LABOR

Surrey case highlighting

growing concern over VDTs_

The Hospital Employees Union
has demanded legislation to deal
with the use of video display ter-
minals, underscoring the growing
concern over the past five years
about the possible effects of VDTs
on unborn children.

The union’s demand follows the
disclosure that another pregnant
worker on the VDTs at Surrey Me-
morial Hospital had a miscarriage,
bringing to six the number of ab-
normal pregnancies suffered by the
VDT operators.

The union has also demanded
the hospital shut down its 11 ter-
minals until they can be tested by a
“qualified, independent”’ agency,
in a grievance action.

The hospital has so far refused,
raising the possibility of job action
by the HEU.

News of the abnormal pregnan-
cies among five of six pregnant
VDT operators at the hospital sur-
faced in a union brief the union
presented to a federal task force in
Vancouver last July.

Only one pregnancy resulted in a
normal baby, while two women
suffered miscarriages, one gave
birth prematurely, one baby had a
deformed foot and another was
bor with bronchial problems, the
union reported.

At the HEU biennial convention
this past week, it was disclosed that
another VDT operator had mis-

_ While no connection between
VDTS, which emit what has been
called “‘low level” radiation, and
abnormal pregnancies, the Surrey
case is only the latest in a series of
such incidents among ‘‘clusters’’ of
VDT workers over the last few
years.

Seven pregnancies among ter-
minal operators in a federal gov-
ernment department in the last
three years all resulted in abnor-
malities, the Public Service Alli-
ance representing 150,000 federal
employees revealed last April.

A case of “‘cluster’’? abnormal-
ities came to light in 1980 when four
women at the Toronto Star news-
paper experienced birth defects.

VDT OPERATOR .
women.

One child had a cleft palate, an-
other a club foot, a third suffered a
heart defect, and the fourth had an
underdeveloped eye.

And the Ontario Public Service
Employees Union has called for an
independent investigation into
VDTS, citing at 52.6 percent in-
crease in birth defects among em-
ployees it represents at Toronto’s
Old City Hall. OPSEU reported
that 10 out of 19 pregnant workers
had miscarriages between 1980 and
1981, after the terminals were in-
Stalled.

Union president Sean O’Flynn
has cited numerous other cases of
“‘cluster’’ birth defects. These in-
clude the Toronto Star case, birth
abnormalities suffered by seven
out of 13 VDT operators at a
Montreal airport, 10 defects out of

15 pregnancies at a defence con-’

tractors’ office in Atlanta, Geor-
gia, an eight out of 12 ratio in
Dallas, Texas and the case of four
women at an American Express of-
fice in New York state who miscar-
ried in a single week.

In the Ottawa case, PSAC had
demanded the federal government
give temporary transfers to preg-
nant operators away from the ma-
chines, with no loss in pay.

In March, 1981, four workers at

.. alarm growing over hazards to pregnant

Bell Canada won the right to trans-
fer to other jobs with no pay cut
after negotiations between the
company and the Communica-
tions workers of Canada. ‘‘For
once, if we’ve erred, we’ve erred on
the side of safety,’? said union
spokesman Gary Cwitco.

In March of this year the B.C.
Telephone company was ordered
to reinstate with full back pay Chris
Mitu, a worker who had been forc-
ed to quit her job, in a private arbi-
tration ruling. The company had
refused her request, based on her
doctor’s advice, for a transfer.

A similar ruling was handed
down by public arbitration chair-
man Ted Joliffe in the case of On-
tario education ministry employee
Helen Barss, in February this year.
The board ruled she had reason-
able ground for her fears of harm
to her unborn child, when she
refused to work on a VDT and was
transferred to another job at less
pay.

While it is true that no harmful
effects from VDT use has been es-
tablished, Joliffe said, scientists
can and do change their minds. He
cited cases such as urea formalde-
hyde, DDT, 2-4-D, saccharine and
thalidomide.

An international trusteeship
that U.S. officers apparently
considered impolitic to impose

_ last October was finally impos-
ed this week as the reform slate
officers of Local 40 of the
Hotel, Restaurant, and
Culinary Employees’ and
Bartenders Union were ousted
from their elected positions.

Local 40 president Joyce
- Charlton, vice-president Viola
Powell and secretary Ed
Carlson, all of whom had been
elected last October as part of a
membership reform slate, were
ordered to vacate their offices

by the union’s international in

Cincinnati, Ohio. They were re-

placed by international vice-.
president James Stamos whoi
was appointeed as trustee.

Significantly, Ron Bonar,

who was the only member of the

long-entrenched administration
inthe 14,000-member local to be
returned during the 1981 elec-
tions, was named as acting

secretary-treasurer.

Local 40 hit by U.S. trusteeship

No specific charges have been
laid against Charlton, Powell or
Carlson. The international has
however alluded to overspen-
ding by the local executive and
claims that representatives were
assisting other unions to
organize in Local 40 jurisdic-
tion. ©

But the heavy hand of the in-
ternational is not new to Local
40 members. Those who elected
the new slate last year, ousting
president Al Morgan in the first
contest for the post in nearly 30
years, feared trusteeship at the
time — especially when four in-
ternational officers arrived in
Vancouver immediately follow-
ing the balloting.

