ATU focus on Hydro, not public Continued from pg. 1 addressed the Vancouver and District Labor Council Tuesday where he outlined an appeal for the support of the entire labor movement in the difficult dispute. -. Doyle tole the Tribune later that the tactics which the unions would use in pressing for a new contract with Hydro were still being worked out in joint meetings and stressed that the proposals headlined in several newspaper stories were not necessarily the policy of the unions. : Various news stories following Sunday’s meeting has suggested that the ATU. would be booking off sick, working to rule and slowing down buses, declaring free days on the buses and picketing con- struction sites on a selective basis. “Those were just proposals suggested at the meeting by rank- and-file members,” Doyle said. He stressed again that the ob- jective of the unions was to focus all the attention on Hydro while creating as few problems as possible for the public. The Hydro dispute has followed a pattern set earlier by the B.C. Telephone Company in that the main contention — in this case changes to the bus drivers’ long- established spareboard — stems from the employer’s demand for retrogressive changes to the collective agreement. Another important issue is the union’s demand for a shorter work week or, alternatively, a shorter work year which would give them 17 days off. “We want a shorter week or a shorter year as part of a contract paekage,”” Doyle said: “That’s a priority.” SEE. oe Members of the United Auto Workers U nion from Toledo pass out supplies to UMW strikers in Ohio. Food and money for strikers has poured in from all over U.S. Building trades unions agree on joint council | The 17 unions in the. building trades reached agreement in principle this week on the con- stitution for a joint bargaining council on which negotiations had been proceeding for several weeks. Some unions had yet to take the proposals back to their mem- bership for final ratification but most agreed that, while the pact did not resolve all the difficulties that had plagued earlier talks on ‘joint bargaining, they could live with it. : Talks on a common bargaining structure had been given par- ticular urgency in recent months following the decision by provin- cial labor minister Allan Williams instructing the Labor Relations Board to determine whether or not a joint council of unions would be an appropriate bargaining agent for all unions in the building trades. Following Williams’ action, LRB chairman Paul Weiler made a legal judgment that bargaining would be carried out by a joint council of unions although he left it to the unions affected to set up their ‘own council, indicating that they had until April 30 to do so. Although the new bargaining council would establish a structure distinct from the present B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council} the new council would be headed by BCYT president James Kin- naird and secretary Roy Gautier who would become chairman and secretary of the new council. That would continue until 1979 at which time new elections would be held. : Gautier said that the unions hope to be in a position to begin joint bargaining with the Construction Labor Relations Association by the third week in April. Coal miners vote) on proposed pact, The striking United Mine Workers of America vote on a second proposed contract set- tlement Friday, but it is doubtful that the new pact will fare much better than the first which was overwhelmingly rejected by the 160,000 coal miners. The UMW’s. 39-member bargaining council voted 22 to 17 to approve the contract last week, but that vote was much narrower than the 25 to 13 vote which endorsed the rejected settlement. Council member Bill Lamb from District 6 in Ohio. said he voted against the new contract on the grounds that it offers the miners less than did the now expired 1974 contract. He gave it little chance of ratification by the membership. The new contract proposal is unacceptable to most miners on the key issues of health and safety. The most objectionable features of the pact would see miners lose free medical care now provided and the introduction of an incentive clause that places production ahead of safety. ; Like the rejected contract, the new one eliminates the union’s health fund and transfers coverage to commerical insurance plans on a company by company basis. The union plan gave 100 percent coverage, but the new contract imposes a $200 deductible to the plan. Itis an improvement over the $700 deductible proposed in the rejected contract, but it is unlikely that it will be acceptable to the coal miners. : The miners feel strongly about the health fund, which under union control has been used to sustain a network of health clinics in remote regions of Appalachia. The clinicS _ provided free health care to miners — and their families. Pensions and job security are | other contentious aspects of the | — pact. The miners are insisting on bringing pension rates for older retired miners up to present standards, a goal the new contract | falls far short of. They also want guarantees that punitive action will not be permitted against organizers of rank and file strikes. The rejected contract granted the | companies the unlimited right to impose penalties on rank and file leaders, including firings, without recourse to review or appeal. The miner’s decision to defy the | strikebreaking Taft Hartley in junction imposed by U.S. president Carter and hold out for a go contract has met with an over whelming public response in the U.S. Massive amounts of money and food for miners has beet received from all parts of the country, and there is more on the way. : UMW has also received the full backing of AFL-CIO unions. who have donated generously to the strike fund. The United Auto Workers Union two weeks ago gave $2 million to the UMW was chest. UMW officials have spent‘ the. past week taking the new contract to the membership, but reports from the coal fields indicate that the strike will continue. Especially in the Appalachia states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Tennessee — the heart of the U.S. coal fields — UMW miners are determined to maintain their 109 day strike until a fair settlement 1S achieved. 