LABOR

Debate on Fed policy
seen in NWDLC vote

By FRED WILSON

For five months, ever since the B.C. Fed-
eration of Labor convention, the leadership
of the labor movement has been under close
scrutiny to see if the mandate for a new
direction given so decisively in November
would be taken up.

There are objective limits to the pace the
new leadership can set in implementing
action around the program enunciated in
Art Kube’s speech to the B.C. Fed conven-
tion. The conditions don’t exist at the pres-
ent for the mass struggles of the Solidarity
period and a workable plan must begin with
modest objectives. Nevertheless Kube’s
program of co-ordinated bargaining, defence
of unions in struggle, and a public campaign
on unemployment, requires some bold
measures which haven’t yet materialized.

The federation has sponsored a confer-
ence on co-ordinated bargaining, and an

unemployment program has been set in
motion which is potentially a catalyst to
generate political mobilization by the trade
union movement in the critical pre-election
period ahead. But while the unemployment
program is superior to the carefully con-
strained and contained approach prior to
last November, it exemplifies the weak-
nesses that carry over. The program is not
based on an aggressive campaign to sell the
labor movement’s own economic and social
policies, and it is extremely decentralized
with most of the onus for initiating action
falling on labor councils.

There are also signs to indicate that the
battle over the direction of the labor move-
ment fought out at the B.C. Fed convention

‘is far from over. That conclusion was force-
fully drawn by the recent meetings of the
New Westminster and District Labor
Council, where the IWA-BCGEU-CUPE
leadership set out to eliminate any voice
from the left in the leadership of the council,
and has been hurling abuse at anyone that
defends the majority view of the B.C. Fed
convention.

At the January meeting of the council
when nominations opened for table officers,
the right wing of the council surprised most
regular delegates when they contested the
two table officer positions traidtionally held
by the International Longshoremen’s and
Warehousemen’s Union and the Telecom-
munications Workers Union. Those two
unions both supported Frank Kennedy in
the B.C. Fed leadership contest and their
representatives were the only voices from
the left in the right-of-centre New West-
minster leadership, headed by president
Gerry Stoney and the first vice-president
Bernice Kirk.

At the same meeting, IWA 1-357 presi-
dent Terry Smith launched a viciousattack
against the Canadian Paperworkers Union
and its regional vice-president Art Grunt-
man, using as a pretext a TV-sensationalized
version of a discussion paper issued by

_ MacMillan Bloedel in Powell River which
included such proposals as a ten-year no-
strike contract. The Powell River member-
ship of the CPU voted down the proposals,
but Smith used the issue to take a run at

_Gruntman. He is quoted in the minutes of

_ the council as stating: “When a first vice-

_ president of the federation is involved in this
kind of bargaining, he is not living up to the
policies of the federation,” It was also
reported to Gruntman that Smith called
him a “sell out artist” and that he had
helped to bargain the Powell River agree-
ment, and had signed it.

Gruntman subsequently wrote Smith
and the council a formal reply which was
read to the Feb. 27 meeting. He explained
the facts of the Powell River issue, which are
that neither Gruntman or any staff officers
of the CPU had any knowledge of the “dis-
cussion paper” presented by the company

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 20, 1985

and that neither he or any. CPU officer
signed it. He asked Smith to “refrain from
making untruthful statements in the future”
and offered to appear before the New
Westminster council to explain the facts
concerning the Powell River issue.

When Gruntman’s letter was read to the
council the appropriate measure would
have been for Smith to apologize and to
have the apology noted in the minutes. But
instead it was the basis for an acrimonious
debate in which the IWA delegates con-
tinued to attack the CPU and other unions

that opposed Jack Munro at the B.C. Fed

convention.

The election that followed took a predic-
table course with the IWA and BCGEU
delegations combining forces to eliminate
the representation of the ILWU and TWU
from the council executive.

Jure Kelava of the United Steelworkers
deposed incumbent Phil Zander of the
TWU for second vice president by a vote of
66 to 53 and B.C. Fed staff researcher,
David Rice, a delegate from the Office and
Technical Workers, defeated the ILWU’s
Rod Doran by a vote of 83 to 39. The
ILWU’s incumbent, Harvey Elder, had
stepped down for personal reasons and
Doran had been nominated by the district
council of the union to replace him.

Cliff Andstein, a former officer of the
BCGEU and now secretary treasurer of the
federation, said this week that the events
in New Westminster are “localized to the
personalities of that council.” He pointed
out that there have not been purges in other
labor councils and that the BCGEU and the
IWA have far from resolved their outstand-
ing differences. ;

Andstein’s comments notwithstanding,
there is still a disturbing context to the New
Westminster events. BCGEU director of
organization Jack Adams stated openly
that the New Westminster council would
not be allowed to “go left”. It was in no
danger of going left, but the BCGEU, in
contrast to its role at the B.C. Fed conven-
tion when it supported Art Gruntman and
some candidates from the left, opted to join
forces with the [WA and its allies in the right
wing of CUPE to eliminate participation by
the left in the council’s business. At the same
time the BCGEU delegation sat quietly
while the IWA re-fought the Gruntman-
Munro battle with its attacks on Art
Gruntman,

Art Gruntman sees the New Westminster
fracas as an “unfortunate repercussion” of
the B.C. Fed convention, and out of step
with the “common sense” approach of the
present federation officers to develop har-
mony with the IWA and resolve differences,
in spite of the continued IWA attacks on the
federation.

