Continued from pg. 1. support a smelter in the area, McKay said, and numerous reports have alreddy named Stewart as a likely spot for a copper smelter. If the mine goes down, though, it will be disastrous for the northern community. Two years ago a New York boardroom decision put 480 men out of work and if the other 325 jobs are lost it will leave Stewart a ghost town. About 80 cents in every dollar in Stewart is derived from the mine, according to mayor Ian McLeod. “The workers could rightfully demand that the same government that lends millions to multinational corporations to invest in the competitive copper industry in third world countries, should give a fraction of that money to do ex- plorative drilling at Granduc and open up the second vein,’’ Labor Advisory Committee staff worker Bill Horswill told the - Tribune Tuesday. Grandus is profitable, Horswill claimed, but not profitable enough for the multinationals. The companies can be assured of a clear 25 per cent return in Latin America and as high as a 50 per cent return in Africa, he said, whereas the rate at Granduc may be only 10 per cent when the new. ore lode is opened. One of the companies in the Granduc con- sortium, Newmont Mines, has extensive holdings in Namibia. While Granduc is closing down, he pointed out, the federal govern- ment is promoting the coppe, industry in other countries. An Ontario company, Harrison Drilling, was recently granted $3.4 million to sink an exploratory shaft for a copper mine in Brazil, and Canadian banks are investing heavily in the Chilean copper in- dustry. In addition, Horswell noted, the federal government’s Canadian Development Corporation has recently taken a major interest in the development of the world’s largest undeveloped copper pro- duction mine in Panama. The CDC is 30 per cent owner of Texas-Gulf Inc., which is a co-adventurer with the Panama government in Panama’s . giant Cerro-Colarado mine. The union’s next move will be to take their proposal to politicians — although McKay says he_ has already had discussions with Liberal cabinet minister Iona Campagnolo which produced nothing — and to try and win support. Ironically, if the mining com- panies and the government is not interested in Granduc, there are others — besides the miners — who are. Superior Oil, part of the Exxon empire and owner of Falconbridge Mines at Sudbury, has bought part ownership of the Granduc mine. With the copper companies in- vesting in other countries, copper shares are low in Canada and, it seems, the oil companies know a deal when they see one. es oe Canadian delegates to the 9th Congress of the World Federation of Trade Unions which opened in Prague April 16. Left to right: Viateur Du Pont, Quebec Teachers Federation; Nicole and Herve Fuyet, CNTU; and Robert Quevillion, CNTU. Other Canadian delegates included Emil Rosenthal, Typographical Union; Norman Hale, Ironworkers; and Robert Gouilliard and Francine Lalonde, CNTU. VLC condemns boundary retreat The Vancouver and District La- bor »Council went on record Tuesday evening to condemn the federal government’s retreat before the United States in the Dixon Entrance boundary negotiations. Delegates unanimously endorsed a resolution that called on the federal government to enforce the Alaska Boundary line established in 1903 as Canada’s border with the U.S. Alaska Panhandle. United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union president Jack Nichol explained to delegates that the Canadian negotiating team appears to be prepared to accede to U.S. demands in Dixon Entrance rather than take a stand to uphold Canadian Sovereignty. “Tt is clearly Canadian territory and I for one am not going to stand by and sée it surrended,’”’ Nichol declared. In other business, Carpenter’s delegate Colin Snell reported that the plumbers have now joined with the joint bargaining committee which for the first time has united all of the building trades. But thé Construction Labor Relations Association, with a “strike-provoking record second to none,” Snell said, has already made. demands on the building trades unions for retrogressivé changes in the contract. Employers are demanding 4 return to the 40-hour week, re moval of the right for construction workers to take coffee breaks in shacks and an end to union dis patching to non-CLRA job sites. With mass unemployment and 4 right-to-work association working in the province, the employers aré trying to turn the clock back on longstanding union conditions; Snell said. “It appears that the Employers’ Council has advised End of trusteeship overdue in Laborers’ 602 Irrespective of the merits or de- merits of any individuals, it is an insult to the dignity of Canadian workers when the president of an international union, a citizen of the United States, can place a local union of Canadian workers under trusteeship. Canadian unions should run their own. affairs, in- cluding disciplinary matters. A local union under trusteeship has no right to meet or to conduct any business whatsoever without the permission of the trustee ap- pointed by the president. For example, the local cannot meet to discuss demands for collective bargaining or to vote on a proposed settlement — unless the trustee gives permission. If meetings are held in defiance of the trustee, all proceedings can be declared null and void and charges can be laid against those actively involved in organizing and conducting the meetings. We have seen cases where the trustee has gone to the courts to remove elected officers who were con- tinuing with their normal trade union duties in defiance of the trusteeship. In short, the trustee assumes all the powers previously held by the membership and their elected officers. The imposition of a trusteeship can be justified in certain cases, for example, when large sums of money have not been properly accounted