bal

Labour

Labour Notes

UNA’s Ethier
thanks CUPW

TORONTO — Margaret Ethier,
president of the United Nurses of
Alberta, told delegates to the recent
special CUPW convention here of the
affinity between her union and the
inside postal workers organization.

Collecting a cheque from the -con-
vention for $10,000 for the Friends of
Alberta Nurses solidarity fund, a fund
set up on the UNA’s behalf by the
Alberta Federation of Labour, Ethier
told the delegates that both unions
share the same militant commitment to
democratic, rank-and-file trade union-
ism, and to placing the collective bar-
gaining rights and contract gains above
anti-union and strike-breaking legisla-
tion.

Noting the outpouring of public as
well as the country-wide trade union
support for the nurses’ 19-day strike,
Ethier claimed a solid victory for her
members 'in defeating government-
inspired contract rollbacks and win-
ning a good wage increase. Every gain
the nurses have ever made in Alberta,
she told the delegates, has been the
result of the nurses having to take strike
action.

“There comes a time when you have
to decide to take a stand and fight.
There’s no choice in the matter,” Ethier
said. “You either fight and take a
chance or you do nothing and lose it
all.”

Telecom workers
set strike target

BRAMPTON — Unless manage-
ment at Northern Telecom gets off the
dime in regards to CAW demands for
pension improvements, more than
5,000 plant and office workers in Onta-
rio and New Brunswick were expected
to strike at Il a.m., Feb. 29.

The major hurdle to a settlement is
Northern’s refusal-of the union de-
mands for indexing pensions to infla-
tion and raising benefits for current
pensioners.

Both production and clerical workers
at the five locations voted 94 per cent in
favour of strike action.

Machinists to elect
Canadian leader

OTTAWA — The tide of Canadian
autonomy has reached the Interna-
tional Association of Machinists, the
13th largest union in Canada. The IAM
executive’s recent decision to change
the constitution providing for the
union’s top Canadian official to be
exclusively elected by Canadian mem-
bers capped a 20-year battle for Cana-
da’s recognition within the union as a
separate country.

Previously, the Canadian vice-presi- _

dent was elected along with the other
officers throughout North America ina
membership-wide referendum vote.
While not providing complete auto-
nomy for Canadian IAM members, the

6 + Pacific Tribune, March 2,.1988

executive recommendation to next
April’s international convention brings
the Machinists union more into line
with the Canadian Labour Congress’
autonomy guidelines.

NUPGE set to
fight privatization

OTTAWA — The union federation
representing provincial public employ-
ees intends to launch a campaign
against privatization when its biennial
convention meets in Regina next
month.

The 292,000-
member Nation-
al Union of
Provincial Gov-
emment Employ-
ees, NUPGE,
Canada’s second
largest union,
will gather under
the banner of
“Public services
for People ... Be eth
not for Profit”,

March 4-6. spi

NUPGE president John Fryér sees
privatization as “more than just the
transfer of government services from
the public to private sector ....”

“It is a symptom of a mindset on the
part of government that people don’t
count — that profit is more impor-
tant.”

Privatization affects NUPGE mem-
bers and other Canadians throughout
the country, said Fryer, pointing to
what he called “hidden”’ privatization,
where governments cut social pro-
grams which then are taken over by
private operators. Private profit-oriented
day care services and nursing home
chains wouldn’t have a market if
governments were providing adequate
services, he said.

LCUC looks at
merger vote

OTTAWA — The leadership of the
22,000-member Letter Carriers Union
of Canada was slated to meet Feb.29 to
mull over the idea of recommending a
referendum vote to the membership on
whether merger talks should be opened
with the Canadian Union of Postal
Workers. :

Bound by a 1981 convention deci-
sion barring LCUC officers from enter-
ing any merger talks, the referendum
idea could provide the letter carriers
with an opening to solve a thorny prob-
lem presented by the recent Canada
Labour Relations Board decision creat-
ing a single bargaining unit in the
department currently shared by CUPW,
LCUC and some smaller unions.

Both unions are looking for a way to
respond to the shotgun marriage being
enforced by the CLRB ruling, on terms
that will reflect their respective bargain-
ing needs and desire for solidarity in
confronting Canada Post manage-
ment.

CUPW is on record for developing
one postal workers union at Canada
Post.

GUPW convention’s

program of action —

targets Tory govt

TORONTO — Canada’s inside postal
workers have come out swinging with an
action campaign aimed at defeating the fed-
eral Tory government and its plans to pri-
vatize the post office.

