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JEFF POWER’S APPEAL:

. ©MPloyees and other trade union-

The speech the court banned

Last Thursday Jeff Power, president of the Marine Workers

Union, and one of the four jailed

union leaders, was stopped by

the B.C. Appeal Court from reading his full statement appealing

his conviction.

After reading seven pages, which were accompanied by
many interruptions from the judges, he was stopped. Aftera
recess the judges admitted that the statement was a powerful
one on the issue of injunctions, but ruled it was not germaine to

the legal issues involved.

After hearing the appeal against the sentences, the court
decided to reserve judgement. The PT believes that the statement
of Jeff Power must be made the property of the labor movement.
We are therefore devoting this page to a summary of the ban-

ned speech.

| am before this court today

to appeal against an unjust
Sentence for an act of fraternal
Support rendered a group of fellow
trade unionists on strike at Len-
kurt Electric Company on the
mornings of May 11 and 12, 1966,

I am a worker and a trade
unionist with a strong belief in

_ justice, What impelled me to

appear at the plant gates of this
Company on these mornings was
a desire to help the 257 workers,
who had been unjustly fired by
the Company, to get their jobs

_ back...

When the labor movement de-
Cided to call demonstrations at
the plant on May 11, I personally
felt the action was not only neces-
Sary, but overdue, I felt it was
my duty to the workers who had
been so ruthlessly treated, and
to all workers of the province,
including the members of my own
union, who could not help be af-
fected by the outcome of this
dispute,

T only regret that the Lenkurt
Company was able to defeat its

ists, including myself, in our
attempts to secure at least. a
degree of economic justice for a
8roup of workers with long and

faithful records of service to the
firm,,.

In my opinion, the injunctions
issued in this case, which banned
any form of picketing or other
show of support for the victimized
Lenkurt workers, virtually
guaranteed the Company victory
over its employees,

COURT'S POWER :

I regard the injunctions issued
to employers in labor disputes
as direct intercession on behalf
of the employer. Moreover, I
believe there is nothing in Cana-
dian law that compels a court
to issue any injunction in any

labor dispute.

What I am saying is that the
courts have discretionary power
in the matter of issuing injunc-
tions in labor (or any other)
disputes, They have chosen to
use that power on the side of
the employer virtually without
exception,

I do not have legal training
but I do know the difference
between an exparte injunction
and one issued on notice, I do

»not have details on more recent -

studies but I do know that Prof,
A.W.R,. Carrothers, in “The
Labor Injunction in British Co-
lumbia,” a study covering the
period 1946 to 1955, said that
68 of 75 injunctions applied for

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JEFF POWER, Marine Workers Union president, is shown here
on his way to jail after being sentenced to three months. Last
Thursday, Power presented a powerful indictment of the use of
injunctions in labor disputes before the B.C. Appeal Court, a
speech which the presiding judges wouldn't let him finish.

were granted, and of those, 63
were granted exparte, 51 ofthem
in the precise form in which they
were prepared...

‘A more recent study by the B,C,
Federation of Labor shows that
in the years since Prof, Car-
rothers’ book appeared, nearly
four times as many injunctions
— 297 — were applied for in the
districts of Vancouver, New
Westminster, Cranbrook and
Kamloops, Only 23 were actually

denied, Of 239 applied for ex-

parte, 186 were granted, 51 modi-
fied, and only two denied, Most
of the injunctions (254) dealt with
picketing only,

INTERVENTION

This strikes me as a legal
procedure revealing almost an
anxiety to intervene in labor
disputes on the side of the em-
ployer. Somewhere along the line,
our judicial process in this re-
gard has taken a right angled
turn from that of England and
the United States,

(Quoting Prof, Carrothers book
that in Britain “the injunction
today (1956) is as a matter of

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practice rarely used in labor
cases,” and Canadian law pro-
fessor Donald Brown who wrote
recently in the Commentator that
the propriety of injunctions in
labor disputes in the United
States and the controversy sur-
rounding them were “finally laid
to rest ... by the Norris La-
Guardia Act of 1932”, Power
said:)

I believe injunctions should
not be issued in labor disputes

WHY. INJUNCTIONS?

I will go further and say the
employers, the courts, and the
government have moved in one
direction, with the net result
that the vicious discrimination
practised against the Lenkurt
workers has been fully sustained,
Many of them have not only lost
their jobs and pension benefits
at Lenkurt Electric, but have
been blacklisted from employ-
ment in similar areas of work,

Is this the purpose of, injunc-
tions?

The trade union movement has
been opposed to injunctions since
they were first issued in labor
disputes,

(Here Power quoted from state-
ments of Samuel Gompers,
founder of the American Federa-
tion of Labor who said: ‘‘Many

injunctions have sought to pro-

hibit workers from exercising
their constitutional rights, Such
injunctions can and ought to have
no. real authority. I believe that
those to whom such injunctions
are intended to apply ought to
pay no attention to them whatso-
ever, but should stand upon their
constitutional rights and take the
consequences whatever they may
be.’”) .

The B.C, Federation of Labor

at its convention in November of
1965 charged that employers of
British Columbia “in the last
few years have resorted to in-
discriminate use of the exparte
injunction in a continuing effort
to destroy labor’s basic right to
strike, These injunctions are ob-
tained onthe most flimsy evidence
and without regard to whether or
not the strike in progress is legal
according to the Labor Relations
Act.”

regardless of the circumstances __

— but I quote Prof, Carrothers
to show the misgivings he ob-
viously feels, Organized labor,
and I as a representative of it,
feels very strongly that when it
comes to injunctions, there is
indeed “one law for management
and another for labor,”

That injunctions in labor dis-
putes are a one sided, employer

' biased intervention in such dis-

agreements is widely recognized,

U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Frankfurter has pointed out that
“Highly colored affidavits by both
parties in a bitter labor struggle,
as we shall soon see, constitute
a fragile enough basis for judi-
cial decisions, An unsupported,
one sided complaint in general
terms is an incantation, and not

‘a rational solicitation for judge-

ment,’’

And yet how many injunctions
have been issued by the courts
of British Columbia on just such
a basis? And how many, such
injunctions have succeeded in
thwarting legitimate attempts by

working people in the province

to secure a measure of economic
justice?

In my opinion, the cavalier
manner in which the Lenkurt

Company treated its employees
“was sustained by courtinjunction

and confirmed by the attorney
general of this province in the
proceedings I am now appealing,

November 11, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3

PROPERTY FIRST

When the courts issue injunc-
tions denying workers the right
to picket and demonstrate to pro-
tect their jobs and to gain some
small advance in their economic
positions, I say they are placing
property rights first. And in the
case of Lenkurt Electric, they
are placing the rights of their
own citizens in second place to
the position of power and privi-
lege enjoyed by a foreign cor-
portion,

-. I was andam firmly convinc-
ed that edicts of the court which
contravene basic human rights
must be opposed or conversely,
the rights I consider inherent in
our- society, and they include the
right to strike and picket, must
be upheld by those who wish to
see them preserved,

I am a law abiding man and
as such I subscribe to the philo-

- sophy of the late and great Mo-

handas K, Gandi on civil dis-
Obedience as a meansof opposing
unjust laws,

I maintain that injunctions in
labor disputes fall accurately and
fairly into the category of unjust
laws or orders, I am firmly con-
vinced they are instruments of
injustice fashioned and utilized
to further the interests of em-
ployers and business and limit
and restrict those of working
people and the unions that repre-
sent them,

etc eno