LABOR CUPE brief demonstrates threat against union rights “4 In May of this year, John Calvert, a senior member of the research department of the Cana- dian Union of Public Employees released an interesting paper entitl- ed Legislative Attacks on Union Rights in the 1970°s. In his introduction, Calvert gives asummary of his casein the follow- ing, concise terms: @ Governments in Canada have systematically attempted to undermine the bargaining power of @ There is a clear pattern of new anti-labor legislation at both @ The trade union movement should begin to do some basic re- thinking about the role it plays in the legislation, but simply for fail- ing to instruct his members to return to work.”’ The role of provincial govern- ments subsequent to 1978 is sum- marized in this fashion: @ In Alberta, the Lougheed government imposed six percent limits for public sector workers in 1979 and seven to eight and one- half percent guidelines for 1980 and, instead of bargaining in good faith, provoked strikes of jail . guards and nurses and resorted to court injunctions to stifle trade union rights. @ In Saskatchewan, the courts ruled that a strike of provincial government employees was illegal because a majority of union members: did not vote for strike, Labor Comment employers 1975 to curb the development of unions and reduce the real standard of living of working people. This campaign, he claims was ushered in by the federal government’s so- called anti-inflation program. “‘demon- strated quite clearly how effective government legislation could be in undermining union power. It also revealed how vulnerable the labor movement was to government-in- itiated attacks on free collective bargaining. The real wages of workers declined by over five per- cent as a result of controls. Many groups of workers, especially in the public sector, suffered much more.’ The paper notes that the period of controls encouraged employers to take the offensive: ‘‘. . . public and private employers throughout British Columbia began to come to the bargaining table with long lists of negative amendments to existing collective agreements. They wanted to remove sick leave. They wanted to abolish service severance pay. They wanted to exclude more and more part time, casual and stu- dent workers from bargaining units. They wanted to re-assert managerial prerogative over pro- motion, discipline and discharge. The pattern established in B.C. has now spread across the country, as more and more employers come to the bargaining table demanding reductions in established terms and conditions of employment.” The federal government is sharply criticized for adopting a reactionary stand towards public sector bargaining: ‘It began to im- pose new limitations on the issues which unions could negotiate and the right of the union to strike. This new strategy was revealed most clearly in the 1978 dispute with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. The strike was begun asa perfectly legal method by which union members could support their granted demands for a decent contract. However, the federal government quickly enacted legislation which retroactively made the strikeillegal. And the leader of the Postal Workers, Jean-Claude Parrot, was jailed, not for actively denouncing - “Jack Phillips even though a majority of those who voted did so in favor of strike. @ In Quebec, in the summer of 1979, atotal of over 200,000 educa- tional and hospital workers, after months of frustration. at the bargaining table, prepared to goon strike. The provincial government reacted by legislating a 90-day “cooling off period.’’ An agree- ment was reached but only under threat of more repressive legisla- tion. @ In December, 1980, 18,000 CUPE members at Quebec Hydro went on strike. A month later, they were legislated back to work and the legislation imposed a four-year collective agreement about which they had no say. @ Last winter, Montreal’s 5,000 outside civic workers, organized in CUPE, went on strike and were sent back to work by yet another order-in-council from the Quebec government. The main isue in the strike was not money, but contracting-out. The local union had lost some 2,000 members in the previous three years as a result of contracting-out. Calvert also recalls that the B.C. provincial legislature passed Bill 46 in December 1978, to break a strike of CUPE college and school board workers in the Kootenays. That bill also placed municipal and school board workers under the Essential Service Disputes Act. This meant that any other school or municipal - local that went,on strike could be ordered back to work by an order- in-council. anti-labor legislation is not confin- ed to the public sector. An example given is the notorious Michelin Bill, enacted-as an amendment to the Nova Scotia Labor Code. It states that when an employer’s opera- tions at two or more locations within the province are found to be interdependent, the employees of all sites must be included in a single unit before certification can be . That had the effect of nullifying the result of a certifica- tion vote in one of the plants which had been won by the union con- cerned. What made this bill unique was that its only application was to one employer; and the only reason for the. bill. was. to appease. the... PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT. 18, 1981—Page 12 .ship involvement. Michelin Company which bluntly told the government it would not build a new factory unless the union’s organizing drive was defeated. The conclusions that Calvert of- fers, while’rather general, are in- teresting: ‘‘It is time governments were told to stop meddling in the internal affairs of unions. It is time the governments were told to end the numerous restrictions on union activities. It is time the govern- ments were told to stop telling union members how they should carry out their bargaining. And it is time that governments were told that working people, not the COr-w porations, are the ones that should = be deciding on what kind of struc- 2 tures best suit their needs.” 