The campaign, initiated by the top lead-
ership of the Canadian Union of Postal
Workers in the wake of. federal back-to-
work legislation ending last October’s
strike, was given official backing by 281
delegates to a special convention here Feb.
21-23. They voted to finance it with a $2-
million transfer, over the next two years,
from CUPW’s defence fund. The two-and-
a-half day meeting also adopted constitu-
tional amendments aimed at further
democratizing the process for appealing
internal union. charges, and broadening
local input for the Quebec regional leader-
ship.

The action pro-
gram represents the
union’s response to
Bill C-86, the Mul-
roney government’s
back to work legis-
lation; the media-
tion-arbitration pro-
cess under federal
judge Cossette dir-
ected at dismantling :
CUPW’s collective -
agreement; and Can- PARROT
ada Post’s five-year business plan, which the
union predicts could wipe out about 8,700
jobs by 1990-91.

The program combines action on a
broad front — from challenging the consti-
tutionality of C-86 in the courts to waging a
public relations campaign in defence of pos-
tal workers’ bargaining rights and blocking
management’s five-year plan to privatize
post office services — culminating ina pol-
itical action campaign aimed at turfing the
Tories from office in the forthcoming fed-
eral elections.

One national and twelve regional co-

ordinators have been appointed to conduct
the fightback campaign.

It also includes keeping up the pressure in
the union’s campaigns to win anti-scab leg-

islation, to determine how much money was ©

spent during the strike to hire police as a
strikebreakers, and to ensure that Canada
Post is held financially responsible for the
cost.

The boycott against contracting sub-post
offices out to small businesses will continue

to be a key aspect of the campaign for jobs

and to restore CUPW’s rights.

The union estimates that a network of
some 2,400 sub-post offices has been
created throughout the country as the
government hands out franchises to its
friends.

The convention balanced between a mil-
itant anda troubled mood. While the
majority endorsed the action program and

' the entire convention rose to applaud the

$10,000 donation from the Toronto local to
the solidarity fund for Alberta nurses, dis-
unity haunted the convention.

The Montreal: local, supported by a
number of delegates from southwest Onta-
rio, sought to block everything from the
financing of the action plan and the consti-
tutional amendments, to a measure making
it possible for the union to offer loans to
individual suspended members who are left

without wages, while fighting lengthy arbi-
trations.

When they couldn’t defeat the national
executive board’s proposals, they set loose
a flurry of procedural delaying tactics which
resulted in a four-hour wrangle to decide the
convention agenda. There was also a frus-
trating ritual of recording individual dis-
senting votes on each of 25 or more
constitutional amendments.

At the heart of the dispute is the decade-
long, running battle between the national
office and the Montreal local. Itagain came
to the surface last fall when the local broke
with the national strategy of rotating strikes
in favour of a general strike in Montreal and
openly attacked the national bargaining
program.

In addition, the local took the national
executive board to court last fall over the
union’s decision to buy the building housing
CUPW headquarters, and officials from the
Montreal local have also threatened to
mount a legal challenge against the $2-
million diversion from the defence fund for
the action plan.

Montreal delegates, led by president
Marcel Perrault, denounced the constitu-
tional améndments as a plot directed
against the local.

They were answered by delegates from
across the country, including a number of
Quebec locals, who emphasized the need
for maximum unity within CUPW ranks
when the union confronts the boss.

Citing what he called “stupid” and “‘con-
fused” opposition to national bargaining
program, CUPW vice-president Daryl

Tingley defended the amendments to the —

appeal procedure as a necessary precondi-
tion for the next round of talks, which could
come in July or September.

Tingley and other proponents of the
changes made it clear they were seeking an
unbiased process that would allow the
members to charge anyone who broke
ranks with the union in critical strike and
bargaining situations.

Citing the Montreal local’s campaign
against the program of demands and the
strike strategy as one of the reasons Canada
Post felt they didn’t need to deal with
CUPW, he warned: “We can’t go through
another period of such disruptions and
allow a situation to exist where we take
away the leadership’s ability to go to the
bargaining table without the union’s full
support.”

Critics of the appeal procedure amend-
ments argued it was a ploy to strengthen the
national executive board’s power over the
regions, but this didn’t convince most of the
delegates who endorsed the changes.

Jeff Beny of the Toronto local wona loud
ovation when he pointed out that in fact the
reform placed the ultimate decision on
appeals in the hands of an elected body
representing all of the union’s regions, thus
reducing some of the executive’s powers.

Defending the union’s fight against roll-
backs at the bargaining table, Beny lashed
out at those who accused the leadership of
being soft on rollbacks.

“In Toronto, in the past, we’ve had our
problems with the national bargaining
demands and we’ve made our views known.
But once the majority of the members of
this union speak on those demands, we all
speak to the boss with one voice,” he said.

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