More than 150 unemployed Building Trades workers demonstrated outside the
downtown Vancouver offices of Expo 86 July 24 to protest the Expo board's action
in reneging on the agreement negotiated with Building Trades Council president Roy
Gautier. Unionists distributed leaflets outlining the facts of the Expo “‘double-cross”
and demanding that the board resign — the same message that is being carried this
week in ads sponsored by the Building Trades and the B.C. Federation of Labor.

VDTs cited for health problems —

A lengthy study submitted this: week by
Ontario nuclear chemist Dr. Hari Sharma
showing a definite link between emissions
from video display’ terminals (VDTs):and
health problems has given support to claims
by the Hospital Employees Union that
union members working at Surrey Memor-
ial Hospital’s accounting department were
at risk.

The HEU had initiated grievances at Sur-
rey Memorial in 1983 when several of its
members working on computers in the
accounting department experienced abnor-
‘mal pregnancies and others suffered head-
aches, nausea and eye strain. The union
subsequently brought in Dr. Sharma, a
University of Waterloo nuclear chemist

who has pioneered the development of —

equipment to measure very low frequency
(VLF) radiation as well as electromagnetic

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8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 1, 1984

Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5. Phone 251-1 186

READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR

(EM) fields which have increasingly been
implicated in problems related to VDT use.

Dr. Sharma issued a preliminary report
Mar. 11, 1983 but later broadened the study
to include equipment at seven other B.C.
hospitals. That report was submitted to the
union and Surrey Memorial and a summary
issued by the HEU this week.

He found that-the EM readings on the
particular make of equipment used in the
accounting department, Perkins-Elmer Data
Systems (P-E), were much higher than that
on equipment used in the medical records
department, which was supplied by another
manufacturer.

“The adverse health effects reported by
accounting clerks using the P-E terminals
can only be attributed to exposure of
employees to high EM fields from the ter-
minals,” Dr. Sharma concluded.

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Postal Code

Lam enclosing 1 yr. $140) 2 yrs. $25 O 6mo.$80 Foreign 1 yr. $20 O
Bill me later ~DonationS........ :

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TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

Members of the Retail Wholesale
Union locked out by Slade and Stewart
were awaiting the outcome this week of
a crucial appeal of a Labor Relations
Board order barring them from picket-
ing the scab-driven delivery trucks of
the wholesale grocery supplier.

Lawyers for the RWU, the B.C. Fed-

- eration of Labor and Slade and Stewart
wound up arguments Thursday before
a five-member LRB panel headed by
newly-appointed board chairman John
Kinzie who officially replaced resigning
chairman Stephen Kelleher July 31.

- The decision will be of particular sig-
nificance since it will set the pattern for
future board decisions on secondary
picketing under the restrictive new
amendments to the Labor Code.

in an application to vary the order.

Slade and Stewart workers, who
were locked out by the U.S.-owned
company at its four operations in B.C.
May 18, have been picketing delivery
vehicles in an effort to prevent Slade
and Stewart from continuing to service
customers using scab labor.

But in a decision July 6, LRB vice-

_ chair Peter Sheen, acting as a one-man
panel, ordered all picketing halted, rul-
ing that it was in violation of the
amended Labor Code provisions which
stipulate that picketing is legal only at
the site where employees are locked out
or on strike. :

The decision brought protests from
the RWU and the B.C. Federation of
Labor which demanded a. full board
appeal.

Meanwhile, the LRB.has also ruled
against picketing by members of the
Canadian Union of Public Employees
in Sparwood in a second decision
brought down under the Labor Code
amendments.

e Members of CUPE Local 2698 on

, RWU awaits pi

The RWU was unsuccessful earlier -

Other research, including that done, iron-
ically, for the U.S. Navy, has also indicated
adverse health effects from EM fields.

He was not as definitive in attributing the
cause of abnormal pregnancies but did note
that of 14 pregnancies among women using
the P-E terminals at the eight hospitals stu-
died, 11 were abnormal, involving miscar-
riage, premature birth or birth defects.

The “cluster” of abnormal births at Sur-

rey Memorial that had originally prompted

the study, involved seven pregnancies of
which only one resulted in a healthy full
term baby among the women working in
the accounting department.

“From limited information, it can be
surmised that there is a strong possibility
that the occurrence of miscarriages may be
linked to exposure to high-pulsed EM
fields,” Dr. Sharma stated.

‘Surrey Memorial management con-
tinued to discount any links between the
P-E terminals and the health problems but
did agree to remove them. .

Dr. Sharma recommended that any pos-
sible problems as well as concern over
adverse health effects could be alleviated by
using equipment which registers low EM
readings — which includes some 70 per
cent of the VDTs currently in use. He noted
that the current technology: is available to
manufacture VDTs with low EM emissions.

He also called for research which would
lead to more.stringent standards covering
exposure to EM fields in the workplace.

cket appeal

strike against the District of Sparwood
were barred from picketing work sites
of private contractors who had been
hired by the district for road construc
tion work. :

The decisions begin the foundation
for what could, under the new code
provisions, become a wall blocking
unions from effectively carrying out 4
strike.

The Sparwood decision was brought
down July 20 by a panel headed by
LRB vice-chair Shona Moore.

Certification won
at mushroom farm

The Canadian Farmworkers Union

_ finally won a small measure of justice

July 26 as the Labor Relations Board
ordered a Langley mushroom farm,
Hoss Farming Ltd., to reinstate five
workers who had been fired for unio?
activity and granted the CFU an auto-
matic certification at the farm.

CFU president Raj Chouhan hailed
the ruling, adding that the union woul
immediately issue notice to Hoss Farm-
ing owner, Harbhajan Uppal, of the
CFU’s intention to negotiate a first
agreement.

The automatic certification was of
some importance since the procedure
has been all but eliminated under the
Labor Code amendments passed last
month; But the LRB is authorized t©
grant one where there has been af”
unfair labor practice as was the case
when Uppal fired the five workers.

Although the five go back with full
pay, the decision was slow in coming:
The CFU had protested earlier that the
board expedited proceedings when the
Mushroom Growers Co-operative
wanted to halt picketing by the unio?
but made the farmworkers wait ovet a
month for a hearing on the unfair labor

_ practice.

Farmworkers had picketed the La®™
gley processing plant of the Fraser valley
Mushroom Growers’ Co-operative afte?
the co-op’s labor relations office!
appeared on the Hoss Farming picket
line to tell CFU members that they
were acting illegally. But the LR
forced the line down a few days late,
ruling that the co-op was not an ally 0
the employer. é

GLRB rules against
respecting pickets:

Picketing also suffered a blow from
the Canada Labor Relations Boat
July 24 which ordered members
seven unions employed at Canact
National Railways to stop honorin®
picket lines put up by members of the
Canadian Association of Communic#
tions and Allied Workers (CACAW)
on strike at CN-CP Telecommu®
ications. ;

CLRB vice-chair Brian Keller ruled
that by supporting the CACAW
pickets, the railway unions had partic
pated “in unlawful concerted acti
and barred any further honoring of
pickets. None of the rail unions
contract clauses providing mem
with the right to respect picket lines:

CACAW, which is in a legal strike
position at CN-CP, put up picket ines
around the CN yards at Port Mann and

rene: July 16 and 17.
Be