LABOR —

HAMILTON — Estimates
varied between 700 and 1,000
demonstrators as_ striking
teachers (OSSTF District 8) and
their many supporters picketed
the Hamilton Board of Educa-
tion June 13 in yet another at-
tempt to force the recalcitrant
Board to sit. down and
negotiate.

The teachers, who were then
completing their fifth week on
strike, hold the board directly
responsible for keeping 14,000
secondary students out of their
classrooms, citing quality
education and classroom size as
the key issue in the strike.

**Hamilton composite schools
have the largest PTR (pupil-to-
teacher ratio) in Ontario at
17.5’, said Paul Kropp, Dis-
trict 8’s External Liaison Of-
ficer. ‘And not only that: our
vocational schools also have the
highest PTR at 12.5. We also
have seven vocational schools in
Hamilton, which is fully 25 per
cent of the total number of voca-
tional schools in the entire pro-
vince of Ontario.”’

By comparison, Halton has
16.15 and Wentworth has 16.3.
‘‘What we’re asking for is
17.1”. said Kropp. What it
means, he continued, is com-
puter classes, for example, with
45 kids and 25 computers, and
academic courses with an aver-

Hamilton teachers determined to win

Special education kids are even
harder hit.

‘**That’s what this strike is all
about’’, Kropp said. ‘And
that’s why we have the support
of the community. The majority
of the people in this community
think we’re right’’.

Citing the $768,000 surplus
from the 1983-84 school year,
combined with the $20-million
reserve fund accrued by the
Board over the years, Kropp
said education in Hamilton has
become ‘‘a huge business that
consistently made money. What
we’re fighting here is an in-
transigent management that in-
sists that all the power is theirs
and that the teachers and kids
be damned’’.

Sixteen months ago, when
negotiations began on a contract
that ran out fourteen months
ago, ‘‘I used to think that this
was all about negotiations. But
now I think it’s about power.
We want the Board to sur-
render some of that power, to
put a cap on classroom size, to
guarantee special education, to
provide quality education, but
it’s not a simple struggle’.

One of the teachers
demonstrating at the Board put
it this way: ‘‘I’ve sacrificed 20
per cent of my pay to get quality
education; now what’s the pub-
lic going to do?” ~

The answer was all over the

picket lines, with. signs: declar- «

ing support and solidarity from
the Hamilton and District
Labor Council, Hamilton-
Brantford Building Trades
Council, the Canadian Union of
Public Employees, United
Steelworkers, Local 1005,
Mohawk College staff and
students, parents, students, and
of course, the teachers from
Halton and Wentworth, from
the elementary schools, and
from the AEFO (French Lan-
guage Schools Association).
Especially visible and welcome
were teachers from OECTA
(the Roman Catholic Teachers’
Association), who have a special
interest in the strike’s outcome.

Communist Party City Sec-
retary Liz Rowley was also
there, ‘along with the entire
leadership of the Communist

Rally backs strike for quality education

Party in the city who had moved
a meeting and mobilized their
members in mass support of the
picket.

“This strike has the full sup-
port of this community, and
with good reason’’, Rowley
said. ‘‘There is very good
reason to believe that the outgo-
ing Tory government, through
the Ministry of Education and
some say through ALSBO, the
Association of Large School
Boards of Ontario, targeted
Hamilton at the beginning of
these negotiations with the aim
of breaking the teachers’ union
and the spirit of the people to
fight against provincial funding
cutbacks and declining quality.

“*Since Hamilton is in a sense
a pulse for the labor movement
in Ontario, they hoped to suc-

=

cessfully test their theory that
working people have moved to
the right and would take such
attacks lying down. How wrong
they were!’’

“This Board has still to get
the message: they’re out of sync
with this community, and most
of them could, and should, be
out of office in the coming
November municipal elections.
More than anything else, this
strike shows the need now for a
democratic reform majority on
the Board of Education that can
and will take advantage of the
new minority government at
Queen’s Park to guarantee
more money for quality educa-
tion, decent wages and class-
room conditions in Hamilton.

“This Board has got to go’’,
Rowley said. )

Nurses won't go hack until

By BRENT FRASER
EDMONTON — Nurses strik-
ing at seven health units through-
out Alberta are firm in their de-

»mand-for wage: parity with their:

hospital counterparts.
Although some nurses crossed

r

B.C. CUPE meet charts
militant new direction

VICTORIA — Rank and file members in the
B.C. division of the Canadian Union of Public
Employees are expected to play a larger role in
the union’s affairs as the largest CUPE conven-
tion in B.C.’s history took a new, more militant
direction. :

The fight to popularize labor’s alternative
economic program and an all-out fightback
against the Social Credit government’s attack
on the public education system were among the
key issues which dominated the three-day con-
vention which started June 13.

This spirit of militancy was reflected in the
large mandate president-elect Mike Dummler
and first vice-president Dianne Jolly received in
their elections to the top posts in the B.C.
division.

