BRITISH COLUMBIA

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SCENES FROM THE DAY OF PROTEST (from top left) ... parents form line outside Britannia
secondary school in Vancouver; CUPE members picket Vancouver city hall; some of the estimated 600
who marched against Bills 19 and 20 in Kamloops rally outside Socred MLA Bud Smith’s constituency
office; strikers rally in Alberni Athletic Hall.

PHOTO — JOSHUA BERSOT

Continued from page 1

It was an unprecedented display
of unity, surpassing even the events
of Solidarity four years earlier, as
members of the B.C. Teachers
Federation, the Teamsters, the
B.C. Nurses Union and the various
affiliates of the 20,000-member
Confederation of Canadian Unions
— including smelter workers in
Kitimat — joined the 250,000 affi-
liates of the B.C. Federation of
Labor for the one-day stoppage.

And the massive show of
strength and solidarity clearly
startled not only the Social Credit
government but many employers
as well.

As the support for the action
became apparent, some employer
representatives began to voice mis-
givings about the legislation, includ-

ing former Employers Council
president Bill Hamilton who sug-
gested that the government had
gone too far.

Even before that, in an open let-
ter to Vander Zalm that could only
have come as a bombshell to the
government, newly-resigned dep-
uty labor minister Graham Leslie
accused the premier of having
“committed an act of legislative
violence” by bringing in Bill 19.
Leslie, a former chief negotiator
for the Greater Vancouver regional
district’s labor relations depart-
ment, was deputy labor minister
until May 6.

In the letter, published in the
May 31 Province, Leslie also con-
firmed what trade unionists have
long suspected: that anti-labor leg-
islation had already been drafted

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 3, 1987

when Labor Minister Lyall Han-
son was travelling around the pro-
vince hearing submissions on
changes to labor law.

“Little did he (Lyall Hanson)
know, until he completed the first
draft of the report which you had
requested, that you had already
decided what changes to make and
that those changes had already
been drafted under your direc-
tion,” Leslie told Vander Zalm in
his letter. ,

“By assaulting so many long-
standing rights of unionized work-
ing men and women and, in
particular, by seeking to deprive
them of those rights so arbitrarily
and with so little input from their
representatives until after the bill
was shaped, you have — perhaps
unwittingly — committed an act

of legislative violence which has
provoked — after a lengthy dis-
play of uncharacteristic and wel-
come restraint — an equally but
more obviously violent reaction by
the trade union movement.

“Tike many others, I regret and
deplore the acts of protest which
are being contemplated by organ-
ized labor, but like many others I
fully understand and sympathize
with the sentiments which are giv-
ing rise to them,” he said.

Across the province, at union
operations, the massive participa-
tion in the 24-hour strike reflected
the pent-up demand for concerted
action that has been mounting
since the bills were first introduced
April 2.

But it was more than just the

LA ee

PHOTO — Bt Came!

organized trade union movement!
that took part June 1.

Outside schools, parents, many
of them with their children, join
those on the picket line, both
give visible demonstration of thet!
participation in the one-day stop”
page and to show their support fof
teachers. Countless numbers 9
non-union workers volunteered 08
picket lines and even the Kerkho!
construction site at First and Ret”
frew in Vancouver shut dow!
when pickets went up early in thé
morning on June 1.

Scores of small businesses, pa™
ticularly those in smaller commu”
ities, closed for the day in solidarity
with the labor movement’s action

see BILL 19 page 3