_LABOR

Non-affiliates back

Continued from page 1

It called on the Vancouver Labor
Council to:

® Sponsor a conference May 10 of all
Lower Mainland unions and teachers
associations to “fully mobilize” against
the bills;

@ Establish a co-ordinating committee
to organize the conference;

@ Launch a campaign calling on all

_ B.C. trade unionists and unorganized

workers to give “full support” to the

teachers’ April 28 walkout and their cur-

Tent “instruction only” action, and all affil-

lates to develop support among. their
members for the teachers’ actions.

“We (labor) didn’t come out and indi-
cate to the teachers that we were fully
behind them on what they were doing
(during the April 28 study session), and we
have to now because they’re into the
instruction-only part of their campaign.
We have to make certain that every
teacher in this province knows that the
trade union movement supports them,”
Kennedy stressed to applause.

During debate, Mike Barker of the
Hospital Employees Union warned that a
Section of Bill 19 stipulates, “acts and regu-
lations passed by the legislature will now
take priority over contracts in the public
sector.”

The day that is passed, warned Barker,
sections in the Hospital Act will allow
management the right to contract out

~ union jobs.

The HEU delegate said he supported
the call for job action because it sets a
definite time frame, necessary to support
the teachers in their action and to avoid
“cynicism.”

“When I go to the members and say,
‘We've got to fight,’ what they want to
hear is a strategy that will work. There’s a
lot of cynicism out there for reasons that
people very well understand.

“If I can go to them and say, that the

MOIRA MACKENZIE
B.C. Federation of Labor is initiating
escalating action until those bills are with-
drawn, they will go with me,” Barker
declared.

United Fishermen and Allied Workers
Union delegate John Radosevic praised
the teachers for their actions, saying,
“You've done us all well, and that’s the
message that’s got to go out from now on
from this council and from here on in the
labor movement.”

He charged that, contrary to some
reports, the legislation “thas come directly
from the Employers Council of B.C., and
there shouldn’t be any goddamn mistake
about it.”

Colin Kelly of the CCU-affiliated Inde-
pendent Canadian Transit Union, granted
the right to address council by a special
vote, noted his union has been notified by
B.C. Transit that “our union bylaws will
no longer be recognized by the company.”

Reminding delegates of ICTU’s suc-
cessful strike three years ago against B.C.
Transit’s attempts. to introduce part-time
drivers into the work force, he reported
that in current bargaining talks, represen-
tatives of the Crown corporation told
union officials “they have demands on the

JESS SUCCAMORE
table that it really isn’t necessary for them
to bargain at all, because they intend to
take them by legislation.

“We'll support you 100 per cent, and I
know that you'll support us,” Kelly
vowed.

UFAWU delegate Homer Stevens
called on the federation and the Canadian
Labor Congress to support “when the
time comes” a general strike, and —
recalling his own 11-month jail term for
union activities and the successful struggle
of east coast fishermen against unfair
labor legislation and the courts — urged
defiance of the law by trade union leaders
if necessary.

Non-affiliates — some with a long
record of mutual animosity with the fed-
eration and its affiliates — addressed the
trade unionists from the VDLC podium
and urged maximum unity in the fight
ahead.

CCU leader Jess Succamore received
massive applause when he reminded the
meeting that CCU affiliate members had
resolved to take action “up to and includ-
ing a general strike.”

Succamore was applauded when he
said he had expressed concerns.in a meet-

action call

ing with B.C. Fed leaders that their plans
“perhaps place a bit too much emphasis
on what to do after Bill 19 is enacted.

“We feel if we wait until the bill is
enacted, then workers’ jobs will be on the
line. If we fight it before then, it’s the heads
of the union leaders that are on the line,
and as a union leader, I think that’s where
they should be,” he declared.

Succamore read excerpts from a letter
to Georgetti in which the CCU executive
said, “it. will require province-wide job
action to defeat Bill 19.”

“Apart, none of us can do anything.
We've got to stay together,” he declared.

Reporting that the union executive has
endorsed, ‘“‘with riders,” the B.C. Fed’s
action program, VMREU secretary-
treasurer David Cadman noted that
already one employer, the Vancouver
Museum and Planetarium Association,
has notified the union that the association
will be dividing into four separate associa-
tions, ‘and we were told in no uncertain
terms that this might pose problems for us
in terms of our successor status and the
contract we have with those people.”

