B.C. FED CONVENTION

Delegates affirm:

‘No concessions’

Delegates to the annual convention of the
B.C. Federation of Labor voted unanim-
ously Monday to reaffirm the Canadian
Labor Congress stand on “no concessions”
in contract bargaining and to support affil-
iates in their efforts to make bargaining
gains in upcoming contract talks.

But in a year when major concessions are
being sought in the forest and construction
industries, that stand should also include a
co-ordinated bargaining strategy to meet

the employers’ drive, several delegates
warned as the 30th annual convention got
underway in Vancouver Nov. 25.

The executive council resolution, appen-
ded to the executive council report, noted
that negotiations involving 250,000 workers
will be coming up over the next seven
months.

DIANE JOLLY...federation needs co-
_ ordinated “battle plan’’.

It was later buttressed by several other
resolutions, opposing two-tier wage struc-
tures and contracting out and urging action
by the B.C. Federation of Labor to combat
concessions.

It was the single reference to concessions
in the executive council report which con-
centrated on economic policy, contrasting
the Macdonald Commission report with the
People’s Commission Report.

But the employers’ drive, not only for
concessions but against trade unionism
itself is very quickly going to emerge as an
issue, Carpenters delegate Bill Zander told
the 835 delegates in the opening session.

“The employers are exploiting unem-
ployment to go after the Building Trades. If

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they can they'll smash the Trades — and I
want delegates to know that,” Zander said.

He warned that employers would proba-
bly try the same tactic as in Alberta where
Building Trades unions were locked out
and 25 hours later, the lockout was lifted
and workers were invited back to work at
substantially reduced rates.

“This time round, it’ll be the Building
Trades in the bucket,” he warned.

Fishermen’s Union delegate Homer
Stevens also emphasized that the executive
council “should give clear notice to employ-
ers that this federation won’t stand by while
workers’ rights are under attack.”

He urged the federation to set up a sys-
tem of co-ordination “to bring all the affil-
iates into action to defeat the aims of the
employers.”

IWA delegate Sy Pederson warned that
employers in the forest industry, “will be
coming at us in 1986 with demands for
major concessions.”

Carpenters delegate and Building Trades
Council president, Roy Gautier told del-
gates: “How we resist the employer attack
this year will determine the position of the
labor movement in 1986 and 1987.

“Tet me say to the construction employ-
ers, if they think they’ve got us on the
ropes — we’ve got to tell them it’s not
going to be that way,” he declared.

Hospital Employees Union delegate Jack
Gerow urged delegates to return the sup-
port that Building Trades workers had ear-
lier given public sector workers.

“That should be our battle cry — no
concessions in public sector, nor in the pri-
vate sector,” he said.

““You’ve said the employers have declared
war — now it’s time we worked out our
battle plan so we don’t become victims of
that war,” CUPE delegate Diane Jolly told
the convention to applause.

Earlier, B.C. Fed president Art Kube said
in his opening address that employers were
“waging war on the trade unions” with the
encouragement and support of the provin-
cial government.

“As a trade union movement we have
been forced back into fighting for our very
existence and for the maintenance of basic
workers’ rights,” he said.

Delegates later endorsed a resolution cal-
ling on the federation to “develop a co-
ordinated bargaining strategy of industrial
unions with the objective of halting the
drive for concessions.”

It also committed the affiliates “to co-
ordinate solidarity action in defence of
unions fighting concessions and strike
breaking. ¢

“These solidarity actions should include
boycotts, mass picketing and all forms of
assistance including, if necessary, co-
ordinated work stoppages,” it stated.

The convention also adopted a resolution
supporting any “legitimate union in its fight
against the anti-labor policies of the provin-
cial government.”

A further resolution called on the federa-
tion to “co-ordinate whatever industrial
action is necessary with the Building
Trades, labor councils and non-affiliates to
resist anti-labor tactics.”

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is ets‘ en: nie nant aii sk ec ‘is eee

&

Convention endorses
11-point program |
to organize jobless

“We need the unemployed with us
as much as they need our help.”

