Labour

Picket line
‘is solid’

Continued from page 1

attempting to intimidate the 5,600 “pink
collar” workers — predominantly women
employees in the clerical and_ sales

divisions — to cross lines and return to

work.

Most clerical issues, including a conten-
tious job security clause and wages, were
reportedly resolved during mediation last
week. But talks broke down over the issues
of hours of work for the maintenance
workers.

Loveys said it is inaccurate to describe the
issue as simply a paid lunch break, as has
been reported. She said a paid half-hour
lunch is only “one formula” out of many
the union will consider to achieve a reduced
work week for the technicians, a provision
already enjoyed by the clerical workers and
the 23,000 CUPW members. They receive a
paid half-hour lunch break for a total work
week of 37+ hours.

Noting that CUPW achieved this without
a strike in 1980, Loveys said Canada Post
was out to “destroy the union” by refusing
to budge on the issue. The corporation has
tried to tie reduced hours to “productivity
improvements.”

The strikes waged by the Letter Carriers
Union and CUPW — the latter ended by a
federal back-to-work order — have taken
place under Canada Post's drive to privatize
the Crown corporation’s services. Engaging
in hard-nosed anti-labour tactics, post office
management hired scabs during the pre-
vious strikes and spent millions of dollars
hiring security agents and contracting out-
side services in bids to break the strikes.

Loveys said that despite the attempt to
divide the two groups in UPCE, they are
holding firm and are planning escalations in
picket line activities.

Workers at the 19 unionized outlets of
the White Spot restaurant chain are strik-
ing over wages that range as low as $4.50
per hour — the provincial minimum
wage.

Members of Local 112 of the Canadian
Association of Industrial, Mechanical and
Allied Workers (CAIMAW) began their
strike Aug. 26 after the company, owned
by businessman Peter Toigo, tabled its
“first and final offer” the preceding week.

But wages are only one component of
the dispute which also covers definition of
union work, contracting out and seniority
rights.

Nicole Berg, picket line captain at
White Spot’s restaurant at 13th Ave. and
Cambie St. in Vancouver, said the union
wants to confine to less than one hour
management staff working on unionized
jobs.

The union also wants to ban contract-
ing out, which at a Langley outlet resulted
in the firing of a janitor and which is used
in kitchen preparatory work, she said.

Possibly the most contentious issue is
seniority rights. The union wants changes
to a system which currently allows the
company to grant longer hours to low-
paid beginners while cutting back on the
hours of senior employees, Berg, a 12-year
employee, said.

That effectively means management
can schedule senior employees’ hours so
that their work week amounts to part-time
employment — affecting company con-
tributions to medical and dental plans and
vacation pay, she said.

Employees frequently work  short-
staffed, a phenomenon that has increased
since Toigo — a friend of Premier Bill

Bria

Vander Zalm’s' whose bid for the Expo 86
caused a scandal in the government —
acquired the chain five years, shop steward
Teresa Conelly said. ‘
Included in the company’s wage offer is
a demand to pay new employees hired
from the date of the contract the minimum
wage of $4.50 — the company originally
offered less until they found it contravened
the provincial minimum — and to freeze

’ that rate for the next three years.

White Spot’s package also includes no
wage hike in 1988, followed by two yearly
10 cent-per-hour hikes, and 45 cents for

Pickets at Vancouver restaurant. Union vice-president Roger Crowther says company’s
attitude reflects Bill 19 anti-labour regulations.

- reject the company’s proposals.

over three years for ‘“non-gratuity”
employees.

CAIMAW vice-president Roger Crow-
ther says the union is seeking an across-
the-board 50-cent-an-hour hike. The
average wage is slightly above $8 an hour.

The union charged the company with
bad faith bargaining when it tabled its
offer on Aug. 18. CAIMAW has invited
the company back to the table, but the
company’s stated position is that talks are
finished.

Local 112 members voted 87 per cent to

= |

Constructive approach in Poland needed

The current events in Poland have clearly
shown that the economic restructuring pro-
cess undertaken by the government earlier
this year will not be won easily.

