Section 5 of Article 17 of the
constitution of the Canadian La-
bor Congress deals with the ques-
tion of affiliates who are in arrears
in respect to monthly per capita
payments:

“Any organization which does
not pay its per capita tax on or be-
fore the specified time shall be noti-
fied by the secretary-treasurer of
the Congress. Any organization
three months in arrears in payment
of per capita may become suspend-
ed from membership in the Con-
gress and can be reinstated only
after arrears are paid in full.’

Technically speaking, that sec-
tion will be the guideline for the
CLC executive council when: it
meets this week to deal with the
case of the 14 building trades un-
ions who have not paid their affilia-
tion fees since April, 1980. These
unions are said to have a combined
membership of 400,000, but I
doubt if they have ever paid per
capita for that total. According to
published reports, the affiliation
fees, which are paid directly by the
international officers, total $675,-
000 a year at the current rate.

Section 4(a) of Article 3 of the
constitution deals with the rights of
suspended unions in respect to pro-
vincial federations of labor and
area labor councils:

“Any affiliate of chartered or-
ganization which has seceded, is
under suspension or has been ex-
pelled shall not be allowed repre-
sentation or recognition in the
Congress, or in any subordinate
body thereof.” This means that if
the executive council suspends the
delinquent unions, provincial fed-
erations and area labor councils
could be instructed to suspend their

affiliations to those bodies. While
there are no precise figures avail-
able for B.C., it could involve up to
40,000 workers, including such af-
filiates as the Carpenters, Electric-
ians, Plumbers and Laborers. (The
Teamsters are not in the CLC.)

Comment
Jack Phillips

What the international officers
are demanding has been spelled out
in-a number of articles in the Trib-
une over the past year. In sum-
mary, they object to the fact that
the Quebec Federation of Labor
took into affiliation a 7,000-mem-
ber local of the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
which seceded in 1973. According
to the letter of the CLC constitu-
tion, the Federation had no right to
do so.

Building trades leaders also
claim that industrial unions have
invaded their work jurisdiction and
that the system of representation at
CLC conventions works to the dis-
advantage of the building trades.

The Quebec Federation of La-
bor justified its action by pointing
out that it has to contend with rival
federations in that province and
also with a unique set of represent-
ation and collective bargaining
laws. Left on their own, the Fed-
eration officers claimed, the Elec-
trical Workers would have joined a
rival federation. On the issues of
jurisdiction, the CLC leadership
has demonstrated flexibility. An

agreement was negotiated, agreed
to and signed by leading officers of
the building trades and industrial
unions in Canada, and then en-
dorsed by the CLC.

On the issue of changing the rep-
resentation and the system of vot-
ing at CLC conventions, the CLC
leadership has tried to accommo-
date the building trades leaders, but
they were unable to obtain the
necessary two-thirds majority in
convention on more than one occa-
sion.

If a substantial portion of build-
ing trades unions had not chosen to
boycott the 1980 convention of the
CLC, itis likely that a modified sys-
tem of bloc voting would have been
adopted. .

Jim Kinnaird, president of the
B.C. Federation of Labor and vice-
president of the CLC, is obviously
disturbed by the current situation..
Speaking to last week’s convention
of the B.C. Ferry and Marine
Workers’ Union in Duncan, he
said he will vote against his own un-

ion when he votes to suspend the 14 —

building trades unions from the
CLC. He is a member of Local 213
of the International Brotherhood .
of Electrical Workers. :

In reporting his speech, the Vic-
toria Times-Colonist March 4
made this observation: ‘‘. . .Kin-
naird indicated he feels the building
trades unions orchestrated a split
by following a very definite pat-
tern.”’

The following quotations from
the news report should provide
some clues as to what lies ahead.

“In his speech to the ferry work-
ers, he said he believes the differ-
ence would prove too difficult to
overcome. He felt the structure of

TWU campaign puts pressure
on B.C. Telephone directors

Continued from page 1
down the pulp mill, sawmill opera-
tions, construction sites and many
offices.

The outcry, both from
employers and the Southam and
Thompson press, underscored the
effectiveness of the action and the
heat that it put on B.C. Tel, already
notorious for its anti-labor stance.

Meanwhile, the TWU continued
to mount its own pressure on the
company to settle the 15-month-
old dispute and to drop attempts to
discriminate against some 24
workers.

In Victoria Monday, more than
400 TWU members demonstrated
outside the provincial legislative
buildings carrying a huge black

coffin and placards declaring, —

“‘Workers’ Rights Die under U.S.
Ownership’’. B.C. Telephone _ is
owned, through a Canadian sub-
sidiary, by the huge U.S. multina-
tional General Telephone and Elec-
tronics of New York.

Labor minister Jack Heinrich,

who has repeatedly stated his inten- -

tion to keep out of the dispute,
spoke briefly to the demonstrators,
telling them that he had called on
federal labor minister Gerald
Regan — under whose jurisdiction
the B.C. Tel dispute falls — to in-
tervene to effect a settlement. The

appointment of Collins as federal

mediator was prompted partly by
Heinrich’s urging.
Also this month, in response to

the claims by B.C. Tel that its cor- ©

porate decisions are ‘‘made in
Canada’’, the TWU has circulated

Gordon F. MacFarlane
Chairman and

Chief Executive Officer
British Columbia Telephone
Company

Burnaby, B.C.

432-4241

Harry M. Boyce .-
Company Director
Yorkshire Trust Company
Vancouver, B.C.

685-3711

W. Thomas Brown

669-1600
Chairman

Odium Brown & T. B. Read Ltd.
Vancouver, B.C.

Justin V. Harbord 388-5533
President

Harbord Insurance Ltd.

