aneiemenmueen aan a Mine- Mill members past and present — Barney MacGuire (I) and Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Local 598 pres- ident Rick Griggs — flank tombstone of labor martyr Ginger Goodwin dur- ing wreath-laying ceremony in Cum- berland on Saturday. The ceremony was part of a series of events marking the former mining town’s labor his- tory on Workers’ Memorial Day, which has been observed for the past two years by the Mine-Mill local from Falconbridge near Sudbury, Ont. Other ceremoneis included cairn ded- ications at the site of the now-defunct No. 6 mine where 295 miners lost their lives, and at the Chinese and Japanese cemetaries to honor their contribution to the area’s industry. tocondut strike vot Organizing key for Trades Continued from page 1 tarily any terms or conditions that apply specifically to that union. Seizing on this clause, Vinoly and company applied to the LRB for a ruling that the three unions had the right to veto the memorandum of agreement with CLR because it includes limited concessions. Their case is not likely to succeed because the concessions in fact apply to all unions in the bargaining council. Unless a remarkable turn of events were to take place before the LRB, the memo- randum will stand and the Building Trades pickets will come down. Whether Vinoly will have succeeded in emerging as the mar- tyred militant who defended the member- ship from the undemocratic bargaining ’ council remains to be seen. The tentative agreement itself is not the “no-concessions” agreement that the Build- ing Trades set out to achieve. Nor does it contain the COLA clause that was part of the bargaining demands. But it is a convinc- ing defeat for Construction Labor Relations which had demanded well over 50 conces- sions, including the elimination of union security and hiring halls. CLR was deter- mined to union-bust in B.C. as its counter- part had in Alberta, and to resort to massive scabbing if necessary to gut the Building Trades contract. The ‘‘bottom line” had consisted of the following: @ Three separate concessionary agree- ments for institutional, commercial and industrial work; @ A wage cut of $4 per hour in a three year agreement; : @ Elimination of travel time and of local travel allowances; @ An end to hiring hall provisions with the employer free to hire whomever he wanted; © Saturday work at straight time; © Lengthening the week to 40 hours; @ Piece work; @ Elimination of three holidays and hol- -iday pay; @ Elimination of affiliation and reserva- tion clauses; @ An enabling clause to allow the con- tract to be reopened to secure further con- cessions. From the above list the only concessions that CLR was able to achieve in the main collective agreement were the elimination of travel time and local living-out allowances. The concessions are “‘sunsetted” to phase the benefits back in six months prior to the end of the collective agreement. In Metro Vancouver the travel time allowance has been cut by 50 per cent which amounts to about 38 cents per hour, or a cut in mileage from 70 cents per mile to 35 cents per mile. It can be said that the turning back of the CLR’s union-busting demands was the result of an effective strike by the Building Trades which made it clear that scabbing would be resisted at all costs. A glimpse of what was in store for CLR if it attempted mass scabbing was shown on the Langley picket line, and in the television images from Edmonton. The strike stopped the CLR cold and this collective agreement must be viewed in the context of the employers’ objectives and the fact that in Alberta there are no significant collective agreements for building trades workers at present. It can also be said that if the rank and file had been more involved in the three week construction strike, if there had been all- trades rallies and an aggressive program to expand the strike to shut down the major non-union jobs, the result might have been better. The other key concession in the proposed pact which establishes the framework for separate residential agreements covering both wood frame and high rise concrete residential buildings also must be viewed in context. The residential agreement for a one-year trial period establishes most of what CLR wanted in the master agreement: a $4 cut in wages and a 40-hour week among other concessions. The memorandum is that the Building Trades and CLR will recommend the agreement to their respective members, but the separate residential addendum is subject to acceptance or rejection by each individual union. Some unions have had separate residential agreements covering certain contractors and certain projects, over the past two years. The memorandum with CLR, however, would extend the jurisdiction of the separate agreements from the three-storey, wood-frame walk-ups to high rise concrete structures. There is no question that the intrusion of separate agreements into the high rise resi- i Published weekly at 2681 East Hoasiniee Gnesi. | i ’ Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5. Phone 251-1186 | Re Ne re Ss Se aA . gw Soe SRE ck LE REN Se e i : WOGTORS es Ro. ee Sr ee coor : Postal’'Code@ {tates egies: 85 I 1 ltamenclosing 1yr.$160) 2yrs.$280) 6mo.