eS ee a aa

oes services.

: This ean ins ace Sy we aS

| at the provincial legislature in On-

| tario as more than 12,000 trade un-

| ionists marched to protestthe grow-
| ing number of plant closures inthe

| province “and to demand that the

| Tory government of William Davis

| undertake an industrial strategy to

| guarantee full employment. Follow-

ing up the protest, which was spon- |
sored by the Ontario Federation of
Labor, will be a province-wide peti-

| tion campaign which demands that

] the Davis government make fullem-

| ployment a number one priority; —
| guard communities from unjustified —

| plant closures; give workers greater

| protection when layoffs occur; and

| end cutbacks and ‘aan gabe out of

TRIBUNE PHOTO—MIKE PHILLIPS

PETERBORS

ai

B.C. Tel assumes hard-line stance = again

The B.C. Telephone Company,
a susidiary of General Telephone
and Electronics of New York, is
once more in conflict with the
10,600 members of the Telecom-
munication Workers Union.

Once again, and after exhaustive
hearings, the union adopted the
report of a federal conciliator, only
to have the company reject it. And
once again the company is follow-
ing a policy of provocation and
confrontation.

From where I sit, it looks like the

- company would institute a com-

plete lockout were it not for the fact
that it has an application for a rate
increase averaging 12.5 -percent
before the Canadian Radio-
Television and Telecommunica-

- tions Commission. The union, on

its part, has shown remarkable
restraint by confining itself to
limited strike action, involving only
530 members who normally pro-
vide new installations and
maintenance for commericial
subscribers in the Lower Mainland
area.

The four recommendations of
the Peck report which have been re-
jected by the company are:

@ Wages: January 1, 1980, an

increase of 75 cents per hour for all -

bargaining unit employees; July 1,
1980, a further five percent in-
crease; Jan. 1, 1981, a further 10
percent increase.

e A formula to resolve the long
standing problem of work jurisdic-
tion through consultation, media-
tion and, where necessary, arbitra-
tion.

e@ Accumulated time off with

pay at the rate of one day per

month, an increase of six days per
year, to be taken within a specified
period.

@ Work scheduling for the craft
group. The proposal is for an
elected schedule committee to
name the employees to be assigned
to any shift, or to any out of town
work. The schedules would cover a
four-week period and would be
posted six days prior to the effective
date. In assigning employees,
seniority would receive prime con-
sideration.

In the matter of wages, the com-
pany maintained throughout the
proceedings that it could afford to
pay no more than seven percent or
61 cents an hour in 1980 and 8 per-
cent or 75 cents an hour in 1981.

Conciliation commissioner Ed
Peck, in his report, rejected the

company claim that it could not
pay any more than it offered over
two years. The following quota-
tions from his report are indicative
of his thinking:

@ ‘‘The company’s arguments,
although well presented, fail to per-
suade me that its wage offer is ap-
propriate in the circumstances.”

‘_. Labor

: pee
, Comment
Jack Phillips

@ ‘In attempting to establish
fair rates of wages it is first
necessary to define the community
within which wage rate com-
parisons are to be drawn. Given the
extent of the operations of the com-
peny, that community is plainly
province-wide.”’

e@ In reference to wage set-
tlements in the forest and construc-
tion industries, Peck wrote: ‘‘I do
not accept that a large employer in
B.C. possesses any immunity
against the wage settlements
established by such major in-
dustries.’’ (He quoted the figures
of an 11.9 percent wage increase
for the woodworkers as of July 1,
1979, and for the construction
workers, 10.3 percent in 1980 and
12 percent in 1981.)

In dealing with the rate for
linemen employed by B.C. Tel,
Peck pointed out that the com-
pany’s offer of seven percent in
1980, if accepted by the union,
would have placed them at $1.82.an
hour behind B.C. Hydro linemen,
as compared with $1.58 in 1979.
The lag for telephone tradesmen in
relation to Hydro tradesmen would
have increased from $1.43 to $1.66
an hour.

“T conclude there has been a
general slippage in the company’s
rates by comparison with those of
other utility workers . .. and that
the general level of settlements in
B.C. for 1980 and 1981 indicates
the company’s offer is inadequate,
notwithstanding its present very
respectable level of conditions and
benefits,”’ he said.

The difficulties experienced by
the conciliation commissioner can
be surmised by the following data
and commentary in his report:

@ He devoted 68 days to
meeting with one party or the other

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCT. 31, 1980—Page 12

over a period of four and one half
months.

@ Onall occasions, he was Ghliced
to meet separately with the com-
pany and the union, “‘for at no time
in the mediation process did they
evince any desire to meet together,
nor, for that matter, did I consider
that any useful purpose could be
served by them doing so.””

