LABOUR

Labour action key to province’s future
BC. GOVERNMESL EMPLOVEES |

Two “parliaments” open this week — the
provincial legislature and the annual B.C.
Federation of Labour convention. Both will
seek to determine the political agenda for
B.C. in 1988, when the stakes will be raised
considerably over the confrontations of the
year past. :

Although political power rests with the
Socred majority in Victoria, it very well
could be the 800 or so trade unionists in
Vancouver that determine the province’s
future.

Vander Zalm’s legislature is complicated
by the fundamental problem that it lacks a
mandate for the Socreds’ far right plan to
restructure social relations. The premier
and the zealots surrounding him are eager

to push ahead swiftly with privatization,
free trade and union busting. But to do so
pushes against public opinion, and it invites
confrontation.

The B.C. Fed delegates have a very clear
mandate, summed up well by the extraordi-
nary conference of the B.C. Government
Employees Union which instructed that all
the resources of the union be marshalled to
do “whatever is necessary” to stop privati-
zation. ;

The conclusion suggested by the gov-
ernment’s zeal and its persistence in spite of
massive protest including a general strike, is
that an unprecedented escalation of struggle
to force an early election will be necessary.
That is not such a wild prospect. Pressure

BCTF sign-up

Continued from page 1

VESTA president Maureen MacDonald
said the two groups were holding a special
meeting Nov. 24, press time, to form a new
Vancouver Teachers Federation for the
purposes of collective bargaining. But, she
said, the two groups will for all other pur-
poses remain separate organizations.

The sign-up itself does not mean the
locals can then apply for certification
(allowed through an exemption on certifica-
tions announced last month by the B.C.
Federation of Labour. The BCTF, although
not a B.C. Fed member, supports the boy-
cott of the IRC.). Each local must then hold
a vote to certify under Sect. 131.2 of the
Teaching Profession Act.

Macdonald termed it an “absolutely
redundant vote,” and noted that it requires
a full majority (more than 50 per cent) of all
members of the local — rather than of

those who signed for the certification
vote — to become a valid mandate for a
certification application.
_ Following that vote, the locals whose
members opt for certification will apply to
the IRC, most likely within the first two
weeks of January, 1988, when teachers are
Officially included under provincial labour
legislation.

“T fully expect we'll have 75 local associa-
tions opting for union status,” said Macdo-
nald. “When you're a teacher and you
realize the only way your (school) board will
bargain with you is the union route, you’re
wise to vote for union protection.”

Inclusion under the province’s labor code
means teachers will be able to bargain over
working and learning conditions, some-
thing denied them under previous legisla-
tion.

for a provincial election could become a
central political factor, as the demand for a
federal election over free trade has become.
Neither Brian Mulroney nor Bill Vander
Zalm have democratic mandates for their
radical programs.

It will take more than another June | to
force Vander Zalm to seek a mandate, but
the months ahead provide the potential for
much more to take place.

Community, professional and political
organizations are beginning to mobilize and

.a conference of labour and community

organizations to fight privatization is
already set for Vancouver on Dec. 12. A
broad-based political movement uniting
labour and the community, capable of gen-
erating mass political action, has been miss-
ing since 1983. The coalitions that are
forming against privatization and free trade
could be the basis for re-establishing a mass,
extra-parliamentary opposition.

The bargaining calendar also is set up to
generate political and economic action,
surpassing anything seen since 1983. Major
public sector and private sector unions face
their employers over the next six months
and in each case, privatization and Bill 19
are interwoven into their contract negotia-
tions.

On Dec. 31, contracts covering over
11,000 municipal workers will expire. Three
months later, some 34,000 members of the
BCGEU will be seeking a new contract, and
if they have not already, they will be poised
to strike to save their union from privatiza-
tion.

On May |, the construction industry con-
tract expires and the contrcators have
already set the issue that could generate
strike action. If they decide to use the provi-
sions of Bill 19 to double-breast and take the
rest of the industry into the non-union sec-
tor, they will once again provoke a confron-
tation.

On June 1, the newly organized teachers’
unions will bargain their first collective
agreements under the provisions of the
Industrial Relations Act, and two weeks
later, on June 15, the entire forest industry
will be without a contract.

