Labour |

Unions step

Members of the Office and Technical
Employees Union (OTEU) and the Amal-
gamated Transit Union (ATU) on strike at
Southern Rail threw up picket lines around
the B.C. Hydro building Dec. 7 and
through the weekend as the two unions
stepped up their efforts to force their privat-
ized employer to return to the bargaining
table.

Some 29 members of the OTEU and 150
ATU members have been on the picket line
for eight weeks at the U.S.-owned rail com-
pany, which until last year was the rail div-
ision of B.C. Hydro. It was sold to Itel
Corporation of San Francisco as part of the
Social Credit government’s privatization
program.

Unionists picketed Hydro’s downtown
offices to protest the Crown corporation’s
action in processing computer tapes for
Southern Railway. Hydro has continued to
handle the tapes, which are required to
assess rail car contents and the company’s
accounts payable, despite the sale of the rail
division to Itel in July, 1988.

The picket line, which kept some 600
OTEU members off the job and held up
telephone and electrical upgrading work
scheduled for the weekend, was intended to
step up pressure against Southern Rail
which has refused to bargain since its con-
cession demands forced the walkout Oct.
20.

In talks earlier this year, Southern Rail
management proposed to cut contributions
to employees’ pension plan in half. Less
than two weeks after the strike began, the
company announced it would cancel health
care premiums as of Nov. 1, breaking a
long-standing practice by which most com-
panies continue premiums during a strike
and recoup the payments from retroactive
pay when employees return to work.

“This isn’t a company that bargains i
the usual way,” said OTEU communica-
tions director Paula Stromberg. “They put
their terms on the table and say, take it or
leave it. Then they refuse to bargain.”

Stromberg said that some exploratory
talks were scheduled for this week under
mediator Vince Ready to “see if there’s as
framework for negotiating.”

But given the company’s record, “I have
to be pessimistic about the prospect of
serious bargaining,” ATU representative
Jim Daley told the Tribune Dec. 12.

“Tt seems obvious from the outset that it’s
the intention of the company to break the
union at Southern Rail,” he said.

“But we're going to resist all the way
down the line,” he said, adding that union
members “tare more determined now than
the day they went out.”

Daley said union members are particu-
larly angered that they are the targets in the
sell-off of B.C. Hydro operations and that
the company set out to cut the benefits in
their collective agreement after pledging to
the Crown corporation to maintain them.

Hydro chair Larry Bell, told rail division
employees in a company memo: “I can also
assure employees that their interests, from
pension plans to job protection, have been
addressed in the conditions of sale to Itel.”
Itel president Desmond Hayes also stated
that the company would “recognize all the
contractual relationships with the railroad
employees ....”

“We had commitments from Hydro that
the pension plan would continue intact
when the company was sold off,” he said.
“But that just hasn’t been the case.”

OTEU president Anne Harvey called the
company’s bargaining stance “another con-
crete example that privatization hurts work-
ing people.”

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

OTEU and ATU members on
the picket lines at Southern
Rail’s main yard office in New
Westminster. Left to right,
Arnold Beever, ATU; Scott
Atherton and Keren Sopel,
OTEU; Anna Maria McCor-
mick, ATU.

Since the strike began, Southern Rail has
maintained operations with management
personnel and a few scabs recruited from
among company retirees, Stromberg said.

But the combination of unqualified staff
and long hours has been a dangerous mix,
resulting in a series of derailments which
have brought down power poles and
created traffic jams at Annacis Island.

In one incident Nov. 20, nine Southern
Rail cars ran out of control from the com-
pany’s yard and travelled 400 metres
through a traffic intersection before being
stopped. They were halted just short of a
second intersection.

Unionists have warned that future
derailments could pose a far greater danger
since the company hauls various dangerous
commodities, including propane, butane,
methanol and chlorine.

Southern Rail operates 131 km of track
from Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Sumas,
Wash. and maintains an exclusive contract
to handle autos shipped to the Annacis
Island facility from Japan, Korea, the U.S.
and eastern Canada.

up pressure at So. Rail

z beg

ee

Seasons Greet
to all our friends and neighbours who join
with us in working for improved public

services in the year ahead.
We wish you all a safe and happy holiday.

CANADIAN UNION OF PUBLIC EMPLOYEES
Local 389/North Vancouver

; SEASON’S
GREETINGS
J [Ty
~ &

from the
membership
of Local 280
SHEET METAL WORKERS
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION
LOCAL UNION No. 280

V

7

Season’s Greetings

ancouver United Transportation Union, Local 701

THE TRAINS OVER THE HOLIDAY SEASON.

from the membership of

WORKING TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF

Pacific Tribune, December 18, 1989 ¢ 5 -