LABOR

Negotiators for the Independent Cana-
dian Transit Union and the Metro Transit
Operating Company were set to go back
to the bargaining table at the end of this
week but the MTOC has already scuttled a
proposal that would have seen the buses
running again while an industrial inquiry
commissioner studied the 16-month-old
dispute.

ICTU president Colin Kelly declared
last week that the union was prepared to
move immediately on a proposal from the
Downtown Vancouver Association, a
store owners’ group, that would have seen
drivers return to work ona seniority-based
schedule sign-up while a industrial inquiry
| commission was named to study the
dispute.

The proposal was also put to MTOC
but the company spurned it late in the day
July 20.

Kelly charged that the company
wouldn’t move on the proposal “because
they haven’t. starved us out yet.” The
MTOC position followed the pattern it
has set throughout 16 months of
negotiations.

Kelly said that the proposal advanced
by the DVA, which he termed “very realis-
tic”, would have involved drivers working
under the same schedules which were to
come into effect June 15 — the day the
strike began — but with the key proviso
that drivers be allowed to choose their
shifts according to seniority. The major
obstacle in the dispute has been the com-

MTOC spurns bus proposal seeks ‘to starve union’

pany’s demand that shift scheduling be a
management prerogative.

“The other part of the proposal
involved sitting down with the company to
discuss names for an industrial inquiry
commission,” he said.

The report ultimately brought down by
the commission would ‘‘at least form a
structure for a collective agreement,” he
added.

Whether the returri to the bargaining
table will bring any company changes. is
still an unknown although Kelly said last
week that there had been “no movement
on MTOC’s part.”

After conducting a weeks-long “‘unstrike”
in an effort to put public pressure on the
company without shutting the system
down, ICTU launched a full-scale strike

Code to make a unilateral appointment

June 15. It came after more than 14
months of bargaining during which the
MTOC — chaired by Social Credit MLA
and car dealer Bill Reid — had stone
walled over basic issues involving the
replacement of many full-time drivers by
part-time workers and exemptions from
Bill 3.

Since then, there have been demands
from the B.C. Federation of Labor and
NDP leader Bob Skelly for Labor Minis-
ter Bob McClelland to appoint an indus-
trial inquiry commission. The labor
minister is authorized under the Labor

but the Socreds have so far refused, hop-
ing instead to force major concessions
from the union.and use the transit strike aS
an anti-labor issue.

: —

‘Trades launch public campaign

The battle over non-union contractors at
Expo remained suspended last week as the
Building Trades Council and the B.C. Fed-
eration of Labor launched the first phase of
a public information campaign and began
contacting international and corporate
exhibitors to press them to build their Expo
pavilions with union labor.

But even Vancouver Mayor Michael
Harcourt warned that anyone who assumed
from the current peace on the site that the
issue was resolved “‘is just whistling past the
graveyard.” ;

And Bill Zander, president of the B.C}
Provincial Council of Carpenters, warned
that if Premier Bennett and the Expo board
tried to turn Expo into “‘a concentration
camp”, with more non-union projects
fenced off from union projects, “they are
just making it inevitable that there will be
job action on the site.”

Adding friction to the dispute were
comments from Expo president Michael
Bartlett who announced July 20 that the
“time has passed for agreements” and the
Expo board would proceed to award con-
tracts to both union and non-union con-
tractors who would be bound only by the
federal fair wage minimum.

The labor movement’s information cam-
paign was initiated following a meeting of
the Building Trades and the B.C. Fed July
16, prompted in turn by the Expo board’s
action a week earlier in spurning the trades’
latest proposals for an agreement covering
labor on the site.

One initiative was set for this Tuesday
when the Building Trades Council was to
appear before Vancouver city council to
seek council’s assistance in reaching a nego-
tiated agreement. Two city representatives
sit on the Expo board. =

Letters have now gone out to several
countries asking that they commit them-
selves to union labor in building their pavil-
ions, and various international labor bodies
will be contacted to press the issue.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

ROY GAUTIER. . .Trades watch awarding of
contracts.

The Building Trades have also called on
the Expo board to resign, a demand that has
been outlined in a series of newspaper ads
that began last week.

A boycott, earlier urged by the Building

Trades in response to the board’s stand, has
been put in abeyance as the Trades watch
the new Expo contracts being let.

“If we see projects going non-union, then -

we'll heat things up,” said Building Trades
Council president Roy Gautier.

Approximately 65 per cent of Expo site
construction — in dollar volume — will
be contracted by the various exhibitors
compared with about 35 per cent by the
Expo board itself.

Expo awarded three more contracts for
work on the site last week, for site prepara-
tion and other work.