5 | designed by employers and govern- 5 : ments to minimize membership in- € -— —_ volvement. ‘‘...they have attemp- - ted to shackle the labor movement with a wide range of legal restric-: tions which make it difficult, if not impossible, for members to be in- volved directly in the bargaining . They have also passed legislation which makes it extreme- ly difficult to expand the practice of internal union democracy by allowing the Labor Relations Board to intervene in matters which ought to be the sole prerogative of the membership. And they have pushed up the costs of bargaining and grievance pro-. cedure to a level which frequently prevents unions from achieving justice.” While Calvert does not offer any specific remedy to cure the ills he draws attention to, he pointedly - asks why collective agreements should be legally binding. ‘‘Such agreements deny us the right to strike over grievances or to re- negotiate in response to new employer initiatives. It seems that the only benificiaries are the employers who are guaranteed a compliant labor force once an agreement has been signed. Moreover, they are also assured that unions cannot provide any of- ficial support. to workers who become so frustrated with condi- tions that they walk off the job.” The paper points out that in Bri- tain and other countries, unions have been able to function quite well without legally binding con- tracts. It there is any weakness in the document, it is that it does not mention, let alone emphasize, the role of mass struggle and solidarity in breaking through the legal bar- - riers the bargaining system has erected in Canada. A good ex- ample is the recent B.C. Telephone workers’ strike. Before it was over, telephone workers had occupied a number of key telephone buildings and the first of a number of plann- ed, regional general strikes had taken place. Also, the strike was highlighted by a very high level of “picket line solidarity shown by other unions. However, all in all, Calvert’s paper is yet another reflection of some of the new currents that are emerging in the trade union move- ment, with their questioning of the status quo and their demands for less legal restrictions, less bureaucracy and more member- ee ee More than 12,000 people, including these unionists protesting the jailing of such union leaders as CUPE’s Grace Hartman, marched in Toronto Sept. 7 for that city’s traditional Labor Day parade. Soaring — interest rates were a main target at this year’s event. OnieH LEABERS at dhl. B.C. Federation of Labor ex- ecutive director Jim Kinnaird last week called for the dismissal of Dr. John Gibbings, director of medical services for the Workers’ Compensation Board, for offering doctors a means to circumvent a recent decision by the B.C. Court of Appeals giving workers access to their WCB files. In an historic decision Feb. 10, Appeals Court Justice John } Bouck ruled that claimants ‘} must be given access to files when appealing WCB decisions against them. The decision climaxed a lengthy court battle in which two workers, Vincenzo Napoli and Antoine Bordin, had sought the right to see the files which affected their cases. But in a letter Aug. 18 an- nouncing the WCB decision not to appeal further, Gibbings call- ed the Appeals Court ruling ‘‘a retrograde step in the compen- sation system’? — and offered doctors a possible means to ) get around it. ' “Telephone conversations with a board doctor on a doctor- to-doctor basis will be consider- ed privileged communication and I can assure you that they will be kept confidential,” he said. . Gibbings’ suggestion promp- ted an angry reaction from Na- poli’s lawyer, Craig Paterson who denounced it as ‘‘a flouting of the law,’’ a charge that was echoed by the labor federation. “Doctors who so wish can now simply inform WCB doc- tors verbally of things they do not want to put in a worker’s file, even though they may be important to a worker’s case,” Kinnaird said in a statement Sept. 9. “This man’s (Gibbing’s) ac tions in this case are far removed from his authority and he WCB doctor slammed over open file issue should be dismissed from his position,”’ he declared. An equally disturbing part of Gibbings’ letter, however, was the statement — later buttressed by a ruling by two WCB com- missioners — that employers ae equal rights”’ to view the ile. Interestingly enough, the let- ter in which Gibbings made the statement was sent out Aug. 20 — some 11 days before the for- mal decision to give employers access was rendered by WCB commissioners M. L. Parr and J. Miyasawa. Significantly, the decision to give employers access was not part of the Appeals Court — which referred only to workers’ right to access — and was ap- parently made unilaterally, re- flecting the pro-employer bias of the board. In contrast, the WCB resisted Napoli’s demand for access through several years of judicial proceedings. In seeking to justify the deci- sion, the two. commissioners cited a report from Ontario on the confidentiality of health in- formation as well as a recent Ontario government White Paper on workers’ compensa- tion. But as a lawyer Paterson pointed out, the Ontario pro- posals — and they are only pro- posals, and are not law — were the result of several inquiries in- cluding a royal commission. To give employers access to files, Paterson said in a letter to the Vancouver Province Sept. 14, is to invite them to contest WCB claims and to make ‘‘sen- sitive social, economic, employ- ment and medical. information ... available for use (and abuse) by third parties. “This use and abuse cannot be effectively controlled by the . WCB or workers,”’ he said.