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LABOR

When the special convention of Region
18 of the United Food and Commercial
Workers Union, (the old Meatcutters and
Food Workers section) ruptured last week
in Toronto, there was more involved in the
walkout of 30 per cent of the delegates
than the issue of Canadian autonomy.

All parties to the long-simmering dis-
pute espoused more Canadian autonomy;
and all championed unity and a more
effective union. The fireworks in this nor-
mally quiet, orderly union stemmed from
sharp differences over how to achieve such
objectives.

The majority sentiment of Region 18
put forward a “simple” resolution calling
basically for the enactment of the Cana-
dian Labor Congress’ minimum guide-
lines for Canadian autonomy and what
has been the practice in the region all
along: Now this is tame stuff and hardly
worth taking a powder over, right?

The “minority” puts forward a “‘com-
promise” that says autonomy, yes, but
first, let’s complete the process of uniting
Region 18 with 19 (the old Retail Clerks
section). Also a laudable goal and cer-
tainly not worth splitting the union over,
n’est-ce pas?

Wrong on both counts.

Labor in action

There are those who would reduce the
inner family tiff to the personalities of var-
ious leaders jockeying for position in Can-
ada’s second largest industrial union. This
approach seriously misses the mark,
though dynastic ambition may play a part.

At issue is the approach being taken to
the attack on workers in the food industry
in Canada. This attack is not unlike the
attack on workers in other industries. And
like UFCW members, unionized workers
in other industries have similarly agonized
over the correct approach.

The agony is not eased by having the
union’s headquarters in the United States,
where the attack is just as severe, but the
tactics of fightback have been more spo-
radic. This is most graphically illustrated
by the totally different outcomes of the

meatpacking strikes at Hormel in Austin,
Texas and at Gainers in Edmonton.

. Butina disgusting display of arrogance
and in total ignorance of the different con-
ditions operative in the two countries,
International UFCW president Bill Wynn,
slapped a trusteeship on the large Van-
couver Local 2000, a local in the forefront
of the struggle against concessions under
perhaps the most difficult conditions in
Canada.

This comes in the aftermath of the mar-
riage arranged in the U.S. between Retail
Clerks and the Meatcutters. There is no
dispute by any of the protagonists with the
search for unity. But there is growing
recognition that unity cannot be forged in
“legalese,” according to a timetable and in
a manner more befitting a transnational
corporation.

More than autonomy involved in walkout

There is growing acceptance that a suc-
cessful marriage in the working class must
involve consenting partners, who have
developed trust based on working together
around similar agendas, timetables, and
objectives. And that is what is lacking in
Canada at the moment.

There is a fear among the majority of
Region 18’s 88,000 members that their
partners in Region 19 operate under a
much more autocratic, top-down fasion
which would handicap the fightback in 18
against concessions, contracting out and
two-tier bargaining.

This.fear is reinforced by the manner in
which the international has treated the
matter of the replacement for Region 18’s
director, Frank Benn. The wishes of the
majority of the leadership and member-
ship in Canada were totally ignored.

The fear was confirmed with the trus-
teeship in Local 2000. The marriage
between 18 and 19 is in trouble in Canada.
So, too, is unity in Region 18.

On the positive side, there are on both
sides of the Region 18 debate, trade union-
ists with proven track records, who can see
beyond a temporary storm over tactics, to
spot a smiling Galen Weston or Conrad
Black, and to place the long term interests
of the working class first.

Continued from page 1

A companion resolution, submitted by
Local 2000 in B.C., spoke to the issue that
had originally inspired the convention —

_ @stablishing the regional executive board’s

Tight to recommend who should be
appointed to fill a vacancy in-the regional
ector’s slot.

Region 18 represents some 80,000 of the
UECW’s 155,000 members in Canada.

Wynn’s recent appointment of Local 175
President Bill Hanley to the regional direc-
torship, and the \trusteeship he tried to
Impose on Local 2000 dominated the two-

Y convention.

However, before the delegates could even
et into a debate on the autonomy paper,
Hanley led his Local’s 200 delegates and a
handful of others from Ontario out of the
Convention. Local 175 represents about
20,000 members in Region 18, The remain-
Ing delegates in the convention spoke for the
Test of the members across Canada.

With his delegates and supporters
8athered around him outside the conven-
tion hall, he accused Region 18 executive
Council president, Richard Cashin, and oth-
€Ts On the regional executive of flouting the
International constitution and trying to take
the delegates “on a kind of witch hunt
4gainst the international and the interna-
Uonal president.”

Hanley pulled his troops after losing a
Series of procedural gambits aimed at derail-
ing the autonomy debate, and just before

€ convention was to view a video presen-
tation of the Jan. 14 takeover by the interna-
Uonal of the Local 2000 offices.

To the rest of the executive, this alleged

‘Witch hunt” was in fact, as Cashin told the
elegates in a passionate opening address, a
Political fight with the Washington-based
leadership that focused on “the basis of the
id of union that we are, and the kind of
Union we are going to be.”

