LABOR

Continued from page 1

- Although details of bargaining remained
under a news blackout imposed by LRB
chairman and mediator, Stephen Kelleher,
BCGEU negotiating committee chairman,
Cliff Andstein did state that the proposal
tabled by the government at 1 a.m. Oct. 31
was “‘the worst layoff proposal ever put on

_ the table by any employer.
“We won’t accept it,’ he declared as the
union annouced its intention to launch the
strike at midnight as planned.
Andstein later criticized the government’s
actions at the bargaining table, noting that
the two sides had been at the LRB ‘“‘for eight
days before we even got a document from
the government.””
He charged that Bennett’s press con-
_ ference in Victoria Monday was a “‘carefully
contrived event planned two weeks ago.
“It wasn’t a peace offer (from Bennett),”’
he said, “it was just another attempt to
manipulate the situation.’
In his press conference, Bennett pressed
for a delay in the strike deadline until at least
Thursday, presumably hoping to create
some division over whether or not to
postpone strike action.
There was nothing in this speech to in-
dicate why, if the government had failed to
come up with anything in eight days, it could
produce an acceptable proposal given two
_ more days
: However, the BCGEU stated that it was

prepared to continue bargaining and would
accept the intervention of mediator Vince

Ready. But it was clear that the strike would
go ahead.

In fact, the province’s trade union move-

~ ment had earlier declared that Oct. 31 would

be a firm deadline.

; “We want to make it clear to the govern-
ment that if they fail to act in good faith, if

_ they fail to offer a just resolution to all public

sector employees at this time, the agreed-

- upon program of escalating job action will
be implemented, ”’ B.C. Federation of Labor
secretary-treasurer Mike Kramer said last
week.

“Se “The dispute over Bill 3s of fundamental
_ importance to both the trade union move-
ment and the people of British Columbia,”
>See sale.

- Qn Monday, a meeting of Operation

Gov't ‘manipulating’

Solidarity — termed by B.C. Fed president
Art Kube “‘the largest strike coordinating
meeting in our history’’ — gave unanimous
backing to the plans, outlined earlier by the
B.C. Fed offices, for an escalating public
sector walkout to back the fight against the
government’s legislation.

Under that plan, the strike by the BCGEU

will be followed Nov. 8 by a walkout of

education workers, including members of
the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, the Cana-
dian Union of Public Employees and the
Association of University and College
Employees, if the government has failed to

reach an acceptable agreement. The BCTF’

completed voting last week, with 59 per cent
of the 27,000 teachers backing the Operation
Solidarity call.

Two days later, workers in some Crown

corporations will go on strike. They will be
followed Nov. 14 by thousands more, in-
cluding employees of B.C. Rail and the B.C.
Ferries Corporation as well as bus drivers
and municipal employees. B.C. Ferry
workers will go out notwithstanding any

ratification of the tentative collective agree-

ment worked out earlier this week.

On Nov. 18, if the government has still not
come to terms, health care workers, in-
cluding members of the Hospital Employees
Union, will walk off the job.

If the government invokes essential ser-
vice legislation to try to force unionists back
to work, strikers are expected to defy the
order. “

And if the government moves to in-
troduce new legislation forcing them back to
work, if it initiates criminal actions against
them or it attempts to decertify unions, it will
trigger a walkout by every union in the pro-
vince — a general strike.

Strike co-ordinating plans have already
been worked out throughout the public sec-
tor, together with arrangements to maintain
essential services.

The various church, community, and |

other organizations grouped with the labor
movement in the province-wide Solidarity
Coalition have already pledged their sup-
port, up to and including a general strike, to
the BCGEU. Regional coalitions were ex-
pected to begin meeting this week to lay
plans for support action.

Continued from page 1

| education and health care. And as Opera-
~ tion Solidarity declared last week, if the
government forces a massive confronta-
: tion over Bill 3, a settlement will then have
| to be based on the whole package.

