LABOR

‘Duplicity’
charged
by Trades

Continued from page 1

Two contractors are already before the
Labor Relations Board. seeking cease-and-
desist orders to halt the rotating job action
but Cana could seek an expedited hearing at
_ which the board would have to determine
whether the Building Trades have the legal
right to take job action. That right hinges on
whether Expo construction is considered an
“integrated site.” And under the amended
definition of “construction project” — now
defined as a “separate and distinct
undertaking” — the board could rule that
each separate contract so far awarded on
the Expo site is a separate construction pro-
ject. If it ruled accordingly, the Trades could
not legally use their non-affiliation clauses

since the Kerkhoff contract would be consi- -

dered as distinct from the other projects
involving union contractors. .

Failing that, the Socred cabinet could
proclaim Section 73.1 and declare Expo to
be an “economic development project,”
thus empowering the LRB to determine
what, if any, rights the Building Trades have
on the site.

Either way, ‘the Building Trades would be ~

caught in a vice — engineered by the
Socreds.

The latest statement from Expo has also
underscored the charge that the Crown
corporation and the Socred government
never wanted a negotiated agreement.

In fact, the government and the Expo
board were forcing the Building Trades “to
negotiate in a sea of duplicity and dishon-
esty,” Gautier chargéd in his statement. _

“Through these lengthy negotiations, up
to and including the final agreement, we
had assurances from (Expo chairman Jim)
Pattison that the government was approv-
ing critical provisions,” he said.

“But someone must have been lying,” he
charged, calling on Pattison to “identify the
guilty party” whose decision scuttled the
tenative agreement that had been worked
out.

Gautier emphasized that Pattison in the
presence of deputy labor minister Graham
Leslie, had given the Building Trades repre-
sentatives assurances that he had a “‘com-
mitment from the president of Kerkhoff

Construction, Bill Kerkhoff, to accept and

abide by the agreement we had reached.”

Gautier also declared that the Building
Trades would be reléasing- more details
“about the whole scam of negotiations” in
the wake of Bartlett’s threat.

Also on Tuesday, unemployed Building
Trades workers began a leafletting cam-
paign outside B.C. Place Stadium to protest
the Expo board’s action and said that
further action would be initiated in the days
to come.

The leaflet charged that the threat to
declare an economic development project at
Expo would “eliminate the right of:workers
to have a say in their wages and working
conditions. . .in the name of ‘democracy in

the workplace.’ ”

It demanded that all Expo construction ~
workers receive the full wage and benefit
package and working conditions negotiated
in the construction industry.

Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5. Phone 251-1186

Name
Address

ee

READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 4, 1984

Ve SRNR eS

The B.C. Federation of Labor last
week issued a hot declaration against ©
U.S.-owned Slade and Stewart Ltd. to
block efforts by the company to break
the union at its four operations in B.C.

“Strikebreakers and scabs have been .
hired and almost military-style methods
are being employed by Slade and Stewart
in their efforts to break the union,” fed-
eration secretary-treasurer Mike Kramer
said in a statement.

“The federation will not stand by and
allow the pre-planned destruction of a
union...” he said:

Slade and Stewart locked out members
of Local 580 of the Retail Wholesale
Union in Vancouver, Kamloops, Ter-
race and Penticton May 18 after stone-
walling negotiations for more than 14
months. The company, owned by the
U.S. multinational Pacific Gamble
Robinson Inc., is a wholesale distributor
of groceries and produce to hotels, res-
taurants and institutions.

‘The anti-union campaign was appar-
ently undertaken by representatives of
the U.S. owners who have since moved
to bring scabs in under the protection of
security guards.

A Kamloops and District Labor
“Council delegate told. the Operation
Solidarity meeting June 18 that the com-
pany had hired 31 scabs — nearly three
times the number of regular employees
— and was attempting to maintain
operations in that city.

