B.C. FED. PRESIDENT GEORGE JOHNSTON OPENING PENTICTON CONVENTION . .

around majority decisions of convention.

. calls for unity
—Sean Griffin photo

Professor Herbert Grubel, who
teaches economics at Simon
Fraser University, would make all
strikes in the public sector illegal.
That’s why he was allowed space to
develop his position in the Van-
couver Sun of October 21. It was
yet another example of the
carefully orchestrated campaign
against public employees.

Public employees constitute
about one-third of Canada’s non-
agricultural work force. They
include employees of federal,
provincial and municipal public
services, Crown agencies, and
bodies such as universities, school
boards and hospitals. A large
percentage of them are union
members.

Many, but not all jobs in the
public sector are comparable to
jobs in the private sector. Com-
pensation for most public em-

Rush hits
gas hike

“The latest 10 percent increase
in the price of natural gas to
consumers in B.C., announced last
Friday by energy minister Jack
Davis, is totally unjustified and
represents another rip off of
consumers in favor of higher
profits for the large oil and gas
companies,’’ B.C. Communist
Party leader Maurice Rush
charged in a statement Tuesday.

The gas price increase is the
third since November, 1975. Since
1975 consumers have been hit with
a 51 percent increase in the price of
gas.

Rush said the gas and oil com-
panies have been blackmailing
B.C. into granting them increased
priceson the threat of moving their
drilling rigs to Alberta.

He said that Davis’ claim that
threatened gas shortages justify
the boost in prices is ‘‘incredible,”’
especially in view of the fact that
since 1970 the export of natural gas
to the U.S. has nearly doubled.

“They are always demanding
more,”’ Rush said of the oil com-
panies, ‘‘Instead of bowing to the
pressure of these huge U.S.
companies every few months, the
B.C. government should be pressed
to place the entire natural gas
industry in B.C. under public
ownership.”’

ployees is determined through
collective bargaining.

What may be in store for public
employees was indicated in the
“Federal Government Green
Paper: Agenda For Co-operation.”

The Trudeau government wants
to subject public employees to
strict “formula bargaining.” In

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

line with that aim, it has proposed
the following guideline: ‘‘The
introduction of an ‘average
comparability of total com-
pensation’ pay formula for govern-
ment employees at the federal
level and promotion of such
schemes at the provincial level.”

The federal government would
have its employees cooperate with
their designated employers (post

” office, public works department)

to devise appropriate comparisons
and to set up an “impartial body,”
such as the pay research board, to
provide information to all parties
on compensation packages in the
public and private sectors. That
would reduce the scope of
collective bargaining to arguments
over what is comparable.

As a critique by the Canadian
Labor Congress points out, the
application of this concept would
mean more “labor-management
cooperation” and less freedom of
action for the employees and their
unions.

The CLC is opposed to formula
bargaining in the public sector for
the following reasons:

o Unions would have no free
choice in determining appropriate
wages at a given time.

o The role of the union would
decline with the automatic ap-
plication of a pre-determined
formula.

o Pay research boards could not
be counted on to be impartial.
Although short-term gains might
be made by -some groups, all
workers would be deprived in the
long run of an effective voice,
because of the diminished role of
their union and the increased role
of economists, statisticians and
professional advocates.

The application of formula
bargaining for public employees

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 4, 1977—Page 12

has two dangers for private sector
employees. First, it would be used
as a model to promote formula
bargaining for all workers. For
example, government spokesmen
have suggested a formula based on
prices and productivity changes.
Second, formula bargaining would
tend to freeze the relatively low-
wage sections of the work force in
their current positions.

Public employees, in repudiating
formula bargaining, stress two
important considerations:

1) The right and responsibility of
public sector unions to defend and

advance the interests of their.

members.

2) Under formula bargaining,
public employees would be forced
permanently to accept lower
compensation than workers in the
private sector. They would always
be in a catch-up position.

Government spokesmen, big
business organizations and
academics like professor Grubel,
constantly refer to the hardships
and inconvenience to the public of
strikes in the public services. They
portray government as a neutral
body standing above society, a
benign group whose main objective
is to serve all classes impartially
and thus promote social harmony.
But this is a false picture.

The October ferry strike was
caused by the B.C. Ferry Cor-
poration, not by the union. In line
with provincial government policy,
the corporation insisted on cutting
back on overtime provisions and
job security. Naturally, the
workers fought back. Thus, the
class question came to the fore.
Their employer, an agency of the
Socred government, was serving
that government in attempting to
reduce the cost of operations by
slashing wages and working
conditions.