Prior to the conciliation hear-
ings, the union and the company:
met in 26 bargaining sessions over
some four months, but no substan-
tial agreement was reached.

The following comment by Peck
is a further illustration of the kind
of problems faced by the union in
dealing with this arrogant subsid-
iary of a big U.S. corporation:

“In the past decade the company
and the union have experienced
two strikes — not a bad record per-
haps in the turbulent British Co-
lumbia scene — but far more
troubling when associated with the
intelligence that in the same period
they have negotiated only one col-
lective agreement on their own.
And this lonely example of collect-
ive bargaining without interference
was accomplished nine long years
ago. Since 1972 the parties have
faced a series of conciliation boards
and highly experienced conciliation
commissioners, including Mr.
Hugh Ladner and Dr. Noel Hall
and more recently a special indust-
rial inquiry commissioner, the
Honorable Mr. Justice Henry E.
Hutcheon of the Supreme Court of
British Columbia whose appoint-
ment in 1978 and subsequent
recommendations served in large
measure to bring an end to a par-
ticularly bitter strike of two and
one-half moni

It is significant that Peck quotes
from the Hall report of May 31,
1977 in order to illustrate that such
questions as contracting out and
technological change were among
the most contentious issues at that
time. From the information at my
disposal, these and other issues
flowing from a traditionally con-
servative concept of management
rights held by the company, have

yet to beresolved to the satisfaction

of the workers.

At this point it should be noted
that the current situation is, in
many respects, a repeat of what
happened in 1977-78. Then, the
union accepted and the company
rejected the conciliation report of
Dr. Noel Hall, and the company

eventually locked out its employees

for a period of two and a half mon-
ths. Eventually Justice Hutcheon
was appointed as an industrial in-
quiry commissioner and wrote up
what amounted to a variation of
the Hall report. The company did
not completely accept the Hutch-

eon report and the union was limit--

ed, by court injunction, to the post-
ing of only two pickets at each door
of a company building. The work-
ers soon decided to report to every
office and yard for work, without
picket signs, and when this was
done, the company settled. It
should be noted, however, that
nearly two years elapsed between
the time negotiations started and
the time of settlement.’

Bill Clark, president of the Tele-
communication Workers Union,
told me it is not the intention of the
union to spread the strike beyond
the 530 installers and:‘maintenance

_ men who normally perform install-

ation and maintenance work for
commercial hookups in the Lower
Mainland. When I asked_him
about the support his union is re-

ceiving from the B.C. Federation ©

of Labor, its affiliates and unions
generally, he replied ‘‘very good.”
He was particularly pleased with
the support from construction un-
ions engaged in new construction
work.

The Peck report points out that
of the 15,000 persons employed by
the company in B.C., 2,600 form
the management team. This breaks
down to more than one manage-
ment personnel for every six work-
ers, which is a very high ratio.

A supervisory group of some
1,900 from lower and middle man-
agement, called Telephone Em-
ployees Management and Profes-
sional Organization (TEMPO),
was unsuccessfull in an attempt to
gain collective bargaining status

ee

City ortown ...........:.

Postal:Code =... 3.ass.2.:-

| am enclosing:
1 year $100 2 years $18 1) 6 months $6 0
OldO New Foreign 1 year $12 0
Donation $

SS NSS NN NCIS
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9
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==

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 261-1186

Read the paper that fights for labor

Per ee ee

from the Canada Labor Relations

Board. Now, TEMPO people are

trying to fill the backlog of work
orders caused by the withdrawal of
service by the 530 installers and
maintenance workers, but they are
falling behind on new orders. Most
of themare not trained for this kind
of work and those who go to new
construction sites are not made
welcome by organized construc
tion workers.

When I asked union president
Clark why the union appear
before the CRTC to speak to the
application of the company for 4

rate increase, his answer was short

and to the point:

“Our convention, held in June,
decided that the standard
technological change clauses in our
collective agreement were nO
longer sufficient to protect our jobs
in the face of unprecedented tech-
nological change and capital ex-
penditure on the part of the com-
pany. Our convention conclud

that in the absence of a national in-

dustrial strategy to cope with the
problem created by such massive
change, we would have to use the
only government agency we have
access to — the CRTC.”’ While the
union got a lot of publicity from
this move, it is not likely that the
CRTC will solve their problem. ~

When I asked him if the union -

was opposed to technologi
change, he gave this forthright Te-
ply: ‘“‘No. Our position is simply
that the potential dislocations and
disruptive consequences of the use
of this powerful new technology
must ensure that all segments of
society benefit from its use. The
danger is that the socially uncon-
trolled introduction of wholesale
technological change in an extrem-
ely short period of time will result in
incalculable social costs.””

Per ee ee ee