AIB wage rollback held
‘destructive, arrogant’

The B.C. Federation of Labor this week slammed the AIB rollback
of the settlement in the construction industry as ‘“‘the most destruc-
tive, stupid and arrogant action I have ever seen a gavernment take in
respect to industrial relations.”

Although the settlement reached in the construction negotiations —
providing for a 99-cent across-the-board increase — was the first time
in many years that agreement was reached without a strike or a
lockout, the AIB ruled that it exceeded the guideline figure of six per
cent and rolled the increase back to 85 cents.

The settlement had also been seen as particularly significant in that
even the trades outside the common front bargaining structure had
accepted the rates negotiated by those involved in joint bargaining.

“Now, with a totally unthinking stroke of a pen, the AIB has
jeopardized what the building trades have spent the last 10 years
developing,”’ Federation secretary Len Guy charged. ‘Furthermore,
I don’t believe that the money the industry saves on the rollback will
be passed on to consumers nor that the settlement was out of line to

begin with.

“The ATB rollback was completely unnecessary and uncalled for.”
Guy said that the settlement would have been good for ‘‘the province
the building trades and the economy”’ but was now threatened by the

Ottawa bureaucracy.

“This is just one more example of why there ought not to be outside
bureaucratic intervention in collective bargaining and why the AIB
should never have been set up in the first place,” he declared.

“Tf this rollback creates chaos in the construction industry, all the
politicians who support wage controls will have to share the blame.”

Food prices escalate

Cont'd from pg. 1

the inquiry committee — the fact
that it is made up of the
legislature’s standing committee
on agriculture and is dominated by
the Socreds with no consumer or
labor representation — it is not
expected to produce any startling
results or bring relief to B.C.
consumers who pay the highest
food prices in North America.

Added to the rising inflation rate,
which is hitting.at working people
and those on low incomes, and
especially Canada’s million and a
half unemployed, came the ad-
mission Monday from federal
manpower minister Bud Cullen
that estimates by his department
show rising jobless rates for the
next two years.

The secret figures, which the
embarrassed manpower minister
admitted to in the House under

questioning, showed that his
department expects the unem-
ployment rate to rise to 7.6 per cent
in 1979 from the present 7.3 per
cent.

Despite this official prediction,
Cullen said the Liberal govern-
ment has no plans to cope with the
serious unemployment problem
outside of the ‘‘incentives” offered
in finance minister Donald Mac-
Donald’s March 30 budget. The
disclosure of government studies
showing rising unemployment in
the next two years, and the AIB
figures showing a sharp rise in food
prices in May as part of a rising
inflationary trend, comes on top of
renewed statements by prime
minister Trudeau and finance
minister MacDonald that the
government intends to maintain its
freeze on workers’ wages for some
time to come, possibly until next
year.

U.S. interference hit

Cont'd from pg. 1

was also intended as a reply to the
religious community in B.C., three
of whose leading spokesmen from
the Anglican, Catholic and United
Church met recently with the
government caucus to protest the
Trident base and to urge adoption
of the Shelford resolution.

The three religious leaders who
wrote premier Bill Bennett and
later met with the Socred caucus —
Archbishop Somerville, Rev. A. G.
MacLeod and Archbishop Carney
— branded the Trident base as ‘a
horrifying example of the further
vertical escalation of nuclear
arms.” They protested that the
location of the base reflects dis-
regard by the U.S. for the lives of
all people in the Lower Mainland
and across Canada.

U.S. ambassador Enders
demand that the people of B.C.
tolerate and live with the Trident
nuclear missile sub base on their
doorstep, should be rejected.

B.C.’s church leaders con-
demned the expenditure of billions
of dollars onarms as an ‘“‘immoral
misuse”’ of economic resources in
a world where many millions are
forced to live in sub-human con-
ditions. Canadian expenditures on
arms has already moved Canada
into the position of being 11th out of
132 countries in military ex-
penditures, being one of 23 coun-
tries in the world which belongs to
the ‘‘billion-dollar’” club in arms
expenditures. 2

Warning that ‘‘the year begin-
ning now, prior to the convening

,

next May of the Special Session of
the UN General Assembly on
Disarmament, is humanity’s last
chance,” the Pacific Life Com-
munity group in B.C., which has
conducted a campaign against the
Trident base, issued a statement
this week calling for stepped up
action against the base.

“In the campaign to ‘stop
Trident, the most destructive
weapons system in history, this
summer is a last chance as shown
by the headline in the May 1 issue
of the Seattle P.I.: ‘The summer of
Trident: It’s full speed ahead on
the Bangor base.’ We believe that
the power of people resisting
Trident and the nuclear arms race
with their whole lives, over this
coming summer, fall, winter and
spring, will be decisive in deter-
mining the choice between
disarmament and nuclear war.”

‘Storm gathering’ despite
AIB guideline settlements

The October 14, 1976 protest
against wage controls saw more
than one million workers
demonstrate across Canada. Many
commentators, including myself,
said the Canadian trade union
movement had achieved a new
dimension. We wrote that the labor
movement had turned a new page,
that a positive and qualitative
change had taken place.