: If there ever was a just strike, an
unselfish strike on behalf of all people,
this is one. It must be won.

The tactic of the government, the
, and the daily media is predic-
~ table. Every device will be used to isolate

the public sector workers from the private
-_ sector workers and the strikers from the

public.
: The response must be urgent mobiliza-
- tion and information to private sector
unionists whose active support must run
than the simple sanctity of the
picket line. As the Vancouver and District
Labour Council has called for, regional
meetings of all job stewards are needed to
bring the rank and file leadership of the
basic industrial unions quickly on line for
_ The response must be visible and mass
public action by the Solidarity Coalition.

Rallies, resolutions, meetings, informa-

tion distribution, picket line support ac-

tions are needed to demonstrate that this
is more than a irade union affair.

Now is the time for each member
_group of the coalition to take militant and
dramatic action to pressure the govern-
ment on each of its repressive bills.

Strike support urgent

‘in B.C. that could only be ended by forc-

Harsh recrimination against strikers,
union leaders and organizations can be
expected as the job actions escalate. The
response to punitive measures by the
Socreds has already been promised by
Operation Solidarity — a general strike.
The entire coalition, unions and com-
munity groups, must ensure that if such
action is required, it will be the most
popular general strike in Canada’s
history.

The objective of this struggle is to de-
fend existing human and democratic
rights; to return B.C. to the situation that
prevailed prior to July 7. But the
relentlessness of the attack by this govern-
ment is daily pushing the prospect for the
withdrawal and repeal of the legislation
from reach.

The escalating strike action of Opera-
tion Solidarity combined with mass
public action can lead to a political crisis

ing the government to resign and call a
new election. And this could present an
opportunity to transform the epic
fightback of the past four months into a
movement dedicated not just to return to
July 7, but to move B.C. forward and to
win new social, democratic and human
rights.

No union, no organization, no in-
dividual that supports Solidarity can af-
ford to sit on the sidelines and wait for a
winner to be declared. We are all on the
line now.

Non-union threat used

as contractors push for
rollbacks, code changes

Negotiations in the province’s con-
struction industry aren’t due to open until
January of next year but even before that
date, the employers’ group, Construction
Labor Relations. Association is pressing
for rollbacks in the current wage rates —
and is picking up the tempo in its cam-
paign for concessions in the new conc-
tract.

At the centre is the growing encroach-
ment of non-union construction, with
CLRA eager to use the situation to its

- own advantage, both to lever wage reduc-

tions out of hard-pressed construction
workers and to get legislative concession
from the provincial government which
will allow union firms to set up non-union
subsidiaries.

In response, the Building Trades
Council has declared that it will not re-
open current contracts and has stated its
firm opposition to any concessions, a
position that was reaffirmed at the
Building Trades convention in Victoria
last week.

The trades have, however, indicated
their willingness to make joint represen-
tation along with CLRA to the provincial
government to press for regulations
under the Public Construction Fair Wage
Act that would improve bidding oppor-
tunities for union firms. They have also

suggested that the two groups make ~

representation to Canada Mortgage and
Housing to change its ‘‘low bidder”’ ac-
ceptance practice which invariably favor
non-union firms.

“But CLRA has shown no interest in
such discussions,”’ Building Trades presi-
dent Roy Gautier in a statement earlier
this month.

“Their only interest is in discussing
rollbacks in the collective agreements,”’
he said.

The campaign by the contractors,
coupled with Socred policies which open-
ly favor non-union construction firms —
all put together with the changes to the
Labor Code threatened by the Social
Credit government — have virtually en-
sured that the contract negotiations will
be a major battleground. And at stake
will be more than just construction
workers’ wages.

The issue is increasingly — for the
trade union movement as a whole, not
just the Building Trades — one of union
security.