The election had also promp-
ted widespread publicity about
Morgan’s handling of union
funds and a hitherto undisclos-
ed Industry Advancement
Fund, run jointly by manage-
ment and the former union
leadership from which union
business agents had reportedly

Restaurant and Bartenders in

been paid.

There was also a RCMP pro-
be of another fund administed
by the Culinary Workers Joint
Liaison Committee, also set up
under Morgan leadership.

Several locals of the Hotel,

the U.S. are currently under in-
vestigation by a Senate subcom-
mittee and international presi-
dent Edward T. Hanley is
himself under U.S. federal
government indictment for
alleged corruption.

The Local 40 contract with
the major employer, the B.C.
Hotels Association, is not up
until April, 1983 but the BCHA
has already pressed the union
for concessions. On Feb. 26,
just a week after premier Ben-
nett’s announcement of the
wage restraint program, BCHA
president Jack Butterworth for-
mally requested a reopening of
the contract for concessions —a
request that was turned down
flat by Charlton.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 1, 1982—Page 12

‘We stand for unity
in local,’

The Communist Party’s B.C.
provincial executive this week
repudiated what it called ‘‘false
claims. . . blaming the CP for
the problems being’experienced
by civic workers in Kamloops.”’

Rumors of ‘‘Communist in-
volvement”’ have circulated
widely in Kamloops following
the imposition of a trusteeship
by the national office of the
Canadian Union of Public
Employees on the union’s Local
900 and the subsequent raid by
the independent Pulp, Paper
and Woodworkers of Canada
against the Kamloops outside
workers unit of the local.

In its statement, the CP noted
that the trusteeship and the raid
were regrettable ‘‘especially at a
time when civic workers are
under sharp attack by the
Socred government and its
restraint program.

“Faced with this attack on
the jobs, conditions and security
of civic workers this is a time for
maximum unity, not divisions
in the ranks of labor.’’

“The Communist Party has
always worked for maximum
unity in the labor movement,
seeing in such unity the best
guarantee that working people
will be able to protect their in-
terests,” it said. ‘‘it has long
taken the position that raids and
divisions do not help the work-
ing class.

“The Communist Party
would like to see the difficulties
and splits among Kamloops
civic workers overcome and uni-
ty restored in the face of upcom-
ing contract negotiations and
the Socred attack.”

The statement also emphasiz-
ed that the national executive of
CUPE ‘“‘could best serve the in-.
terests of civic employees in
Kamloops and B.C.” by lifting
the trusteeship imposed on the
local, restoring democracy and

allowing new local executive.

elections.

The move by the CUPE na-
tional executive to take over ad-
ministration of the local pro-
voked bitter opposition — andit
has hardly abated in the more
than two months since trustee
Duncan Haslam was first ap-
pointed to take over the

saysCP |

1,200-member local.
A regular local meeting 0
200 members condemned the] |
trusteeship just three days aftet
it was imposed and called onna-
tional president Grace Hartman |
to lift it and call new elections. }
But the trusteeship has re} |
mained and the hostility has
‘grown almost in direct propor
tion to the circulation of vario
rumors, many of them aimed ¢
former business agent Bill
Ferguson. Frequently, the} |
local’s affairs get an airing on | |
the letters page of both] |
Kamloops papers. ;
Even before Haslam was ap- |
pointed, Ferguson, a well- | |
known left wing figurein CUPE |
had been-suspended from his |
position as the local’s full-time |
officer by a small meeting of the |
executive. That action and the |
later trusteeship also came at the | |
.end of a series of conflicts im- | |
volving the local and the na-—
tional office. |
Last year, Local 900 was one | |
of several locals which organiz- |
ed a “‘Save CUPE Committee”
dedicated to structural reform } |
within the national union. An
earlier, the local membershi
had demanded the recall of tw
national servicing represen
tatives who, they said, were in
terfering unduly in local affairs
The two were later reassigned.
In the midst of the lates
dispute, the PPWC, an in- ||
dependent union affiliated to |
the Confederation of Canadian
Unions, has raided tht
Kamloops outside workers unit |
of the local and reportedly”
claims a majority of the 530 |
members in the unit.
However, a spokesman for
the Labor Relations Board sal
Wednesday that no applicatio
for representation had yet b
filed by the PPWC. ;
Perhaps most compelling 1
the CP’s call for ‘‘maximu:
unity’’ is the imminence of co!
tract negotiations. The outsid
workers contract expires D
31 and when talks begin local
members will be facing not onl
their employer — but also the
Socreds’ wage controls ap”
paratus, the Compensation Sta
bilization Program.

‘We need 200
new readers
by Dec. 17

{ « a :
SSS a
Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186

Read the paper that fights for labor

imesh og, aie Mad aR Oe hak ee oe ee

pe ea ea ee a Va re ee