He called the trusteeship, and the Hanley
8ppointment an indication of the interna-
“onal president’s contempt for the Cana-
dian membership. “What disturbed me the
™ost was that they (the international execu-
tive board), don’t want us to discuss with

fm on an equal footing ...

_ “I didn’t hop the fishing boats or hike
across Newfoundland to pay homage to
any man,” Cashin told the delegates. The

region’s autonomy proposals he added “are
constitutionally sound, politically correct,
and morally right.

‘What we’re opposed to is constitution-
ally inappropriate, politically incorrect and
morally wrong.” :

Wynn’s action, first in deciding not to
replace retiring director Frank Benn, and
then appointing Hanley was interpreted as a
move to merge Regions 18 and 19, along the
pattern emerging in the UFCW’s US.
operations and contrary to the original 1979
merger agreement which expires next year.

“To put it mildly, our executive board
was shocked to realize that our region
would disappear as a result of a non-
consultative decision by our international

LEIF HANSEN

work of the international structure. Hansen,
speaking to the issue stressed “‘it isn’t our
intention to deal with autonomy in this
document on the basis of separation, but to
build a'segment in Canada within the inter-
national union that lets us deal with our
problems in a manner that is consistent with
our trade union principles.”

He said Canadian autonomy had to be
spelled out in the international constitution
because there had been an “usurping of the
power we thought we had as Canadians
within the international since 1979.

“We've seen it in a gradual process .

through the use of the constitution that was
most recently shown in the trusteeship

“It isn’t our intention to deal with
autonomy in this document on the basis of
separation but to build a segment of the
i union in Canada that lets us deal with our
problems in a way consistent with our trade

union principles.”

president,” Cashin told the delegates as he
traced the events leading up to the special
convention.

Cashin and others in the debate including
Local 2000 president Leif Hansen invoked
the progressive traditions of the CIO and
the United Packing House Workers Union,
a forerunner of the union which merged
with the clerks in 1979 to form the UFCW.

He emphasized the practical national
autonomy that existed for Canadians in
both the UPWA, and its successor, the
Amalgamated Meat Cutters at the interna-
tional level, which unofficially gave the
Canadians control over their own affairs on
this side of the border. :

Ironically, both the executive and Han-
ley see autonomy within the frame-

placed on Local 2000. Using trusteeship in
this way is a phenomenon of the Retail
Clerks, not of the amalgamated or the pack-
ing house workers and its something that’s
part of their history that has to be changed.”

Hanley’s walkout followed the chair’s
rejection of a demand that Local 175’s
structural paper — Shaping the Future of
the UFCW in Canada — be discussed
alongside the executive board resolution.

While it defines much of the same powers
for the Canadian director, (or directors), as
contained in the Region 18 paper, the Local
175 proposal doesn’t call for specific
amendments that would enshrine these
rights in the international constitution.

Its centre-piece demand — the call for a
task force on union structure, to be drawn

Autonomy paper urges Canadian standards

from all ranks and regions of the union in
Canada and mandated to present a draft
report to the region’s convention next

fall — was seen as impractical by many of

the delegates interviewed. Many considered
it would be impossible to conduct in areas
where relations between the two regions are
strained.

A number of delegates brought the focus
of the autonomy debate around to demo-
cracy, citing the inseparable connection
between the two issues.

Local 280-P delegate Kevin Park, said the
demand for more autonomy sprang from
the reality of a different economy, trade
union culture and legislative environment in
Canada as compared to the U.S.

“It’s necessary and important that we
have the right to make our own decisions —
for ourselves and to fulfill our own needs,”
Park said, and raised the need for the execu-
tive at some point to “flesh out” the demo-
cratic content of its proposal.

Undoubtedly, Hanley’s walkout was
deeply resented by most of the delegates
who stayed in convention. Hansen called
the move “disgraceful . . . for a union leader
to instruct a group of rank and file workers
to leave a convention ...”

Vince Gentile, an Ontario delegate who
stayed, said “the easiest thing to do is to
walk out. To defend your principles, you
have to stay and fight it out. What’s at issue

here isn’t a question of personalities but of

the philosophy of this union.”

Cashin said the walkout. showed con-
tempt, by the man who was appointed
director of this region, for the other people
in the union.

“From the evidence we saw here yester-
day it appears that the walkout was either a
fit of pique — an emotional reaction — or
part of a plan,” he said.

For his part Hanley was clear in explain-
ing the reasons he asked his members to
walk out: “If we sat it through, we’d be
accepting that the convention was O.K....
but this way we don’t.”

But B.C. delegate Hugo Tims saw it dif-
ferently: “I have a real problem over the fact
that the director who was appointed to lead
the region walked out on us in this conven-
tion. As far as I’m concerned that was really
ite and I just want to get that on the
record.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 4,1 987¢3