CLC report basis to settle Ro
IWA, construction dispute

Organized labor in British Col-
umbia needs a jurisdictional war
about as much as Jim Kinnaird,
president of the B.C. Federation of
Labor, needs a hole in his head.
That’s what came to mind when I
read the report on a debate in the
Victoria Labor Council, in the Col-
onist June 7.

The controversy arose when the
60,000-member B.C. and Yukon
Building Trades Council failed by a
narrow margin to win endorsement
for its action in sending an open
brief against the International
Woodworkers of America to the
Canadian Labor Congress. The
IWA with 47,000 members in B.C.
is the largest single union in the pro-
vince.

The executive of the labor council
had recommended concurrence in
the Building Trades action in sen-
ding its brief to the CLC, but stated
it was not taking sides on the
substance of the issue.

One paragraph in the news report
sums up the tragedy of such a
jurisdictional squabble. ‘‘The fight
is being renewed as both sides are
having troubles of their own. The
building trades are suffering severe
unemployment—some local unions
have 30 to 50 percent of their
members out of work. And the
IWA says it is losing as many as 50
to 60 jobs to automation each time
a new mill opens.’’ The corporate
elite must be laughing all the way to
the bank.

JIM KINNAIRD could
play positive role in resolving
IWA, Building Trades
dispute.

Instead of resolving their
jurisdictional dispute on a common
sense basis and fighting together for
policies to create full employment,
the unions are fighting each other.
Paradoxically, it is only a few weeks
since the leaders of the Building
Trades Council and the IWA were
as one in calling upon. their
members to defeat the political par-
ties of big business, provincially and
federally, by voting NDP.

The brief charges that for several
years, Building Trades unions
““have had to contend with jurisdic-
tional aggression on the part of a
few unions in other industries, most
notably the International Wood-
workers of America.’’ Specifically,
the Building Trades accuses the
IWA of the following violations:

Expanding into the traditional
jurisdiction of building trades
unions, through its collective
agreements with contractors who
build new sawmills and do major
construction in conection with the
expansion of existing mills. Some of
the figures given to me indicate that
specific contracts in Port Alberni,
Nanaimo and Duncan could have
an aggregate value of $150 million.
Other jobs in the central area of
B.C. are said to involve a total
value of $16 million.

The CLC, to which the IWA and
most of the building trades unions
are affiliated, has constitutional
machinery for dealing with such
jurisdictional disputes.

When an affiliate complains that
it work jurisdiction has been
violated by another affiliate, a

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 15, 1979—Page 12

mediator is appointed. If voluntary
settlement is not reached within
fourteen days after such appoint-
ment, a hearing is then held by an
impartial umpire selected from a
panel of umpires.

The determination of the umpire
is supposed to be final and binding
unless set aside after an appeal to
the executive council of the CLC is
upheld.

According to the open brief, the
Building Trades invoked the
disputes procedure several years
ago, which led to a decision in July,

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

1971 by the umpire, Dr. Carl
Goldenberg, QC, that ‘‘all new con-
struction, including new construc-
tion within the ambit of the forest
products industries, was properly
the jurisdiction of building trades
unions and that the [WA had the
right, but the limited right, to carry
out maintenance, repairs and con-
struction improvements in existing
mills.”’

The brief states that the executive
council of the CLC officially ap-
proved Dr. Goldenberg’s ruling. To
quote that document: ‘‘While con-
struction unions were not fully
satisfied by the ruling, this Council
and its affiliates accepted it and
conscientiously set about to operate
within it. The two IWA locals ig-
nored the ruling and the sanction
process proved inadequate to ob-
tain their compliance.”

The brief argues that the situa-
tion has continued to worsen. ‘‘In
the last year or so’’ the authors
claim, ‘‘the situation has become
severely aggravated by further IWA
intrusions into the construction
field coupled with external attacks
on construction unions. As a result
the situation has now reached the
intolerable point where building
trades unions are forced to fight for
their very existence. In short, the
Goldenberg Report was not im-
plemented.’

I obtained a copy of that report
and studied it very carefully.
Goldenberg submitted his findings
in these words, after stating the
issues and the background to the
dispute:

“In summary, I find that:

a) New construction falls within
the traditional jurisdiction of the
building trades unions.

b) The basic jursidiction of
Woodworkers is the processing and
handling of wood products at all
Stages but building trades unions
recognize that Woodworkers’
jurisdiction also extended to
maintenance, repair and construc-
tion improvements in existing mills
whether such work is done by the
mills or is contracted out.

c) Some maintenance contractors
in the forest industry in collective
bargaining relationship with Wood-
workers and also with some
building trades unions have expand-
ed their operations to include con-
struction of new mills as distinct
from construction in existing opera-
tions, and have assigned or agreed
to assign such work to members of-
Woodworkers.

d) Wages and working conditions
of Woodworkers’ tradesmen
employed in construction have im-
proved considerably but have not
reached the standards negotiated by
Carpenters and Plumbers, with the
result that contractors relying on
their agreements with Wood-

workers have a competitive advan-
tage in bidding on contracts for new
construction.’’

The open brief maintains that the
IWA agreements for new construc-
tion re mains inferior to those
negotiated by the Building Trades.
The following quotation
demonstrates the bitter feelings
over that issue:

“Bluntly put, they are welcomed
by employers because, when all fac-
tors are included, their rates and
conditions are less costly to
employers than those which have
been won by building trades unions
for construction workers.’’

