LABOR TORONTO — The retail worker’s union has breached the walls of the Eaton’s empire with a history-making tentative agreement signed May 8 that will for the first time cover the company’s sales staff. The pact, which has to be ratified by the 1,500 members who’ve been on strike since Nov. 30, was initiated by the Re- tail Wholesale and Department Store Union and Eaton’s at about one o’clock in the morn- Details of the landmark settlement and timing for the ratification vote weren’t avail- able at press time, but it is be- lieved the contract is a one-year deal, and that instead of a mas- ter agreement for all the full time and part time bargaining units in the six stores affected, the union has accepted 14 sepa- rate agreements. The settlement, if ratified, will affect three Toronto Eaton’s stores, one each in St. Catharines and Brampton, and a small warehouse store in Lon- don. After the last breakdown in talks in mid-March, nego- tiations were revived around the beginning of May with the union, in a sense, racing against the clock for a settlement. Looming ominously at the end of the month was the six-month anniversary date of the strike. Under Ontario labor legisla- tion the company could have re- fused to take any strikers back on the job after May 30. Union negotiators were un“er pres- TRIBUNE PHOTOS — MIKE PHILLIPS built up against the retail giant. A powerful coalition, led by the union and women’s movements, sure to get an agreement that would at least get the union’s foot in the door and begin laying the foundation for a protracted, concerted drive to organize all of Eaton’s 35,000 workers. Eaton’s was also under the gun. The country-wide boycott initiated by the Canadian Labor Congress was taking its toll, and the company became increas- ingly isolated within the com- munity. A powerful coalition led by the union and women’s move- retail giant. As the strike wore Management provocation heats up Hydro strike TORONTO — Job security surfaced again last week as the prime issue in another important strike. This time it was the Ontario-wide strike by 15,000 Hydro workers, members of Local 1000 Canadian Union of Public Employees. The issue, pursued by unions in different ways, has been taking centre stage recently in several key labor disputes, the latest being the fight by 3,000 striking airline clerks at Air Canada. They’ re fight- ing to stop the Crown corporation from drastically cutting full time jobs through attrition and hiring only part time workers to operate highly automated ticket processing equipment the airline wants to bring on stream. At Hydro, the issue is contracting out. Local 1000 wants new limits put on the numbers of build- ing trades workers from other unions who do the maintenance and operating work in Ontario generating plants. _ Hydro however is digging in for a fierce battle with the union. Since the strikers went out at midnight May 5, management has moved quickly to try and throw the union off balance. ‘ On May 6, Hydro announced it was taking Local 1000 and 64 shop stewards to the Ontario Labor Relations Board to recover $13-million in damages it claims resulted from last Easter weekend’s prov- ince-wide protest strike. CUPE members had walked out to protest lagging contract talks and Hydro’s refusal to bargain seriously. Union officials took the May 6 decision as proof Hydro isn’t interested in negotiating an agreement, and the company’s arrogance deeply angered the members on the picket line. Then, the next day, in a deliberate provocation, Hydro tried to run a six-vehicle convoy led by two busloads of management personal through the line at the coal-fired generating plant at Nanticoke on Lake Erie. The whole production was stage-managed to bring food and other supplies to ‘‘relieve”’ management inside the Nanticoke plant. They’ve been trying to operate the facility since the workers walked off the job. In the confrontation that followed the buses were pelted with eggs, tires were slashed and igni- tion wires pulled out. Hydro had to send another bus into the mele in order to “‘rescue”’ its busload of management personnel who never made it through the gate. True to form, the court granted a temporary 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 15, 1985 injunction to Hydro after deliberating the matter from 10 in the morning to 11 p.m. The injunction, limiting pickets to 15 per site, was supposed to expire May 19. Meanwhile Hydro says it is pre- paring for a permanent injunction. Strikers at the Lambton thermal plant near Sar- nia blocked the road leading into the facility, while Hydro sent about 2,200 construction workers home for a week from the Bruce Nuclear plant, on Lake Huron, because of the picket lines outside the facility. On May 8, when Hydro applied for a Supreme Court injunction to limit pickets outside these three facilities, it became clear what the Nanticoke exer- cise was really all about. — breaking the picket line sO management operators can come and go at will. CUPE has offered toaccept bindingarbitrationon the contracting out issue but this has been rejected by Hydro. The union feels such other issues, as