Members of The Newspaper
Guild walked off the job at the
weekly Delta Optimist last Fri-
day after mediation, a B.C.
Federation of Labor publicity
campaign and even a sweeping
Labor, Relations Board order
failed to bring them any closer
toa first contract with their anti-
union employer. $

The Optimist workers,
members of Vancouver-New
Westminster Local 115 of the
Guild, set up picket lines at 7
a.m. following a study session
the previous day, called to back
demands for reinstatement of
fone member. She had been
dismissed after she learned that
she had multiple schlerosis.

Although reinstatement was
later won, bargaining — which
was still continuing through a
provincial mediator — broke
down over the key issue of
union security, Guild ad-
ministrative officer Patricia
Lane said Monday. Wages are
also expected to be a conten-
tious issue although they have
yet to be put on the table pen-
ding resolution of the union
security clause.

The union has sought the
standard closed shop clause —a
key issue because of publisher
Ernest Bexley’s record in seek-

--LABOR SCENE

Bill McLeman (second from left), Canadian director of The
Newspaper Guild and Local 115 president Brian Hill (r), joined
the picket line outside the Delta Optimist offices in Ladner Fri-
day as Guild members went out on strike at the weekly news-
paper.

=

BELT PTs

TRIBUNE PHOTO—SEAN GRIFFIN

Union security sparks
Delta Optimist strike

ing to block union organization
at the newspaper.

In a landmark ruling April
30, the LRB rapped Bexley for
“‘coercive’’ action against the
union and its members and
ordered him to take steps to
redress the grievances, including
reinstatement of one woman
fired for union activity.

Up to that time, although the
Guild had been certified since
the previous October, Bexley
had still refused to come to the
bargaining table.

Since then, lawyer Roger Mc-
Afee has conducted negotia-
tions on Bexley’s behalf.
McAfee also acts for the
Nanaimo Times, now involved
in a dispute with the Graphic
Arts Union, and with the North
Shore News, which has adopted
a deliberate, ‘‘union-free’’
policy in its editorial depart-
ment.

McA fee’s presence, — he
also addressed a recent conven- —
tion of weekly newspaper
publishers — coupled with Bex-
ley’s earlier stand against union
organization, has given added
significance to the strike.

“Publishers all up the Fraser
Valley and throughout the prov-
ince are going to be watching
this strike,’’ Lane noted.

Continued from page 1

ing neutrality in labor disputes,
has intervened to assist the em-
ployer. In the Adams Labs
strike, the union charged that
union cars were pulled over and
their drivers questioned while
RCMP turned a blind eye to of-
fences committed by those driv-
ing for the employer.

“Tt shows the double stand-
ard for the RCMP in labor rela-
tions,’ Sucamore said, ‘“‘and
we’ve seen enough of these dirty
tricks.”

He charged that the police

\.

RCMP action ‘illegal’

had ‘‘conducted themselves il-
legally on behalf of a foreign ©
company.”

CAIMAW has been out on
strike against Kenwo.ch, a

. U.S.-owned truck manufactur-

ing firm, since May 21, seeking
equal pay for work of equal
value for data processors, all of
whom are women.

CAIMAW had earlier agreed
to put aside some outstanding
issues for its assembly workers if
Kenworth would accept. the
equal pay concept but the com-
pany refused.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 11, 1980—Page 8

The following headline, over an
article that appeared in the April-
May, 1980 issue of CAIMAW Re-
view caught my attention the other
day: ‘‘Quality of working life: The
road to company unionism.”

Then, there was this quotation,
lifted out of the article and printed
in large type: ‘‘The logical conclu-
sion of a successful QWL program
will be the decertification of the
union.”

These statements took me back
to 1977 when John Munro was the
federal minister of labor in the Tru-
deau government. He was then
conducting a high profile, public

~ relations campaign directed to win-

ning support from the trade union
movement for quality of working
life (QWL) and other related con-
cepts.

Speaking to the convention of .

the International Brotherhood of
Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders,
Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers
(AFL-CIO/CLC), in Vancouver
on August 11 of that year, he made
this announcement: .

“On behalf of the federal gov-
ernment, I recently signed an agree-
ment with Mr. Joe Morris, who

“signed on behalf of the Canadian

Labor Congress. Under the agree-
ment, the government will give the
CLC $2 million a year for each of
five years for the purpose of train-
ing union leaders, and trade union
technicians. I believe that the
industrial relations system can
work better if it has trained and ex-
perienced trade union representa-
tives who are needed at the bargain-
ing table and on the shop floor.’’

On March 27 of the same year,
Munro explained his version of the
quality of working life to the an-
nual conference of the Ontario Ca-
tholic Supervisory Officers’ Asso-
ciation. The following quotations
are from that speech:

“The quality of working life is a
relatively new theme in Canadian
society. It is intended to reflect the
attitudes and aspirations of a new
generation of workers who are un-
willing to spend one-third of their
adult lives as human cogs in in-
human machines. It recognizes
workers as men and women who
like to go to work, who like to doa
good job, who care about product-
ivity.””