The open brief further. charges
that the IWA is not structured to
service members on construction

jobs, nor to police the collective -

agreements.

In my discussions with members
of building trades unions I was told
that some contractors who hold col-
lective agreements with the IWA are
double breasted, i.e., they also hold
collective agreements with construc-
tion unions under a different com-
pany name. In addition, they claim
these contractors have to go out in-
to the open market to find
tradesmen for construction work
under IWA agreements. This means
in many cases that members of con-
struction unions are hired. Where
the latter is the case, they say,
workers pay dues to both unions
and work for inferior wages and
conditions.

Goldenberg pointed out that
jurisdictional disputes between the
Building Trades and the IWA tend
to rise during periods of expansion
in the forest industry, which is the
case today. He also stated that as

« long ago as 1944, such a dispute led

to an understanding between the
IWA and the Carpenters which
recognized the jurisdiction of
Carpenters ‘‘for the purpose of new
construction’? and that the same
understanding was reached after
another dispute in 1951.

My sources in the Building
Trades tell me that contractors
under agreement with the IWA are
further aggravating the situation by
bidding on work completely remov-
ed from any forest complex. For ex-
ample, they say that during 1975,
Nootka Sound Construction built a
concrete bridge at Gold River and
during 1978, a dock for the federal
department of public works at
Nootka.

It is not the task of this writer to
be a partisan for either side in this
complex issue. I would, however, in
the interest of labor unity, suggest
the following:

Means should be found to imple-.

ment the 1971 Goldenberg Report
so that all new construction and
new additions to existing mills will
eventually be covered by
agreements held by building trades
unions.

That an equitable demarcation
line be established between in-plant
(TWA). forces and construction
forces where reconstruction is in-
volved.

In order to realize these objec-
tives, the unions concerned should

negotiate in good faith and be

prepared to make some com-
promises.

I am hopeful that Jim Kinnaird,
president of the B.C. Federation of
Labor, and former president of the
B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council, will be able to play a
positive role in this dispute, before
it degenerates into a situation in
which unions put up picket lines
against other unions and the at-
mosphere is poisoned with
recriminations and threats of
withdrawals from central labor
bodies.

_the picket line several months after

wars
MUCKAMUCK
WORKE RS

MUCKAMUCK RESTAURANT STRIKERS. ..right to picket resto™ ’

LRB, court decisions —
back Muckamuck strikt)

Native Indian workers who have from tae
been trying for more than a year to
wrest a collective agreement from a
downtown. Vancouver restaurant
last week faced two major
challenges to their strike — but
managed. to overcome both of
them, with some assistance from
the labor movement.

Some 18 employees of the
Muckamuck Restaurant which
specializes in Northwest Indian
food have been out since June 1,
1978 in a bid for a first contract.
They are members of the Service,

ted angry protest
unionists.

B.C. Federation of Labor pre
dent Jim Kinnaird sent a telegt®
June 6 to attorney-general Gal)
Gardom asking him to interven® |
have the injunction repealed

He emphasized that the actiom!)
Justice Proudfoot ‘‘set
dangerous precedent in erodin|
power and jurisdiction of the L
Relations Board.”’

The three owners of #
Muckamuck have held no negott”
tions since last July with the str

workers most of whom were ©
ing the minimum wage at thes e
of the walkout and had been ha
ed by punitive firings.

The restaurant was shut dow! ©

Office and Retail Workers Union of
Canada (SORWUC).

A decertification bid, initiated by
a few employees who had crossed

the strike began, was turned down
by the Labor Relations Board last
week, as vice-chairman Ron Bone
ruled that those seeking decertifica-
tion did not constitute ‘‘a majority
of either the original unit or the
employees who made the decision
to strike.”

‘There is no justification for the
Board to interfere with the collec-
tive bargaining process to decertify
the union at this critical stage of its
strike activity,’’ he stated in the rul-
ing last week.

A more critical ruling came from
the B.C. Court of Appeals last
Wednesday which overturned an
earlier Supreme Court decision by
Justice Patricia Proudfoot banning
picketing at the restaurant. The Ap-
peals Court returned to SORWUC
the right to picket although it
limited the number of pickets to six.

The Supreme Court ban on
picketing — which would have been
in effect until June 18 when a fur-
ther injunction hearing is scheduled
— was unprecedented action during
a legal strike, a fact which promp-

RIBUN

Read the paper that fights for labor

with strikebreakers. The %4
owner’s plans to open a seco?
restaurant, however, have not
successful althouth an art gallé
The Ace Gallery, also in downt0
~ Vancouver was opened. 4h

The Muckamuck strike has
tracted considerable attenti
because of the owners’ refus
bargain and their attempts eat iy!
the strike to solicit the assistanc®")
Native Indian leaders in brea!
the strike.

A mass march last summer rol p
Ace Gallery, demonstrated
support, however, as Union of }:
Indian Chiefs’ president G0? 0
Manuel pledged his backing fot
Muckamuck workers. i

Following the rejection of t
decertification application, “
WUC Local | president said,
hope that the employers will ™,
recognize their obligation
bargain a contract with ¢
employers whose right to uo
representation has be
reaffirmed.’’

Name......
Address.........
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Postal Code*. 22345 +

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Old{ ] New[] ‘Foreign 1 year $12[]
Donation $.

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some months before it re-ope™) -

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