there will be no reduction in NABET @
members due to the proposal but the union pdints out there will §
be fewer job opportunities for its members and that the narrower §
scope of work the CBC wants to allocate to NABET members, §
will destroy morale and encourage the workers to seek more &
creative and professionally stimulating work elsewhere, to es- §
cape the boredom. ff

The net effect, NABET says will be a weakening of the union,
and gradually lower wages and working conditions for all. From ;
the CBC’s perspective, it means they can contract productions to
independent producers and avoid having to pay the same benefits
or provide the same level of working conditions won by 4
unionized workers. -
! The corporation’s distaste for unions was glaringly displayed |
| again last week when the CBC sought and won an order from the ig
| Canada Labor Relations Board forcing 21 reporters, members 0
} the Canadian Wire Service Guild, an affiliate of the Newspape
| Guild to cross the NABET picket line. is
; Twenty of the Guild members in British Columbia refused to §
cross NABET picket lines from the strike’s outset on the grounds a
that crossing a picket line would damage their professional credi- §
bility with the trade union community, and out of respect for a §
legal strike. :

Dave Getz, CBC radio’s business and labor reporter was the |
21st Wire Service Guild member ordered to cross the NABET @
line. Getz, who in the 1971 NABET strike in Ottawa refused to
cross that picket, told the Tribune it- was personally “extremely §
difficult to cross a legal picket line at your own place of work’’. §

While refusing to cross the NABET picket line, Getz, after §
consulting with his union, tried to continue working by tele- &
phoning his stories to the CBC from the outside. Most of his §
reporting is done by phone anyway, he pointed out. The cor-
poration took the position that no form of support for the striking §
technicians was acceptable and ordered CBC radio news editors
not to broadcast a single word of Getz’s material unless he §
walked across the NABET picket line.

Getz stayed home. On June 8, the last ina series of letters from
the CBC management warning of various dire consequences, |
including unspecified legal action arrived, advising Getz he was
to be brought before the CLRB along with the 20 B.C. wire §
service guild members. ;

The board established the solidarity actions of Getz and his J
fellow Guild members as an illegal strike and they were ordered §
to cross the NABET picket. - - &

June 12 Getz showed up on the CBC picket line in Toronto. §
‘‘Everyone in the newsroom, including some who weren't even §
on duty came out to meet me at 10(a.m.)’’, he said. The strikers, §
proud of-his stand presented him with a NABET T-shirt and
waited for management and security personnel to ‘‘escort’’ him §
through the line and back into the newsroom.

‘* The guys really appreciated it (the position taken by Getz and §
the 20 Vancouver -guild members); you couldn’t move without J
someone from the picket line shaking your hand,”’ he said.

Getz faces a 20-day suspension for his solidarity actions. The
CBC has indicated it will punish workers supporting the NABET |
picket line by suspending them one day for every day they refuse
to cross the line and come in to work.

PHOTO — TOM SHIPTON

ABET LOCAL 'F
e ft

a” Ss
NABET striker Tom Shipton grabbed this shot of Getz and the :

:

striking technicians heading for the industrial reporter's office in &
the radio section of the CBC building. :

CIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 26, 1981—Page 6

é :

‘ne

CPEPTEL
rire Dos

My 6564
MEE: Oa

UE representative Pete How, right, and national vice-president Bill Woodbeck carrying sign “1,000 homes.. =
along with members of UE Local 524 on their way to another bank with their quickly diminishing stock of

anti-inflation leaflets. ’

A ki

PETERBOROUGH — It took members of
Local 524, United Electrical workers, (UE) only
half an hour to distribute more than 500 anti-in-
fiation leafiets, June 12, outside three local banks.

Part of the UE’s fightback campaign, Local 524,
reported an enthusiastic response to their leafleting
particularly by small business people feeling the
interest rates squeeze, young homeowners
threatened with losing their homes and the elderly
and others on fixed incomes.

On June 8, the 20,000-member UE launched its
campaign, anchored around a five-point program
to tackle soaring prices, interest rates and bloated
corporate profits.

