GLRA threat spurs demand

The demand by many trade
unionists at last year’s B.C. Feder-
ation of Labor convention — for
the establishment of a “common
front” of all unions involved in
negotiations in the critical 1986
bargaining year — has moved clo-
ser to reality following the con-
struction employers’ “declaration
of war” against the Building
Trades unions.

The letters sent by Construction
Labor Relations Association
(CLRA) to all 16 Building Trades
unions and the Building Trades
Council demanding sweeping con-
cessions and unilaterally declaring
the current collective agreement at
an end on its expiry date Apr. 30,
has set the tone for what is
expected to be a decisive round of
bargaining this year, underscoring
the importance of a co-ordinated
bargaining campaign.

“The construction employers’
game plan is to blackmail the
- Building Trades workers into
accepting a totally outrageous set
of demands with the threat of
agreement cancellation, elimina-
tion of the union sector and a
return to open-shop, freewheeling
conditions in the industry tried
elsewhere,” Building Trades Coun-
cil president Roy Gautier charged
in a statement Jan. 21.

“The answer,” he emphasized,
“lies in total unity among our
trades people and the building of a
common front of all labor organi-
zations who are under the gun this
year.

“The Building Trades will take
part in the promotion of such a
front and will call on others to do
likewise,” he said.

The B.C. Federation of Labor
Thursday gave its full backing to
the Building Trades following a
Meeting between federation and
council officers.

A statement issued by federation
president Art Kube condemned
the “belligerant announcement”
by CLRA and declared: “Although
not all Building Trades unions are
affiliates of the federation, the

JACK NICHOL

Building Lrades will receive our
complete support...Our federa-
tion is committed to an active co-
ordinating role in union bargaining
programs and will bring maximum
pressure to bear on employers who
are demanding concessions from
their employees.”

Earlier, the Vancouver and Dis-
trict Labor Council gave its full
backing to the Building Trades
Council and called on the council
and the B.C. Fed “to develop
together a strategy of co-ordinated
bargaining that will be mutually
beneficial.”

The motion was endorsed at a
packed meeting Jan. 21 where
representatives from both the
Building Trades and striking Pacific
Wetsern Airlines unions warned of
the employers’ stepped-up union-
busting efforts.

Machinists’ spokesman Ralph
Webb told delegates that the dis-
pute at PWA now into its tenth
week, “‘is clearly about union bust-
ing.

“Management simply isn’t inter-
ested in a settlement,” he warned,
“their negotiators have made it
clear that they want all of the con-
cessions they’re demanding or
nothing.

“But it’s questionable whether
we'd have a union left if we were to
accept them,” he said.

-. governments,”

taxes, add another 9.6 cents.

-VDLC protests price
_ gouging at gas pumps

Delegates to the Vancouver and District Labor Council gave
voice to the rising consumer anger at the service station gas
_ pump with a resolution Jan, 21 protesting the price of gas and
=the “unconscionable tax gouging by both provincial and federal

“We're being hosed every time we go to the pumps,” said
- council president Doug Evans. “The price of oil is dropping all
_ Over the world but our gas prices keep going up.”

~ Fishermen’s delegate John Radosevic noted that rising gas
_ prices were making it harder for fishermen to make a living, with
_ Some fishermen having to put as much as one-third of the gross —
__ take from a trip into fuel costs.

_ The motion was spurred by the latest federal tax increase of
One cent a litre imposed Jan. 1 which brought federal taxes on a
litre of regular gas, which costs 56.7 cents at the pump, up to 22.3
cents, Provincial taxes, including sales taxes and urban transit

ut whereas consumers are faced with escalating taxes on the’
fuel they require to keep their cars running, the multinational oil
companeis have had substantial tax relief from governments as a
Tesult of the Western Accord signed between the three western
Provinces and the Tory federal government last March.

The accord was singled out by the U.S. investment house of
‘Salomon Brothers last August as the most important factor in
il company profits bothi in is short and the long term.

for unions’ common front

ROY GAUTIER

Carpenters delegate Colin Snell
pointed to Webb’s comments
about the PWA strike, adding:
“that’s what its about in the con-
struction industry.”

The employers clearly have
common aims,” he said, “and if it
takes acommon front of unions to
fight, then that’s what we have to
do.

“We've got to get the message to
the government and to employers
— if they intend to de-unionize us
here as they have in Alberta, then
there will be a major confrontation
in B.C. this summer,” he said.

Carpenter Marty Smith, whose
motion was endorsed by the meet-
ing, echoed Snell’s warnings,
emphasizing that there was little
difference in the objectives and the
tactics of such employers as PWA,
Canadian Tire, and Centennial
Hotel or CLRA.

