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Part of the crowd of 5,000 who marched to the Gainers plant in Edmonton June 7.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAVID WALLIS

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Gainers pension cut

Continued from page 1

“The strike is at a whole new stage,”
Werlin said.

As the pressure on Pocklington mounts,
the support for the strikers is also growing.

A radio poll, conducted among 400
Edmonton residents last week —before the
mass rally and the Fletcher’s settlement
— found that 62 per cent supported the
strikers while only 38 per cent supported
Gainers. Even among those who admitted
voting Tory in the election, the support for
the strikers was 38 per cent compared to
only 36 per cent for Gainers.

Even more tangible have been the
numbers of people turning out for the sup-
port rallies — 5,000 on June 7 and then
10,000 at the legislature on June 12, a work
day.

Even Alberta Premier Donn Getty ack-
owledged that he was “impressed” with the
rally. At the same time, he distanced himself
from Pocklington, saying that the right-
wing businessman was “not a friend of
anyone in the caucus.”

The dimensions of Pocklington’s vicious
anti-labor tactics are also likely to become
more widely known as the result of revela-
tions this week at the one-man Disputes
Inquiry Board. Evidence given Monday
revealed that Gainers accountants told the
Alberta government last month that the
company was unilaterally cancelling the
employees’ pension plan, effective May 31,
1986 — the same day that Pocklington
declared the union’s collective agreement
null and void.

What is worse, Werlin said, is that only
those workers over the age of 41 will get any
money back. And Gainers is taking $6 mil-
lion which the company put into the plan,
together with $4 million contributed by
workers under 41, and is “just walking away
with the money,” he said.

Whether Pocklington is standing on legal
ground is still unclear, but his action has
given further indication that his intention is
to run the plant non-union or shut it down.

For their part, now that there is the set-
tlement at Fletcher’s, the strikers are deter-

mined that the only acceptable agreement
with Pocklington will be one that gives them
parity with other packing plants, Werlin
said.

They’re prepared to stand up for that
even if Pocklington threatens to close the
plant, he said, pointing to a local UFCW
memership meeting Monday. ‘“‘When that
position was put to them, they all stood up
and cheered and clapped in support,” he
said.

The demand for parity — under the
theme, “parity is justice’? — will be the
focus of a union and federation campaign
over the next few weeks.

That will be of particular importance
since the one-man Disputes Inquiry Board
set up by the Alberta government will
almost certainly propose something consid-
erably less when his report comes down,
likely next month.

Werlin said the appointment of the
former deputy labor minister just two days
before the legislature opened was intended
merely as a safety valve for the Tory
government, “so that Getty could say he
was doing something.” __

The action on the picket line at Gainers
has abated somewhat in the face of police
intervention on a scale not seen anywhere
else in Canada but strikers are continuing
their vigil despite the latest injunction res-
tricting pickets to those with written permis-
sion from union leaders. The UFC W is also
planning to organize mass picketing on a
periodic basis.

Busloads of scabs are getting through
under police escort “but they’re not produc-
ing anything,” Werlin said.

Most major stores in Alberta, including -

Safeway and Co-op, are not carrying Gain-
ers products.

In this province, the industrial council of
the UFCW has declared that any products
from Gainers in Alberta will be declared
hot. The union is in a legal strike position at
Gainers processing plants in B.C. but is
holding off on strike action pending devel-

opments in Alberta.

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Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5. Phone 251-1186

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\ READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR )

The name of J.C. Kerkhoff and Sons
has again been thrust into the headlines
with a bid on a major public construction
job in British Columbia.

But this time the right-to-work con-
tractor has submitted his bid jointly with
the South Korean multinational Hyundai
— and that partnership has set off alarm
bells throughout the trade union move-
ment.

The joint venture of Kerkhoff and
Hyundai is low bidder on the $35 million
bridge portion of the ALRT extension to
Surrey, scheduled for construction start-
up this year. The bidders were announced
last, month and the bids are to be
reviewed for awarding on July 2.

The contract was let with two options:
one with a concrete deck on the bridge,
the other with a steel deck. On the con-
crete option, Kerkhoff-Hyundai has
submitted the low bid of $28 million
compared to the lowest union bid, sub-
mitted by FCI Engineering and Con-
struction, a Calgary-based company of
$30.8 million. .