He noted that the company had put a
barricade up on the door that “left only
enough room for a gun barrel.” Action
by the union and the labor council, how-
ever, succeeded in getting it removed.

Scab truck drivers and warehouse
workers have also been hired by the

Ee Pr a eg tee ee ee ee ee a

Postal Code

lam enclosing 1 yr. $1400 2yrs.$250) 6mo. s30 Faveign 1 yr. $200) -
Bill me later [] Donations........

o company in its Vancouver operations.

re ee ee
ee

RY a Bie ie ae ek ker

=.

gg Oat,

Pickets outside Slade and Stewart warehouses in east Vancouver.

Hot edict backs RWU

Far more.numerous are the security
guards, some of them armed with billy
clubs, who maintain an around-the-
clock watch, checking licence numbers
on cars driven by picketers and any oth-
ers who stop.

Guards employed by Martel Security,
a Langley-based firm, twice checked
plates on the car when the Tribune
stopped to talk with union members out-
side the Vancouver warehouse.

RWU representative Al Peterson has
charged that the U.S. management “has
set out to run the operations-non-union
after 32 years.” The union got its first
contract with Slade and Stewart after a
strike in 1952, the only other time union
members have been on the picket line.

Hotels and other institutions being
supplied by scab-run operations are
being told that the company is “running
non-union.’

pickets

“That’s totally unacceptable to us,”

Peterson said, adding that the union “is |

there for the duration.”

Wages are the key issue in the lockout. |

“The employer wanted us to accept

wages based on profitability — andthey © a

would determine how profitable they
were,” Peterson said. The contract
expired Mar. 31, 1983.

A union campaign has succeeded in
cutting down the company’s extensive

customer list throughout the province —
unionists have been asked to watch for}

Slade and Stewart’s own ‘Snoboy,”

“Standby” and “Sunshine” labels — and ~
that is expected to be reduced still further —

as a result-of the hot declaration.
The B.C. Fed statement also followed

a resolution of support form the Van- ;

couver and District Labor Council June
19 urging that the full support of the

labor council be given the RWU in the

dispute.

Staff shortage cuts mail

- The Canadian Union of Postal

Workers charged last week that Canada
Post has been deliberately following a
policy of understaffing, resulting in

major delays in postal delivery.

CUPW Vancouver local president
Evert Hoogers said June 26 that post
office management has “refused abso-
lutely” to fill positions left vacant by
transfer, resignation or retirement of
union members. As a result mail often
sits for several days before it is processed,
he said.

“The downtown depot, where postal
clerks process mail for the entire down-
town Vancouver core has been particu-

larly hard hit, he said, noting that lack of
staff has resulted in a backlog of

Kamloops civic workers out

Some 450 members of the Kamloops
civic workers unit of Local 900 of the
Canadian Union of Public Employees
launched strike action June 26 against
attempts by the municipal bargaining
association to impose a management-

dictated work scheduling agreement.
~ Union negotiators have indicated
willingness to sign the same agreement

tee ee by CUPE elsewhere in the

“hundreds of thosuands of pieces of
mail, much of it first class mail.”

Management has claimed that the ref- |
-usal to fill vacant positions is based on

directives from Canada Post in Ottawa
to increase the. Crown corporation’s
“self-sufficiency.”

But that policy is without regard for
service, Hoogers said.

“CUPW is of the opinion that it is
high time the corporation changed its
rigid policy of deleting any and all posi-

tions of inside postal workers that —
- become vacant,” he said. “Unless imme-

diate steps are taken to staff the post
office properly, service standards will
plummet, Canada Post will lose revenue
accordingly and labor relations will
reach a new low.”

Okanagan but the employers bargaining

“arm, Okanagan Mainline Municipal

Labor Relations Association(OMMLRA)
has insisted on a local agreement includ-
ing the work scheduling concession.

The union has also asked that Kam-
loops city council become involved but it

has so far refused, insisting that it will not

interfere with OMMLRA bargaining.

See oe