LABOR B.C. Federation of labor vice-president Anne Harvey (I) hands Eaton’s charge cards to striking Ontario worker Linda McFawn during International Women’s Day rally in front of Vancouver store Mar. 9. Step up boycott strikers urge Nearly 40 years ago women workers at Eaton’s tried, as a Canadian Labor Con- gress representative put it last week “to drag Timothy Eaton into the 20th century.” But the corporate giant held out for four years and finally union organizers had to admit defeat. This time, the 1,500 workers on strike at six Ontario stores and their union are deter- mined that things are going to be different. Two of them, Claudia Giovannetti and Linda McFawn were in B.C. last week to bring that message to B.C. trade unionists —— and to convince Eaton’s shoppers to shun the store until the Retail, Wholesale Department Store union has won a first collective agreement. “Spirits are high among the strikers des- pite the bitter cold on the picket line and at the bargaining table,’ Linda McFawn, a part-time worker at Toronto’s Shoppers World mall store, told delegates to the Van- couver and District Labor Council Mar. 6. “We need your help and your commit- ment to win this historic strike. “If we are not successful, organizing could be set back 35 years,” she warned. “If we win it will bring benefits to department store organizing in all of Can- ada.” McFawn and Giovannetti spent a hectic week covering local union meetings, meet- ings with union and women’s groups, plant gate collections, rallies outside Eaton’s Relief camp strikers who were attacked by an army of police in Regina and barred by force from completing the On- To-Ottawa trek in 1935 may soon be historic trek to mark the 50th anniver- sary. On-To-Ottawa trek committees have been set up in both Regina and Van- couver to mark the anniversary and plans are already in motion to send a delegation to Ottawa to take the trekkers’ de- mand for work and wages to the Conservative gov- ernment — ade- on mand that has — . taken on new BOB SAVAGE meaning in the depression of the 1980s. _ In both provinces the committees are made up of former trekkers, trade unio- nists and representatives of unemployed organizations. Lorne Robson, chairman of the committee in Vancouver and the son of trekker Robbie Robson, said that a dele- gation of eight of ten people would go from Vancouver by plane, making stops in Calgary, Regina and Winnipeg before going on to Ottawa to seek a meeting with the government. “We expect to have a banquet on June 2 or 3 to honor the trekkers and to send making a symbolic completion of that _ Trek goes ‘Onto Ottawa’ the delegation off to Ottawa,” he said. June 3 is the day the trekkers — men who had walked out of the relief camps two months earlier — climbed aboard trains in Vancouver bound for Ottawa. More than 1,000 men boarded the train while thousands more thronged the rail yard to send them off. ; There’s an obvious parallel in putting the trekkers’ demand for work and wages before the government, Robson said. “The numbers of unemployed are pretty close to what they were in 1935 and there’s a growing desperation among them in trying to get govern- ments to do something.” The delegation that will leave Van- couver is expected to include former trekkers as well as unemployed workers, likely drawn from the Unemployment Action Centres. Among the group will be Jean Shiels, the daughter of Art Evans who led the trek, and Bob “‘Doc”’ Sav- age, one of the delegation of eight who met with Prime Minister R.B. Bennett as the other trekkers waited in Regina. It was two days after that delegation left Ottawa — on July 1, 1935 — that hundreds of RCMP launched the attack on the trekkers’ rally in Market Square in Regina, killing two — including a detec- tive who had been mistaken by police for Art Evans — injuring 100 and arrresting 113. Under armed guard, the men were later sent back in special trains to Yan- couver. 12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 13, 1985 stores in Vancouver and Victoria as wellas the International Women’s Day march in downtown Vancouver. The march, on its way to the rally point at the Vancouver Art Gallery, wound it way around the main Eaton’s store downtown and rallied briefly outside the store’s main entrance, where McFawn and B.C. Federa- tion of Labor vice-president Anne Harvey encouraged support for the boycott. — In several meetings, they ceremonially cut up Eaton’s charge account cards handed to them by supporters. Neville Hamiton, assistant to CLC president Den- nis McDermott told reporters that as of Feb. 1 more than 3,000 cards were sitting in the Ontario office. “And more are coming every day,” he said. Everywhere they go, the two women urge people to turn in their account cards, to write letters to Eaton’s calling for the nego- tiation of a collective agreement and to join the leafletting campaign outside Eaton’s stores Friday night and Saturdays. Already, as a result of the tour, the Victo- ria and District Labor Council has under- taken to maintain the campaign outside Eaton’s stores in that city throughout the boycott. For the most part the campaign has had to make do with little assistance from the media. Typically, the Vancouver Province ran a 46-word story which made no refer- ence to the strikers’ tour while the Van- couver Sun ran a piece quoting the spokesman for the company union at the Victoria store. Eaton’s is one of the biggest advertising accounts for Pacific Press, pub- lishers of the two papers. “We realize it’s going to be a long hard fight,” McFawn said, noting that Eaton’s once again is trying to wait the union out. “But with your help and your commitment, we can win a fair and decent contract.” Postal Code lamenclosing 1 yr. $140) 2yrs. $250) 6mo. $80) Foreign 1 yr. $200 Bill me later =Donation$........ READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR So85 6B Oe 8-4 0.0 0 Ue v.00, 020, 0 8.0 ‘Fed plans back RWU -members The B.C. Federation of Labor last week outlined a new program of assistance including beefed-up picket line support, for the Retail Wholesale Union which has been forced to deal with anti-union employers and scabs in three separate disputes across the province. The program, worked out last week in response to appeals from the RWU, calls for increased picket line support in conjunction with the Can- adian Labor Congress and labor councils; meetings with other unions to tighten up the hot edicts, contact with Washington State and Ontario to increase the pressure on company operations in those areas, and a stepped-up information campaign focusing on the tactics of the employ- ers involved and the new restrictions on union picketing imposed by the _ Labor Relations Board. Members of the RWU have been locked out at Slade and Stewart at Vancouver, Penticton, Kamloops and Terrace since May 18, 1984 and at Okanagan H-R-I Supply Ltd. in Kelowna since Feb. 20, 1984. Both are wholesale grocery suppliers. The union has also been on strike at — Purolator Courier, for nearly four years in a bid for a first contract. In every dispute, the employers have hired scabs from the beginning in an attempt to run the operations non-union. RWU representative Brian “De Beck told the Vancouver and District Labor Council Mar. 6 that the federa- tion’s program of support had been welcomed by the union which has been pressing for some time for assist- ance in tightening up the picket line pressure on the employers. The VDLC unanimously endorsed the program. “The exciting thing about this pro- gram is that it’s working,” he said, adding that several Interior hospitals had stopped taking deliveries of hot supplies as a result. In addition to scabs, RWU members have borne the brunt of the 1984 amendments to the Labor Code which have resulted in two LRB rul- ings preventing them from picketing delivery trucks while in transit and barring them from picketing custo- mers of the employer except at the precise moment that ‘a delivery is being made. : ' The RWU has also appealed to trade unionists for financial assist- ance, noting that the union “is under one of the most serious attacks on our union” as a result of the Labor Code - amendments and the employers’ tac- tics. The union’s legal costs in process- ing the three disputes amounted to more than $350,000 in 1984 alone. PACIFIC Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5. Phone 251-1186 oa 6 ofale "ewe ae e @ 0 © 4.004 9 0 Sle 6 0% 0 pee en kOe eee See eed tes oe ee