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Labour

By FRED WILSON
Last of a series

Powerful strike votes last week in two of
B.C.’s basic industries emphasize the re-
surgence of militancy around economic
demands in the province’s trade union
movement.

Industry wide strike votes in the pulp
and paper and fishing industries were
conducted without Industrial Relations
Council supervision according to the B.C.
Federation of Labour boycott policy.

Common employer demands to length-
‘en the work day and bring back weekend
work for private sector workers, and hard-
line stances in the face of wage demands
could produce strike action as early as next
week by private sector workers.

And while the issues are predominantly
economic, in the context of Bill 19, any job
action could quickly assume political
dimensions.

The 14,000 members of the Canadian
Paper Workers Union and the Pulp and
Paper Workers of Canada produced a
combined strike vote of 89 per cent to back
up their negotiators with the profit-rich
pulp industry.

The B.C. pulp industry which produces
15 per cent of the world supply of pulp has
benefited from successive price rises over
the past two years, and the unions have
demanded significant wage and pension
benefit increases.

PPWC president Stan Shewaga said
Saturday that the unions would be pre-
pared to use the strike mandate if the
industry failed to move towards union
demands when talks resumed Monday.
According to sources close to the negotia-

tions, the pulp unions have been asking for
$1.05 per hour in the first year, and 6.5 and
six per cent increases in the second and
third years of an agreement. The industry
responded with a 70 cent per hour offer in
the first year, and 4.5 and five per cent
offers in the second and third years.

Although the industry offers appear
relatively close to union demands, the
unions are determined to force the indus-
try significantly beyond its present posi-
tion and strike action can’t be ruled out,
say forest union activists.

While the pulp unions press for wage
increases, the International Woodwork-
ers-Canada and Forest Industrial Rela-
tions continue bargaining in Vancouver at
a slow pace.

Negotiations have so far focused on
continuing industry demands for major
union concessions around “flexible work
schedules” to allow tor weekend work and
extended shifts, as the “price” the union
should pay for achieving protection
‘against contracting out of union jobs.

The contracting out issue was the basis
of the four-month industry strike in 1986,
and IWA leaders assert that the union
membership retain their willingness to
fight on the issue.

The forest industry appears to be fol-
lowing the strategy that led to the bitter
confrontation in 1986, by settling first with
pulp unions and then standing firm on
concession demands against the IWA.
Some union activists are calling for an
early strike vote by IWA members to
counteract the industry strategy, but the
IWA negotiating committee has no plans
presently for a vote.

A massive 91-per-cent strike vote
coastwide by members of the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers Union
confirms the growing wage movement in
the province.

The strike vote, the highest in the indus-
try in several years, reflects the overwhelm-
ing rejection of industry demands for
shoreworker concessions and price cuts in
pink salmon and chum salmon prices.

A strike deadline, possibly for early next
week, was being set by the UFA WU as the.
Tribune went to press.

In spite of solid industry profits, fishing
companies are also pressing for “‘flexibil-
ity” in weekend work and shift scheduling
to eliminate overtime work.

And while the union is demanding $1

_ per hour wage increases for shore workers

and minimum fish price increases, the
companies have not made a wage offer for
shoreworkers and are demanding cuts in
the price of pinks and chums to 29 cents
and 30 cents per pound.

The third major set of private sector
negotiations between B.C.’s organized
building trades workers and the construc-
tion industry i is also continuing at the Uni-
versity of B.C. without tangible progress.

But unlike the forest and fishing indus-
tries, worker militancy in the construction
industry is limited by the growth of the
non-union sector and a weakened position

for building trades unions.

The construction industry, like the fore-
stry and fishing companies, has taken aim
at the eight-hour day and are also demand-
ing concessions in shift scheduling, over-
time and weekend work.

The industry is prepared to offer mod-
est wages increases in the booming indus-
trial sector, but has offered only a wage
rollover in the first year and 50 cents in the
second year for the commercial and insti-
tutional sectors.

The building trades unions want $1.35
in the first year of a new contract for all
sectors of the industry in one master
agreement. Construction Labour Rela-
tions wants two agreements, one for
industrial and one for commercial and
industrial. Residential construction is a
third sector covered by separate agree-
ments between CLR and individual build-
ing trades unions.

Construction negotiations continue to
be complicated by the lack of unity among
building trades unions. Four major build-

ing trades unions — plumbers, ironwork- |

ers, sheet metal and painters — have

already signed different pace-setting agree-_

ments with independent contractors.
With different unions operating accord-

ing to separate agendas, the trades seem to F

lack a unifying position. That is reflected
in the failure to secure a strike vote of its
members even though the master agree-
ment expired last May.