Most of the country’s industries have
been put on a self-financing basis and subsi-
dies to unprofitable enterprises have been
cut. This has meant higher commodity pri-
ces and consequent pressure on wages and
living standards.

The signs, up to last week at least, showed
most Poles, including the Catholic church,
support the general lines of the restructuring
program.

That support wasn’t a blank cheque by
any means, as strikes for higher wages last
April and May revealed. The process of
working out the details of the reformed
economic mechanism has been difficult.

An austerity program was shot down by
the electorate last November in a country-
wide referendum, and the official trade

union movement, the OPZZ, has been con-
cerned that wage and other demands aimed
at ensuring workers’ living standards aren’t
sacrificed in the process.

In fact the economic demands raised last
week by Solidarnosc are the same ones
around which OPZZ has been negotiating

_with the government. The difference is that

the official unions, many of whose leaders
were associated with Solidarnosc in 1981,
are participants in the restructuring as
elected representatives in Poland’s Parlia-
ment, the Sjem.

Underlying the government’s economic
problem is Poland’s $48-billion foreign
debt, the result of previous economic errors
which emphasized investment in heavy
industry over the stimulation of the consu-
mer goods sector and agriculture which is
overwhelmingly under private ownership.
Investment in such smokestack industries as
steel and mining yielded lower profits than

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READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOUR

Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. VS5K 1Z5. Phone 251-1186

Name... kOe

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8 » Pacific Tribune, August 31, 1988

anticipated, and the country is saddled with
a $3.6-billion annual bill just to pay the
interest on the foreign debt.

While the government’s current plans
stress priority investment in consumer
goods and the high-tech sectors, it’s still too
early to see meaningful results.

But the solutions to the economic prob-
lems facing the Polish people aren’t as sim-
ple as the Solidarnosc formula of simply
demanding higher wages to match increased
prices. Nor can they be found without the
full mobilization and intimate participation
of the Polish working people.

The evidence of the past week shows that
the Poles themselves sense this. Even the
most generous estimates placed the number
of workers involved in last week’s strikes at
90,000 to 100,000. At the height of the
Gdansk strike, only about seven per cent of
the workforce participated, and by week’s
end, the strikes in this supposed Solidarnosc
stronghold were being described in press
reports as ‘““weak” and “‘virtually symbolic.”

This might explain why the central issue
of the stoppages, according to press reports,
was the demand for Solidarnosc’s formal
recognition.

The line being advanced by imperialism’s
media is that only Solidarnosc can legiti-
mately advance the interests of the workers
in Poland, ostensibly because of its anti-
communist perspective.

Yet there is reason to believe that the
strikes collapsed by the week’s end, as much
from lack of popular support as govern-
ment action against the illegal stoppages.

For its part, the government has not
shunned its portion of the responsibility for
the economic conditions underpinning the

strikes. But it has refused to negotialé
“under the pistol of a_ strike,” and
announced on Aug. 23 that a special parlr
amentary commission would convene
review the government’s policies and maké
adjustments to its economic program 1f
consultation with the OPZZ, the official
trade union central.

The government’s attitude is founded of
the principle that it is the embodiment of the
people’s economic and political power an
that there should be no conflict between the
interests of the government in trying 1
make the economy more productive at
responsive to the society’s needs, and thos¢
of the working people who produce the
wealth.

There are signs that the government may
not be alone in this estimation of what needs
to be done. Most Poles still vividly recall thé
economic toll the events of 1981 took on thé
country’s economy. Food and other com
modity shortages followed in the wake of
Solidarnosc’s last show, and Polish telev”
sion interviews with workers last week
showed the link between the current strik¢
wave and longer shopping lines and shot
tages.

There’s a role for everyone in Poland t
play in this restructuring process. Indee¢s
without mobilizing all of the relevant inst
tutions and social forces, that much-needé
reform cannot take place.

The rapid loss of momentum in this cul
rent outburst suggests that Poles have #
sense of this, and that they aren’t inclined to

follow the designs of reactionary forces oul}
to scuttle this new and decisive turn in th®)

further development of advanced socialis™

4