LABOR

_ NAPE-keeping the line despite arrests

ST. JOHN’S — Neither the
threat of jail nor the Peckford
government’s repressive union
laws are likely to thwart the New-
$ foundland Association of Pro-
-vincial Employees from winning
the contract they want for their
members.

That determination was evi-
dent March 12, when NAPE lead-
ers pledged to keep the picket line
going outside the Higgins Line en-
trance to the Confederation Build-
ing where earlier in the day presi-
dent Fraser March and 25 other

inion members were arrested for
icketing the government build-

ing. :
— **Our picket line is still being
_ maintained, and it will continue to
maintained until we’ve achieved a
settlement as free workers in a
free country’’, March said last
week.
_ The NAPE members, including
two provincial executive mem-
bers, two members, of the union’s
negotiating committee, three staff
teps and 19 strikers were arrested
as they picketed peacefully out-
side the building which houses

Premier Brian Peckford’s offices.

Police had given them 15 minutes
vacate the premises.

When the strikers held their

ound, they were arrested and

taken to police headquarters

where they were fingerprinted,

hotographed and charged for de-

ing a provincial court order

ing pickets at the Confedera-

building.

| March vowed the union and its

idership would keep returning

10 the confederation building to
eep the picket open.

At issue in the strike is the
ion’s demand for wage parity
behalf of about 1,700 striking
shway and transport workers,
o earn $2.06 an hour less than
er Newfoundland government

workers doing comparable jobs.
“These workers were put under
ernment guidelines in 1979
since then have been lagging
id other groups in the public
tor, its time to close the gap,”

ch said.

‘The strikers are also battling

Bill 59, provincial legislation
brought in by the Tory govern-
ment three years ago which strips
some NAPE members of the right
to strike by designating them as
‘essential’ workers.

The union has refused to co-
operate in the reactionary de-
signating process which was con-
demned last fall by the Inter-
national Labor Organization for
violating an international labor
convention guaranteeing that
right, which the federal govern-
ment and all ten provinces have
unanimously ratified.

In defiance of Bill 59, NAPE
conducted a strike vote of its
members in January and acted
on that mandate March 3.

With radio and newspaper
advertisements, NAPE has of-
fered to provide emergency ser-
vices directly to the public while it
conducts its strike against the
Newfoundland government.

On March 7, the employer ban-
ned the strikers from all govern-
ment premises and from operat-
ing government equipment.

A court injunction ordering the
strikers back to work, issued two
weeks ago was extended to
March 25, last week by the prov-
ince’s chief justice, T.A. Hick-
man.

Flowing from this, Newfound-
land Attorney General Lynn
Verge ordered the Royal
Newfoundland Constabulary to
raid NAPE headquarters in a
search for evidence with which to
prosecute the militant union
under the Criminal Code or pro-
vincial law. Search warrants were
also issued so the cops could
Snoop around the local news-
paper and electronic media.

March testified before the Sup-
reme Court that as a NAPE
officer he was encouraging his
members to defy the unjust law.

Derek Fudge, a researcher for
the National Union of Provincial
Government Employees, NAPE’s
parent body, pointed out that
even assuming the government
and the union have agreed, prior
to a strike vote on which workers
to designate, the government still

shoking apartheid

R ONTO — As the Tribune went to press, four major Cana-
inions were showing their solidarity for the freedom fight in

Africa by choking

links with South Africa. 8 Ce
tions were co-ordinated with the recent appeal by
J, the newly formed 500,000 member trade union central
outh Africa, jointly with the African National Congress
uth African Congress of Trade Unions, (SACTU), for —
€ economic sanctions against the racist Botha govern-

@ press conference March 10, launching the trade union
of action Ontario Public Service Employees Union presi-
im Clancy called on the federal government to launch
-diate, comprehensive and mandatory economic sanctions
South Africa.’’ Under pressure from OPSEU the Ontario
ment has stopped buying apartheid goods for its penal

atric institutions.

Separate development, Ontario’s English-speaking -
lic teachers union, at its recent convention, voted to join
cott against South Africa and vowed to only bank with.
ions refusing to make loans to the apartheid regime.

off air line, telephone, telecom-
ation and postal links with the citadel of apartheid. =

tions by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the
nications Workers of Canada, the United Auto Workers —
Brotherhood of Airline, Railway and Steamship Clerks _
d a week of South Africa solidarity activities to protest

reserves the unilateral right to in-
crease the numbers of designated
workers.

“They can not only move the
goal posts wherever they want,
but they can change whoever they
want as goal tenders’, Fudge
said. *‘They could even decide to
designate the union executive of
the groups that’s on strike,’ he
added.

quest for financial or moaral sup-
port from the parent body.

Back in St. John’s the union
reports ‘‘fantastic’’ support from
the trade union movement
throughout the province.

March said that the immediate
reaction by NAPE members to
the recent arrests was to bring the
entire union out on to the streets.
NAPE’s 14,000 members have

endorsed the strike, and the
leadership aren’t ruling out a gen-
eral walk out, by the whole union,
if necessary.

“If anything, we're having a
tough time keeping them from
coming out’’, March said, noting
that the union has developed con-
tingency plans to meet an escala-
tion of the showdown with the
government.

