Labour

Concession demands
by trustees bar way
to teachers pacts

B.C. public school teachers bargaining
for their first contracts as trade unionists
face roadblocks from “redneck” school
trustees, the B.C. Teachers Federation
reports.

Since the imposition of Bill 20 and the
subsequent successful unionizing drive,
local teacher associ-
ations now may bar-
gain for a host of
working-condition
items previously
denied them, noted
George North, head
of the federation’s
bargaining division,
in an interview.

But several right-
wing boards, aided
by the B.C. School
Trustees Association’s lawyers, are demand-
ing concessions on existing contract items,
including remittance of membership dues
directly to the BCTF, North said.

Boards’ resistance to sending dues
directly to the federation — whichamounts
to resisting recognition of the 69-year old
organization — is in line with Premier Bill
Vander Zalm’s stated objective of destroy-
ing the BCTF, he charged.

A circular sent to BCTF members notes
the Socred premier’s comments at a recep-
tion shortly after Bill 19, the Industrial Rela-
tions Act, and Bill 20, the Education
Reform Act, were introduced. A supporter
congratulated Vander Zalm on “really giv-
ing it to those teachers, by splitting them
into two groups (dividing class room
teachers from school principals and vice-
principals, who under Bill 20 are forbidden
to unionize)”

“Two groups, hah,” the premier report-
edly responded, “I’ve split them into 75
groups.” ta

There are 72 local teachers associations
currently at the bargaining table collectively
making some 80 demands for improve-
ments to working conditions. Two others
are in the second year of two-year agree-
ments signed under the old School Act, due
to expire at the end of next June. One local
association, Fort Nelson, has signed a col-
lective agreement the federation considers a
model for other school districts.

Some of the demands are new, in the
sense that teachers have never before been
able to bargain over such things as class
sizes, substitute teacher hiring practices, and
teacher transfers.

But others, including definition of extra-
curricular activities, noon-hour supervision,
accumulated days of sick leave, and teacher
evaluation have been established in pre-
vious agreements and are now being chal-
lenged by some boards, North said.

Trouble spots include the district of
Hope, where frustrated teachers took a
strike vote of 86 per cent (without Industrial
Relations Council supervision, in line with

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READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOUR |

the B.C. Federation of Labour boycott of
Bill 19). In Prince George, teachers voted 95
per cent to authorize their executive to hold
a strike vote if necessary, Langley approved
a strike vote by 95 per cent Oct. 24, and
Kitimat teachers have also voted strongly
for the strike vote option, North reported.
Some 15 to 20 locals are developing

~ action plans to deal with the slow and frus-

trating pace of contract talks, he said.

BCTF president Elsie McMurphy told a
recent federation representative assembly
that locals which must take job action “will
have the full support of the federation,
including strike pay.”

Bargaining problems are occurring in
many “redneck” districts, as a federation
circular termed them, where Socred-leaning
trustees control school boards. But even in
the case of New Westminster, where trus-
tees associated with the New Democrats
hold the majority, the teachers association
faces intransigence in attempting to main-
tain previously won contract language,
North noted.

He said the BCSTA’s lawyers, the firm of
Campney and Murphy, have supplied 14
negotiators to school districts while some 40
outside negotiators have been hired by var-
ious school boards. The trustees association
has retained Al Akehurst, former negotia-
tor for the Okanagan Labour Relations
Council (representing several Interior muni-
cipalities which were struck by their unio-
nized workers two summers ago), as
co-ordinator of bargaining.

Prior to Bill 20, all school districts recog-
nized the BCTF — in addition to local
teacher associations — in collective agree-
ments, a situation that existed almost con-
tinually since 1947. But the new legislation
removed all references to the federation,
and instead made mandatory membership
in the new, controversial Teachers College.

Despite that, more than 99 per cent of the
province’s teachers voted to stay in the fed-
eration during the BCTF’s successful organ-
izing drive in all 75 districts last year.

“T guess their (school boards) ‘principle,’
from their point of view, is to weaken the
central authority of the BCTF,” said North
of an issue the BCSTA in a recent statement
acknowledged was potentially ‘“‘explosive.”