for, and when there are reasonable grounds to suspect theft and the local officers have failed to take appropriate action. Another example is where the officers are corrupt and have been taking bribes and favors from the employers in return for not pressing the demands of the membership. ‘However, the purpose of a trusteeship, I submit, should be to help the union members involved to get their affairs in order in a democratic fashion and to go back to running their own local at the earliest possible date, in ac- cordance with democratic trade union procedures and customs. In Vancouver, Local 602 of the LABOR COMMENT BY JACK PHILLIPS Laborers’ International Union has been under trusteeship for the past nine months. In addition, union trustees have been arbitrarily removed from the board which ad- ministers the local’s medical and benefit plan. Nothing would be gained by this writer rehashing the various charges and counter-charges by the different groups and in- dividuals who have been bitterly opposing each other in Local 602. The daily press has been only too happy to give generous coverage to the more sensational aspects of this unfortunate situation, because, in my opinion, such publicity helps to give organized labor a bad name with the public. When I use the term “public’’ I include trade union members who don’t fully understand the issues involved and what the labor movement is all about. In my Labor Comment of Octo- ber 7, 1977, I made the following statements: “Tn the case of the Laborers’ Lo- cal 602, a trusteeship was imposed after a bitter, internal dispute between the incumbent officers of the 6,000-member local and an opposition group with considerable rank and file support. The signing of the collective agreement in- PACIFIC TRIBUNE—May 5, 1978—Page 12 volving -a substantial wage in- crease and also the local elections were held up by a trusteeship decreed in Washington, U.S.A. “As it stands now, the agreement has been accepted and formally signed, but the trusteeship has been upheld by the.B.C. Supreme Court after costly legal procedures, charges and counter- charges, a union trial and repre- sentations to the provincial government.” Currently, according to the Van- couver Sun of April 28, Charlie Shane, the leader of one group in the local, is appealing to the Labor Relations Board. He is requesting that body to uphold his charge that international president, Angelo Fosco, and the international trustee, Stacey Warner, have violated section 7 of the provincial labor code. Specifically, it is reported, Shane wants the board to order that a local union meeting be held to vote on contract proposals for the 1978 negotiations, on the make-up of the local’s negotiating committee and on whether Local 602 should resume its percapita payments to the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council. ; When Jim Kinnaird, president of the Building Trades Council was questioned about the relationship between the council and the Laborers Union, he replied as follows: ‘‘This is a domestic matter. It’s nobody’s business but the Building Trades Council and the laborers. We’re obviously concerned that the laborers are not fully functional within the trades council and we just hope it can be resolved.”’ Frankly, I agree with Kinnaird, which means I don’t believe that the Labor Relations Board, a quasi-judicial body appointed by the government, has any business whatsoever in determining such matters. Further, I have my doubts about whether Section 7 of the Labor Code was ever intended to deal with the merits or demerits of appointing a trusteeship. I also doubt the wisdom of going to the board every time there is a dispute within a local union. Section 7 deals with fair repre- sentation, laying down that a trade union or council of trade unions shall not act in a manner that is arbitrary, discriminatory or in bad faith in representing employees in a bargaining unity, including non- members as well as members. I may be wrong, but I believe that if the drafters of the Labor Code had intended to provide the board with power to deal with trusteeship situations, they would have included specific provisions to that end. At the most, in my opinion, we can expect the board to consider whether or not the trustee exceeded his power as a trustee, or conducted himself improperly in relation to members of the bargaining unit. I can’t see the board removing the trusteeship. The most stupid comment in this unfortunate situation came from Stacey Warner, the trustee. He is quoted as follows in the Vancouver Sun of April 28 in reference to Charlie Shane: ‘Did the (Com munist) party write it up for him? That’s all I have to say.” If this petty red-baiting is all hé has to offer, then it is obvious that the members of Local 602 who want the trusteeship removed as soon a5 possible are a thousand times right. For the benefit of Stacey Warner and every other bone-headed bureaucrat in the labor movement, the position of the Communist Party is precisely this: “We suggest that the key issue facing the members of Local 602 iS the restoration of democracy. All groups and all individual members involved in this internal dispute should unite around the demand to end the trusteeship and for the holding of a democratic election. “Once democracy is restored, the issues that divided the mem- bership in the first place can be re- solved by democratic debate and majority decisions. If a powerful rank and file movement is created around such a demand, I am certain it will receive wide support from the rest of the labor movement.” There is no short cut. In the long run, organized labor must put its own house in order. Back the paper that fights for labor — PACIFIC TRIBUNE SUBSCRIBE NOW Clip and mail to: 101 - 1416 COMMERCIAL DR., VANCOUVER, B.C. Enclosed. $8 — 1 yr. .V5L 3X9 MOS po a ee $4.50 — 6 mos.