E ee NL a ie NIE) yy, ee as NYO YR) t Lt) et COUNCILS ‘HARD LINE PROLONGS CITY STRIKE Labor hits RCMP violence at Lenkurt x (esi Gildas sae! Sua A jected. Meeting Monday night the Out- side Civic Workers voted 958 to 27 in a secret ballot to reject the City Council’s proposal for compulsory arbitration. FRIDAY, MAY 20, 1966 VOL. 27, NO. 20 According to Jack Phillips, union secretary, the vote united E> *¢ 10¢ Injunctions and massed police won’t settle labor disputes ® Mounties and anti-labor injunctions! These have be- come the mainstays of the bosses’ attack in B.C. against Unions seeking just contract awards this year. ® Above are some of the forty or more Mounties massed last Thursday at the Lenkurt picket line, not counting those in plainclothes. / © At the right is the anti- Union injunction issued by the Courts ordering a halt to picket- _!ng under threat of punishment. This is the latest one of many such injunctions issued in the Past year. ®@ Labor unity is the only Onswer to these attacks on the Unions. ea aps Es oe oe aeere Plainkitt > RAR TE, < SHER fi TR TRE MUNTCIRALATY OF BoRtany aN Tun PRIVANES OF, BRITTON COLVATA defendants — pepane ure uoxoUR guboE { Semlay the ad Day of BIRKS snire SETTING aS BK 2 Mays, ADA, LEEK ESCAL JUDGE OF THE SUPREME COURT) : IN CHAMAESS. * & ? UPON THE APPLICATION of the Flaintife ano veow “READING the Writ of Summons issued herein the 2th day of Avril A.D., 1966, the Hotica of Motion herein’ issued the uth Gay of ABEL ADL, 196 the Affidavit of Arnold Gordon LiAdie _ worn the 28th day of April, a,b. 1986 and: €iled “and the. : Agidaytt or Frank Shortlett Frasex sworn the 23th ore ApEAL, Mod. 1964 and Filed, and the Order of thle Kosourable ot the 28th day of April, ALD. 2BSEy AND + Exj. o£ Counsed for the PLaintife, t8 counsel undertaking to abide the members more firmly than they were at any other timeafter the strike began at midnight May 6, Also according to the secre- tary, by voting so decisively against binding arbitration the union opened the door to much more active support from the trade union movement, The trade union movement gen- erally is apprehensive about the pressures from reactionary big business and certain government circles to replace free collective bargaining by compulsory arbi- tration, At the same meeting where arbitration was torpedoed, union members voted to reject the pro- posal of two aldermen to call in a mediator, provided the union agreed to a return to work while mediation was taking place, Ac- cording to the union, if it agreed to this, Council could stall for weeks, or months, and then say “do as you please but you’ll get no more of a wage increase than you rejected before mediation,” As the P.T. went to press, the union was stepping up its picketing and was appealing to organized labor and the general public to send letters to City Council de- manding the reopening of nego- tiations, : Meanwhile, the dispute at Len- kurt Electric remained stale- mated at press time as the man- agement arrogantly rejected pro- posals which would see the workers returned to their job, The company has repeated its stand of May 9, that workers would be considered for re-hiring but with loss of pension and seniority rights, Under this plan many of the workers would also lose their jobs. 5 In a letter to the Vancouver Labor Council Tuesday night the B.C, Federation of Labor put labor’s position on the Lenkurt Electric dispute squarely on the line, The letter stated that “the 250 Lenkurt employees did not walk off their jobs without good cause “The public be damned”’ was the attitude of Vancouver City Council this week as it adopted a “hard line’ towards proposals for mediation of the Out- side Workers’ strike. Proposals for government mediation came both from the union and Vancouver Labor Council. In an action which threatens to extend the strike and add to the public’s inconvenience, City Council attempted to force compulsory arbitration on the union, which the members overwhelmingly re- 76 unionists face charges At press time Mr, Justice J. S. “Aikins of the B.C, Supreme Court .ordered that contempt-of-court action be taken immediately against 76 trade unionists, including six union officials, arising out of the injunction issued last week at Lenkurt Electric, This sweeping court action is unprecedented in B.C, Labor history. and under extreme provocation, The BCFL has no intention of submitting to this kind of intimi- dation.” Following the BCFL letter the VLC executive introduced a mo- tion “deploring the use of the RCMP in and out of uniform” on picket lines, charged the RCMP with “extreme provocation”, and demanded that “all charges be dropped against those workers arrested,” Many VLC delegates from af- filiated unions who had partici- pated in the “citizen picket” dem- onstrations at the Lenkurt Electric plant demanding the reinstatement of workers fired from their jobs, reported their experiences at the hands of the uniformed RCMP, and the large number of RCMP “dressed up as working men” on the picket line, acting as “spotters” for their uniformed colleagues, and attempting to provoke “inci- dents.” Several VLC delegates related such experiences and branded RCMP activities as “a planned attempt to create inci- dents of violence for which labor could be blamed,” VLC secretary treasurer C,P, “Paddy” Neale branded many of the RCMP statements charging picket violations of the Lenkurt Electric injunction as “sheer lies, It is about time we went on the attack against RCMP tactics,” stated Neale, “if they are going See LABOR PROTESTS, pg. 3 Lenkurt What is Profile of an Anti-Labor U.S. Monopoly SEE PAGE 2 Electric