| Th BLAINE

LABOR

By KERRY McCUAIG

NORTH BAY — The Department of Na-
tional Defence is trying to weasel out of an
agreement which could have settled the sexual
harassment case involving Bonnie Robichaud.

Robichaud had been suspended without pay
from her job last May as a cleaning supervisor at
| the Canadian Forces base here pending an in-
vestigation into disturbances at work. Her
employer refused to document its charges and
had insisted Robichaud submit to a psychiatric
assessment as part of the investigation.

Robichaud was eventually vindicated and the
department agreed to have a government-
appointed mediator from the Public Service
Commission seek a solution to the matter.

According to Robichaud’s union, the Public
Service Alliance, the only proposal the DND
would agree to was a two-year paid education
leave. The union complied, feeling the leave
would help Robichaud recover from the stress
arising out of five years of court battles sur-
rounding the harassment.

Her job at the base was to be held, but in
return Robichaud was to drop her claim with the
- Ontario Workers Compensation Board for

_ stress-related illness.

Larry and Bonnie Robichaud at rally last spring in
support of Eaton’s strikers.

Defence department stalls
on Robichaud agreement

DND stalled on ratifying the agreement then
on Sept. 18 after union prodding, base com-
mander Captain Jack MacDonald insisted
“‘There was no agreement whatsoever enter-
tained or signed by the department.”

Strongly worded telexes sent by the Alliance
to Defence Minister Erik Nielsen brought after a
week’s delay, a meeting between the union and
the department. But as of Oct. 4 DND had al-

ready requested an additional one week exten-

sion to consider the mediator’s proposal.

‘*They are obviously holding out for a solu-
tion which will have Bonnie quit her job, so they
can bring the harasser back in,’’ said Robi-
chaud’s husband Larry, in an interview.

Robichaud’s former supervisor, Dennis
Brennan after being found guilty of harassing
Robichaud by a Human Rights Tribunal and
subsequently the Federal Court of Appeal was
finally suspended on May 29. He is appealing
the ruling.

Robichaud was suspended the following day,
only a week after she had been given leave to
appeal the court decision which exonerated
DND from liability for the harassment.

The Human’s Rights Institute of Canada has
accused the department of ‘‘coddling and pro-
tecting’’ Brennan while setting up every possible
roadblock for Robichaud and her union.

Larry says that his wife’s case underlines the
basic sexism and contempt for women which
pervades the armed forces.

“Women in the department who become
pregnant are not granted paid leave. Wives of
servicemen are not even allowed to campaign
for a street light, because supposedly that is too
political.”

Robichaud is currently back at work and
carrying a full course load in business admin-
istration at Nipissing College. ‘‘There has to be
a resolution soon,”’ says her husband. ‘‘She
can’t keep up both for much longer. But one
thingis certain she will not agree to any proposal
which denies her, her job. There is a principle
here, we haven’t fought for the past five years,
to back down now.”’.

Heinz finds workers
won't buckle under

BRAMALEA — The giant
food conglomerate H.J. Neinz
Co. is discovering it isn’t so easy
to push immigrant workers
around and force them into con-
cessions.

The picket line put up Sept. 30
by some 600 members of United
Food and Commerical Workers
Local 1105-P at Heinz affiliate
Gelco Food Ltd., was a militant
reply to the corporate strategy
aimed at cutting costs, (wages),
and starting it on the backs of its
workforce of new Canadians such
as those at Gelco.

Forty percent of the Gelco
workforce are either Laotian or
Vietnamese, with the bulk of the
remaining 60 per cent workers of
Italian, and South African origin.
Most are women.

The Southeast Asian work-
force, local union officials say
were recruited through an em-
ployment agency and many in the
plant suspected they were in-
tentionally brought in by the
company as “‘insurance’’ against
union militancy.

To Gelco’s dismay, however
when the time came for the work-
ers to give their union a rousing 98
per cent strike mandate, the com-
pany’s ‘“‘insurance’’ came out asa
block and voted solidly in favor of
strike action.

Gelco got the message a second
time, just prior to the strike when
its so-called ‘“‘final offer’’ to Local
1105-P was turned down, again by
97.1 per cent despite a feverish

misinformation campaign by the

company.

Gelco is a processor of chicken
parts, and a supplier to the main
restaurants and fast food opera-
tions in this country. At the root
of the strikers’ militancy are lousy
working conditions and the com-
pany’s arrogant refusal to agree to

a non-contributary pension; its —
demands for a two-tiered wage
structure for new hires; and its”
refusal to agree to language.
guaranteeing workers access t0_
their stewards during disciplinary
meetings with management.

The union is asking fora 40 cent
an hour wage increase with a
company-paid pension plan to be :
jointly-administered by the union.

Gelco is offering a quarter an
hour increase with another nickle
applied to the pension, or a
straight 30 cent an hour wage na
crease. q

Local 1105-P chief stewarl
Roberto Moreton cites the bad
working conditions in the plant as~
basic to the members’ deter-—
mination and their unity to fight
for justice.

