By SEAN GRIFFIN

The B.C. Federation of Labor
convention which opens Nov. 15
at the PNE Agrodome will likely
be the largest ever in the federa-
tion’s history. Changes in
delegate entitlement passed at last
year’s convention together with
executive elections scheduled to
take place this year could push the
number of delegates up to
somewhere near 2,000.

But whether the impact on the
province’s labor movement will
equal the size of the convention
will depend on the policy adopted
by the delegates — and the
preparedness of the leadership to
organize and mobilize the federa-
tion’s 210,000 members.

The tone of the convention will
be set to a great extent by the ad-

in numbers will come from larger
delegations from the Interna-
tional Woodworkers and the
B.C. Government Employees
Union whose policies have tended
to predominate in recent years.
And, as has also been the case in
recent conventions, committee
reports rather than resolutions
are likely to take up much of the
convention time,.

But the economic climate is dif-
ferent from past conventions.

This year, delegates will be
opening the week-long meeting
under the shadow of the worst
unemployment since 1936 and
public sector wage controls that

ministration: most of the increase

threaten to move into the private
sector.

That shadow was there even
last year — but it has lengthened
and deepened since the 1981 con-
‘vention.

_ The threat to impose the
federal government’s six and five
percent wage controls on B.C.
longshoremen — merely by pass-
ing an amendment to include
them in the Public Sector Com-

Issue of wage controls
back on convention floor

as B.C. Fed meet opens

negotiations between the
Telecommunications Workers
Union and B.C. Telephone Com-
pany.

In the case of municipal
workers, there is the prospect of
direct wage control under the
Compensation Stabilization Act.
And, as the legislation forcing
longshoremen back to work
ominously indicated, there is a
real possibility that Telecom-

ANALYSIS

ES re es

pensation Restraint Program —
indicated clearly the federal
government’s intention to lead
the way in introducing wage con-
trols into the private sector.
Significantly, the Employers’
Council of B.C. followed that this
week with the release of its paper
“*How the 6/5 Program should be
applied to the Private Sector.’’
Council president Bill
Hamilton emphasized that com-
panies in the private sector should
take ‘‘decisive action” to keep
wage increases down.
Certainly in every set of negotia-
tions in the province, unionists
will face wage restrictions as a
direct result of the provincial and
federal wage control programs.
Of more intermediate urgency
are negotiations for contracts
covering close to 10,000

municipal workers in the Greater
Vancouver Resional District —

Vancouver Regional District and

munications Workers could face
imposition of the federal six and
five controls should they deter-
mine to strike or should they be
locked out.

There will likely bea number of
resolutions submitted by local
unions condemning governments
both in Ottawa and Victoria for
making public sector workers the
scapegoats for economic crisis by
imposing wage controls. .

But a clear measure of the con-
vention’s effectiveness will be the
extent to which it is a forum for
organizing trade unionists
around a program of action to
fight controls.

Federation president Jim Kin-
naird has frequently stated that
the labor movement in B.C. has a
“strong mandate’’ to fight con-
trols. But it is a mandate which
has not been translated into prac-
tical, organizational terms.

Ever since premier Bennett’s
Feb. 18 announcement of public
sector wage -controls, tHe B.C.
Fed has largely followed a policy
of not challenging the govern-
ment’s restraint program to en-
sure that Bennett is not provoked
into calling an election. That
policy was further entrenched by
the go-it-alone bargaining posi-
tion of the B.C. Government
Employees Union during’ its con-
tract dispute.

But there is a growing body of
opinion in the trade union move-
ment now that holds that strategy
was wrong and that, by following
it, unionists lost important
ground to the Socreds who were
able to win wider public accep-
tance of the idea of restraint in the
absence of organized opposition
from the trade union movement
and in the absence of any cam-
paign to advance an alternative

program.

Certainly the slowness of the
trade union movement in taking
up the fight against controls
figured prominently in the federal
government’s almost un-
precedented decision to threaten
the longshoremen with federal
wage controls.

Organization is also a main ob-
jective for the other critical issue
facing convention delegates —
unemployment.

With the jobless level at its
worst since 1936 and unemploy-
ment in the wood industry now at
some 35 percent, the need for ac-
tion is urgent.

A significant advance over last
year has been the opening of
several federation unemployed
centres throughout the province.

The unemployed conference
last weekend, organized by the
unemployed ‘committee of the
Vancouver and District Labor
Council, was also a significant
event. More than 200 delegates
attended, demonstrating that

organization of the unemployed
is possible if there is leadership.

Action by the federation and
its affiliates to organize the
unemployed could have major in-
fluence on government policy and

in resisting attempts by employers }

and governments to use the :
unemployed as a lever against the |
gains won by the trade union

movement.

One significant, if cosmetic,

change from last year’s federa-

tion convention will be the status |}
accorded the non-affiliated —
Building Trades, as well as some |}

other non-affiliated unions in- |
cluding the Hospital Employees |}

Union.

Last year, the Building Trades |
were strictly barred by federation ||
staff from mingling with |)
delegates,an action which left

considerable bitterness. In addi- —

tion, the convention’s resulutions ||
committee ignored several strong ||
resolutions on the Building ||
Trades-CLC dispute and instead -

brought the most innocuous
resolution to the floor, thus spik-
ing debate on a critical issue.