Looking back, I still. have that
opinion. However, I believe the
leadership of the Canadian Labor
Congress has failed to develop an
ongoing, aggressive strategy.
Instead, it has chosen to
discourage similar involvementiof
the membership, in favor of
meeting behind closed doors with
representatives of the Trudeau
government and big business.

While the CLC leaders are
wandering down a garden path
that will lead to betrayal unless
they turn back, the trade union
movement is operating within the
rules laid down by the Trudeau
wage control program. The unions
and their membership don’t like it,
but each union has been left on its
own.

I recently spoke to some union
officers involved in a particularly
difficult set of contract
negotiations. They told me they
had spent weary days and nights
arguing with employers’
representatives on union proposals
to take advantage of wage control
regulations in order to get a few,
small concessions in benefits
beyond the six percent guildeline.
The research people they are using
are experts in interpreting. the
rules of the anti-inflation board.
They advise unions how to get one
percent or even half a percent
above the guildline figure, for
example, in back service credits
for those building up their future
pensions — subject to roll-back by
the AIB.

In other cases, union officers
have told me, employers have
accepted the six percent wage
increase as a ceiling, with the idea
that the union has to fight for it,
ever to the point of going on strike.
That seems to be the case with the
negotiations involving the largest
union in B.C., the International
Woodworkers of America.

It this continues, and if the CLC
leadership agrees to some form of
“monitoring” after the end of

controls in order to hold wage

increases to a level acceptable to
the corporate elite, free collective
bargaining could be a thing of the
past.

Recently, I was at the University

of B.C. and I saw a number of
posters put up by the Association ,

of University and College Em-
ployers, Local 1.

“‘AUCE membership’s wages
rolled back by AIB,’’ the poster
proclaimed. ‘‘“AUCE members pay
back $454.00 each.”

Another poster said:

“UBC Faculty have received a

‘

local Tribune agent.

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wage increase offer of 6.25 percent
plus $386 (career adjustment). In
addition: the sum of $265,875 for
special adjustments to salaries;
and further, the sum of $531,750 to
be set aside pending..further
consideration of their salary scale.

“In contrast to the faculty
proposal, AUCE has been offered a
two-year package with a wage
offer of $42 in the first year and $32
in the second year. This increase
does not even cover the 4 percent
roll back of wages and the $454

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

every member has to pay the
university due to the AIB ruling.”

The joint. settlement by four
Steelworkers locals in the
Kootenays and two locals of the
Commerical and technical Em-
ployees also tells a significant
story. :

In the eight-page paper put out to
explain the settlement, I found
this:

“The Bargaining Council
decided it was better to take 36
cents across the Board than to take
the 36 cents in COLA by the end of
the first year. The AIB regulations
charge us as if we got the 36 cents
(COLA) right from the first day of
the new agreement. The
Bargaining Council felt it was
better to take $748 (36 cents a hour)
than $280.80 (COLA).”’

As a result the cost-of-living-
allowance (COLA) was put on ice
until January 1, 1978, to be

payable May 1, and every three:

months thereafter. In short, the
unions had to fight to get a set-
tlement within the AIB guidelines
(they tooka strike vote) and had to
drop their COLA protection for a
year inorder to get the six percent.

It is significant that 801 workers,
out of a total of 3302 who voted, cast
their votes for rejection.

Now we are informed the AIB
has rolled back the freely
negotiated settlement for 25,000
B.C. construction workers from 99
cents to 85 cents an hour. Following
the announcement of the the roll
back, the Building Trades Council

issued a bulletin stating, ‘the roll
back . .. completely disregards the
significance of the industry
agreement which meets the
guideline figure of 6 percent when
allowable exclusions for health,
welfare and pension plans are
taken into consideration.”

Jim Kinnaird, president of the
council said: ;

“Once again the bureaucrats
Ottawa have illustrated they are
completely out’ of touch with
reality. The 14 cents per hour roll-
back will not be passed on to the
purchaser of construction. In fact,
$4-5 million will be added to the
contractor profits in the next
twelve months. Most of the work
has already been let and a firm
contract price arrived at.”

It would be wrong to arrive at 4
pessimistic conclusion, or
suggest that nothing can be done 0
stop the inevitable. However it 1
significant that in Quebec, thé
recent -convention of the Col:
federation of National Trade
Unions voted to organize with othet
Quebec labor bodies a symboli¢
one-hour strike on October 14. It 8
also significant that at the same
convention, a motion to participate
in a provincial labor-management
government conference was
carried by only a vote of 527-308.
The 308 opposition votes demol
strated that there is no cleat
sailing for those who would like 10
tie the trade unions to schemes © _
improve the profit picture for thé
corporations. That is thé
significance of the 801 voyes
against the Kootenay settlement
referred to earlier.

A storm is gathering in the
labor movement. It is bound
break sooner or later. When it
does, it will sweep away most 0)
the attitudes and policies thal
stand in the way of a cant advance:

Energy sellout

Another giveaway of B.C. energy
to the U.S. appears to be looming 2
an application by Cominco Ltd.
now before the National Energy
Board, seeking permission
export 500 million kilowatt hours
annually.

The application is for a five yea!
licence and will go before a publi¢
hearing in Vancouver on July 7.
an

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 3, 1977—Page 12