Another indication of that mood was the elec-
tion of Gary Johnson to the division’executive.
Johnson had previously run unsuccessfully for
the presidency on a progressive platform.

The 456 delegates also put together a policy
package of resolutions that focussed on the need
for co-ordinated province-wide bargaining, and
called on Operation Solidarity and the B.C.
Federation of Labor to popularize the Canadian
Labor Congress’ nine-point economic alterna-
tive program.

The convention urged all levels of CUPE
throughout B.C. to support the school boards
which have been put under trusteeship by the
Socred government, and to initiate whatever
political action is necessary in support of the
students, teachers, parents and all members of
ans community fighting to preserve the public

education system which is under vicious attack .

by the Socreds.

The delegates also forwarded a resolution to
the upcoming national CUPE convention,
slated for next October in Winnipeg, that calls
for amending the union’s dues structure to base
it on a calculation of .6 per cent of the average
wage in a local, per member per month.

Aid to working people and trade unionists in
Nicaragua also came on the CUPE agenda as
the convention voted to endorse the Tools for
Peace campaign and urged CUPE national to
offer ongoing support to the people and trade
unions of Nicaragua and to encourage ex-
changes between CUPE and their counterparts
in that country.

Unfortunately, a number of resolutions deal-
ing with the peace question, including one op-
posing Canadian involvement in the U.S. Star
Wars program, weren’t able to make it to the
floor for discussion, although a pamphlet on
disarmament from B.C.’s End the Arms Race
organization was distributed to the delegates.

‘This convention signifies a new direction for
the B.C. division’, Jolly said last week. ‘‘We
should see more involvement of the member-
ship, and a greater push by the union to get out

_and mobilize in the communities before crisis

situations develop.

“‘We were given a mandate to mobilize our
members and answer the provincial govern-
ment’s drive to privatization and the destruction
of the public sector with our own program. It
shows there is an alternative to cutbacks and
that if we’re united and fight back, we can defeat
the Socreds.”’

S

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 26, 1985

parity demands satisfied _

picket lines early in the strike, and
three health unit locals of the Un-
ited Nurses of Alberta (UNA) ac-
cepted the management offer, the

giving up.

UNA members hit the bricks
April 1, seeking a 16 per cent pay
hike over two years. Health unit
nurses currently earn between
$12-$15 an hour.

The Health Unit Association of
Alberta has rejected, outright, all
of the nurses’ demands, including
a proposed 5-5-4 work week that
would see nurses work longer
daily hours in exchange for every
third Friday off. ©

HUAA negotiators ended the
most recent talks, May 31, by re-
fusing to discuss even the non-
monetary items proposed by
UNA bargainers.

Nurses believe management’s
hard line is the result of sexism,
anti-unionism, and a lack of
commitment to quality preventa-
tive health care.

Backing up the charge of sex
discrimination, one UNA
negotiator pointed to a recent
settlement between management
and the predominantly male
non-nursing staff; that deal in-
cluded the same 5-5-4 work week
sought by the UNA.

“The male staff seem to have
more influence with the health
unit association,’’ said UNA bar-
gaining team member Marge
Blair. ‘‘Management doesn’t like
us belonging to a union.”

HUAA negotiator George
Zaharia claims the provincially-
funded health units don’t have the
cash to meet UNA demands, and
that ‘“‘nurses don’t care about the
bottom line’’.

Provincial funds are, in fact, in-
adequate and that’s a political
‘problem that should be answered
by social services minister Neil
Webber, said UNA executive of-
ficer Simon Renouf.

In the meantime, Renouf said

Strikers have shown no signs of”

the money is available in the
HUAA budget. He estimated that
the total wage increase demanded
by the nurses equals $400,000
while the ‘health units’ budget
reached $1 billion in 1985. Finding
money for the wage hike is a mat-
ter of shuffling management
priorities, he said.

Blair added that striking was
the last alternative for the UNA;
the health unit nurses simply feel
they shouldn’t be penalized by
wage disparities for working at
the clinics.

Most nurses could find work at
hospitals for higher pay, but many
chose health units as a commit-
ment to making preventative
community-based health. care
work. In fact, several nurses have

’ taken temporary hospital jobs for -

the duration of the strike.

“We feel badly about our
clients (at the health units) .. . but
this is also a fight to keep quality
care in the clinics,’’ said Blair.

The health units provide ser-
vices that include immunization
and health trips to schools, home
care and visitations, and pre-natal
classes.

Although picket lines have
been up on a rotating basis
throughout the strike, they are not
aimed at clients taking advantage
of the limited services still avail-
able, but rather at management
and scabs.

In the meantime, some cracks
are beginning to
management solidarity.

Boards of directors at local
units, which originally supported
the HUAA’s strong anti-labor
stance, are beginning to feel the
pinch of public pressure and are
urging their negotiators to find a
quick resolution to the strike.

‘“‘We’re not looking for any
conditions, in terms of a settle-
ment,’’ said one Edmonton-area
director. ‘“We just want to return
health unit services to the
publics

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