All went to union firms, a move that is
widely expected to be the prelude to Expo
awarding a contract to a second non-union

People’s Commission
named by Solidarity

The Solidarity Coalition has named four
people to head up its “People’s Commis-
sion” which will begin in Septemver holding
hearings around the province, assessing the
effects of the Socred government’s “res-
traint” policies and outlining alternative
policies.

Named to the commission are Margaret
Marquardt, an Anglican priest who will
chair the commission; Ray Haynes, labor
relations officer with the B.C. Nurses Union
and a former secretary of theB.C. Federa-
tion of Labor; Jane Evans, Okanagan Col-
lege English instructor and the vice-president
of the National Action Committee on the

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 25, 1984

Status of Women; and economics professor
Mel Watkins.

“We intend to travel throughout B.C. to
listen to people. . .to listen to their problems
and their needs,. . .and to solicit their ideas
and suggestions for social and economic.
policies,” the commissioners stated in
announcing the appointment July 18. Pres-
entations can be written or oral.’ :

Hearings will begin in Kelowna Sept. 14
and 15 and wind up in Vancouver Dec. 14
and 15. Hearings will also be held in
Nanaimo, Terrace, Fort St. John, Nelson,
Chilliwack, Prince George, Kamloops,

Cranbrook and Victoria.

firm. Right-to-work contractor J.C. Kerk-
hoff and Sons already has a $4.5 million
Expo contract.

Michael Bartlett re-emphasized that the

site would be open in awarding the latest _

contract, stating: “The awarding of this

contract to the low bidder is consistent with -

Expo 86’s policy of open bidding and our
mandate to build the exposition with union

and non-union labor.”

The board also re-opened pre-qualifi-
cation bidding and according to Bartlett,
more non-union firms are coming forward
to bid.

Meanwhile, the Expo corporation is
going to considerable lengths to segregate
Kerkhoff from other union projects, Car-
penters Local 452 business agent Colin Snell
told the Vancouver and District Labor
Council July 17.

Because the advanced light rapid transit
(ALRT) guideway, currently under con-
struction, encroaches on the Kerkhoff site,
“they’ve moved the fence to make sure that
the two are separated.

“And the word is that when the ALRT

work is finished, they’re going to move the.

fence back again,” he said. the ALRT line is
being completed entirely with union labor.

Snell also showed delegates a pre-
registration list of the non-union contrac-
tors and others who attended a special
viewing of the Expo scale model July 7
before holding: a contractors’ meeting to
declare their readiness to build Expo
non-union.

“Tf you look over the list and compare it
to the board of directors of the right-to-
work Independent Canadian Business
Association, you'll find that a lot of the
names appear in both places,” he said.

“It’s the same beast with a different name
and a different spokesman,” he told
delegates.

Apart from those who could have been
expected to attend — including Kerkhoff,
Ed and Len Rempel, Larry Fisher, and
ICBA spokesman Ralph Purdy — the list
of names included right-wing Vancouver
Sun columnist Les Bewley and the principal

of Pacific Vocational Institute, Henry .

Justessen.

=
-RWU in Fed
as picketing
battle looms

The Retail Wholesale Union got the
formal announcement July 20 that It
was back in the Canadian Labor Con
gress and the B.C. Federation of Labor.

The International Longshoremen
and Warehousemen’s Union submitt
per capita dues for the RWU member
ship following the establishment of the
RWU as a section of the ILWU earlier
this year but formal acceptance of CL
and federation affiliation was not
announced until last Friday.

A former federation affiliate as the
Retail, Wholesale Department Store |
Union, the RWU was independent for
three years. :

The re-affiliation comes at a ume
when the union is in the midst of 4
increasingly tough dispute at Slade and
Stewart — a dispute which was embit-
tered two weeks ago when the Labor |
Relations Board used amendments tO |
the Labor Code to restrict long”

established rights of secondary picketing:

Acting as a one-man panel, LRB
vice-chairman Peter Sheen ordered
picketing of Slade and Stewart trucks at |
customer loading docks halted.

RWU staff representative Al Petel |
son warned delegates to the Vancouvet
and District Labor Council July 17 that |
if the decision stands, “no union
involved in the service industry will be
able to process a strike.

“The U.S. owners are trying to beat
us using the labor board and the code
amendments,” he emphasized.

The LRB held hearings July 20 on af |
application by the RWU to vary the
order. The B.C. Federation of Labot
has also demanded a full board appeal: .

The union, meanwhile, is continuing |
its picketing policy but Slade and Ste
wart was applying to have the ordef
registered in Supreme Court, a move |
which would put the union undef)
threat of fines and sentences for con |
tinued picketing. * Jie

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