With those comments from Car-
penters delegate Bill Zander, B.C.
Federation of Labor convention dele-
gates moved Tuesday to adopt an
ambitious program to organize the
unemployed and advance an alterna-
tive economic program to British
Columbians.

The campaign was outlined in a
four-page addendum to the report of
the federation’s unemployment
committee, which emphasized that
“the obliteration of unemployment in
B.C. will remain as the most impor-
tant task of the labor movement.”

The way to do that, it emphasized,
is to enact labor’s economic program
— and that, in turn, means defeating
the Social Credit government.

And unemployment is “the Achilles’
heel” of the Socreds, thé report noted,
adding that the “best weapon in the
battle to topple this government as the
first nécessary step to the fruition of
our economic solutions, is to begin
immediately to organize the unem-
ployed.”

It called on the federation to use the
full organizational potential of the
labor movement and the Unemploy-
ment Action centres around an 11-
point program:

® Co-ordinated participation in
the federal task force hearings into
unemployment insurance to ensure
that labor’s alternative policies are
presented;

® Wide publication in labor jour-
nals of labor’s economic program;

® Distribution of the program in
local communities with specific poli-
cies geared to that community;

@ Publication by the federation of
the entire program;

®@ Federation assistance in the
organization of conferences of the
unemployed sponsored by labor
councils in conjunction with com-
munity organizations and agencies;

© Organization, through unem-
ployed conferences, of escalating
demonstrative actions to demand
jobs;

@ Pressure on the Canadian Labor
Congress to implement the “action
plan to promote jobs and justice”
including a Canada-wide lobby for
jobs;

© Continued financial support for
Unemployment Action centres;

© Encouragement to local unions
to maintain unemployed members as
full, participating union members
with dues to be waived or reduced toa
nominal level;

® The establishment of unem-
ployment committees within local
unions which can co-ordinate their
work with the action centres;

® A federation news bulletin to
affiliates outlining the work of unem-
ployed groups and action centres.

Produced by the sub-committee of
the unemployment committee, the
addendum contrasted with the main
report — which offered little in the
way of action — and underscored the
growing demand among federation
affiliates for leadership around a
comprehensive program. .

Marineworkers delegate John Fitz-
patrick, chairman of the Vancouver
and District Labor Council’s unem-
ployed committee, cited the council’s
recent actions in publicizing labor’s

BOB (DOC) SAVAGE

economic program and organizing a —
conference of unemployed at which ©
some 200 took part as an example.

“It can be done, if the labor move-
ment takes the initiative,” he said.

It also means educating the public
about labor’s economic program
— and part of that “is beginning to
teach people why it is that they’re
unemployed,” declared UFAWU
president Jack Nichol.

“We have to start to expose the
system that can’t put our people to
work — and to tell people that tin- —
kering with free trade and special eco-
nomic zones isn’t going to put 250,000
unemployed to work,” he said.

Carpenters delegate Kate Braid,
herself unemployed, told delegates |
that the B.C. Fed had to speak out |
more frequently in support of the J].
unemployed. a

“They’re out there, individually
— they don’t have a public presence.
And the way we’re going to reach
them is if there is an outcry from the
federation every time there is an
increase in unemployment, every time
there is a layoff,” she said.

Zander echoed the call for federa-
tion action, emphasizing that the sup-
porters of Solidarity “didn’t go
away — they felt let down.

“The executive needs to spend a
little more time in plotting a course of —
action to get people out again.

He was given a thunderous ovation -
as he told delegates: “We need to have
the biggest mass rally this province
has ever seen on May I, 1986.”

Delegates also gave a standing ova-
tion to Bob (Doc) Savage a veteran of
the 1935 On-to-Ottawa Trek who
addressed the convention Tuesday.

He outlined the symbolic trek car-
ried out last June to mark the 50th
anniversary and noted that little had

changed in the way of government
policy except that Mulroney was
more cordial than R.B. Bennett had
been 50 years earlier.

“He gave us a smile and a hand-
shake,” he said. “But if we had 80,000
people outside Parliament we could -
have come back with a comprehen- —
sive work and wages agreement —
instead of a smile and a handclasp.” _

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 27, 1985