By FRANK COX

It isn’t very often these days that unions
can claim a victory, so when it does
happen, it is something to celebrate. That
was especially true with the much
embattled United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union recently as the union
thwarted attempts by one company to
sidestep even the pathetically inadequate
existing regulations limiting export of
unprocessed fish.

Pacific Point Seafoods of Richmond,
B.C. was reportedly given the green light
by the federal Department of Fisheries
and Oceans to ship unprocessed roe
herring to Japan and by March 19, 17
containers of unprocessed herring were
ready at Vancouver Terminals to slip
quietly out of the country despite clear
regulation prohibiting such exports.

An anonymous phone call tipped the
union March 23 that the shipments were
on the dock and ready for loading. The
union leapt into action, firing off protests
to both External Affairs and the Depart-
ment of Fisheries and Oceans. It
demanded that any export permits be can-
celled, that the company be ordered to
process the fish in Canada and that the
regulations be properly enforced.

UFAWU president Jack Nichol charged
that the DFO “... was quietly going to let
this fish go out of the country.” He said:
“If it does get away, how many others are
going to try it? Once it starts, where does it
stop?”

On Saturday morning, March 24,
UFAWU shoreworkers gathered for a
two-hour demonstration and with the
welcome co-operation of the Longshore-
men’s Union succeeded in ensuring that
no herring left the dock that day.

Word came by telex from the good offi-

UFAWU fight hints
at what is to come

Labour Forum

ces of Dave Stupich, NDP MP for
Nanaimo-Cowichan that External Affairs
had given assurance in fact that no unpro-
cessed herring would be approved for
export — except to the United States.

Fighting the federal government to
enforce its own regulations is certainly
nothing new for the UFA WU, but in this
case it had to be particularly irritating,
given how little the present regulations
actually protect jobs in Canada.

Last month, Canada and the U.S. con-
cluded an agreement following a ruling
from a free trade dispute resolution panel
that gives the Americans access to 20 per
cent of all B.C. salmon and herring for the
next year, and 25 per cent for the following
three years. Under that arrangement, such
exports are to be allowed only if herring is
either consumed in the U.S. or processed
to the same degree as must be done in
Canada for export purposes.

The ruling was widely condemned as
abject capitulation to the U.S. as part of
the free trade deal. To further aggravate
the situation, as the Fisherman reported in
the latest issue, “more than 100 exemp-
tions to this rule have already been granted
by the Department of External Affairs on
the condition that the herring will be
brought back to Canada for further pro-
cessing.”” The same report also states:
“Permits have now been granted to allow
a total of 3,400 tons of herring to go to the
US., sidestepping the export rules. That
represents 11 per cent of the total allowa-
ble herring catch.”

Ample freezing capacity and an availa-
ble workforce that had handled much

UFAWU members demonstrate at VanTerm dock March 24.

greater volumes of fish in the past exposes
the false reports that companies are forced
to ship fish south for freezing because of a
shortage of Canadian capacity.

The consequences of the free trade
agreement for the fishing industry is
further exemplified by the closure of the
Weston-owned B.C. Packer’s cold storage
plant in Victoria at the end of the month,
casting some 60 employees with as many
as 32 years of service on to the unemploy-
ment lines. The company showed its grati-
tude by offering a severance package that
was considered an insult by the workers.

B.C. Packers Had refused to upgrade
the Victoria facility to meet their freezing
needs, preferring instead to take advan-
tage of new times and favourable condi-
tions to ship it to cold storage facilities
south of the border.

At the same time, here in Vancouver,
J.S. Macmillan Fisheries has reduced shift
times for workers normally near dead with
overtime at this stage of the herring season
to less than half time, after reneging on a
commitment to replace scrapped freezing
equipment with new state-of-the-art sys-
tems. That company too is the happy
recipient of export permits. Although
commitment is given that the fish will
return to Canadian plants for further pro-

FISHERMAN A PHOT ° - BRUCE LOGAN

cessing, little concern has been shown
about the countless losses in earnings this
season under the new regulatory regime. —

The situation for the fishing industry is”
likely to get worse when U.S. operators get —
organized with sea-based landing stations
now allowed under the regulations. And
the next crisis is coming as fast as this
year’s salmon season at which time the
kind of battles that stopped that shipment
of herring might just become common-
place.

The erosion of Canadian jobs and con-
ditions as a consequence of deregulation
under the free trade agreement is bitterly
real for workers in the fishing industry as
well as for thousands of others across the
country. It is in this context that the dis-
cussions around strategies to combine our
collective strengths to stop the corporate
plan and promote alternative policies that
took place March 17 at the Pro-Canada
Network assembly could hardly have been —
better timed. :

Worthy of a final note here is how :
important the support is in our common |
fight such as was given by the ILWU in |
this latest skirmish over herring exports. |
That kind of solidarity will make more of —
the battles we will undoubtedly be facing a
lot more winnable. :

Unions condemn Tory drug testing legislation

The mandatory drug testing in the trans-
portation industry proposed under federal
legislation tabled in the House of Commons
last month would be a violation of civil
rights, and the lack of any guarantees of
accuracy could make thousands of innocent
workers victims, union leaders opposing the
new bill have charged.

