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LARRY KUEHN a

GAUTIER ‘ADDRESSING TRADES RALLY. . .we have just begun to give the government and employers our answer.

‘All-out fight vowed

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It has only just turned light but already ©

8toups of people have begun to gather,
g up along the road and across the flat
Sweep of railway tracks. They’ve come
dressed for the morning cold, men and
Women in mackinaws. and ski jackets,
Some wearing hard hats decked with a
Union logo. Here and there a picket sign
&ives a glimpse of white in the grey light.
By 7 a.m. on this day there are perhaps
_ 300 of them. And each of them has come
to provide one more link in what it is
hoped will be a human chain that will stop
anti-union contractor J.C. Kerkhoff and
Sons from going to work on the construc-
tion job that should have gone to Building

: Trades workers.
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Outside the chain link gates leading to
the construction site, several people are
gathered around a small fire, set in a paint
pail. They’ve rigged up a makeshift plastic
shelter to keep off the the rain and the
picket signs hang off the two-by-four sup-
ports. they’ve, limited their numbers right
at the gate — holding to the letter of an
injunction brought down Mar. 8 limiting
them to 12 pickets per gate — but they’re
staying here around the clock.

Behind them, a hand-painted sign with
the words, “Will the last union member
going to jail please lock the gate,” and the
heavy steel lock on the gate demonstrate
just how grimly they’re prepared to stand
their ground.

“Some of us haven’t worked in two
years,” one unemployed unionist says
vehemently, “and we haven’t had three
square meals a day for a long time.

“At least we'll get three squares in jail.”

Another shows a pay stub from a non-
union worker from Tumbler Ridge show-
ing a paycheque for only $250 for a week’s
work. “That’s what it’s all about,” he tells
reporters.

A sidewalk’s breadth away from the
gate, the number of supporters has swelled
to several hundred. Among them are
numerous representatives of the Building

see PICKETING page 12

by the Building Trades

If the government and the employers
intended the Pennyfarthing project as a test
case to see how hard the Building Trades
would fight and how far they would go,
“then we’ve begun to give them our answer
— and we'll be giving them a stronger
answer,” Building Trades Council president
Roy Gautier declared before 2,000 unionists
who rallied at the construction site
Saturday.

“We will wage an all-out struggle on this
and any other major project. None of them
will go up non-union without a very, very
high price being paid,” he said to a roar of
approval.

That all out struggle entered a new phase
early Monday as hundreds of unionists,
their number- rivalling that of the rally
crowd, massed at the construction site in
defiance of a Labor Relations Board order
which was just then being filed in Supreme
Court of British Columbia.

The Building Trades campaign began
last month in an effort to stop Penny-
farthing Development Corporation from
handing over the contract for the second
and third phases of the Harbor Cove luxury

Kerkhoff spearheading
anti-union drive

page 12

condominium project from a union firm,
Stevenson Construction Ltd., to Kerkhoff
Construction, a notorious right-to-work
contractor based in Chilliwack. Kerkhoff
has attempted to begin work on the site but
Building Trades pickets, backed by
hundreds of “concerned citizens”, have
blocked the way.

The pickets, after first being limited by a
Supreme Court injunction, were later
ordered to cease and desist by the Labor
Relations Board in a ruling Mar. 12.

And LRB chairman Stephen Kelleher
ruled Mar. 16 that the cease and desist order
had not been obeyed and ordered it filed in
Supreme Court. Once filed, it has the

‘authority of a court order and those defying

it can be cited for contempt.

The order was duly filed Monday morn-
ing although it was not served on picketers
immediately as Justice Allan MacEachern
ruled that he could not accept Kerkhoff’s ex
parte application to have the order nailed
up on a fence, and called for Building
Trades’ lawyers to be present in court as
well. A new court hearing had not been set
at Tribune press time.

see TRADES page 11

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