bit Lt! il | LABOUR Bll called ‘War Measures Act of bargaining; The federal government’s back-to-work legislation was called “the War Measures Act of collective bargaining” as the Cana- dian Union of Postal Workers and suppor- ters across the country continued to press the Mulroney government to allow a nego- tiated settlement to the postal dispute and to compel Canada Post to back off its pro- gram of wholesale franchising of postal offices. Nickel Belt NDP MP John Rodriguez made the charge in the House of Commons Tuesday, joining NDP and Liberal members in opposing the legislation, introduced by federal Labour Minister Pierre Cadieux Oct. 8 to end CUPW’s rotating walkouts. The government was expected to move Wednesday to limit debate on the anti- labour bill, opening the door to its passage by the weekend. CUPW responded to the tabling of the legislation by launching country-wide strike action, calling the legislation a further example of the corporate-government gan- gup against the union. The legislation orders strikers back on the job under the threat of heavy fines and banning from union office of union leaders convicted of violations. It provides for the appointment of a mediator-arbitrator who will be given a deadline to achieve a settle- ment, following which he will order an imposed contract. Given the determination of both the fed- eral government and Canada Post to pro- ceed with privatization of the post. office over union opposition, that will effectively mean a legislated imposition of Canada Post’s plans, Possibly with minor modifica- tions, the union charged. “This is what Canada Post had been hop- ing for,” said S.M. Duffy, vice-president of CUPW. “Now they can get the government ~ to do the job for them.” Duffy emphasized that there had been “no excuse for legislation. There was no He said the union had limited its action to rotating strikes and had put forward a new proposal on the second day of the strike stating that the union would not oppose the Labour watching contempt hearing over picketing A contempt order against six trade unio- nists for defiance of an Industrial Relations Council order remained at centre stage for the B.C. trade union this week as B.C. Supreme Court Justice Martin Taylor adjourned proceedings for a second time Tuesday. Six members of IWA-Canada Local I- 357 — vice-presidents Ed Dubas and Joe Leclair as well as rank and file members Harpreet Sohi, Paramjeet Singh, Daljit Gill and Kuldip Gill — are facing charges of contempt of court following the action of the IRC in filing its cease picketing order with the Supreme Court. “We went back into court Tuesday — but it was put over again till Thursday,” Leclair told the Tribune Oct. 13. The charges stem from the local’s strike at North Mitchell Lumber in Delta where some 32 ITWA-Canada members walked out Sept. 24 to back their demands for a first contract with the lumber re-manufacturer: The union filed 72-hour strike notice with the employer but because of the B.C. Fed- eration of Labour’s boycott of Bill 19, it did not file notice with the IRC. As a result, the IRC ordered the union to cease and desist picketing at the site. Because they were factually in error, how- ever, the IRC had to alter its orders on three different occasions before filing the con- tempt application in Supreme Court. The case is being watched closely by the federation and the [WA-Canada because it has highlighted the punitive powers given the IRC under Bill 19. If unionists are con- 12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 14, 1987 JEAN-CLAUDE PARROT ... consider- ing decision on back-to-work bill. creation of new franchises provided existing postal stations were not contracted out to private businesses and none of the 4,200 wicket jobs were eliminated. But Canada Post was “intransigent,” Duffy said. “You have a management team which refuses to respond. “They regard us as the stumbling block — the interference to their plans to do whatever they want with the post office,” he said. ““We have made the Canadian pub- lic aware of what Canada Post’s real objec- tives are and the public doesn’t agree with them.” Although it knew months ago that Can- ada Post’s stand would inevitably force a strike, the government moved quickly to cut it the walkout short by legislation once it became apparent that Canada Post was not making headway with its strike breaking plans but was rather creating public revul- sion. And wherever the support for strikers was making picket lines particularly effec- tive, Canada Post pressed for court action to limit that effectiveness. victed of contempt for continuing to picket against an IRC order, they face the prospect of their strikes being rendered ineffective. “T would say the the labour movement is watching closely and with good cause because unions are in a situation that at any given day, they may have to defy the IRC,” Leclair said last week. The strike at North Mitchell has been made particularly difficult by the involve- ment of the notorious anti-union law firm of Jordan and Gall which “has been there from the beginning,” said Leclair. Although there had been some progress made in negotiations, he said, the union was told last week that everything that had been previously agreed “‘was off the table and we were back to square one.” - Leclair added that the union would likely be taking action over the next few days to “beef up” the picket line outside the Delta plant. Meanwhile, members of the Carpenters Union who had earlier been the targets of an IRC cease-picketing order at a door manufacturing plant were told last week that the employer was closing the plant. Some 55 Carpenters Local 1928 members went on strike at the door division of Sauder Industries against demands for a 25 per cent cut in wages and benefits at the plant. But the IRC ordered them to stop picketing, ruling that they had not taken a proper strike vote under IRC supervision. They subsequently returned to work and conducted a new strike vote, supervised by New Westminster mayor Tom Baker under _ police instead of bringing door-to-door pos- CUPW members in Vancouver were hit by injunctions twice over the Thanksgiving weekend. The first, brought down in B.C. Supreme Court Saturday, limited pickets at the main Vancouver post office to five per entrance and 100 in total. But when pickets were successful in stop- ping buses of scabs from entering the post office Monday, Canada Post went back to the courts. Later that day, B.C. Supreme Court Justice John Spencer ordered pickets reduced to three per entrance and 30 in total. He turned down a request from Canada Post to ban picketing altogether, however. Since then, the corporation has moved the scab buses, their windows covered with cardboard, into the post office. But despite the massive scab-herding and air-lifting of mail from the Vancouver depot by helicopter, Canada Post has had little success in maintaining a significant flow of mail. Thousands of people have refrained from using the mail and the corporation has been moving mail around the country in an effort to have it sorted. In Toronto, Canada Post management has also been using helicopters in an attempt to move what mail there is in the system. CUPW Toronto local president Paul Heffernan, noting the government’s apparently unlimited source of funds for strikebreaking, told the Tribune: “I can believe that Harvie Andre (the minister responsible for the post office) would want to spend money on helicopters and riot tal service to Canadians.” Picket lines rallies have been held in sev- eral centres across the country to back CUPW’s demand for a negotiated settle- ment. In Edmonton, more than 200 turned out for a joint CUPW-Alberta Federation of Labour rally. AFL president Dave Werlin told participants it was “imperative that the trade union movement take a stand against back-to-work legislation. This affects the entire trade union movement. Legislation will undermine the right to strike and is part of the Tories’ cheap labour strategy.” ey procedures established by the B.C. Fed. Following a shareholders’ meeting Oct. 7, however, Sauder Industries “told us they were shutting the plant some time in the first quarter of 1988,” Local 1928 business agent Dave Streb told the Tribune. Sauder has claimed that the door division regularly loses money. “But I find it hard to believe that the company is losing money on the door div- ision when the rest of the company is as profitable as Sauder Industries is,” said Streb. He noted that the company was not likely to accede to union requests to open the books to justify the closure. “They might have opened them if we had been prepared to agree to the rollbacks. But our members just weren’t prepared to accept them,” he said. FIRIBONE Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. VSK 1Z5. Phone 251-1186 ee ee) ae ee or ee ee “Postal Code lam ena 1yr.$160) 2yrs.$280) 6mo. $100 Introductory offer, 3mo. $310 Foreign 1 yr. $250) Bill me later 0 ‘READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOUR ee > ee Behe eo 0k 8 OR 0 6 Se (ase OE OT RT OE CP EE GS GO 2 fs) 3 ©