In addition, one
unionist noted, the
bill is a direct result
of free trade re-
structuring, having
been introduced in
response to USS.
demands that the
Canadian transpor-
tation industry con-
form to its regula-
tions.

Federal Justice
Minister Doug Lewis introduced the legisla-
tion in the Commons last month, calling for
mandatory, random drug and alcohol test-
ing throughout the federally-chartered rail,
airline, trucking, marine and pipeline indus-
tries. The bill, which would affect an esti-
mated 250,000 workers, was drafted to
comply with U.S. demands that foreign
transportation workers be subject to the
same kind of mandatory drug tests as U.S.
transportation workers or be barred from
entering the US.

The labour movement was to have been
consulted on the new program before legis-
lation was drafted “but there was no discus-
sion with us,” said Canadian Labour
Congress executive vice-president Nancy

RICHE

12 « Pacific Tribune, April 2, 1990

Riche.

And several unions are planning court
challenges of the bill, including the Amal-
gamated Transit Union which stated it
would “exhaust every conceivable legal
avenue available.

“The ATU considers this initiative as an
unjustifiable assault on an individual’s basic
rights guaranteed under both the federal
Human Rights Code as well as the Cana-
dian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the
union declared in a statement March 21.

The Canadian Auto Workers and the
Seafarer’s International Union also con-
firmed that they would likely launch a court
challenge following a meeting with federal
Officials on the bill March 23.

Delegates to the Vancouver and District
Labour Council weighed in against the
proposed legislation March 21, endorsing a
motion from Local 400 of the Canadian
Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and
General Workers to condemn the drug test-
ing bill. Members of the local work on coas-
tal shipping and towboats.

CBRT delegate Al Engler told delegates
that “random drug tests mean urine
tests — and they don’t measure impair-
ment.

“The tests are humiliating and they’re not
accurate,” he said, noting that errors “can
be introduced at a variety of stages in the
testing process.”

Engler cited a position paper on drug
testing prepared last year by the B.C. Civil
Liberties Association which underscored
the problems of accuracy associated with

random drug testing.

That paper, entitled Drug Testing in the
Workplace, cited several studies done in the
U.S. which showed that error rates, based
on surveys of hundreds of laboratories,
ranged from a low of five per cent to a high
of 70 per cent.

Those errors resulted both from deficien-
cies in technology and mistakes in handling
samples and interpreting results. And when
laboratory accuracy was assessed by
government agencies and professional asso-
ciations, the results included “false positive
rates as high as 66 per cent and false nega-
tives as high as 100 per cent,” the brief said.

In addition, it noted, because the drug
tests are testing not for the presence of the
drug itself but “metabolites” — substances
produced by the body after it has metabol-
ized certain drugs — they cannot deter-
mine when the drug was taken, in what
amount or whether the person was
impaired by it.

Metabolites of several drugs, including
cocaine and amphetamines, can show up in
tests two to three days after use and, in the
case of marijuana, up to one week later, the
paper reported. It also noted that several
over the counter medications for colds or
pain can produce positive results on tests for
amphetamines.

“We don’t question the need for tests to
be taken if there is a reason to suspect that
some kind of impairment is involved,”
Engler told labour council delegates. “If
there is a problem, it should be solved

through observation of a person’s work.
“But random drug testing is like a new

form of witch hunt — it will bring grea
grief and suffering to our members,” hy
warned.

Engler also echoed other unionists 1
charging that the timing of the legislatio
was intended to “give the appearance tha
the government is doing something.”

There have been several recent sensa\
tional stories about drug and alcohol abus
among truckers and two -recent trail
derailments were followed by reports 0
substance abuse by train crews — whi
proved later to be completely groundless.

A recent confidential survey carried ou\
as part of the government program fount
that even use of such street drugs as mati
juana was minuscule and, according to tht
CLC’s Riche, “tno figures to warrant an)

eR)

which is providing the model for Lewis’ bil
was successfully challenged in a temporar)
injunction granted the Teamsters Union.

In fact, the U.S. program has been sus
pended since the end of 1988 when tht
union won the injunction based on it\
argument that the legislation violated ci
liberties. The U.S. District Court is expectet
to rule soon on whether the injunction wil
be made permanent and the issue could g¢
to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A federal appeals court in Washingtot
also upheld an appeal by the Amalgamated
Transit Union which challenged a rul
imposed by the Urban Mass Transpo a
tion Administration requiring random drug
testing of 200,000 transit workers. —