By George Hewison fies bepneen aiaore Bost Polce Pocklington and lumbia contractors’ =o Moves are too oo : g cer as the main target out of SS a ee ould have selected the B.C. Government Employees may still do so, if ae don’t pee out in wes debt onstruction unions. : May take on the intentional Woadworkers of Aneicd : Ing on the tale of woe Beane) woven over fee trade, and “ and shingles. be the United Fishermen and Allied workers gion > facing an employer seeking revenge for the contract I from them last time around on tech change. “Lift Over Rockies target may be the Hospital Employees Union, who be bashed around and slandered with charges: of * for the sick and elderly. is sure. The B.C. ‘Employers Co lesson in the 1983 Saidanity eee, when they in Bri oa er temming the neo-consery; hasn’ tbeen: as crass in B. gele is ‘also site a new direction for the trade: acat as aes at the. recent Canadian ee > tide. To be sure, the - ast on workers’ - Q me xa§ = = 2 ze a | OF ‘ Bai ao w z St af rea i Mass rally marches on Gainers Edmonton plant. ‘Our concession days are over’ By VAUGHN BOWLER EDMONTON — The days of granting concessions to Peter Pocklington are over according to Gainers strikers interviewed last week by the Tribune. In 1984, when the union agreed to give up wage demands and benefits such as dental and medi- cal insurance, Pocklington as- sured the workers that their sacri- fices would not be forgotten when his bank account was a little fat- ter. Now, it appears that Pock- lington has other uses for his ex- cess profits: namely the expan- sion of his meat-packing empire in Canada and the United States. From comments gathered on the picket line, it is all too clear that the good faith of the Gainer workers has been trampled underfoot as management seeks to exploit the workers in an ever more blatant fashion. According to Kim, a new Canadian from South East Asia and a ten-year veteran in the plant, the plant used to process 2,500 hogs a day, the workers are now processing more than 4,000 a day due to cajoling, threats and forced overtime. Kim said that he must put in at least 47 hours per week, with Saturday work compulsory, creating a situation where he has not been able to enjoy a long Pocklington empire grows Peter Pocklington is not just out to slash wages and bust the union at Gainers in Edmonton. He has recently acquired East Bay Packing Company in Oak- land California. At East Bay Packers Pocklington is demanding that wages be cut from $10.69 an hour to $5.75. UFCW Local 120in Oakland is determined to resist wage cuts and company plans to break the union. Gainers’ plant president American union buster By P. BECK EDMONTON — While Gain- ers workers are locked into bitter combat just for contract parity with the workers at Canada Pack- ers, company president Leo Bo- lanes is drawing a $310,000 annual salary and is guaranteed 10 per cent of all Gainers pre-tax profits in excess of $45-million. Bolanes’ job agreement from 1984 to 1991 includes medical, dental, optical, and prescription drug expenses which he, or mem- bers of his family might incur. His annual basic salary is hiked another $10,000 each year, and it would take the combined wages of three Gainers workers just to earn the same amount of money the American-born executive re- ceives for his retirement pension plan annually. Some of the other “‘perks’’ Bo- lanes gets, include two free cars, and a “‘generous’’ expense ac- count. At an Alberta Federation of Labor press conference, June 9, federation president Dave Werlin said the public should find an interesting contradiction between Pocklington’s claims that he can’t afford to increase workers’ wages, and Bolanes’ salary. ‘*You’ll see that except for pay- ing workers, Mr. Pocklington is a very generous man’’, Werlin said. “‘Here’s a very rich entrepren- eur who can’t pay parity with the other meat packing plants in his industry, but who can pay hun- dreds of thousands of dollars a year to bring in a strike breaker and then put him on a commission basis.”” Werlin called Bolanes ‘‘the great American union-buster’’. Bolanes was one of the highest paid North American packing house executives last year. When his contract with Gainers was signed on July 16, 1984, a two-tiered wage system was put into effect. Soon after his arrival the $11 an hour starting wage rate was cranked down to $6.99. Bolanes’ track record and his greedy intentions aren’t missed by the Gainers strikers, who stir up the picket line with cries of: ‘*Yankee Go Home!”’ weekend with his family during the past two years. Neédless to say, Kim is disap- pointed to have come to Canada to be confronted by an avaricious employer and a repressive police apparatus, not to mention the American union-buster and Gain- ers President Leo Bolanes. ‘‘Mr. Bolanes is doing the same thing as the Americans did in Vietnam be- fore 1972,’ Kim said. ‘‘ The Viet- namese were slaves and the Americans were bosses.” Pocklington’s ‘‘free market” philosophy (which has a lot in common with feudalism) is ap- plied with equal harshness to the women workers of Gainers Inc. According to Diana, a general laborer at the plant for seven years, the offensive against women workers began four years ago when maternity benefits were cancelled. Because Diana had a mis- carriage in earlier years and is now expecting again, she is nat- urally concerned that the com- pany has reduced paid sick leave and that she must often work a 12-hour day. Furthermore, management has been hassling her to continue with the heaviest work. It seems that the ‘‘free market’’, as envisioned by Pocklington and other social neanderthals, makes no allow- ance for the health of the present and future generations. In spite of the hardships caused by management, the Gainers workers are resolved to fight back with all their strength. They are — mindful too that they need the solidarity of the whole trade union movement to defeat the anti-labor plots of Pocklington and similar - ilk. But the strikers plan on winning this struggle against the greed of the bosses. “‘If we can’t make it, nobody can. Next time it will be © AUPE, the postal workers, nurses, everybody. Someone has to do it,’ Diana said. geo RAI ae CP offers ‘solidarity TORONTO — A weekend Ontario trade union school, spon- sored by the Communist Party, added its voice to the solidarity chorus echoing throughout Canada in support of the Gainers strike. The gathering of Communist and progressive trade unionists unanimously endorsed a message of support to the members of Local 280-P, United Food and Commercial Workers battling Gainers for parity with Canada Packers workers. Representing trade unionists from Ontario, Quebec and Man- itoba, the gathering pledged its ‘‘full support for (the Gainers strikers’) struggle against concessions and police and other state violence. ‘*Be assured that we will do eveny la’ in our power to rally support for your just cause,’’ the message concluded. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 18, 1986 e 7 SEE