Regardless of the provincial significance
of the IWA-BCGEU alliance in New
Westminster, the plain issue involved there
can’t but have an impact on the action pro-
gram of the whole labor movement. To
implement the program of political and
trade union action envisaged by the dele-
gates to the federation convention will
require a united labor movement with the
full participation of the left.

The proposals of the left to carry out the
program advanced by Art Kube by begin-
ning a renewed mobilization of the labor
movement and reinforcing it with a clear set
of social and economic policies that point
towards real social change could be the
spark needed to create the extra-parlia-
mentary majority now that will be able to
defeat the Socreds in the next election.

Without doubt, the majority of delegates
to the November B.C. Fed convention
would agree with that. A large part of the
leadership in the trade union movement is
still to be convinced.

Commmunity groups and the B.C.
Federation of Labor last week blasted an
attempt by the producers of the film
Rocky IV to circumvent a union agree-
ment by offering $3 a day to community
groups to supply volunteer extras for a
movie crowd scene.

Chartoff Winkler, the production
company had
phoned several
charitable socie-
ties, offering to
make a donation
of $3 per day for
each extra pro-
vided. The extras
are needed for a
fight scene in the
PNE Agrodome
to be filmed in _ .
May. CLIFF ANDSTEIN

But several volunteer agencies have
made it clear that they won’t be co-
operating. And Downtown Eastside
Residents Association organizer Jim Green,
whose organization was also asked tor
volunteers, called the program “an
incredibly dishonest...cheap labor
scheme.”

“Not only are they attempting to rip
off the community groups, they are also
attempting to exploit the unemployed,”

The B.C. Labor Relations Board has
blocked a raid by the Hospitality
Workers component of the B.C. Govern-
ment Employees Union against the 1,100
members of the independent Food and
Service Workers of Canada at White
Spot Restaurants, ruling Mar. 15 that
there were too many irregularities in
membership application cards filed by
the BCGEU in its bid for certification.

The government employees union was
also turned down in a parallel raid
against Sunrise Poultry, formerly owned
by White Spot.

BCGEU president Norman Richards
said Mar. 18 that both decisions would
be appealed.

The three-person LRB panel ruled
that numerous application cards were
incorrectly dated or failed to show
receipt of an initiation fee, thereby inval-
idating them.

However, the board rejected an appli-
cation by FASWOC to have the aplica-
tion for certification thrown out on the
basis that the BCGEU was violating its

Labor Notes

Fed, community groups
condemn Rocky lV scam

Andstein noted. :

LRB rejects BCGEU raid

B.C. Fed secretary Cliff Andstein
charged. He said that the union contract
covering the film industry provides for
wages of $82 per day for the first 25
extras hired for a film and the provincial
minimum wage for all those hired in ~
addition to the 25.

The charity scheme, apparently used
in other Rocky films is a means of cir-
cumventing both the union contract and
the provincial minimum wage laws. :

Despite the scam, the Socred govern-
ment’s film promotion officer has
insisted that the scheme “‘is not exploita- _
tion but opportunity.”

The unpaid extras get coffee and
doughnuts, a box lunch as well as a prize
draw every 15 minutes and a chance at a
grand prize.

That system has undoubtedly helped 4
put Rocky films among the top box ~
office profit-makers. ‘““Rocky III ranks
with the largest moneymakers in the
industry, earning over $65 million,” ©

“If this production company wants to
do something to help the local economy,
they will hire the 5,000 people they need
from the unemployment rolls instead of
going to charities,” he said.

own constitution by organizing into the
private sector.

The BCGEU announced a major
campaign last year to organize the hospi-
tality industry and proposed the merger ~
— now complete — of the Hospitality
Workers Union with the BCGEU.

But the drive immediately became
contentious since it began with the raid
on FASWOC which is affiliated to the
Confederation of Canadian Unions.

The number of unions already holding
certification in the hospitality industry,
including the Hotel and Restaurant
Workers Local 40 and the Canadian
Brotherhood of Railway Workers, is also
expected to pose new jurisdictional prob-
lems in the future. The Hospitality
Workers component of the BCGEU is
itself the result of a breakaway from |
Local 40. 2

The BCGEU did succeed, however, in
winning a new certification at the non-
union Salmon House on the Hill Restau-
rant in West Vancouver. The vote was
held Feb. 21.

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