Victoria, B.C.

Gerald H. D. Hobbs 682-0611
Chairman

Cominco Ltd.

Vancouver, B.C.

Victor F. MacLean 684-8201

Company Director
Vancouver, B.C.

a list of B.C. Tel directors and the
various companies for. which they
are in turn executive officers. The
list includes telephone numbers.
TWU business agent Larry
Armstrong last week urged
unionists to call up the company
directors and demand that they

‘PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 13, 1981—Page 12

TELL THEM YOU’RE NOT
GOING TO TAKE IT
ANYMORE!

736-4411

McGavin ToastMaster Limited
Vancouver, B.C.

Allan M. McGavin
Chairman of the Board

John W. Pitts

Chairman and President
Okanagan Helicopters Ltd.
Vancouver, B.C.

278-5502

J. Ernest Richardson
Chairman of the Board
MacMillan Bloedel Ltd.
Vancouver, B.C.

683-6711

Horace B. Simpson
Vice-President
Okanagan Holdings Ltd.
Kelowna, B.C.

860-7600

Hugh R. Stephen
Company Director
Victoria, B.C.

598-5928

negotiate a settlement with the
TWU.

The company’s directors include
executive representatives of some
of the biggest companies operating
in B.C. such as Cominco,
MacMillan-Bloedel and: McGavin
Toastmaster. —

the building trades unions with
their hiring halls and closed shops
was more important to some key
figures than affiliation with the Ca-
nadian labor movement.

“Tn. anticipation of what was
coming, he said he had met with
building trades locals.in B.C. and
was convinced they wanted to re-
main allied with the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor and the CLC.

‘‘Any vote taken at the national
level would be submitted to the
trade unions in B.C. for their con-

sees B.C.

JIM KINNAIRD ...
trades staying in B.C. Fed, labor
councils. 2

sideration, he said. It was aclear in-
dication that they would be able to
decide if they wanted to re-enter the
CLC through Canadian unions.”
The strong-endorsation given to
the militant position of the B.C.
Federation of Labor in support of
the Telecommunication Workers’
Union and the Canadian Union of
Public Employees embraces all sec-
tors of the Federation membership,
including industrial, building
trades and public sector unions. It
is obvious that Kinnaird and the
Federation executive council would
like to maintain and extend that
unity.
Now, they are faced with the
threat of the suspension of the
building trades unions and with a
possible expulsion by the CLC con-

‘vention in 1982. Also, there is talk, «

on the one hand, of setting up a
CLC building trades department
and taking into direct affiliation
locals of building trades unions
that leave, or are expelled from,
their internationals. On the other
hand, there is talk of the building
trades leaders setting up a new
trade union centrein Canada in op-
position to the CLC.

It should be obvious that if the
CLC and the building trades un-
ions become involved in a head-on
collision across the country, there
will be serious divisions, raids and
-counter-raids in the fight for juris-
diction, jobs and membership. If
such a battle spread to B.C., the
kind of unity we are now experienc-
ing in one of the most important
bargaining years in the history of
organized labor could go up in

RiBUNE

smoke. The immediate winners —
would be the worst enemies of or-
ganized labor.

My guess is that as soon as the
meeting of the CLC executive
council is concluded, Kinnaird will

return to B.C. and meet with the —

officers of the B.C. and Yukon

Building Trades council in orderto

discuss the new situation — assum-
ing there will be a vote to suspend.
According to .reliable reports, ~
thereis a strong feeling in the build-
ing trades here — I would say ama-
jority feeling well reflected in the

provincial leadership — to stayin _— |

the B.C. Federation of Labor and
the area labor councils in the event
that the 14 internationals are suS- —
pended. However, if the interna-
tionals set up a new trade union

~ centre in Canada and put the press-

ure on their locals to sever com-
pletely their connections with the

CLC and all of its subordinate —

bodies — under threat of trustee-
ship or expulsion — this could
cause serious complications.

It is generally conceded that the
loyalty to the B.C. Federation of
Labor shown by building trades
unions here is stronger than build-
ing trades loyalty to federations in
other provinces. However, there
could be a much greater opposition
to the separation from the CLC
and its subordinate bodies in other
provinces than what appears on the
surface at this moment.

Many progressive minded mem-
bers of the building trades in B.C.
have taken aconsistent position for
more Canadian autonomy and for
the full implementation of Cana-
dian standards of self government
as adopted by CLC in convention.

Needless to say, these positions
are not popular with most of the
top international officers and their

highly paid roadmen in Canada. ~ |

These progressive minded mem-
bers are also opposed to any break-

aways from the internationals that

would result only in splits, disrup-

tion and isolation. If at all possible

in the period following immediate-
ly after the CLC executive council
meeting, they would favor a policy
of their unions retaining member-
ship in their respective interna-
tionals, while continuing to be part
of the B.C. Federation of Labor
and area labor councils.

This is not a retreat from the
fight for more Canadian auton-
omy with the eventual goal of a
fully-independent trade union
movement. What these progressive
minded workers are seeking is a
course to minimize the dangers in
this situation and to prevent the iso-
lation of the most progressive
forces in the building trades from
the majority of their fellow workers
in the industry and from the main-
stream of the trade union move-
ment.

That is no easy task they have set
themselves. I will come back to this
problem next week. :

SRA E ASE

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

Read the paper that fights for labor

City OF tOWN- 3s 55;
M) Postal Code ..............

| am enclosing:

1 year $121 2 years $220) 6 months $7.0
OidO New Foreign 1 year $15 0
Bill me later CF Donation$..........

NGG NUNC INTENSE NON ON ERENG NORG AG NGNGRLNGNS