. With almost 80 per cent of the construc-
tion industry now non-union, the building
trade’s negotiating position is largely
dependent on its ability to launch an
organizing drive to regain lost ground.

——

Warning to labour in Steinberg contract

How do you spell Steinberg?

B-l-a-c-k-m-a-i-l.

At least that’s what some 8,000 members
of Local 500, United Food and Commercial
Workers, recently concluded when they
narrowly accepted a contract with hefty
wage and benefits concessions.

Since the beginning of the year, reports of
a feud among the three Steinberg sisters
who control the supermarket and réal estate
dynasty have fuelled speculation that the
business might be sold.

These reports conveniently buttressed
demands the corporation was putting on
the bargaining table before the Montreal
UFCW members. The corporate message
was clear: “Give us the concessions we want
or we'll sell the company and you can find
jobs wherever you can.”

The union and its members in the corpo-
ration’s sprawling operation throughout
Ontario and Quebec could be forgiven for
detecting more than a little cynicism in the
manoeuvering and media manipulation
that have taken palce around these talks.

Undoubtedly there were other axes to
grind as the sisters feuded and the board of
directors last January authorized corporate
management to do whatever was necessary
to maximize the return on shareholders
investments. That’s when talk of putting the
company up for sale took on a special kind
of momentum.

It would be interesting to see who col-
lected, and how much was made, on Stein-
berg shares which were driven up to $44
apiece at the height of the takeover specula-
tion. They have since dropped by about $12
a share.

Certainly the family seems to have halt
plenty of opportunity to sell, if that was the
objective. Within the last year, buyers have
offered $1 billion and $980-million respec-

8 e Pacific Tribune, July 13, 1988

Mike Phillips

tively for the company in two separate
offers.

But the Steinbergs didn’t sell.

Little wonder. The family’s corporate
real estate holdings alone are worth $635
million. Its 380 stores rake in $4.5 billion a
year in sales, and The Financial Post 500
reported the corporation’s net income last
year at $58.4 million. Canadian Business
magazine lists Steinberg as the country’s
third most profitable retailer after Canadian
Tire Corp. and Sears Canada.

The real motive underlying the attack on
the wages and living standards of its Mont-
real workers is the corporation’s plans to
restructure the supermarket operation and
take advantage of the growing trend in the
economy toward part-time work. The
Montreal workers were the prime target
because 73 of the corporation’s 91 Quebec
stores are located there.

In effect the contract forces the Montreal
UFCW members to donate $11 million jin
surrendered wages and benefits to help
finance Steinberg’s restructuring and
rationalization plans.

The corporation in return has agreed not
to close 50 of its 73 Montreal outlets. The
three-year pact also commits the local to
settle the next three-year agreement on the
basis of final offer selection, thus suspend-
ing the workers’ right to strike for the next
SiX years.

Understandably, many Local 500 mem-

Peers

LABOURIN ACTION

bers were bitterly opposed to the settlement,
and only passed it by a slim 53-per-cent to
46-per-cent margin. Part-time workers were
ee angriest since they have been the hardest
t

They will see their wages cut by $1 an
hour in the first year, and two 25-cent-an-
hour increases in the subsequent two years
of the deal will see them earning 50 cents less
in 1991 than they are currently paid.

Part-timers make up about half of Stein-
berg’s 12,000-member Quebec work force.
They account for 40 per cent of all the hours
worked, but the agreement makes a jump to
60 per cent possible.

The settlement should send warning sig-

Bal Os anes

nals to the entire trade union movement.
The Gainers workers learned the hard way
about how concessions just whet the bosses _ ;
appetite for more. |

Last May’s Canadian Labour Congress |
convention adopted an action program
against the neo-conservative agenda that |
included a rallying call for assistance at
levels of the trade union movement |
unions confronting the kind of blackmal!
Steinberg Inc. has foisted on the UFCW.

Corporations like Steinberg are showing |
Canadians just what kind of “lean and
mean” economic set-up they have in mind |
for us. They’re revamping Canada’s ec”
nomic base to maximize profits at the
expense of the people’s well-being and living |
standards.

No union can take this fight on by itself
Ways must be found to breathe life into the —
CLC’s fightback program. Co-ordinatiod —
and mass united trade union action af
what’s needed to stop the blackmail from
spreading. Its a job for every local unioD, —
labour council, federation, and indeed the

congress itself.

Name

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