CUPE 1004 MEMBER DAVE WERLIN — target of unconstitutiona:

charges.

Kamloops a workers
unite on new contract

KAMLOOPS — Civic workers
have voted 75 percent to accept a
new contract with the city of
Kamloops and in doing so have
given the leadership of Local 900 of
the Canadian Union of Public
Employees a vote of confidence in
the wake of a concerted smear cam-
paign against the local’s officers.

The settlement is the last in a
series of CUPE agreements with the
Okanagan Mainline Municipal
Labor Relations Association (OM-
MLRA), the employer group
representing Okanagan
municipalities. q

The two-year agreement in
Kamloops will give CUPE members
two SIX percent increases in wages
Over two yeafs with no change in
the benefits package. The settle-
ment differs from the others bar-
gained with the OMMLRA which
included two eight per cent wage
hikes, but a completely new benefit
package. After close examination,
however, Local 900 opted for no
change in the benefits package, and
even with a smaller wage settlement
came out ahead.

The acceptance vote in Kamloops

was in spite of a vigorous campaign
by employers and local media to
have the proposed contract rejected
and the Penticton and Kelowna.
contract accepted. Local 900’s
bargaining committee rejected the
OMMLRA offer as_ inferior,
however, because of its new benefit
package.
“‘L am looking at the vote as more
than simple ratification,’’ Local 900
business agent Bill Ferguson said
Saturday after the vote, ‘‘It’s a re-
‘Jection and a sound rebuff for the
splitters and the media who have
done.everything they could to con-
fuse and divide our
membership . . . It shows that the
membership still control their local
union.”’

For weeks leading up to the vote
anonymous letters and_ interiews
with unnamed sources attacking the
settlement and the local leadership
had appeared in the right wing
Kamloops Daily News. Kamloops
demagogic mayor Mike Latta had
also got into-'the act with public pro-
nouncements encouraging CUPE
members to accept the regional con-
tract proposed by the OMMLRA.

The regional contract did offer
two percent more in wages to
CUPE, but it took away substan-
tially more in the long term by
agreeing to a new concept in benefit
packages being pushed by
employers throughout the province.
Essentially the new benefit proposal
would have ended automatic sick

benefits paid by employers for
negotiated terms and replaced it
with insurance plans from private
companies with the employer and
employees sharing the premiums.

In Kamloops it would have meant
the termination of the long standing
benefit package which guaranteed
sick benefits to all employees with
the employer paying all of the costs.
Employees would have had to pay
50 percent of the premiums for an
insurance plan that would give 26
weeks of coverage, if the applicant
was successful in convincing the in-
surance company that the claim was
a valid one. A long term disability
plan was also offered, but with the
employees bearing the full cost. The
insurance plan would have hit single
male workers the hardest and would
have raised monthly deductions for
benefits from $10.05 to $27.67.

The most objectionable feature
of the new plan, however, has its re-
quirement of.six months continuous
service-and its stipulation that only
“full time, regular employees’’
could collect benefits.

National president blocks
attempt to ‘gag’ unionist.

Should a member of a trade
union be subject to charges under
the constitution of that organiza-
tion for comments made at a
membership meeting?

If a member, at a duly con-
Stituted meeting of his local union,
takes part in debate and accuses the
officers of misuse of union funds,
can he be placed on trial for ‘‘cir
culating false reports’’ or sinalihe
misrepresentations’’?

The president of the Canadian
Union of Public Employees,
Canada’s largest trade union, has

ruled that such statements in a clos-.
- ed meeting cannot be construed as

circulating false reports or making
misrepresentations.

In essence, this means that what
is said at a closed union meeting
cannot be used as a basis for charg-
ing a member with making
statements alleged to be defamatory
in relation to other members.

The issue arose out of remarks
made by Dave Werlin, a member of
CUPE Local 1004 (which has 2,000
members in Vancouver) at a
membership meeting on February 4
of this year.

The attempt to gag Werlin came
to the surface when, on April 10,
1979, the local union executive
board informed Werlin, who had
served as a full-time officer for
some seven years up to the fall of
1975, that charges had béen laid
against him. The charges were bas-
ed on a verbatim transcript of what
had been said at the membership
meeting.

More recently, the president of
Local 1004 and another board
member had second thoughts about
the validity of the charges. This.
prompted them to send a letter
outlining their doubts to the full ex-
ecutive board. The president also
sent a request for an interpretation
of the constitution to the national’
president, whose reply is referred to
above.

In the letter to the local board
and again in the letter to the na-
tional president, two important
points were made:

Council blasts INCO
for role in Guatemala

Continued from pg. 1

jority of the strikers echoed the re-
marks of their shop stewards who
had earlier voted to reject, stating
that they had “been out this long al-
ready’’ and wanted a decent settle-
ment before they would be prepared
to vote to go back.

INCO executives had maintained
their adamance at the bargaining
table on the basis of huge nickel
stockpiles but, according to busi-
ness analysts, those stockpiles are

~ now severely depleted — and nickel

prices. are rising.

The Financial Post noted May
12, “INCO’s larder of various
grades of refined and other nickel
products was declining to
dangerous levels in the face of
heavy demand, bolstered by rising
prices.’’

That fact, coupled with pledges
of continuing support from. the
trade union movement, is expected
to put further pressure on the multi-
national to come up with a new of-
fer in the face of the rejection vote.