Chuck McVeigh, president of the
CLRA, put it bluntly to the Journal of
Commerce, Oct. 24: “‘If they (the
Building Trades) find it to their
dissatisfaction to discuss wage rollbacks

. then they must be prepared to price
themselves out of the market.”

That line has been echoed by construc-
tion employers across all three prairie
provinces. Not surprisingly, it is in these
three provinces that non-union construc-
tion companies have shown a dramatic
increase in work. And even less surpris-
ingly, these same three provinces have
among the most reactionary govern-
ments in the country which have made the
trade union movement the target of
restrictive anti-union legislation, either
already enacted or pending.

The shift towards non-union construc-

tion, which has been most dramatic in the.

last year, has come in many cases as a
direct result of new government policies
which have instructed public bodies to ac-
cept the lowest bid regardless of other fac-
tors.

But it is also the result of massive.

unemployment throughout the Building
Trades — in some regions and some
trades in this province, for example, it is
over 60 per cent — which has given the
contractors the traditional ‘‘reserve ar-
my”’ of jobless workers.

Non-union contractors can tender a
low bid on the basis of low wages and are

able to recruit skilled workers at that ||

wage because of the desperation levels of
unemployment in the industry.

It is not just low- wages: many of the |}

non-union firms are new companies with
little overhead. They pay no benefits and
contribute nothing to welfare or appren-
ticeship funds.

If the trades ever did bow to conces-
sions, they would put themselves on a
treadmill — going backwards. Non-
union firms, not tied to any collective
agreements, would lower their wages still
further, forcing union workers to make
more concessions. :

The union companies also want to
work both sides of the road by following |
the practice known in the industry as
“‘double-breasting”’? — setting up non-
union subsidiaries of existing union —
firms. At the moment, the practice is |

prescribed by legislation (although scores |

of firms are doing it throughout western ||
Canada) but contractors are pressing
hard for legislative changes. |

In fact, the widespread practice of ||
double-breasting in Alberta has created })
much of the problem in that province. |

The Journal of Commerce reported there
is a 50 per cent over capacity in construc- —
tion firms based on the volume of work
available.

Significantly, itis also in Alberta where
the anti-union thrust of the employers’

demand for concessions has been most }}

apparent. Earlier this year, under |

pressure from the contractors who }}

demanded changes in collective ©
agreements to ‘‘remain competitive,” the —
Alberta Building Trades put a position
paper before Construction Labor
Relations-Alberta. which accepted the
need for concessions and called for a
wage freeze in the first year of a three year
agreement followed by six per cent in-

creases in each of the final two years. The —

- paper also agreed to other concessions on ~

travel and welfare fund payments.
The paper was barely tabled before the —
contractors upped the ante on conces- —

sions, demanding wage rollbacks ranging |)

from 29.3 per cent for sheet metal |
workers to 66.9 per cent for laborers. The —
average reduction sought was 40 per cent —

—a cut of $6.21 inthe case of carpenters. ||
The contractors also wanted a virtual |)
elimination of union hiring, with hiring |
and transfer of employees to bedoneona |)
““name’’ bases only; elimination of shift ||

premiums; cuts in overtime pay, from
double time ,to time-and-a-half; an in-
crease in the work week; and major
changes to travel and transportation prog

visions. ;

The incident, which showed that
employers demands have gone far
beyond concessions and are aimed at the
unions’ presence itself, has underscored
both the pitfalls of concession bargaining
and the extent of the employers’ assault
on long-standing union wages and condi-
tions.

In this province, it hasn’t come to that
yet. But the campaign for rollbacks
mounted by CLRA is following the same —
pattern — and for the Building Trades |
that means not only a fight to resist con-
cessions at the bargaining table but 4

campaign together with the whole trade |.

union movement to block changes to the —
Labor Code.

The current crisis in the industry has
also demonstrated the need over the ~
longer haul for the trade to promote an —
economic program that will see the
development of secondary manufactur-
ing in this province — and new construc-
tion jobs. =

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 2, 1983—Page 12