$100 Foreign yr. $25 7 I I H READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR J 12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 25, 1986 dential is a concession, even though there has been no high rise apartment built under union contract, other than a few projects built with union pension plan money, for about two years. CLR contractors, except for those with a “double breasted,” non- union wing, haven’t even been bidding on residential projects. Nevertheless, the patt- ern established of extending the substand- ard residential agreement into new jurisidic- tion is a dangerous one, and it can be expected that CLR will soon be asking to extend it still further. However, the screams of “sellout”. com- ing from Vinoly, Blades and Farley are hypocritical in the extreme. Farley was one of the building trades leaders campaigning for a residential agreement almost two years ago, and most plumbers remember him on Jack Webster’s TV show arguing for the separate asgreement. Farley then entered into negotiations with CLR and only sev- eral months ago reported to his member- ship that the Plumbers were close to signing a residential agreement which not only included a number of concessions, but did not include any wage rate at all. That pro- posed agreeement included an enabling clause that would have allowed each trades- man to negotiate his own wage. The Labor- ers Union also has a residential agreement with wages from $12 to $15 an hour and ‘many conditions worse than those con- tained in the proposed CLR residential agreement. If the residential agreements assist in bringing the trades together and preventing competition to undercut further prevailing standards, and if it assists in launching an overdue organizing drive in this sector, it will have been strategically wise. On the other hand, if as many already fear, the majority of building trades unions continue to refuse to use their non-affiliation clauses and won’t get serious about organizing, it will only be more proof that concessions won’t save jobs and ultimately only under- mine all union jobs. These realities are for the most part well understood by rank and file building trades members in this province. They will see the proposed agreement as a defeat of the union-busting plans of the contractors, if not as the kind of victory they would have like to score. They are well aware that the new contract will mean little if the political and organizational resources are not mobil- ized to stop the non-union takeover of the industry. The $35 million ALRT bridge contract which is to be awarded next month, possibly to a notorious consortium of J.C. Kerkhoff and the South Korean multinational, Hyundai, illuminates this reality. Most of all, the membership knows that the battle to come will require more of the unity and militancy that beat back the CLR in this strike. And for that reason they won’t * be deceived by the CFL’s calculated attack against the unity of the building trades. ’ for the shake and shingle secto® International WoodworkersieP al president Jack Munro told ) merger convention of Regions J pee of the IWA June 19 that the UP. | would proceed immediately 10 bets | duct a strike vote among its mem to back its stand against the © sions demanded by the forest ® panies. “We have 30,000 people wit agreement expires in June 9) decided we’re going to start said 4| diately on a strike vote,” Munt0 in his opening address to the 008 tion. ne He said the vote would take, three weeks to conduct amore 30,000 members covered by the tes and northern and southern In agreements. ott jo! The announcement was wel0? gered ; by delegates who have been af by the companies’ demand for ™ concessions at a time when the try, led by MacMillan Bloedel, ® seen a renewed surge in profits. In the initial meeting betwee? IWA and Forest Industrial Relat fe (FIR); the employers filed what ue nists have called the “longest ow demands yet seen in-negotiallO™ ; calling for concessions on howl work, wages, contracting-out, hea and pension benefits and vacaticnd : A key concession demand : by FIR would not only bring 12 16 day operation at straight time a but would also introduce “402 averaging,” giving the employe ©) unilateral right-to set the len daily shifts within the 40-hour W? Also of key contention ¥ employers’ demand for eliminatl® the “Billings-Moore letter”, the orandum signed several years a8 tricting contracting-out. Without agreement, IWA members, P# yet | larly those in the logging sector, mt of which has already gone t0 yee union contractors, would be with job protection. eh In addition, FIR has dema af employee contributions to health®, pension plans or cuts in benefit®s ip elimination of a statutory holiday? introduction of a lower wage fol’ employees and separate negotl# plywood operations. a In a bulletin sent out to mem” the IWA called the conc demands “a vicious attack °F wages and benefits we fought and hard to achieve.” : The employers’ stand is 0s larly galling since the industtY of recorded what financial news have termed a “remarkable pst round” with M-B chalking uP.” quarter profits of $29.2 is compared to $2.6 million 10 i Weldwood made $4.5 million fof same period while Crown Fe recorded profits of $6.1 million. Even M-B president Ray wove) called the company’s profits “4, gratifying”. Significantly, how’, the balance sheet also recofe™, reduction in M-B’s work force * 5 1980 of 10,000 employees, “mor?” any other large forest products 17 North America,” according tO © ish Kerr, a financial analyst for B a Fry Ltd. :