Job action against privatization seems
almost inevitable. If it is matched with a
broad-based political movement against
privatization, it could escalate to propor-
tions that will make government ‘itself the
issue.

The boycott of the Industrial Relations
Commission also will make the next six
months a series of labour relations land
mines that could explode at any time. But
wired together by co-ordinated bargaining
and timed to go off to bring the private
sector and public sector together against
privatization and Bill 19, it could, as an
Action Caucus statement put it this week,
“rock the system to the core.”

The delegates to the federation conven-
tion have the ability to set the political
agenda for B.C. next year. If they exercise
that power, the “other” parliament in Vic-
toria could be the last presided over by a
Vander Zalm government.

Hewison to speak
at Dec. 2 meeting

Communist Party cena! labour secre-
tary George Hewison will speak at a public
meeting in Vancouver, Wednesday, Dec. 2
at 7 pm, in Room 17, at the Vancouver
Trade and Convention Centre (Canada
Place).

' Hewison’s address will focus on the
fightback against free trade, privatization
and union busting across Canada. He has
attended the recent conventions of the
Ontario Federation of Labour, Nova Scotia
Federation of Labour and Manitoba Fed-
eration of Labour, and will be in Vancouver
to sit in on the B.C. Fed convention.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 25, 1987

LARRY BROWN .

The National Union of Provincial
Government Employees (NUPGE) put
the full weight of its member unions
across the country behind B.C. govern-
ment employees in their fight against pri-
vatization Thursday, pledging staff,
financial and research assistance and

“whatever help is needed, whenever it is
needed.”

NUPGE secretary-treasurer Larry
Brown told reporters during an emer-
gency NUPGE national board meeting
in Vancouver Nov. 19 and 20 that the
national union would do “everything we
possibly can to see that privatization is
stopped in this province —and across
the country.”

The: 40,000-member B.C. Govern-
ment Employees Union and the 5,500-
member Health Sciences Association in
this province are both affiliated with
NUPGE. ee

Brown said that union leaders coming
from other provinces had noted that
“two stories are competing for the head-
lines in B.C. — the government’s privat-
ization program and the waste and
corruption on the Coquihalla Highway.

“Premier Vander Zalm can make all
the purely ideological statements he
wants about the effectiveness and effi-
ciency of the private sector but the truth

-is that the massive sell-off of B.C. — if
that goes ahead — will see many more
Coquihallas, many more stories of work
not properly done, of costs spiralling out
control and contractors making incredi-
ble profits from their friends in govern-
ment,” he said.

Immediately, the national union will
assist the BCGEU and the HSA with
their publicity campaign, including
bringing people from Britain and the
U.S. “who have direct experience with
privatization and its destructiveness,”

. government employees across Canada backing BCGEU
fight against privatization.

Emergency NUPGE meet
backs unions’ campaign

Brown said. And as the campaign con-
tinues, the B.C. unions will outline what
support they need “and it will be pro-
vided,” he said.

At Thursday’s press conference, James
Clancy, president of the Ontario Public
Service Employees Union and Barb
Byers, president of the Saskatchewan
Government Employees Union, cited
the damage created by the privatization
of parks, ambulance service and high-
ways maintenance by the Devine
government in Saskatchewan and the
former Davis government in-Ontario.

“In Saskatchewan, road maintenance
means that you put a stick in the holes in
the road to warn people that they’re
there,” said Byers, adding that the
government staged a massive selloff of
highways equipment in 1984, making it
available to the private sector “for 10
cents on the dollar.”

But-in Saskatchewan, as in B.C., the
polls have demonstrated that it is only a
minority: which supports privatization,
she said.

Although Brown predicted aias an
effective campaign “will turn privatiza-
tion back”, he emphasized that the union
“won’t go away” if Vander Zalm pro-
ceeds with the sell-off program despite
the public opposition.

“We're not going to capitulate and
neither are the BCGEU and the HSA,”
he said.

He added that NUPGE would sup-
port “whatever action is necessary to
stop privatization.”

Brown also emphasized that unionists
could not simply look to a provincial’
election in the hope of defeating the pro-
gram at the polls. ‘““We can’t wait another
three years — we are going to deal with
Vander Zalm right now,” he said.

a yd i a a a i de A

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