INCO, which has sought to make
up for depleted stockpiles by press-
ing production at its operations in
Indonesia and Guatemala, came
under fire at the Vancouver and
District. Labor Council meeting
Tuesday where delegates condemn-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 18, 1979— Page 12.

ed the corporation fo? its role in
bolstering ‘the repressive
Guatemalan regime of General Ro-
mero Lucas Garcia.

Delegates unanimously endorsed

a special executive motion con- .

demning the violence in Guatemala
which the military dictatorship ‘has
aimed particularly. at popular or-
ganizations including trade unions.

It also noted that multinational
corporations like INCO take ad-
vantage of the repressive climate to
invest and-reaffirmed the council’s
condemnation of ‘‘INCO’s activi-
ties in Guatemala.”’

The motion was in response to an
appeal from Israel Marques, the ex-
iled general secretary of the Na-
tional Association of Workers ‘of
Guatemala and the former secretary
of the union at Guatemala’s Coca-
Cola plant, who addressed the
council.

Marques told the council that
many of the best known of the trade
union leaders in Guatemala have
been murdered by the military
regime, including four in the last

year.
Particular targets have been
union leaders at the Coca-Cola

plant and Marques himself was
forced to seek refuge in the Vene-
zuelan embassy after several at-
tempts on his life.

(1) Whether the allegations
‘made by Werlin and others were
precise or not, the fact remains that
he and all menibers of the union are
entitled to their opinions and have a
‘right to express them at a union
meeting. :

(2) Werlin’s allegations were not
challenged at the meeting, nor was
the chairman requested by any
member to rule him out of order.

This means that if the presiding
officer at the meeting referred to
had ruled Werlin out of order and

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JAGK PeHHLLIPS

refused to allow him to continue,
the only appeal under the rules
would have been to- challenge the
chair. However, there was no such
ruling at the meeting. This being the
case, a member doesn’t have to be a
lawyer to know that the subsequent
charges were ill-founded. :

The union trial; scheduled to
open on May 18, will not proceed.
In addition to the opinion of the na-
tional. president, a- membership
meeting on May 8 voted to table the
election of a trial panel for an in-
definite period.

The story behind this struggle in

Local 1004 goes back to the report _

of an independent auditor of the
books and financial records of the
local for the year 1977, dated May
15, 1978.

That report contained a section
which noted that one of the elected
officers had spent considerable time
on the union’s payroll without the
necessary authorization by a
membership meeting as spelled out
in the bylaws. The auditor recom-
mended that the applicable provi-
sions of the bylaws be applied in the
future. :

However, that section of the
auditor’s report was deleted from
the copy mailed to the membership.
According to my information, a
strong opposition caucus in the
local, of which Werlin is a promi-
nent member, otained a copy of the
original report and soon issued a
leaflet to the membership. That
leaflet accused the officers of doc-
toring the report and bluntly asked,
**Have they something to hide?”’

The circular closed with a call to
the members to attend the next
membership meeting on September
‘12 in order to question the local of-
ficers on the report. That member-

_ship meeting voted to request the
national office to send an accoun-
tant to examine the books and
financial records of the local.

In December, 1978 the national
secretary-treasurer, outlined the
main criticism in the accountant’s
report: an executive board member
of the local who had been slected to

RiBbUNE

‘CUPE provincially and in the labor

2

a non-salaried position had virtu
become a third salaried off
without proper-authorization by
membership.

Two quotations from that repo ort
are illuminating:

. “The above mentioned
blem could have been rectified
two and one half years ago whi
was first brought to your attenti
However, it has persisted due to th
mismanagement of affairs by t
executive board and the seemi
apathy of the membership.

. “Is the membership aware t
your executive board has ta
upon itself, without consult
with you, to imprgperly ex
thousands of dollars ... in
time wages? We use the word
properly’ because the monies w
expended without authorization.

The officer who virtually,
unofficially, became a third sala
officer has since returned to his
with the city of Vancouver.

In another, dramatic develo
ment, the elected president
removed as a Salaried officer
membership vote. Then the elect
recording secretary resigned fro
his salaried position. Under
bylaws no member is. elected toa
paid position, but the execut
board may recommend to
membership that specific persons :
employed by the local union.

When I contacted Dave Werli
for a statement on the
developments in Local 1004,
declined to comment, saying it
would be unconstitutional for

to do so.
“|

However, in’a letter to the na-~
tional president under date of April
30, 1979, the local president summ-_
ed it up neatly: ‘‘The time has come |
for genuine trade unionists, in the |
interests of unity, to admit we were |
in error in regards to certain prac-
tices which were’ criticized by the
Cummings’ report’’. (Kealey Cu
mings is the national secret
treasurer). This was shortly bef
the charges against Werlin we
dropped, as referred to earlier.

CUPE has 25,000 members in
British Columbia and Local 1004i
ihe largest local. As in the past, it
can play an important role with
movement as a whole. To make this
possible, the best elements should
unite around a program based on
the needs of the membership and
sound trade union policies. ae

That’s what it’s all about in
CUPE; Local 1004. The members,
in ever-increasing numbers, arent.
demanding better service in return
for their dues payments and stric’
accountability on the part of lo
officers. As the officers have learn
ed, bureaucratic measures, such a
filing charges under the union as
constitution, will not be accepted as —
an answer to legitimate criticism 4

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