Saskatchewan Fed targets Devine Tories

— page 4

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Vol. 46, No. 43

Focus shifts
but fight

over bills
not settled

By FRED WILSON

The public sector strike has beén call-
ed off, and with a limited victory in
hand Operation Solidarity and the
Solidarity Coalition must now turn
their attention to a political process to
fight out their social and political
demands.

The unprecedented strike action by
government employees and teachers,
and the preparedness of the rest of the
Public sector to follow in escalating ac-
tion shook the Socred government and
won solid achievements. Bill 2 has been
Scrapped. Bill 3 has been circumvented.
Bill 5, 20 and 27 have been blocked,
temporarily at least. The B.C. Govern-
Ment Employees Union was, in Cliff
Andstein’s words, able to win a “‘no
concession agreement.”’

None of this would have been possi-
ble without the highest degree of labor
unity ever achieved, or without the
Working relationship of labor and its
allies in the community through the
Solidarity Coalition.

But the strike action has terminated
Short of concrete accomplishments to
Meet the demands of the Solidarity
Coalition, for the withdrawal of the
legislation introduced to implement the
Social Credit budget.

ANALYSIS

Indeed, the agreement which ended
the strike is not a settlement; it simply
shifts the focus of struggle from the
Picket line to direct meetings between

lidarity and the government.

The actual agreement had been
Worked out in negotiations between a
Small group of Operation Solidarity
leaders and government representatives
€ven before the BCGEU won its con-
tract. B.C. Federation of Labor first
Vice president Jack Munro took the
4greement to Bennett in Kelowna and
Secured his approval of aso called ‘‘con-
Sultative process”’ to resolve Solidarity’s
Social and political demands.

€ nine point agreement calls for:
® Bill 2 to die in its present form, the
BCGEU and North Vancouver
hers’ contracts to serve as models
for €xemptions from Bill 3;

@ No reprisals against any strikers;

® Ministerial consultation on Bill 5
(Residential Tenancy Act) to work out a
. Mediation mechanism.” This would.

lude some form of limited role for a
€ntalsman or substitute body;

. © Establishment of an outside ad-
visory commission on Bill 27 (Human
Righis Act), with no immediate action
On the Bill. The Human Rights Com-

See GOV'T. page 12

rattled gov't strate

gists

— page 3

‘We'll expect results
from talks,’says labor
as strike ‘truce’ made

£
3

Solidarity leaders (I to r) Jack Adams (BCGEU), Mike Kramer (BC government would be monitored, and job action would again be
Fed), Owen Dykstra (CUPE) and Larry Kuehn (BCTF) announce forthcoming if the Socreds were found to be ‘just playing
‘truce’ at BCGEU building late Sunday night. Kramer said the games.

The Solidarity Coalition and the labor

‘movement will be ‘expecting some tangi-

ble results”? to come from the “con-
sultative process’ set up by Operation
Solidarity and the Bennett government,
B.C. Federation of Labor president Art
Kube told the Tribune Monday.
And the results that have been achiev-
ed will be reviewed in two weeks time
when Operation Solidarity makes a
report to the annual B.C. Federation of
Labor convention Nov. 28. “And we

‘may have to mobilize again — certainly

the fight is far from over,” said Kube.
Bee Fed president and co-chair of
the Solidarity Coalition made him com-

work following a bout with the flu which
had removed him — although he was in
constant touch by telephone — from the
swiftly-moving events that led to picket
lines being brought down just after mid-
night Nov. 14.

The most dramatic of those events
began at 4:30.p.m. Sunday as the B.C.
Government Employees Union emerged
from more than 30 continuous hours of
bargaining to announce that a collective
agreement had been reached allowing the
union to be exempted from Bill 3 and set-
ting up an elaborate system of seniority
that covers the provincial civil service —
an agreement that was weeks in the mak-
ing.

Then, in the early evening, IWA presi-
dent Jack Munro flew to Kelowna along
with Deputy Premier Norman Spector
and B.C. Fed communications director
Gerry Scott for a summit meeting with
Premier Bennett.

The agreement had reportedly been
reached some days before during a closed
door meeting between Operation
Solidarity, Spector and the Employers’
Sein canny Jim Matkin but the

refinements on an agreement were
made in Bennett’s home.

At 10:30 p.m., only 90 minutes before
the next escalation of the public sector

See PROGRESS page 3

ments in an interview on his return to