Wages are also an issue, with the federa-
tion maintaining that years of restraint
means B.C. teachers deserve an average 16
per cent wage hike to catch up to their
counterparts in other provinces. Offers
from boards have tended to reflect other
employers’ positions, averaging around
four per cent, North said.

The teachers associations are asking for
one-year contracts, arguing that many
issues can not be resolved in the current
round of talks and that their members
should not be bound to less than favourable
contracts for longer periods.

Contracts for all 72 districts expired last
June 30. >

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imposed.

Workers’, plant's future

WESTERN CANADA STEEL... closure announced two days after lockout

waits on Nov. 4 decision

For the members of CAIMAW’s
Local 6 locked out at Western°Canada
Steel, the echoes of the long 1983 lockout
are starting to come back.

Five years ago, the steel maker, owned
by Cominco, locked the union out for
62 months before signing a new collec-
tive agreement. But this time, there is a
grim difference: the company announced
that it would close the plant two days
after it locked employees out.

And even though the Regina-based
steel company, IPSCO Inc., announced
Aug. 22 that it was buying the company,
the announcement on finalizing the sale
has been delayed again and again. Even
if the deal is completed, the threat of
closure won’t go away.

“IPSCO said it would close the sale
Sept. 30. Then on Sept. 30, it said that the
deal had been put off until mid- to late
October,” said CAIMAW Local 6 repre-
sentative Harold David. ““Now the date
has been set for Nov. 4.

“We're waiting for that date — to see
if we’re going to get our feet back under a
bargaining table,” he said, “‘or if we’re
going to have to raise a ruckus to keep
the plant open.”

The union opened bargaining for a
new contract more than 10 months ago
but talks never went anywhere because
Western Canada Steel already had clo-
sure on its agenda, David said. The com-
pany operates a steel mill, fastener and
scrap division in Vancouver and Rich-
mond as well as a steel mill in Calgary
and another mill in Hawaii in which it
has a 51 per cent interest.

Using a dispute over crew allotments
and breaks as a pretext, the company
locked out the employees July 6. Two
days later, it announced the closure.

David said the union came up with its
own buyout proposal following the clo-
sure announcement but was rebuffed.
Subsequently, IPSCO announced its
plans to buy the company.

“After the announcement, we made
an approach to IPSCO about bargaining
but they told us they wouldn’t talk to us
until they'd bought the place. And
Cominco told us to direct all our enquir-
ies to IPSCO,” said David.

“You feel like a badminton bird,” he
added.

The union representative said the

delays in completing the sale were likely »

attributable to negotiations over the

heavy debt being carried by the company
as well as the substantial liabilities, which
include some $1.4 million in severance
pay — payable whether the company
closes or not — as well as pension plan
contributions and payouts expected
from arbitrations.

“But it may be all part of softening-up
the membership — we don’t know,” he
said.

He noted that IPSCO’s public posi-
tion is that it will close the Vancouver
plants and maintain the operations in
Calgary and Hawaii.

“But it also seems to be good public
relations to bash the union and blame it
on them,” he added.

IPSCO’s position also doesn’t make
economic sense since the mill is the only
one west of Calgary producing rebar —
reinforcing steel — at a time when sev-
eral major construction projects are on
the table.

“The new Kemano 2 project announ-
ced in August will have to have rebar
delivered by water,” David said. “And
Western Canada Steel has a plant on
tidewater.”

Similarly, construction slated for the
Commonwealth Games in Victoria and
development plans for the former Expo
lands will both require large amounts of
rebar — and the existing plant is the
most logical, he said.

“The equipment, the facilities, the
market, the access — they’re all here,”
he said. ;

Despite the company’s campaign,
union members ‘‘are holding up well,”
David said, and the support from B.C.
Fed-affiliated unions and the Building
Trades “has been good.”

Non-union trucking firms have taken
out some steel rolled before the lockout
began but it has been declared hot by
unions on job sites where it has been
delivered.

Although the plant, except for some
work being done by management at the
fastener division, has remained shut
down through the lockout, “nothing has
been dismantled,” said David. And the
union is waiting for IPSCO’s final
announcement on the purchase.

“We're ready to believe that the com-
plications in the deal might have caused
the delays,” he said. “But we’re not going

TRIBUNE PHOTOS — DAN KEETON

to believe it after Nov. 4.”
—