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LABOUR
IN
POLITICS

By JACK MacKENZIE

President, New Democratic Party of B.C.

4 — made by Ed Haw, Local 1-118

IWA at the recent Federation con-
vention-conference scored an important
point.

He estimated that the cost
to the workers of the Alberni |
strike situation ran into sev-

eral millions of dollars. He | e 1
—_—

said:

“If we raised that kind
of money for our political
party, the NDP, we’d soon
be rid of situations like
this.”

The dilemma faced by the
unions involved in the Alberni situation was
Jargely created by anti-labour legislation and
lack of legislative protection for free collec-
tive bargaining.

There’s no good reason why we should
not have in British Columbia a provision
such as now exists in the Saskatchewan
Labour Act. In that province, if a major-
ity in the bargaining unit vote for the
union shop, it is written into the contract.
With such a provision in the B.C. Labour
Relations Act, we would never have
heard of the Alberni OEIU strike or at
least it would never have spread and
lasted eight weeks. Union shop conditions
are by right the business solely of the
employees, and for this right we need
legislative protection.

MB & PR was evidently prepared to sue

_ four unions for recovery of damages because

of production losses during the strike period.
The present Trade Unions Act, (Bill 43)

_ makes a union a legal entity liable to be
' sued. It ignores the fact that a union cannot

be likened to a business firm in its structure.

WHERE TO PUT
OUR MONEY

A Huge Damage Bill

Union action, deemed to be illegal under
the Labour Relations Act, can be made the
basis for a civil suit for damages. If MB &.
PR had won such a suit in court, the stated
damages would have been in excess of $16
million. If all our funds were attached ‘to
satisfy a judgment for this amount we’d be
in hock to the company for our lifetime.

Moreover, this same Act, in effect, regards
trade unionists charged with offences as
guilty until proven innocent, a complete re-
versal of an accepted judicial principle. The
same Act limits picketing and bans a boycott
on “hot” goods, indirectly.

Traps for the Unwary
There are many traps for unwary unions
in our labour laws. I merely state here that
it has been strange law-making that could
have punished IWA members in Port Alberni
for doing what they did in all honour by:

Imposing heavy fines on individual
members.
Imposing heavier fines on Local Union

Officers.

Imposing still heavier fines on the
Local Unions.

Wrecking the: unions financially with

damage suits.

The wrong-way legislation cannot be cor-
rected in any other way except through polit-
ical action such as proposed by our Union.
All representations made to the government
have been scorned. The Socred government
has made up its mind that the trade union
effort to raise the workers’ living standards
must be curbed by crushing union strength
for free collective bargaining.

Ed Haw was right. For a fraction of the
funds now required for defence, we could
take effective political action that would re-
move all necessity for defence.

IT ALL BOILS DOWN TO A QUESTION

°F KNOW HOW

. and Pierre Paris & Sons
have KNOWN HOW for

nearly 60 years. It was

then, and sfill is now, the
finest logging boot that

money can buy.

PIERRE PARIS & SONS

51 West Hastings Street
Vancouver 3, B.C

nanship

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

IWA, during a recent meeting held to hear a pro-
gress report on the Northern Interior negotiations.

Board fails

to check

unfair acts

Lack of adequate protec-
tion against unfair labour
practices provided by the La-
bour Relations Board has
compelled the IWA in its In-
terior organizational drive to
resort to prosecution of anti-
labour employers in the
courts.

This point was forcibly
made by Clayton Walls, Inter-
national Assistant Director of
Organization in his report to
the recent meeting of the Re-
gional Executive Board.

Although a large number of
new certifications have been
secured in recent months by
the Assistant Director and
staff, in numefous instances,
the employers have intimidat-
ed and discharged workers
suspected of promoting IWA
organization in the operation.

Said Walls: “The dilemma
that we found ourselves in
was that had we laid charges
under Section 4 (2) (c) of
the Labour Relations Act, the
Board no doubt would have
ordered the employers to
“cease and desist” from their
intimidation or violations of
the Act. In most cases three
weeks to a month might
elapse before a hearing could
be obtained before the Board.
Under -the weak, boss-favor-
ing legislation an order to

cease and desist from doing
those acts prohibited by the
Act would have been issued
by the Board with little effect.
In other words the Board
would say, ‘naughty, naughty,
don’t do it again.’ The em-
ployer would have at least a
whole month to harass, threat-
en and intimidate the employ-
ees and to use any illegal
method he chose to destroy
the beginning of an IWA or-
ganization in his operation.”

For the above reasons, Lo-
cal 1-417 IWA, Salmon Arm,
applied to the B.C. Supreme*
Court for an injunction re-
straining Commercial Lumber
Co., Lillooet, from interfering
with the formation and admin-
istration of the Union and to
cease intimidation and threats
of dismissal.

An injunction was granted
by Mr. Justice Aitkins. Com-
mercial Lumber Co: moved
to have the injunction set
aside, but the Local Union
was successful in retaining ap-
plication of the injunction.

The application for certifi-
cation is still pending before
the Labour Relations Board,
reported the organizers.

The unfortunate results of
this course of action is that
the Union is required to bear
the costs of prosecuting anti-
union employers.

1-417 breaks

new ground

A Memorandum of Agree-
ment has been signed be-
tween Archibald Sawmills
Ltd. and Local 1-417, IWA.

Financial Secretary Cliff
Michael announced that an
agreement with the Company
was reached on July 16, 1964,
following meetings between
the Local Union and the Com-
pany.

This is the first agreement
with the Company as certifi-
cation was received on June
16, 1964.

The operation was organ-
ized by Regional Organizer

Dick Larson.

Those representing the
Union during negotiations
were Cliff Michael, Bob
Schlosser, Jack Cameron and
Wes Traub.

NEW CERTIFICATION

Certification hasbeen se-
cured for Cattermole and
Trethewey Contractors Lid.
by the Labour Relations
Board on July 15, 1964.

The operation is locaics)
nine miles north of Clinion,
B.C.

The Union applied for cc:
tification on June 5, 1964, /..’-
lowing organizational ws)!

by Mike Sekora,

—_