The union has also received a letter
from the Greater Vancouver regional dis-
tricts labor relations department inform-
ing them that in upcoming negotiations
the district will be seeking to establish
wages “‘in line with those in the commun-
ity,” he reported.

“Read, ‘the unorganized community,”
Cadman said.

Moira MacKenzie, BCTF second vice-
president, said the proposed College of
Teachers in Bill 20 will facilitate “witch
hunts” against members. And she reminded
the crowd that the bill “sanctions non-
union teacher locals.”

She said the instruction-only campaign
causes some “short-term pain, but for the
common, long-term gain of us all.

“We can defeat this legislation if we
move forward together,” MacKenzie
declared.

“Block Tory Agenda’: Werlin

Special to the Tribune

EDMONTON — Delegates to
the Alberta Federation of Labor's
7Sth anniversary convention met
April 27 in a spirit of militant
resistance to the corporate assault
On living standards and demo-
Cratic rights.

Edmonton labor council presi-
dent Doug Elves greeted the dele-
gates. Elves said he hoped the
Convention would make the pro-
vincial Tory government realize,

they have to take a step back-
ies because we’re not going

The four day convention was
Slated to conclude on May Day
with a labor festival and a march
‘0 the provincial legislature to
Protest Alberta’s reactionary
labor legislation and the recent
Tory budget.

In his keynote address, AFL
President Dave Werlin reviewed

€ recent struggles that have
Challenged the labor movement
and outlined the tasks facing the
Movement in the period ahead.

Recalling the watershed Gain-
ris strike, the AFL leader noted

Ow “‘it became clear to the entire

© union movement that it
could not be lost. Had we lost that
ke, it would have given en-

couragement to the employers
right across the country to take up
where Pocklington left off.”’

Werlin warned the delegates of
the grief the Tory corporate
agenda would cause Canadians if
were fully implemented. Citing
job losses and wage reversals that
would accompany free trade and
deregulation he urged the dele-
gates to “‘stand as a bulwark to
prevent the multinational cor-
porations from taking away
everything that has been won for
us by the trade union movement
in the past.”

He also said that labor must
now fight for the entrenchment of
a Bill of Rights for Labor within
the Canadian Charter and that
working people shouldn’t be
hoodwinked into believing that
concessions are necessary to
solve Canada’s $30-billion deficit.

“Why should people worry
about deficit,” he said,.““when tax
concessions and _ handouts
amount to many times that sum
every year. Why should they
worry about such a sum when the
five largest banks have increased
their assets by more than 800 per-
cent during the past 16 years from
$43.7-billion to $383 .4-billion.

AFL: 75 years of struggle

Werlin spoke of the serious

situation facing the trade unions
in Alberta. He exposed as
‘‘inhuman’”’ the recent provincial
budget with its attack on educa-
tion, health care and social: ser-
vices. ;
He drew prolonged applause
when he ridiculed the Reid Com-
mittee Report on labor legislation
and the whirlwind global junket
for its members which has done
less than nothing to address the
pressing concerns of the labor
movement such as the use of
scabs, spin-off companies, 24-
hour lockouts and atrocious
minimum labor standards.

“T can promise this govern-
ment that we'll either have
changed labor laws or a change in
government,” he said.

The AFL leader was greeted
with a standing ovation as he con-
cluded his address with an appeal
for solidarity with postal workers
should Canada Post Corporation
provoke a country-wide strike
with its tabling of 52 pages of roll-
back demands.

The delegates marched to Ed-
monton’s main post office during
the lunch break to rally with rail-
way workers, postal workers and
CUPW president Jean Claude

aX

The Gainers’ strike marked a new stage of struggle in labor. The AFL

convention intends to build unity to block the Tory agenda.

Parrot. The CUPW leader
thanked the AFL leadership for
its determined fightback policy
and called for greater unity of the
trade union movement in order to
stop the federal government's
privatization campaign dead in its
tracks.

He said that the money
government will save through
these schemes will go to corpo-
rate tax breaks and other conces-

sions and to increased military
spending. ‘““‘We have to expose
the government and stop this
cheap labor strategy,”’ Parrot said
to the cheering crowd.

Werlin and Parrot both argued
that the trade union movement is
finding new friends and _ allies
among other sections of society
who are also under attack and that
these new-found allies are
increasingly willing to join with
labor in the fightback.

George Hewison is on assignment. Labor in Action

will return next week.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 6, 1987 « 7