LABOR By MIKE PHILLIPS LEAMINGTON — With their union established and dug in for action, Lake Erie fisheries workers are poised to begin bargaining for their first collective agree- ments on the water and in the processing plants. Mike Darnell, ex- ecutive secretary of the Great Lakes Fishenes and Allied Workers Union re- ported last week that letters request- ing preliminary bar- gaining meetings were sent to employ- ers where union certification has been achieved. Ina March 13 interview, he said that the union had been certified four days earlier in two of the largest shore plants, Lake DARNELL Erie Foods, and Etna Foods Ltd., repres- enting a total of 220 plant workers. In addition some 18 vessels have been certified representing about 150 fisheries workers. All together, the GLFAWU now represents some 400 vessel crew and pro- cessing plant workers on the Lake. The owners and employers aren’t expected to be any less determined to resist collective agrements than they’ve been at trying to stop the union from organizing. The GLFAWU pointed out that 37 workers have been fired since the union began organizing last year. Of those 37, nine remain off the job with their cases currently before the Ontario Labor Relations Board. Others have received substantial cash settlements to compensate for lost income resulting from the firings. While the union has been sinking deep roots in the local industry, it has also begun to carve out its identity and taken up its responsibilities in the broader labor . movement. “a On March 4, the GLFAWU joined the other unions in the Canadian fishing industry to. lobby the federal Tory government against implementing recom- mendations of the Forget commission on unemployment which would eliminate fishermen’s unemployment insurance benefits. In addition to lobbying against the threat to fishermen and all seasonal workers in the Forget report, the GLFA WU called on the Tories to imple- ment a national program for full employ- ment. It called for such measures as a country-wide public housing program to confront the shelter crisis and put people to work, not only in the construction industry but in others such as forest pro- ducts. It also called for the implementation of a $12-billion public investment program to renew the transportation and municipal infrastructure. Combined with a national child care program, the reversal of social service cuts and the elimination of con- tracting out, it would boost personal pur- chasing power and could wipe out unemployment in the country, the brief said. The union’s submission was somewhat unsettling to some Tories on the parlia- mentary committee. When one MP ques- tioned GLFA WU vice-president Christine Copa’s qualifications for recommending these economic reforms, she responded, to the delight and applause of the other trade unionists in the in the committee room: “I’m a shore worker and a housewife, and I’ve only achieved grade 10 education but I don’t pretend to know how to solve our economic crisis. You pretend to know, and you don’t.” Truckers protest rate cuts A long line of dump trucks (right) - stretches for several kilometres back along Highway 99 south from Abbots- ford March 20 as more than 450 truck owner-operators — twice the number expected by organizers — took part in a convoy from Surrey to Abbotsford to protest the action of contractors in forcing trucking rates down by bargaining one truck owner's rates off against another. Truckers later jammed a local Abbotsford thea- tre (top) for a rally organized by Local 213 of the Teamsters and to hear Local 213 president Don McGill urge non-union and union truckers to work together to prevent contractors from dividing them. The rally was closed to the media but McGill told reporters outside the meeting: “We hope this rally will send aclear message that these guys won't be broken up and the contractors should stop trying to cut the rates.” He said the union would be pressing for unity around three demands: a stable trucking rate for both union and non-union truckers; solidarity with highway truckers who shut down a roadbuilders’ job site to protest rate cuts; and changes to labor legislation to give owner-operators bargaining rights. scaaomatea “ phish neni 12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 25, 1987 | TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN Passing of closes chapter on IBEW A militant and often stormy chapter in the history of trade unionism among British Columbia’s electrical workers came to a close last week with the passing in Sechelt of George Gee. He died March 18, stricken by the cancer which had only been detected by chance some months earlier following hos- pitalization for an accident. Memorial services have been set for Sat- urday, March 28 at 2:30 p.m. in the Holly- burn Funeral Home, 1807 Marine Drive in West Vancouver. Former alderman Harry Rankin, Hans Penner, Communist Party leader Mau- rice Rush and former United Electrical Workers organizer Ross Russell will pay tribute. Born on July 22, 1908, the youngest of 10 children, he came from a farming family in Virden, Manitoba. But it was in the electrical industry in British Columbia, where he moved in 1930, that he found new found skills as a trade union organizer. Having first learned the electrical line- man’s trade with the Manitoba Power Commission in the 1920s, he was forced to move to Seattle to get a job when the depression closed the doors to his trade in Canada. But he returned in 1937, by now a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and two years later, he joined the union’s Local 213 as a lineman with B.C. Electric, now Crown-owned B.C. Hydro. Two years earlier, prompted by his brother Bill and Workers Unity League organizer Art Evans whom he had met dur- ing the Tulameen mine strike at Princeton, he joined the Communist Party, forging a link that he proudly retained until his death. First elected as a delegate to the IBEW GEORGE GEE and Trades and Labor Congress conven-, tions in 1940, he rose quickly in union lead- ership as the local grew and in 1946, he was elected business manager for Local 213, the key full-time position. Over the next eight years, he was easily re-elected to the posi- tion, at the same time earning a reputation in the labor movement as an able and mil- itant spokesman and the architect of union agreements that were pioneering in the elec- trical industry on the continent. George Gee But in April, 1955, amidst a wave r) anti-Communist hysteria in the labd movement, he was expelled from the IBE on the instructions of an internation union representative. He and 22 others the local union were charged with “Co munist activities” as the international t over Local 213’s affairs. Less than a week later, when he retu to his job at B.C. Electric, he was fired by company because he was no longer a unio! member. More than 400 members of IBEW walked off the job in protest, launclr ing a lengthy series of appeals and law suils that eventually took George to BG Supreme Court in defence of his unio# membership and his job. | Predictably turned down by the union’ international, he finally took the case 1 Supreme Court, represented by a the? newly-graduated lawyer, Tom Bergel Although there was little other consolatio! in the final verdict — which denied his sul! for unfair expulsion — George did get ap admission from the judge that the circum” stances surrounding his expulsion and late! firing did “suport the inference” that theft was a joint plan carried out by the intern® tional IBEW representatives and B& Electric management to get rid of the local! communist leadership. 4 But although the union’s headquarte® never recognized him, the local membership wrote its own close on the episode, votif® lat year to wish him well and rememberift him as one of the province’s exception#! labor leaders and as the local’s most ov tanding business agent. | Denied the right to his job, George op ated a small plumbing and heating busine® for several years before taking the positio? of western representative for the Unite Electrical Workers in 1960. Although he successfully organized several operatio® both in this province and Alberta, the 1@ substantial certification in B.C. was lost® the IBEW in 1972. George himself retired ® Sechelt two years later. | Even in retirement, he continued to active in the Communist Party and muni@, pal politics and was a founding membet d the Sunshine Coast Communist Party Cl" when it was established in 1981. George is survived by his wife Lillian,? brother Bill and sister Edith, three daug” ters, Joyce, Shirley and Bonnie, a son Jim and numerous grandchildren and grandchildren.