wages and pensions can be still settled at the bargaining table. The workers have lowered their original wage demand of parity with their colleagues at Toronto Hydro. This would have meant an increase of 5.8 per cent over a one year pact. Instead they’re seeking a two-year agreement with increases of 5 and 4'4 per cent in each year respectively. Hydro’s offer stands at 4 and 3'2 per cent. The strike which Hydro claims is costing $3 mil- lion a day, has shut down the province’s 10 nuclear generators. The Atomic Energy Control Board won’t permit their operation. The 10 generators usually provide about 45 per cent of the peak demand for electricity at this time of the year. Hydro is making up the short fall with increased output from its-thermal generators, now being operated by management, and from imports including Manitoba’s New Democratic Party government which came under fire from Local 1000 president Jack Macdonald for ‘‘strike- breaking in a sense’’ when Manitoba Hydro dou- bled its regular output of 100 megawatts per week to Ontario Hydro. Macdonald said the effect of the Hydro sales to Northern Ontario has been to allow management at strike-bound thermal plants in Thunder Bay and Atikokan to go south and operate plants there. As far as Ontario Hydro strikers are concerned, he said, they'd prefer if Manitoba Hydro stopped its sales to Ontario. ments, was building against the, = i! many different ways. on, this coalition gathered around itself broad sections of the communtiy right up to and including the churches. Both the United and Catholic churches, the two largest in the country, condemned Eaton’s for its anti-union stand, and urged support for the boycott and the strikers’ fight to get a contract. The strike, boycott and mas- sive support movement were steadily eroding the company’s corporate image, and in the long term, Eaton’s knew, they were poisoning sales in a highly competitive industry. Aside from the fight for a first contract, the key issues in the strike were pensions, wages and basic union rights, such as a grievance procedure and senior- ity protection. While hoping for the best, the strikers know Eaton’s management too well to expect any generosity in the ten- tative settlement. Chief RWDSU negotiator Tom Collins’ remarks to the press in announcing the settle- ment didn’t indicate there was any great reform in the com- \ pany’s attitude. Collins said the For many of these women, the strike has changed their lives in company was still ‘‘worse than arrogant’’ and ‘‘showing com- plete disregard for the feelings of its employees.”’ The strikers are proud of the battle they’ve waged thus far, not just for themselves, but for the entire trade union move- ment and for the tens of thousands of unorganized retail industry workers. Most of them are women who’ve never belonged to a: union before, let alone walked a picket line for six months. As many of them have said during those months, the strike has changed their lives in many ways, opening up a new world of working-class politics and solidarity. It was hard for the strikers to see themselves making history as they pounded the picket line during the winter of ’84 and scraped along at $70 a week strike pay. But that’s exactly wht they did. While they may not have achieved everything they wanted, getting the union into Eaton’s will have been a crucial turning point for the tens of thousands of retail in- dustry workers waiting to be organized. gi Labor Briefs \(>- MORE SUPPORT FOR CALEA TORONTO — As negotiators for 3,000 Air Canada ticket agents got ready to go back to the bargaining table early this week, support was growing throughout the country for the strik- ing members of the Canadian Airline Employees Association. Auto union leader Bob White, in a telegram to CALEA mem- bers announced that May 11 was being targeted by the union as ‘“UAW Day”’ at six Canadian airports: Toronto, Montreal, Hali- fax, Windsor, Winnipeg and London, and that UAW locals in their areas are being urged to give ‘‘maximum participation.” The union is also fighting Air Canada’s demand that it be allowed to hire new, part time workers at $1.30 an hour less than the current $7.43 an hour starting rate. This is another strike in which most of the participants, (66 per cent) are women. CALEA has received the support of the Na- tional Action Committee on the Status of Women. OPSEU PROTESTS PENNY-PINCHING TORONTO — Government penny-pinching on mental health care has pushed the rate of accidents and assaults on staff in — Ontario’s 11 psychiatric facilities to an all-time high, says the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). In 1983, there were 1,148 non-fatal accidents among the 4,500 nursing and support staff — a rate of 255 accidents per thousand employees. This compares to a rate of only 36 accidents per 1, in the mining industry, generally regarded as one of the most dangerous occupations. The statistics were cited at a press conference Aril 30, called by OPSEU to coincide with demonstrations at Queen’s Park and at psychiatric hospitals across the province to focus public attention on deteriorating mental health care.