The Essential Services Disputes
Act is not designed to protect the
public welfare. Its main purpose is
to give the Socred government a
bigger club against the workers
they meed at the bargaining table.
So much for the so-called im-
partiality of that law!

Much has been said about in-
convenience to the public as a
result of strikes in the public
sector. The vast majority of the
public is made up of working
people. When public employees
strike for a just cause, wide public
support can be won, provided the
union keeps the public fully in-
formed, starting with the trade
union movement as a whole.

a.--hoax, it

‘Pull together’
Fed urges labor

‘Brothers and sisters. .. we need
unity and solidarity in the labor
movement.

“Unity to fight the issue of
unemployment.

“Unity to fight the rotten ‘anti-
labor legislation coming down
from Victoria.

“Unity in developing an effective
political action program.”

With those words President
George Johnston opened up the
22nd convention of the B.C.
Federation of Labor in Penticton
this week appealing to delegates to
“use the opportunity at this con-
vention to. work towards building
the solidarity we all know is so
important.

“If we don’t pull together now,”’
he warned, ‘‘we may not have a
recognizable labor movement in
thefuture to carry on the struggles
we have undertaken over the
years.”

Johnston’s call for unity around
the policies adopted by convention
and for solidarity against what he
called a ‘‘disastrous Social Credit
government and the insensitive
and equally catastrophic Liberal
government in Ottawa,’’ was

echoed again in the report of the

executive council as officers
sought to heal the divisions opened
up by last year’s convention in
which several major affiliates had
attacked the Federation leadership
for its advocacy of independent
political action.

Many of the divisions remained
at the Penticton convention — -
centred particularly around the
Federation’s role in relation to the
New Democratic Party — but
attempts had been made to bridge
the differences. Both Johnston’s
speech and the report of the
executivé council — coupled witha
political action report yet to be
debated at Tribune press time —
gave particular emphasis to the-
NDP and to the need for unionists

to join the party and give it full
support in preparation for the next  ~
election.

At the same time, however, unity
was not to be bought at any price,
Johnston warned, noting that such
a policy is ‘like ‘our party right or
wrong’. ”

“Tt is not in the interests of the
labor movement to support wrong
legislation, even when a decision
temporarily creates division
within the trade union movement,”
he declared.

The Federation president
stressed that the only effective way
forward “‘is to agree that once an
issue has been debated and voted
on in convention, we will all sup-
port the majority view.”’

“To take up the challenges
facing us,” the executive council
report reiterated, ‘‘will require the
setting aside of past internal dif-
ferences anda reaffirmation of our
commitment to working class
solidarity.”

Although many resolutions and
statements had yet to come before
the convention, including
statements on essential service
legislation and tripartism, the
emphasis on overcoming dif-
ferences was reflected in the vote
on the executive council’s report. -

Last year’s report, bitterly
contested by several large af- |
filiates including the Steelworkers,
IWA and the B.C. Government
Employees, passed by a narrow
majority and only after a lengthy
roll call vote. In Penticton the
report passed virtually without
opposition.

Carpenters delegate Lorne —
Robson summed up the demand
voiced by several delegates
throughout thedebate on the report —
when he tole the convention:
“Let’s end the differences, and end
the bickering. Let’s get on with the
job of defending the trade union
movement — of doing what this
Federation was elected to do.”

Cont'd from pg. 1

The question was also raised on
the floor of the Federation’s
convention Tuesday morning at
which time Guy told delegates that
the officers were taking the matter
“very very seriously.”’

Information received by New
Westminster NDP MP Stuart
Leggat who raised the matter in
the Commons Monday gave sub-
stanceto the Federation’s concern.

According to Federation political
education director Colin
Gabelmann, Leggatt’s sources
informed him that if the memo was
was ‘a very
sophisticated hoax’’ since the file
numbers appearing on the upper
right hand side of the memo
seemed to be authentic.

Moreover, Leggatt is reported to
have said, solicitor-general Fox,
when questioned about the matter,

Secret memo queried

denied that the investigation had
been ordered but would not
comment when he was asked —
whether such investigations were
carried out.

The growing list of disclosures of
RCMP wrongdoing and the
questionable role of the Trudeau
government in the crimes has
prompted widespread questioning
as to the scope of so-called
“security action’? and has raised
considerable concern, particularly
in the labor movement, as to the
political implications of the RCM-
P’s illegal actions.

Charges raised by Conservative
leader Joe Clark -in Parliament
relating to, the theft by RCMP of
Quebec Common Front documents
and subsequent police action in
turning the documents over to the
Quebec Liberal government, have
given clear indication that the |
RCMP has been used as a political —
instrument by government.

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