4 Union action nee I served on an arbitration board a short time ago as the union representative. The case for the grievor was presented by the president of the local union, assisted by the local secretary. Both union officers were women and they did a very good job on behalf of the male grievor. The local union is chartered by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Canada’s largest union. Both the provincial president and the national president of CUPE are women, demonstrating that women are beginning to take their place in the leadership of this union. However, while women constitute close to 40 percent of the B.C. membership, the 15 full time staff represen- tatives in B.C. — appointed by the CUPE national office in Ottawa — are all men. | I am not suggesting a quota system for hiring staff members, but the overall pictures shows that more affirmative action has to be taken in order to advance capable women to elected and appointed positions — both in that union and in the trade union movement as a whole. The 29-member_ executive council of the Canadian Labor Congress includes three women. One of them, Shirley Carr, works full time as an executive vice- president. Although there should be room for additional women on this council, it must be noted that the executive council of the AFL- CIO in the U.S. does not include even one woman. Since women are generally at the bottom of the wage scale, they have the most to gain from trade union membership. This raises the PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 24; 1978— question of why many women are slow to accept trade unionism. It is often because of neglect or in- difference on the part of many trade union leaders and their failure to understand the potential LABOR COMMENT BY JACK PHILLIPS as well as the special problems of women workers. The failure in many cases to promote women to executive and staff positions reflects both neglect of, and contempt for, women workers. The growth and health of the trade union movement can only be assured in the long run by a con- scious and consistent effort to guarantee equality for its women members. While some union have not grasped this fact, others are in the process of developing programs to meet the needs of their women members. < There is a heavy concentration of women in unorganized service industries where the wages are sub-standard. This means that the unorganized workers cannot be organized in any significant number unless there is special attention paid to women. For example, the Canadian Labor Congress has launched a drive to organize the 145,000 employees of the five chartered banks in Canada. Seventy-three percent of the employees are women. The CLC made a correct to appoint a qualified woman to head the Page 12 ed for women’s equality organizing campaign and selected Laraine Singler of the B.C. Government Employees Union. The trade union movement does not live in a world of its own. It is not isolated from the ideological currents of our time. One such current is feminism which would have us believe that the main. reason for the oppression of women is because of their exploitation by men. Many historians and sociologists have. shown that while the first class oppression in history did, in fact, coincide with the oppression of the female sex by the male, that oppression was not based on sex, but on class divisions. Once private property replaced communal possession, once class divisions were established, male supremacy took root and the position of women in society underwent a change. Ultra-feminists regard all women as being exploited by all men. They ignore the concepts of class and exploitation which are based on the relationship of the individual and groups to the ownership of the means of production and to finance capital. Men, they assert, enjoy many advantages and comforts based on the servitude of owmen. Therefore, they argue, the key task for women is to. unite all females in order to attack the supremacy of the op- posite sex. The result of this line, despite honest intentions is to help create conditions to split the working class along sex lines. Such division plays into the hands of big business. Solidarity among women can bring constructive results if its aim is to strengthen the labor movement and to further the unity between organized labor and other democratic forces. Unions seeking to adopt a socially constructive attitude towards women, particularly those with many young women in their ranks, should therefore begin with well established guidelines. Equal pay, equal job and training op- portunities should be written into collective agreements. Special steps should be taken to train women members for leadership positions, from the job steward to the elected full time officer. Classes on women’s status should be linked with training courses to assist women members in achieving higher skills. All this should help develop women’s sense of identity in order to bread down male supremacist attitude. In addition, unions should fight for child care centres, run by unions and/or public agencies. A pamphlet entitled Enter Fighting: Today’s Woman — A Marxist Leninist View, written by American women’s rights activist Clara Colon is helpful to those who © want to see women take their rightful place within organized labor: “Working women are generally used as marginal workers, serving as a labor reserve which threatens” the employment and wage levels of — male workers. Besides, under capitalism, women workers are 4 source of extra profits, because the employers pay them lower wages than they pay men for the same work. For all these reasons it is the ruling class that has a stake in the special exploitation and general oppression of women and it is the ruling class that has to be fought as the main enemy of women’s freedom.” The trade union movement, the largest democratic organization in Canada, has a major responsibility to the women of this country. I am certain, judging by the develop- ments of the past few years, that it will accept this responsibility. But — it won’t come easily. Old ideas sometimes die hard, even in the labor movement.