This year, however, the
Building Trades and HEU will be

oer

given a special status and accord- |
ed delegate’s privileges except |
voice and vote on the floor. The |)
B.C. Teachers’ Federation has |

also been invited to send a frater- _

nal delegation.

In various public appearances,
federation president Kinnaird has
also singled out unity issue and
has emphasized the need to bring
both the Building Trades and the
HEU into the federation despite
what he has_ termed
“bureaucratic barriers’.

Whether the convention will

reaffirm tht position in resolu- |)
tions still remains to be seen but |

the unity note that has been struck
comes at a critical time when the
labor movement can ill afford
any divisions.

Conference of 200 maps

By FRED WILSON _

Over 200 delegates to the Van-
couver and District Labor Council
conference on unemployment
_ Nov. 6 gave an overwhelming en-
-dorsement to the call for an
organization of the unemployed in
Vancouver,

The call took the form of recom-
mendations from workshops in the
day long conference that brought
—- representatives of VDLC

iated unions, non-affiliated
unions and community
organizations.

Virtually unanimous in urging the
sponsor of the conference, the
-VDLC committee on unemploy-
ment, to follow up the event with a
second conference of the
unemployed, including:
unemployed committees of trade
unions and concerned community
groups, in order to forma coalition
of the :

VDLC unemployment commit-
tee chairman George Hewison
termed the conference ‘‘a historic
high point for the labor movement

‘in Vancouver’? and assured
delegates that the full set of recom-
mendations would be set down on
paper and circulated to each par-

group. —
“Together with labor the

200,000 unemployed in B.C. and
the more than 100,000 unemployed

in the Lower Mainland can be a
powerful force for change if they
are organized, and if they have a
program,’’ Hewison said in his
keynote address to the conference.

“We can no longer pretend that
the unemployed and those working
are separate groups. The
unemployed are present at the
bargaining table, and the fight
against concessions is doomed
without a campaign for jobs. The

unemployed are also powerless’

without the labor movement.”

Hewison said that special pro-
blems of the unemployed ‘“‘call out
for the organization of the
unemployed, as part of the labor
movement but in a form that suits
their special needs.”’

Morning workshops on the
politics of unemployment gave a
broad endorsement to the propos-
ed economic strategy for full
employment which included anim-
mediate crash jobs program, an
end to wage controls, lower interest
rates and other measures to in-
crease purchasing power, in addi-
tion to an industrial strategy of
“developing secondary industry
under public control.” Rebuilding
a merchant marine, creating a steel
industry and vastly expanding the
machine industry in the Lower
Mainland were cited as com-
ponents of a new industrial

strategy.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— NOVEMBER 12, 1982—Page 1

a. ee

Afternoon workshops focussed
on organizational forms and action
proposals to attract and mobilize
the estimated 100,000 jobless in the
Lower Mainland. Recommenda-
tions included the formation of an
organization of the unemployed,
the establishment of an
unemployed resource centre, the
setting up of information booths
outside manpower and UIC offices
and a program of demonstrative
actions to dramatize the unemploy-
ment crisis and project labor’s job
program.

B.C. Federation of Labor presi-
dent Jim Kinnaird addressed the
conference and pledged that ‘“‘the
unemployed will get the full
assistance of the labor
movement,’’
unemployment and political action
by the labor movement for a jobs
program would be major themes of
the federation convention, slated to
open Nov. 15.

Other guest speakers were San-
dra Nichol of the Campbell River
Organization of the Unemployed
and Vincent Noel, trade union
leader from Grenada.

Nichol outlined the history of
the ‘unemployed organization on
the north end of Vancouver Island
and stressed that their experience
showed that the unemployed had
the skills to deal with their short
term and long term needs, but

He said that ~

MEF AT EE OE kT HES 4

those skills had only been realized
within their own democratic struc-
ture. At the same time, she added,
the organization would have had
little success without support from
the trade union movement.

Noel brought the conference to
its feet twice with a dynamic speech
about the revolution in his Carib-
bean country and its success in ad-
dressing the 45 percent unemploy-
ment rate the new government in-
herited. He predicted that
unemployment would be
eliminated in Grenada within five
years because of economic plann-
ing based on securing popular con-
trol of the country’s resources.

A notable feature of the VDLC °

conference was the involvement on

PACIFIC

RIBUNE

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L

Read the paper that fights for labor

Te Wa, Veo Se won Tee ng ee

City or town
Postal Code

ee ce RT AE ed

non-affiliated unions such as

Hospital Employees Union, B.C:
Nurses Union, Vancouvél
and Regional
Employees Union and the B.©
Confederation of Canadian Unio
affiliates such as CAIMAW af
the Independent Canadian Trans
Union. The breadth of the col
ference, which also included t

Municipal

Teachers Federation, and

Committee of Progressive
tors,
Residents Association and 0
community groups, was
precedented and underlined
recurring theme that t
unemployed need to be orga
regardless of union affiliation,
union membership.

3X9. Phone 251-1186.

eee ee ee a ee ee ee

.
oo B Oe ow 6 0S Be ee Bele vein t.0 © hn

Downtown Eastsi@

iit aii

jobless program

ee