On the steel option, less than $600,000
separates the low bid of $28.2 million
submitted by Kerkhoff-Hyundai and the
$28.8 million FCI Engineering bid.

That difference has more than the
usual significant for Kerkhoff’s bids. The
anti-union contractor has successfully
increased his profit margin in the past by
slightly under-bidding union contractors
and then pocketing the extra profit that
comes from paying wages at half to two-
thirds the union scale. But the connec-
tion with Hyundai opens the door to
Korean steel supplies —and cheap
South Korean labor.

Dave Flynn, business representative
of Local 2404 of the Piledrivers Union
said that the costs to Kerkhoff compared
to other contractors could be cut by
more than $4 million by bringing steel in
from Hyundai’s mills in South Korea.

Estimates given him by engineers in
one of the provinces’ largest construction
companies indicated that the steel
requirements for the project would cost
about $8 million in British Columbia.
“But they told me that Hyundai could
supply that steel for as little as one-third
of that amount,” Flynn said.

Although known best in this country
for its cheap cars, Hyundai is a huge
diversified multinational with holdings
far beyond the automobile industry.
Hyundai Heavy Industries Ltd. has huge
steel mills as well as shipyards in the key
centre of Ulsan, in South Korea. The.
company is headed by Park Chung Hee,
the former Korean dictator.

The construction side of the company
is particularly important, with an esti-
mated $35 billion in business worldwide
last year.

Most significant, however, are the
company’s labor policies which echo the
repressive policies of the Chun Doo
Hwan regime in South Korea. Hyundai,
like the others in the Korean “Big 10”
corporations — including Daewoo and
Samsung — has rigorously kept unions
out of its operations, even the govern-
ment-sponsored FKBU, the only legal
trade union centre in the country. There
has been some organizing by shop-based
independent unions particularly at Dae-
woo, but trade union activities are
severely repressed and Korean legislation

tions, Hyundai cars enter Canada

- build anything.”

- yement in construction to pro

union workers. oa

Not surprisingly, the “Korean m®
of industrial development has foul
admirers in both the Social Crt
federal Tory cabinets and the @
ship enjoys favored trade status.

Despite growing demand for

the duty normally imposed 0?
imports from developed count
former Industry Minister Sinclalf »
ens recently exempted Hyundal from
company’s earlier commitment !
vide 50 per cent Canadian conten
Closer to home, a group of AQ®
ford car dealers went to Ulsan,
Hyundai’s expense last year and ¢
back full of praise for the com
operations where wages avela’
than $3 an hour fora ten-hour day
six-to-seven-day week, and “W
strikes are unheard of.” The
Department of Labor estimat
wages of South Korean autowof
$1.72 an hour.
B.C. Federation of Labor pit
Art Kube commented that J.C:
hoff and Hyundai were “‘philos
twins” in their labor relations PO™™
All that has made the prospe
Kerkhoff-Hyundai joint ventuts
more ominous, particularly §
marks the first time that Ker
moved into work on this scale. |
“This is the first time that Ket
has bid on marine work like this,
Flynn. ‘‘He’s done small bridges
but he’s always had umion
contractors for major over-th
work.
“There’s no question — K
and big money are bad new
warned. “If he can build this,

Flynn suggested that Kerkhoft
probably be relying on Hyundai

necessary expertise for the job.
But more than anything, the P
ship provides “a big potential ft
busting,” he emphasized.
Flynn said that the union,
with the Building Trades Couneil
B.C. Federation of Labor had
begun lobbying the government l
the Kerkhoff-Hyundai bid, argU™
it would return no benefits tO ~
Columbia workers. ;
Flynn said that the campal
been interrupted by the Building
strike and negotiations but ade
would be intensified before the July
review date. ; r
B.C. Fed president Art Kube !
Tribune this week that he had.
letter May 22 to Grace McCarthy
minister responsible for ALRTL §
on her to disregard the >
Hyundai bid. _
The letter noted that awaf
contract to the joint venture
“bring a low economic retura
and to Canada” since most of
would be pre-fabricated in Kore4
Moreover, he added, the 0%
would not be obliged to pay fait
Kube said he would be wit
week to demand ‘a meetifl
McCarthy since her office has nO
to the letter, sent more than thr
ago. :

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 18, 1986