“Employers seem to think they
can have their way with us, and the
only way to stop it is with a co-
ordinated approach to bargain-
ing,” he said.

““We’ve got to make sure that
employers know that if they take
on the Building Trades, the B.C.
Government Employees Union or
the International Woodworkers,

they take on the whole trade union .

movement.”

Fishermen’s delegate Jack Nichol
also cited PWA management’s tac-
tics in the lengthy airline dispute,
reminding delegates that “profits
aren’t the issue — taking on unions
is what it’s all about.

“The employers are taking the
opportunity in the current eco-
nomic climate to roll back long
established wages and conditions.”

Trade unionists can’t be com-
placent about that nor can they
leave it for each union to go up
against their employers individu-
ally, he warned.

“We've got to get the B.C. Fed
to begin co-ordinated bargaining,”
he said.

Nichol, a vice-president of the
federation, told the meeting that he
would be pressing federation pres-
ident Art Kube to call a conference
of all unions in bargaining this
year.

Thousands of unionists in both
the public and private sector are up
for bargaining this year. In addi-

tion to some 40,000 Building -

Trades members, 55,000 workers
in both the IWA and the two pulp
unions face contract talks this year
as do 35,000 BCGEU members,
10,000 Lower Mainland civic
workers, 14,000 B.C. Nurses and
25,000 Hospital Employees.

By BILL GILBEY

REGINA — By a three-to-
two majority decision Jan. 10,
the Saskatchewan Labor Rela-
tions Board issued a new and
distorted interpretation of the
province’s Trade Union Act
which tears the guts out of the
wages and conditions of 1,050
local Safeway supermarket work-
ers operating. the company’s
stores here.

The board ruled that the pre-
vious practice which prevented
an employer from changing
working conditions in a termi-
nated agreement until a new
contract was reached or a strike
or lockout occurred, was wrong.

Safeway had given notice to
terminate the existing collective
agreement before it expired last
June. For five months the com-
pany came to the bargaining
table and refused to budge from
its proposals for massive wage
cuts and dilution of seniority
and other benefits which would
render meaningless 30-odd years
of bargaining gains. At mid-
November, the company claimed
that negotiations with the Retail,
Wholesale and Department
Store Union were at a standstill.

The company introduced
new job classifications, and
abolished existing call-in rules
and seniority. The effect of the
company’s action amounts to
wage reductions ranging from
$5 to $8 an hour.

The action came on top of the
lockout of 250 workers at
McDonalds Consolidated Limi-
ted (Safeway-owned food dis-
tributors) over three months
ago, a bitter dispute in which the
company has refused govern-
ment-proposed mediation and
which has led to complaints
being laid against the police of
pro-company bias and activity.

In reaction to this vicious
union-busting ruling, the 66,000-
member Saskatchewan Federa-
tion of labor convened a
meeting of representatives from
all unions in the province,
including the unaffiliated con-
struction trades unions and the
Saskatchewan Union of Nurses,
on Jan. 16.

The meeting was unanimous
in recognizing the threat to
every existing union agreement.

There was no hesitation in
adopting an 18-point campaign,

| 3 POSTAL CODE
Clip and. mail to:

back bargaining rights battered |
by the board’s action. =f

Action includes a $20,000 |
grant from the federation’s —
emergency fund; an immediate
appeal to all unions for dona-
tions from their treasuries; in-
plant collections; leaflet cam-
paigns; the enlisting of support -
from community organizations;
and, if Safeway does not imme-
diately respond to requests to
retract their cutback actions and |
resurne bargaining, a massive —
boycott action. ;

In addition to calling for thee ;
resignation of Labor Relations }
Board chairman Dennis oe
the Saskatchewan Federation |
of Labor met with Labor Minis- | f
ter Grant Schmidt and urged
the provincial government to”
retroactively amend the loosely-
worded section of the Act in
order to negate the board’s ca
sion.

The SFL’s emergency meet-
ing set up a steering committee
of seven members, four federa-
tion officers plus one from the
of Nurses and one each from the™
North and South Saskatchewan
Building Trades Councils. :

The construction trades have
been suffering for several years”
from the effects of the compan-
ies being allowed to get away
with setting up “spin-off” non-
union companies to evade con- |
tract rates and conditions. |
Saskatchewan Nurses have been |
engaged for months in a public
campaign to expose the deterio- |
ration in patient care and stress _
on nurses caused by gross
understaffing in Saskatchewan |
hospitals. :

Less than a week since the ©
all-union emergency meeting
called by the SFL, action

already taken and planned
holds the promise of a fight-—
back campaign that employers
and right-wing politicians in the
province will not soon forget.

‘Offer ends
this issue