Labour Nurses slam Socreds |. for IRG instrusion Continued from page 1 although many locals there had not yet seen details of the contract. When nurses set up picket lines June 14 they were vocal in their demand for wage hikes of 20 per cent in the first year, fol- lowed by two yearly increments of seven per cent each. They argued that years of provin- cial government restraint in public services had caused B.C.’s severe nursing shortage and starting wages as low as $15 an hour. By comparison, union trades workers are making more than $20, nurses argued. The HLRA had countered with an offer 5.5, six and 6.5 per cent over three years. What the union negotiating committee brought to the members was a proposal for six increments, distributed as follows: 6.25 per cent retroactive to April 1, 6.25 per cent effective Oct. 1, three per cent on April 1, 1990, four per cent Dec. 31 that year, four per cent on April 1, 1991 and three per cent on Dec. 31, with the contract expiring March 31, 1992. That would bring a starting rate of $15.07 to $19.52 at the end of the agreement — still less than the $20 rate nurses are seeking now. VGH shop steward Debbie Filleul said the issue was “a matter of wage equity” and that the proposal left nurses wages well behind other “male dominated” profes- sions. According to sources nurses also com- plained at the Vancouver meeting that the ratification date of July 12 was too far off, and called for it to moved up to July S. BCNU leaders reportedly agreed to that demand. But as of Thursday the ratification date was still set for July 12. At press time, the BCNU had made no statement on the issue. However, B.C. Federation of Labour president Ken Georgetti praised the tenta- tive deal as one of best contracts in recent years in the province, and International Woodworkers-Canada president Jack Munro also backed it. The preceding Friday Georgetti, Hospi- tal Employees Union secretary-business manager Sean O’Flynn, BCNU president Pat Savage and Peter Cameron of the Health Sciences Association pledged their solidarity in the face of the intrusion by the Industrial Relations Council into the dis- pute. Labour Minister Lyall Hanson had ordered the IRC commissioner Ed Peck to assume the role of essential services media- tor that day, prompting a picket of more than 200 hospital workers and labour sym- pathizers outside the council’s offices in downtown Vancouver. Dozens of passing motorists honked their horns in support. The day before nurses had walked out of hearings under privately appointed media- tor Stephen Kelleher. But the HLRA is the one who broke the agreement by seeking B.C. Supreme Court injunctions under “false allegations” that the nurses were fail- ing to honour commitments to maintain essential services in the Vancouver region, Savage charged. (Two additional operating rooms were opened Wednesday.) “We believe HLRA’s court action led to the government's ill-advised and provoca- tive move to have the IRC designate essen- tial services,” she told the press conference at the federation’s offices. The nurses union supports the B.C. Fed boycott of the IRC, - yl Post. Post Office sell-off hit Vancouver postal workers demonstrate outside offices of the Fraser Institute on June 23. Demonstrations took place in other cities, including Toronto, where the institute was hosting a conference to discuss privatizing Canada ° ON THE LEVEL PHOTO — COLLEEN FULLER — she added. The nurses, who returned to Kelleher’s hearings, have stories of their own concern- ing management abuses that they will bring to the panel, Savage said. “They (the government and the HLRA) want to hide the fact that a province with a balanced budget and a billion dollars in reserve will not pay decent wages to health workers,” she charged. Meanwhile, the Hospital Employees Union strike, which began June 22, escal- ated throughout the week to include institutions by Wednesday. O’Flynn declined to discuss details of the contract, but said negotiations made con- siderable progress early in the week all were slated to continue through Wednesday night. He said the HEU had reduced its package. “We're optimistic there will be a settle ment soon,” O’Flynn said. Privatization losing ground, conference finds Continued from page 1 NUPGE president Fryer told the press conference that a key element of the interna- tional campaign will be to focus on how privatization has negatively affected com- munities. Fryer stressed the “ideological” nature of the privatization push while the commu- nique said it was based or “‘ill founded political dogma.” The leaders’ report did not get into such things as the role privatiza- tion plays in opening up new markets to an increasingly monopolized and globalized system of capital, and the powerful influ- ence transnationals exert on governments of virtually any political stripe. The NUPGE president said that govern- ments continuing to back privatization will face defeat at the polls, and offered as a solution the election of social democratic parties such as Canada’s New Democrats. That naturally raised the question of what the governments in New Zealand and Australia, both led by social democratic Labour parties, were doing by introducing privatization in their countries. *“We came here with the message that the tide is turning” among Australia’s public who in recent polls strongly opposed pro- posed privatization of the country’s national Name... Address .... 8 e Pacific Tribune, July 3, 1989 Postal Code lam enclosing ahe $200 2yrs. $350) 3yrs.$500_ Foreign yr. $320 Bill me later ~Donation$........ PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONISTS FROM FIVE COUNTRIES MEET ... . electronic links, corporate “‘hit list’ planned. telephone service and airline, said Stephen Gibbs of the Municipal Officers’ Associa- tion of Australia. He said a year-long national debate has shown that “the public do not want it. They TRIBUNE Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5. Phone 251-1186 eee eee eee eee eee eee eee ese ye Ce know it’s bad, they know it will affect their basic standard of living, and they will not wear it.” Peter Harris of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and the New Zealand Pub- lic Service Association said the pressure for privatization came less from corporate interests and more from the country’s large deficit. But debates among the public and within the Labour Party itself has revealed a “general consensus across the spectrum of economic and financial opinion that public finances will not be improved by selling assets because whilst the government is retiring debts it’s also retiring sources of earnings.” He said the government rejected further reductions in New Zealand’s postal system — which saw outlets shrink from 1,000 to 400 — after a study showed a deregulated and privatized system could not guarantee universal pricing and delivery. John Sheldon, deputy general secretary of the National Union of Civil and Public Servants in Great Britain, cited the massivé defeat suffered at the polls in the elections for European Parliament by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives as 4 sign that right-wing policies are increasinglY unpopular. Campaigns in Britain based on the Can- adian proclamation for accessible soci services have met with some success, he said, adding that “It has taken us a decade to explain to Britain’s working people that they have been conned.” : After eight years of the Reagan adminis- tration, the “message coming out 0 Washington is much softened,” said Linda Lampkin of the American Federation 0 State, County and Municipal Employees. Fryer said the recent defeats of the right- wing governments of Newfoundland and New Brunswick, and the near-decimation of Prince Edward Island’s Tories, shows that the tables are turning on the privatiza- tion forces. For many Commonwealth countries, publicly owned services include enterprises normally run by the private sector. In Bri- tain, the government has privatized com- panies such as British Leyland. Asked if the agenda included recapturing these enterprises for the public, Sheldon said it would be a matter for public debate: “We're not saying the old way was best.” The trade unionists stressed they are not simply defending the status quo, but are calling for greatly improved social services: One participant, president Jean-Claude Parrot of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, praised the conference for its debating format and the fact that it brought the message that privatization is becoming discredited. That’s bound to have an effect on Can- ada, he said: “I believe once the public understands it, they will oppose privatiza- tion.”