The situation being created by

the Peckford government, the
NUPGE official said, could be
volatile. ‘‘This government is
known to be one of the most right
wing, reactionary governments in
Canada. Any Draconian action
would undoubtedly be inter-
preted by the public as a denial of
basic human rights and freedoms
to its own employees. I could see
a backlash to that,’’ he said.

As a Newfoundlander, himself,
Fudge added: ‘“‘You can’t kick
around the workers too much.
When you go on strike in New:
foundland you're out to win, not
to cave in.”

NUPGE, he added has been
kept fully informed of events by
the NAPE and is awaiting any re-

ployees.””

CPC urges Peckford | >
to settle with workers _

TORONTO — In a telegram to Premier Peckford, March 13,
_ the Central Executive committee of the Communist Party of
Canada demanded the dropping of all charges against the NAPE
leadership. and called on the government to negotiate a contract _
with the union. oe :

_ “The Communist Party wishes to express its outrage at the
arrest of the president and other leaders of the NAPE in a strike >
brought about by the refusal of your government to negotiate a
contract for the last two years, and the union-busting provisions
of Bill 59 which deny NAPE members the right to strike. _

‘‘We demand you drop all charges against Fraser March and
his colleagues and settle the contract with your striking em- —

‘No’ vote momentum builds
fo reject tentative offer

TORONTO — The revolt in the ranks of the
Public Service Alliance of Canada is spreading as
the momentum builds for a rejection of a tentative
pact signed last month on behalf of about 90,000
workers in three separate groups.

Cres Pascucci, Ontario national vice-president
for the Alliance’s Canada Employment and Immi-
gration Union component said last week organ-
izers of the *‘No’’ vote on the proposal are encour-
aged by the eager reception they’ ve received trav-
elling throughout Ontario by local unions. The
“No” advocates have read the deep frustration in
the membership over the inadequate contract of-
fer, as they conduct a local-by-local canvas: of
PSAC membership.

Pascucci also cited the opposition that is crys-
talizing in BC and in the Atlantic provinces over
the contract that was tentatively approved on be-
half of clerks, program administrators, and the
general labor and trades group Feb. 23.

So far, committees have sprung up in London,
Toronto, North Eastern Ontario and Ottawa in
addition to Montreal and Quebec.

Job security, protection against the adverse im-
pact of tech changes and a poor wage proposal are
the issues which have sparked the membership
revolt that has found allies in the PSAC’s top
leadership.

National PSAC vice-presidents Susan Giam-
pietri and Jean Bergeron have declared their op-
position to the pact and are expected to issue
statements soon calling on PSAC members to vote
the proposal down.

Rejection of the proposal by the membership

would either clear the way for a return to talks with

the federal Treasury Board, or lead to conciliation.

-The workers would be in a strike position on seven

days following the release of the conciliation re-
port. :

Four other groups, about 500 library services
workers, 7,000 in engineering, 2,700 primary in-

spectors, and 11,000 stenographers have already
rejected a similar offer.

Unless the government shifts from its inade-
quate contract offer the potential exists for a mas-
sive strike by the bulk of the Alliance’s 180,000
members currently negotiating in 35 sets of talks.

Initial claims that the Feb. 23 tentative settle-
ment was unanimously endorsed by the bargaining
teams were refuted March 7 when Marie Brown,
the CEIU rep on the program administrators bar-
gaining team issued a statement recommending re-

jection because the job security language wasn’t
good enough.

Ina letter to PSAC vice president Albert Burke,
Brown takes him to task on the claim of unanimity,
noting that the majorities on the different bargain-
ing teams signed the memorandum of agreement
because he and PSAC president Daryl Bean were
suggesting the offer was the best they could get at
this time. :

Essentially, she charged the top leadership of the
union with trying to shift the responsibility for rec-
ommending the settlement to the members on to
the bargaining teams.

‘The question is — do the executive manage-
ment committee of the PSAC agree that this is the
best that can be obtained at this time?”’, Brown
asks in her letter. ‘‘If you do, then it is the EMC of
PSAC who recommend the tentative agreement,
(unanimously or otherwise) to the membership not
the negotiating teams.”

She went on to call on the PSAC leaders to either
recall the teams to the bargaining table or put the
offer to PSAC members with a rejection recom-
mendation so the workers can get back to negotia-
tions witha strong strike mandate in their pockets.

“These decisions are the responsibility of the
leadership and cannot be sloughed off onto the
negotiating teams’? Brown wrote, and went on to
emphasize, that the officers should resign if they
won't live up to their decision making respon-
sibilities.

In this Brown touched on a pattern that has
emerged in the PSAC leadership since the move-
ment was launched for a rejection of the proposal.

‘‘Who the hell supports this thing’’, Pascucci
said, commenting on the reluctance of national
officers and negotiating team members who ha-
ven’t come out for a ‘“‘no’’ vote but who haven’t
endorsed the proposal either.

“If they’re not supporting it who is?”’

Last week at a packed meeting sponsored by the
Toronto Regional Action Committee Daryl Bean
was on hand to answer questions about the terms
of the contract. Under intense questioning from the
members, the PSAC president wouldn’t declare
whether or not he was reccommending acceptance
of the contract.

**No one could find him, the constitution was too
big’’, Pascucci said alluding to Bean’s defense.

Bean’s position didn’t sit well with his members
who observed that while he was duty-bound to
follow the constitution he also had a responsibility
to live up to the spirit of trade unionism.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 19, 1986 e 7