Two weeks earlier, Munro deliv-
ered an address to the combined
Rotary clubs of Burnaby, Burn-
aby-Hastings and Burnaby-Kings-
way, in which he said:

“It is our belief that, if we can
make the work place more pleasant
and make jobs more rewarding, we
will remove many of the abrasive
tensions that cause antagonism be-
tween workers and employers, be-
tween union and management.
This in turn will create a better at-
mosphere for collective bargaining
and productivity.”’

In almost every speech during
this campaign to sell QWL and tri-
partism, Munro made it clear that
the objective was to make workers
more content with their jobs in or-

“der to increase productivity, and by

productivity he meant a better pro-
fit position for the employers.

I wonder how these statements
would be greeted today by the 21,-
000 Canadian auto workers who
are unemployed in easter# Canada,
along with thousands. of other
workers whose jobs are dependent

_ on that industry? These layoffs

have taken place even though the
Canadian auto market has doubled
since 1965.

No active trade unionist is op-

ty of working
no panacea for unionists

posed to improving the quality of
working life, that i is, to improving
working conditions and to giving
the workers a greater say in manag-
ing the production process. But
when QWL is advanced as a pan-
acea to solve all problems facing
the workers, it isnothing more than
aplan to divert their attention from
the major cause of the sickness in
our economy, namely the control
of our major industries by the big
multinational corporations, a con-
trol aggravated and accentuated by
domination of a key sector of our
economy by U.S. multinationals.

Of what value is the quality of
working life at the plant level to 21,-
000 automobile workers who have -
been laid off indefinitely and areno
longer required to produce auto-
mobiles?

LABOR
COMMENT ~

BY JACK PHILLIPS

aie

It isagainst this background that
we should examine a recent study
prepared on QWL by Susan San-
derson through the Simon Fraser
University Continuing Studies.
The study was made possible by a
federal government grant and San-
derson worked closely with the Si-
mon Fraser University Labor Edu-
cation Program and with the B.C.
regional office of the CLC.

Sanderson’s conclusions deserve
the attention of every active trade
unionist. They can be summarized
as follows:

@ Advocates of QWL have of-
ten stressed, as an underlying
premise, a mutuality of interest be-
tween management and labor. On
the evidence one can only conclude
that the areas of mutual interest
have proven to be very limited and
fragile;

@ Economic factors continue
to be decisive with the employers,
with labor continuing to be seen as
simply one of the cost factors;

_@ A great many jobs in any in-
dustrial society are basically repe-
titious, tedious and boring, and it is
self-deluding to suggest that such
jobs can be made interesting by
juggling the method by which work
is performed;

@ QWL programs are accept-
able to employers only to the extent
that they do not interfere with in-
creasing productivity and profits.
Group autonomy, co-determina-
tion, job rotation or flexible hours
which are desirable, do not in
themselves change the funda-
mental relationship between the
employer and the worker. Any
such arrangement should be in-
cluded in the collective agreement,

RIBUNE

life’

or else management will have the”
right to reassert its arbitrary
authority over the work process. |

According to Sanderson, there
appears to be an implied notion D
those who support QWL that
workers can gain more power
becoming more knowledgeabl
about their jobs and their plants
She refers them to a paper by RO
ert Stass (Memo on Quality of
Work Life) from which the follow-
ing is taken: “‘Employers do not —
fear this concept because they
know that power is power. He who

has the right to fire has, of course; |

greater power than he or she wi :
sells their labor power.”’

Then, Sanderson expressed Fe §
following areas of concern: <9

@ Some trade unionists Se
QWL as a potential threat to unlo
organization. She quotes an execu=

*tive officer of General Foods
saying, “QWL obviates the n
for a union.’

@ QWL seeks to increase th
identification of workers with the
employer, at the expense of the
loyalty to the union.

@ QWL is just another pro=
gram to speed up production with- _
out increasing wages and benefits

In her closing statements, sh
strongly urges unions entering into”
QWL experiments to establish and
maintain a strong adversarial post '
tion:

“There remains serious concer ~
that in many cases the motivation
for QWL is inadequate, i.e., to
raise productivity and profits and,
in addition, to create a more com-
tented work force which results in
lower turnover rates, less absentee-" |
ism and fewer strikes. :

“Collaboration, or finding 2
‘better way’ than free bargaining
not necessarily a better way fo!
working people. The many diffe
ences between workers and man:
agement reflect fundamental di

’ ferences in interests and power, no!
blocks in communications or irra:
tionality.

‘There appears to be a gro ON
interest in QWL experimentation
on the part of trade unionists. It is
clear, however, that it will only be
accepted as an addition to, rather
than a substitute for unions’ con-

- tinuing effort to improve the lot of
working people through collective —
bargaining, political and industrial —
action.’ ee

Judgingby the last convention —
- of the CLC, it would appear that
the trade union movement in this /
country is not taken in by those —
who advance QWL and other relat-
ed concepts as the answer to th
basic problems confronting the —
working class. In that context, the
Sanderson study could prove help=
ful.

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