“It’s always cold in there, and
you're always working with CO2,
(carbon dioxide) leaking around
you in the reeZans tunnels’’, he
said. ‘

“The plant was designed for
200 people, but the workforce av-_
erages around 500-600 people so
some times you get as many as SiX—
people working in the same
freezer locker. There are only”
four washrooms each for the men
and the women. y

Petty rules and harsh discipline |
have also driven the worke F
closer together. One worker was”
sent home because he didn’t re-_
member his phone number when
a supervisor asked him for it.

As usual, the company has”
been able to rely on the Peel Reg:
ional Police to back them up i
their unsavory plans. So far, with
the strike not quite a week old,
four UFCW members have beet
arrested after the cops arrived tO
throw their weight around ont
picket line.

(Lavigne case challenges social unionism)

By JON VICKERS

scenario.
bad bureaucracy.

cy.
the media hype.

principle actors.
Who’s Paying the Bills?

TORONTO — On the surface it looks
_ like the classic David confronts Goliath
Small town Ontario teacher
stands up for the little guy against a big

_ It makes an attention-grabbing head-
line, especially appealing to people who
are the daily victims of real bureau-
cracies like the Workers Compensation |

- Board, the Unemployment Insurance
Commission or any social welfare agen-

But let’s look behind the headlines and

Who is Merve Lavigne? What is the
Lavigne vs OPSEU case really about?
Merv Lavigne is not a little guy. He is a
teaching master at the Haileybury
School of Mines, a campus of Northern
College of Applied Arts and Technology.
_ He spent most of his working life in
private industry. In fact, he was vice-
president of the mining division of a
manufacturer of drilling equipment and

One of the most effective weapons
regularly used against unions is the paid
agitator or agent provocateur. Using an
individual to do their union-busting for

them, the corporations and the govern-
ment never appear centre-stage as the

XN peo the union (the Ontario

Public Service Employees Union), in a
long and expensive legal battle drains the
organization of both money and person-
nel. The question many members of the
union are asking, is where does a com-
munity college teacher like Merv get the
money to hire lawyers and go to the Sup-
reme Court of Ontario?

The answer is the ultra-right wing Na-
tional Citizens’ Coalition. It’s backing
Lavigne to the tune of a half million dol-
lars. offering, as one of their spokes-
people recently pledged: ‘‘Whatever it
takes.

Apparently, it takes expensive full-
page ads such as those placed in large
Toronto daily newspapers, by the NCC.

The NCC’s hatred for OPSEU runs
deep, stemming in part from the union’s
decision during the 1970s to drop Lon-
don Life Insurance Co., as the union’s
carrier in the Ontario Public Service.

London Life lost a bundle, and shortly
after OPSEU’s decision, London Life
executive Colin Brown formed the Na-

_ tional Citizens’ Coalition.

Lavigne isn’t a union member. In 1975
when the Civil Service Association of
Ontario became OPSEU, he filed an af-
fidavit in the Suprem Court of Ontario in
effect registering his objection to sub-
mitting to the Rand Formula and stating
his opposition, “‘to being required to as-
sociate with the union, and more particu-
larly .. . to support the union by payment
of dues.”

Challenging Social Unionism

During the 1984 community college
teachers’ strike, Lavigne scabbed, yet
today complains about not receiving
strike pay from the union while he was
crossing the OPSEU picket line.

Lavigne’s hatred of unions is focussed
on challenging labor’s right to spend
union dues to promote social unionism.
Specifically he objects to OPSEU using
dues money to sponsor and organize ac-
tivities like the recent conference against
spending municipal funds for a domed
stadium in Toronto; support for dis-
armament campaigns; campaigning for
freedom of choice with respect to abor-
tions; and, for the union’s donation sup-
porting B.C. government employees in
their 1983 showdown with the Bennett
government.

He also doesn’t like OPSEU’s affilia-
tion to the Ontario Federation of Labor
because it has donated $18,000 to the
British miners’ struggle; and adopted a
convention resolution supporting recog-
nition of the Palestine Liberation Organ-
ization.

The same goes for OPSEU’s ties to the
CLC, which comes under Lavigne’s and
the NCC’s guns for its 1982, $500,000 ad
campaign against the federal govern-
ment’s economic policies and for the half
million dollars the congress donated to
Nicaragua.

In the end, all of their objections boil
down to their yearning for the so-called

“right to work’’. But the high-priced |
corporate executives running the NCC
aren’t championing what should be
every worker’s right to a job at decent |
wages. 2

Right to Scab

No, they want workers competing |
with each other for a job at the lowest
wages offered and most meagre benefits
package. It isn’t really the right to work
they’re promoting but the right to scab. |.

OPSEU is being targeted because it’s
taken its rightful place in the labor
movement with an increasingly militant
membership.

The union has allocated $20,000 to
produce a brochure explaining and de-
fending the social and political mandate
of the Canadian trade union movement.
Constitutionally OPSEU is commited to |_
advancing its members’ economic social |
and ea interests ha all appropriate ~
means’

OPSEU i is committed to social union- | _
ism. A victory for Lavigne and the NCC |
in the courts would be a blow to labor’S |
right to pursue its social, economic and |
political interests.

The union is demanding a full trial and
the CLC, OFL, and the National Union
of Provincial Government Employees
have joined with OPSEU in achieving
this end. Further developments are eX
pected in the fall.

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 9, 1985