Fraser Institute and Liberals
out to get rid of trade unions

How long will it be until the Gordon
Campbell Liberals introduce right to
work legislation in British Columbia,
nobody knows. But one thing seems
for sure — the Liberals have taken
= most of their
] blueprint for
reform from a
| right-wing
think tank
which is now
calling for a
| decrease in
unionization
rates in B.C. In
late August the
Fraser
Institute,
which includes a collection of union
bashers, including CanWest Global's
David Asper, Hollinger Inc.’s David
Radler (servant to Conrad Black) as
trustees and labour foe Mike Harris
(the former Ontario Conservative
Premier) and former Reform
Alliance Trustee leader Preston
Manning as “senior fellows,” called
for the province to drive down
unionization rate to percentages at
least as low as exist in the United
States. Whereas over 35 per cent of
the B.C. workforce is organized
into unions, the Fraser Institute says
that should be reduced to at least 14
per cent. Campbell’s supporters also
say that scabs should be allowed
and that minimum wages are too
high, even though the Liberals
dropped the starting minimum
wage to $6 per hour. The institute
says that the Labour Relations
Board itself is biased in favour of
unions.

“The Fraser Institute wish list for
turning back the 20th century would
be humorous if it wasn’t so obvious
that the provincial government con-
tinues to take its direction from this
group,” said B.C. Federation of
Labour President Jim Sinclair. “The
study is a blueprint for lower stan-
dards, busting unions, firing thou-
sands of people and driving the
economy further into the tank.”

There's little doubt that the
Campbell government will further
try to eradicate unions in the future
by passing legislation to do so.

Gordon Campbell

Telling business about unions ®

Williams Lake local goes the Chamber of Commerce route

THEY ARE THE KIND of folks who just
love to get up to the microphone and say
what's on their minds. That’s just what
Williams Lake, B.C. IWA Local 1-425
president Wade Fisher and financial sec-
retary Terry Tate plan to continue to do
up in their neck of the woods and on a
provincial stage if given the opportunity.

The benefactors could be the B.C.
trade union movement itself.

This past spring the local union joined
the Williams Lake and District Chamber
of Commerce following a challenge by
chamber president and retired radio
announcer Ken Wilson. They made a
presentation on the softwood lumber dis-
pute and their opposition to Liberal forest
policy changes when Mr. Wilson asked
them to get involved. The brothers took it
to the local executive board and now
Local 1-425 is doing what, to the IWA’s
knowledge, no other group of unionists
have yet done.

“A lot of workers and small business
people are fed up with the negative spin
that big business and the corporate
media have always tried to pin on trade
unions,” says Brother Fisher. “We are
going to try to educate the Chamber of
Commerce membership about all of the
positive impacts that organized labour
has on businesses and community sta-
bility. It’s the good wages that we negoti-
ate that stay in the community and help
create decent livings for people.”

Brother Tate says that the IWA will
also be pushing the message: pay and

treat your workers well!
“When workers get paid $6 - $8 per
hour they will not stick around,” he says.

“But when they are properly treated they
will do a better job for the employer and
their wages will help stabilize the com-
munity.” He says that many small busi-
ness entrepreneurs are not antilabour —
but they don’t have the background or

PHOTO BY SAGE BIRCHWATER WILLIAM LAKE TRIBUNE

= Williams Lake and District Chamber of Commerce president Ken Wilson (I.) and Local 1-425 president Wade Fisher.

the tools to speak out about how they see
issues. “Provincially, the Chamber of
Commerce's agenda is in the hands of
big businesses: the Jimmy Pattison’s and
the Finnings and the Weyerhaeuser's of
B.C.,” adds Tate. “They are the ones that
all these smaller guys go along with.”
“Many of our own members and their
spouses have businesses in the commu- :
nity too,” says Fisher. Some have busi-
nesses such as welding shops, brush '
clearing, cleaning services and carpentry.
“Our people know that their businesses
rely on those with disposable income.”
Local 1-425 intends to learn the ropes
about how the B.C. Chamber of
Commerce works and how it gets its
information and promotes its views. “We
hope to counteract the negativity the
chamber has towards workers and find
out why its membership supports labour
laws to strike break and deunionize the
province,” adds the local union president.

We see the future of the world economy - it’s China!

IN A PREVIOUS COLUMN I noted a key factor in
explaining the recent decline in the U.S. dollar is
America’s, and other Western countries’ mushroom-
ing trade deficits with China, which now produces 40
percent of the world's manufactures.

The main reason China's now the world’s factory

ABOUT THE ECONOMY
BY KIM POLLOCK

centre is wages. Don't take that from me. Hear MIG
Imports of Medford, New Jersey, which helps U.S.
firms contract out manufacturing jobs to China:
"Savings in Asia result are almost entirely from lower
labour rates. In China, for example, the average factory
wage is under $100 US per month! ...the more labour-
intensive and high quality the production runs, the more
you save..."

It's not surprising that many Western manufactur-
ing firms agree. Alan Tonelson of TradeAlert.org,

reports that 30.4 percent of the entire U.S. manufac-
turing workforce faces direct Chinese competition.
The nature of those firms has shifted over a decade
from sectors like clothing, furniture, plastics and rub-
ber to high-tech industries like electronics, machinery
and transportation equipment, which now make up
over a third of U.S. imports from China ~a share that
grows daily.

The New York Times, for instance, reports that the
number of autos manufactured in China has grown
from 1.8 to 3.8 million over the past three years. The
major automakers are already in China, using the
growing Chinese auto market as an export spring-
board.

With the increase in production volumes, new car
prices in China have tumbled from $50,000 to
$27,000 in the last four years. Volkswagen, the largest
foreign manufacturer, estimates it's still 18 per cent
more costly to produce cars in China than in devel-
oped countries, largely because parts and steel-mak-
ing are still relatively primitive. "But with new steel mills
and parts factories opening at a brisk pace," the German
automaker suggests, "that gap will disappear by 2006."

Car-plant workers are actually relatively well-paid by
Chinese standards, earning up to 50 cents an hour or
$240 a month. But pay is still shocking by Western
standards.Why such low wages? Easy: government pol-
icy. Under the Communist regime, says the
International Congress of Free Trade Unions, "the
established trade unions are simply political instruments
for controlling workers... whilst free trade unions are strict-
ly forbidden... Long-term imprisonment, beatings, intern-
ment in psychiatric hospitals or labour camps or harass-
ment of families are systematically used in China to stamp
out any free trade unions.”

Soon, workers in advanced countries will need to
respond. Governments must pressure China to allow
free collective bargaining; they could use trade law to
force China to increase the labour component of the
goods they sell in our markets. Low wages are unfair
competition and as right-wing economists might say,

distort the free market. Action against low-wage goods
would benefit domestic workers and our Chinese
brothers and sisters.

Kim Pollock is the IWA’s Director of Public Policy and Environment

18 I THE ALLIED WORKER NOVEMBER 2003