THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER SMOLDERING UNREST... IWA Regional Ist Vice- President Jack MacKenzie re- ported to a meeting of the Vancouver Centre New De- mocrats June 27 that Federa- tion Secretary Ray Haynes and a group of Longshore- men’s Union officials were in Ottawa seekifig amnesty for ten longshoremen jailed for contempt of court. The ten men were jailed for three months June 17 by Mr. Justice Verchere of the Su- preme Court for failing to ob- serve an injunction obtained by employers which would have forced union members to work on the Victoria Day statutory holiday. The men chose to go to jail rather than pay a fine in what they called an act of civil dis- obedience. MacKenzie stated at the meeting that: “The action of the ten men in jail and the spontaneous action of trade unionists walking off the job in spite of the advice of their leaders is symptomatic of the smoldering unrest that a Be JACK MacKENZIE has spread through the ranks of workers in B.C.” He charged that injunctions have become a tool of man- agement and said “The law is wrong. What we have to do is teach our people how to cor- rect these laws. I don’t think '- we should place all the blame on the judiciary. “T believe labour in this in- stance should be blaming it- self — from the top echelons down — for not doing what it should to change anti- labour legislation. Our inac- tion is defeating the political ams and objectives of the B.C. Federation of Labour, which is to elect a New Demo- cratic Party government.” Four points were cited by MacKenzie as the cause of the present labour unrest: e The rise in the cost of. living. © Fear by workers about the security of their jobs in face of technological changes. © Indiscriminate granting of injunctions to employers. e “Unfairness” of manage- ment and news media in plac- ing blame for the. increasing cost of living on trade unions. .;. AND ONE OF THE REASONS WHY In the following article, Bob Dumphey, 1st Vice-President of the International Long- shoremen’s and Warebouse- men’s Union, explains why ten officers of his union defied a court injunction and elected jail sentences in preference to paying the fines imposed by the court. * * * The use of injunctions as a club against the labour move- ment has reached a climax with the jailing of the Presi- dent of our Canadian Area and nine of of Local Presi- dents for contempt of court. Since this is one of the clearest examples of the mis- use of the courts against labour, it is worthwhile to re- view the case in some detail. In essence the action which led to the jailing was an at- tempt by the Union to obtain their rights under law. The Canada Labour (Standards) Code provides ‘except as otherwise provided by this part, every employee is en- THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER Business Manager . Forwarded to ever ance with conven! per year. Advertising Representative... member ‘of the IWA. in Western Canada in nn decisions. Subscription rate for non-members titled to and shall be granted a holiday with pay on each of the general holidays falling within any period of his em- ployment.’ The only relevant exception is where the employee has not worked at least 15 days out of the last 30 days. It is also provided that where an employee is required to work on the holiday he will receive at least time and one-half for his work on that day, in ad- dition to his holiday pay. Notwithstanding the clear language of the Act, the Maritime Employers Associa- tion has consistently refused to pay holiday pay to the great majority of longshore- men. They have based their refusal on the technicality that since longshoremen are dispatched separately to each job, they rarely work for 15 days on one operation. Thus a man who has worked full time for the preceding 30 days, may have worked five days for Canadian Stevedor- a WORKER tWesAt Published twice monthly as the official publication of the «>»? INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA, _ Western Canadian Regiona} Council No. 1. Affiliated with AFL-CIO-CLC 2859 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone 874-5261 PRESEN, UR: fT hy .... Fred Fieber .--. G. A. Spencer Authorized as Second Class Mail, Po3t Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash. is 27,500 copies printed in this issue. ing, 10 days for Empire Steve- doring, five days for Louis Wolfe & Son, etc., but not as much as 15 days for any one company. This sounds very plausible as a legal technicality, except that it contradicts the Asso- ciation’s own established prac- tice. Under the Canada Pen- sion Plan, each employer is required to contribute to the Plan until $79.20 has been contributed in respect of each employee. In the case of long- shoremen, this could mean that the employers’ group as a whole would have’ to con- tribute much more than $79.20, if they are considered separate employers. There, the Maritime Em- ployers Association has reg- istered itself as one employer for the purposes of the Can- ada