Labour

Continued from page 1

For most delegates, however, it was the
dispute between the United Food and
Commercial Workers and the Canadian
Auto Workers over the members of the
Newfoundland Fishermen’s Union which
provided the main backdrop to the report.

Led by president Richard Cashin, the
executive board of the fishermen’s union, a
former affiliate of the UFCW, voted last
year to leave the international union in a
dispute over Canadian autonomy and affil-
iate to the CAW. t

That decision has subsequently been
backed by the majority of union members
in plant representation votes ordered by the

* labour relations board. But the dispute has

become particularly dirty as the result of
court action launched by the UFCW’s
international office.

Mainly because of the issues in that dis-
pute, the committee re-drafted its report

seven times before putting it before the con- :

vention this week.

JOHN FRYER ... raiding wasteful, div-
isive.

The new policy provides for new proce-
dures to grapple with inter-union jurisdic-
tional disputes among Congress affiliates,
and lays out various levels of sanctions, up
to and including the removal of union offic-
ers from Congress bodies, against unions
which refuse to comply with the rulings of
the Congress executive council.

The change is historic, however, in pro-
viding a mechanism for local unions to
move from one affiliate to another in the
event that their parent union is in violation
of the Congress constitution and refuses to
comply. That is particularly significant for

Canadian members of international unions °

Autonomy rules now in constitution —

because under the new policy, the CLC’s
Canadian Standards for Self-Government
— the guidelines for Canadian auton-
omy — will become part of the CLC con-
stitution and will be enforceable as such,
John Fryer, president of the National

Union of Provincial Government Empl-

oyees and chair of the constitution commit-
tee, told delegates that the committee had
set out from its appointment “‘to see if we
could find a way to recommend to the dele-
gates to put a stop to raiding once and for
all. s

“We believe it to be a wasteful and a
divisive practice and we believe that our
energies and our efforts and our resources
would be much better used trying to organ-
ize the unorganized than they would be
trying to reorganize the already organized.”

He told delegates that the committee set
out to try to stop raiding and to impose
sanctions “that really mean something”
against those unions which do not voluntar-
ily cease raiding.

Under the amended constitution, which
will become effective following adjourn-
ment of the convention, unions are prohi-
bited from “organizing or attempting to
represent employees as to whom an estab-
lished collective bargaining relationship
exists with any other affiliate.”

Disputes involving violation of that sec-
tion or other sections of the constitution are
to be referred to the president of the Con-
gress who is to first notify the union
involved of the alleged violations and give
60 days to correct the situation.

If resolution is not reached at that stage,
the Congress president will refer the dispute
to a ‘‘fact-finder” who is to be chosen froma
select list of former union officials. The fact-

finder is to report back within 30 days to the-

executive council which will then make a
ruling, subject to final appeal before the
same body.

Unions proven to be in violation can face
a variety of sanctions ranging from the
denial of the services of the CLC to removal
from the CLC executive council of any of
the union’s representatives.

But most important of all, and “for the
first time in the Canadian labour move-
ment, if not if in central labour movements
anywhere,” Fryer said, the new constitu-
tional provisions give local unions “which
have a justified complaint, based on facts,

The Communist Party’s proposals to defeat
the neo-conservative agenda.

George Hewison

CC nominee, leader CPC
Thursday, May 12/7:30 p:m.
Holiday Inn Harbourside
1133 West Hastings Street
Vancouver

12 e Pacific Tribune, May 11, 1988

 sulaeleelententontanlenlestealeatenleatentonl

against their parent unions” the right to
transfer from one union to another if the
complaint cannot be resolved.

Any such transfers are to be carried out
under the auspices of the CLC.

Since various codes of union practice,
including the Canadian standards of self-
government, are to be made a formal part of
the CLC constitution, local unions will be in
a stronger position to compel their interna-
tional unions to uphold Canadian auto-
nomy. If the international fails to comply,
the locals have some recourse, including the
right to seek another affiliation.

There was some opposition to the report
during debate in the afternoon session
Monday, particularly from delegates from
the Office and Professional Employees
Union who argued that the penalties for
raiding were not tough enough and would
not be applied automatically. The union has
been the target of raids in Ontario.

One delegate from the International Fire-
fighters’ Union also urged the convention to
strengthen the provisions allowing Cana-
dian members of international unions to
establish autonomous bodies, pointing out
that the union’s international office had
clamped down on efforts to set up a Cana-
dian association of firefighters.

But although there were echoes of the
rancorous debate that has reverberated
from the UFCW-CA W debate, the consen-
sus that had been grudgingly reached after
seven drafts of the report was evident on the
floor of the convention as representatives of
the UFCW and the CAW rose to endorse
the committee’s recommendations.

UFCW Local 175 member Mike Fraser
called the report “the most important issue
to come before the convention,” adding
that if the proposed constitutional mecha-
nism had been in effect last year, ‘the dis-
pute between the UFCW and the CAW
might never have taken place.”

UFCW members had blitzed convention
delegates with copies of a leaflet defending
the union’s record and several delegates,
including Ontario UFCW representative
Bill Reno, also complained that their
union had been raided and was now being
misrepresented in the debate.

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RICHARD CASHIN ... policy document gives unionists new rights.

. But CAW president Bob White respond-
ed that it was not a raid when the fishermen
left the UFCW to join the CAW.

“There’s been raiding going on through-
out this labour movement but some
different happened last March,” hesaid.#t
wasn’t raiding between leaders. There waS@
group of local fishermen who came tO the
Auto Workers and said: ‘we’re determined
to leave our union — will you give us some
help.
“Pl debate the issues in Newfoundland

....” he said, “but this is about compromise. _

“This document does three important
things: it says to the labour movement, if
there’s raiding, do we have the guts to deal
with it. It says, let’s bring the code of ethies
and Canadian standards into the constitu= _
tion. And yes, it says that there are some IN
this labour movement who are in unions
who should not be strapped in those unions

. for life, that if a person wants to make
change and can’t because they get threa-
tened with trusteeship, they have some=
where to go.” White declared to a roar of
applause. §

But instead of going to the auto workers
union, “they’ll go. to the CLC,” he said. —

Newfoundland Fishermen’s Union pres-

ident Richard Cashin, now a

member, told the convention: “I support

this ddcument because I believe it gives

some hope that the trade union movement

will go beyond regarding members as prOP~
erty rights and the legacy of a free and
democratic trade union movement com
mands us to have the right of dissent . . ., the
right to debate and the right of self-

determination. i.

“T hope this document will in the future
provide that right and that dignity to ordi-
nary working people,” he said. ;

Steelworkers representative and commit
tee member Leo Gerard reminded delegates
that the committee was making “a plea for
unity” with its compromise proposals.

“This document doesn’t solve every
problem,” he said. “But what it does is stop
the divisiveness. It puts a process in the

| hands of those who want to be the leaders of
the workers .,.. With it, we can get on and
organize, we can get on and build.”

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