The program demands of the federal govern-
ment: a 50% cut in interest rates with a moratorium
on mortgage foreclosures; a rollback of unjustified
price increases; the imposition of an excess profits
tax on corporations and financial institutions goug-
ing the public; a rollback on energy prices and the
tying of future price increases to the domestic costs
of production; the cutting back of taxes on low and
medium incomes to spur consumer purchasing
power, as well as the launching of a massive public
works, and crash housing program to create jobs
and end the housing shortage; and the dropping at
all government levels of the rumor and whisper
campaign for bringing back wage controls. :

The Local 524 leaflet took its aim on interest
rates and huge bank profits. Contrasting a 25-year
mortgage at 10-and-a-quarter per cent with the
same mortgage at an 18% renewal rate, the UE
showed how monthly payments jump from $455.69
to $733.19.

Adding the ridiculous interest rates attached to
credit buying — rates of 20-20% — the financial
load being forced on the average worker is im-
possible to carry. The union linked layoffs due to
reduced purchasing power, and the consequent
impact it has on lower production, as the direct
result of exorbitant interest rates and price goug-
ing.
The leaflet focussed on bank profits, reporting
that seven of Canada’s chartered banks reported a
58.3% boost in profits in the first three months of
1981. ‘‘ The Royal Trust’, the UE leaflet said, ‘‘in
the first three months of this year increased its
profit by 171.6% compared with year-earlier
figures.”’

’ The UE charged that ‘‘thousands of Canadians
are being massacred by high interest rates and the
government’s so-called battle to curb inflation, and
the banks are the main beneficiaries of such"
government policies, — not the people of Canada.

The point was dirven home to the people of
Peterborough when a CGE worker’s case was out-
lined in the Local 524 leaflet. In June 1977 he had a

i. = 2 i

centres in Peterborough.

__next council meeting for endorsation.

SANA

mortgage for $16,400. On June 23, 1982 after five”
years of payments to the Royal Bank in Peter
borough and 60 monthly payments later he still:
owes $17,208.50 or $808 more than he originally”
borrowed. ee

‘Did the Al Capone syndicate have it this”
good’’, the UE asked? ‘‘Are bank robbers all bad
or are robbers owning the banks?”’ 4

Workers, farmers, people on fixed incomes, re
tirees, small business people, housewives an@
single parents are all being driven to the wall by the
interest rate, prices and profits rip-off, the unio?
demonstrated. -

Local 524 will also be circulating an anti-inflation
petition in the UE plants and local shopping-

When they took their brief to the municipal
council June 15, backed by 20 Local 524 members:
the majority of the elected councillors voted 0
place the UE’s program of demands before the

Plans for developing the campaign are being |
undertaken throughout the union. UE Locals 523
and 517 in Welland have sent delegations to the city”
council seeking support for the five-point prograf
and have arranged to meet nose-to-nose with thet!
federal MP.

UE national president Dick Barry helped launch
the campaign in Metro Toronto at a meeting of
more than 60 members of UE-CGE locals. AP
pointments are being arranged with the city coun¢
to present a brief, and a protest wire has been sent
to Prime Minister Trudeau on the prices-profil®
squuze.

Hamilton UE locals will be going to their MPS
and MPPs, are planning a large ad in the local daily
newspaper urging public support for the campaig®
and are arranging a meeting with city council ©
present a brief. Bae :

The anti-inflation offensive by the UE strikes #
a sensitive issue to workers, as the enthusiast¢
response in Peterborough showed. UE estimates
that since 1977 workers’ wages have declin'
every year. E|

The impact of inflation, energy prices and the
soaring cost of living in general was also reflect®
in the decision, June 13-14, by the Canadian Dis”
trict Council of the United Auto Workers, which |
called on. the Canadian Labor Congress to set up?
coalition to oppose “‘insane interest rates.”” |
UAW pointed out how corporations try to impose
concessions on the workers to make up for the hig"
interest rates on the capital they have to borrow: ~

Effective tax rates on banks average only 14% j
the UAW noted, a rate that is much less than Wi)" |
working-class families have to pay. |