Pension Plan, and makes only one set of deductions. But when it comes to pay- ment for statutory holidays, where it suits their purpose, they insist that each member of the Association is a separ- ate employer. On the basis of this hypo- critical technality, the long- shoremen have been deprived of the holiday pay which the Act clearly says they should have. To counter this cynical po- sition of the employers, the longshoremen refused to work on a statutory holiday as long as the employers refused to comply with the holiday pay law. This policy was carried out on Good Friday, when no 2nd Issue June, 1966 "LAW MUST EARN RESPECT" ; Prof. Horace Krever of the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto, stated at a recent industrial relations confer- ence that “there is an urgent need for reform of the law governing court injunctions in labour disputes.” For this remark alone, he deserves an accolade. But he did not stop there. He went on to detail the injustice of the present injunction Jaws and their application, and stoutly defended trade unionists who defy injunctions designed to curtail or eliminate picketing. — “I am deeply concerned,” he said, “with respect for the law. But that respect must be earned. It cannot be’ commanded if it is not deserved.” He said that, when he sees thousands of usually law- abiding citizens defying a law, he does not ask, “What is wrong with those people?” He asks, “What is wrong with the law?” Prof. Krever said that it was inevitable, considering the ease with which employers can obtain injunctions against unions, that union members should lose respect for the courts. The courts, he said, are too susceptible to being used by employers to thwart or even destroy unions. He defended the right of trade ‘unionists to resort to civil disobedience to bring about changes in the law, when all other attempts by. written and oral representa- tions had failed. : t “There is a conflict,” he said, “between an employer’s right to trade and the workers’ rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to use eco- nomic sanctions. Why should the courts always, and automatically, place the employer’s right of trade above all the other rights of the workers?” mali? By doing so, he contended, the state is intervening to strengthen the employer and weaken the union—and perhaps break a legal strike. To add to the injustice, unions have no right of appeal against interim injunctions. Prof. Krever urged federal and provincial govern- ments to act immediately to amend the laws on labour dispute injunctions, “There is no alternative to legislation,” he said, and deplored the tardiness of the politicians in acting on this troublesome issue. Prof. Krever’s incisive and outspoken comments, com- ing from an expert on law, offer a refreshing antidote to all the newspaper editorials denouncing labour’s defiance of injunctions. longshoremen reported for work. When Victoria Day was approaching, injunctions were served on the officers of the Union, requiring them to re- scind any instructions not to work on that day, and also re- - quiring that notices be posted to that effect, and that the Union advise the employers to that effect. Our President, Roy Smith, charged that the employers ‘wanted to force us and our membership to perform ‘a contract of personal service’ or in other words, to work when we felt that we were justified in not working and, frankly, did not want to work,’ and again, that ‘what the employers are really at- tempting to do is to club the entire membership of our Union into submission by asking the courts to put us in jail.’ When, on Victoria Day, the longshoremen still refused to work, ten of the Union’s leaders, including the Ca- nadian Area President, Roy Smith, were arrested for dis- obeying the court order. The arrested Union leaders appeared in court without a lawyer. In their defence, they confined themselves to mak- ing a statement condemning the whole procedure. Their statement condemned the pro- Canadian Transport. cess of clubbing Unions with injunctions. . It pointed out that the Union’s defence against one injunction in another case, had already cost $12,000 in legal fees and could run to $40,000 before it was finished. Considering all costs, includ- ing the salaries of officers and others involved in proceed- ings, five injunctions a year could cost the Union $400,000, almost equal to the whole cost of welfare benefits in the industry. In view of the prohibitive cost of fighting injunctions in court, and the manifest in- justice of this method of try- ing to deprive the Union of its right to protect its agree- ments and service the welfare of its members, Smith de- clared that the Union had de- cided to resort to civil dis- obedience against an unjust law. At the conclusion of the court hearings, Judge Ver- chere sentenced Smith to a $500.00 fine or three months in jail and the other nine offi- cers, a $400.00 moh ts fine or three involved and to make known es the decision was not on any move to be martyrs.