Laborers to pay up

Union back into affiliation fol-
lowing the international’s deci-
sion to resume per capita pay-
ments — but turned down an
appeal by a number of building
trades locals to allow direct af-

ions, including all 40 locals of
the Carpenters Union in this
province appeared before the
CLC executive council meeting
June 17 to urge the CLC to al-
low both construction and in-
dustrial locals of the building
trades willing to pay CLC per
capita to affiliate through pro-
vincial federations of labor.

B.C. Federation of Labor ex-
ecutive director Jim Kinnaird
also went before the council to
back the building trades locals’
appeal and to urge support for
the B.C. Fed resolution which
also advocated affiliation of
building trades locals through
provincial federations.

But after reportedly discuss-
ing it all day, the CLC turned
down the appeal.

Also rejected was another ap-
peal from the building trades
locals which urged the CLC to
call for amoratorium on raiding
by all unions.

At the same meeting how-
ever, the CLC accepted condi-
tions laid out by the Laborers
International Union under
which the international will re-
sume per capita payments for
the 52,000 members of the
union in Canada.

The Laborers’ action, an-
nounced following a meeting
June 16 attended by local busi-
ness agents in Canada as well as
international- president Angelo
Fosco and secretary-treasurer
Arthur Coia, is of major signifi-
cance in that the union has
broken ranks with the other 11
building trades internationals
which continue:to withhold per
capita and which, in fact, have
moved to set up a rival labor
central, the Canadian Federa-
tion of Labor.

‘Under the agreement worked
out between the CLC and the
Laborers international, the un-
ion will resume per capita pay-
ments, outstanding since March
1980, provided:

e@ That per capita payments
for members in Quebec be held
in trust until further talks have
been held on the situation in that
province;

@ That the CLC-Building
Trades committee be enlarged;
and

CLC

thorized to name someone to as-
sist them in negotiating the dis-
pute.-<5

CLC president Dennis Mc-
Dermott said following the June
17 meeting that the executive
council had accepted the condi-
tions and would be prepared to
sit down and resume talks with
the committee from the building
trades, headed by Ken Rose, the
U.S.-appointed chairman of the
Canadian advisory board of the
building trades department.

_ The movement by the Labor-
ers back into the Congress opens
asizeable breach in the front put
up by the building trades. The
union’s 52,000 members in
Canada represent more than
one-fifth of the 230,000
members who were pulled out
of the Congress by the building
trades international headquart-
ers last year. :

It also opens the way to other
unions, many of whose interna-
tional officers have been under
considerable pressure from Ca-
nadian locals, to follow the La-
borers’ lead.

In this province, the Provin-
cial Council of Carpenters in-
tends to intensify its campaign
to compel international Carp-
enters president William
Konyha to pay up the outstand-
ing per capita and reaffiliate the
Canadian locals to the CLC.

The council has already
mounted a campaign to that ef-

fect, which included a referend-

um vote among the B.C. mem-
bers and an appeal to Konyha
from Carpenters provincial
councils in the four western pro-
vinces, but was also pursuing
the appeal before the CLC for
ffiliation ti 5 pacwiicial
federations of labor.

With that avenue now appar-
ently closed, ‘‘we’ll have to mar-
shal our forces right across the
country to put pressure on
Konyha to pay up the per cap-
ita,”’ Lorne Robson, secretary-
treasurer of the Provincial
Council of Carpenters, told the
Tribune Tuesday. Both Robson
and Bill Zander, president of the
council, were in Ottawa June 17
for the appeal before the CLC
executive.

He said that they would be
contacting locals across the
country to renew the demand
that the international head-
quarters restore the CLC affilia-
tion, citing the Laborers as an
example.

The terms of the Laborers’
return to the Congress have also
suggested that there may be new
talks between’ McDermott and
Rose.

Published,weekly at Su

Rik

oT — ommerc' 6,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186

Read the paper that fights for labor

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QAO AREER

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 26, 1981—Page 12

NSO AES oa

LABOR

The Canadian Union of Public
Employees (CUPE) will hold its
national convention in Winnipeg in
October.

Top priority for the national ex-
ecutive is a proposal to increase the
per capita tax on the local unions to
$9.30a month, up from the current
$7.30. :

There used to be a saying in
CUPE than went something like
this: “No matter what you propose
in convention, Ontario will
decide.” That was in reference to
the fact that at least 50 percent of
the membership is located in On-
tario. .

The recent Ontario convention
of CUPE, despite a strong appeal
from the national office, rejected a
motion to endorse the projected
per capita increase. While the same
proposal was endorsed at the B.C.
convention a few days ago, there is

strong opposition here. Although °

the vote in Ontario expressed deep
dissatisfaction over the quality of
leadership in the recent hospital
strike in that province, it was not
the only factor that led to the rejec-
tion. soe
Here, in B.C., lam familiar with
one local with some 1,000
members. This local is now paying
out a total of $9.07 per month in
capita, for every member

per
employed full time, as follows: Na-

tional office CUPE, $7.10; B.C.
Division CUPE, $1.50; District

Council CUPE, $.06; B.C. Federa-.

tion of Labor, $.25 and Vancouver
Labor Council, $.16.
If the increase is endorsed, the

‘total would rise to $11.27, before

there is a penny for local needs.
‘When you consider that this local
maintains an office and employs a
full time officer and a
stenographer, you can easily
understand why the proposed in-

crease in causing some concern to
certain officers. On the other hand,

they are not sure the membership
will go for it. On the other hand, ac-
cording to what I have been told,
they are questioning whether it is
justifiable.

Kamloops Local 900 has public-
ly opened the issue for debate in its
official journal, CUPE Voice.

In the June, 1981 issue, Bill
Ferguson, business agent for the
local, makes these points:

“the whole question of
structural reform for CUPE has
taken on a new urgency as the na-
tional executive board has cir-
culated material outlining yet
another increase in our monthly

“*According to the
brochure . .. the increased per
capita is needed to strengthen the
defence fund and to improve the
level of servicing available to
locals.” (Strike pay comes from the
defence fund — J.P.)

“Both of these goals are
laudable, as well as absolutely
necessary. However, I question
whether they are achievable given
our present structure.”

The author points out that 70
percent of all CUPE members
belong to locals with less than 100
members and that there is a need
for more servicing representatives
from the national office to insure
adequate servicing at the local level.

:

Top-heavy union structure
a major issue for CUPE
at convention in Winnipeg —

However, he also makes the point
that the national office is planning
to place only one additional staff
member in B.C.

“‘Clearly,’’ he states ‘‘there must
be an alternative to the present
dilemma our union is in which has
our servicing staff swamped with
up to 30 locals each and leaves the
vast majority of our members with
minimal full time servicing.”

Local 900 has more than 1,000
members with 14 separate and
distinct units for whom collective
bargaining must be conducted and
grievances processed. None of
these-units is large enough to sup-
port full time personnel and some
are as small as three members. But
as the article states, ‘‘. . . .by pur-

suing a policy of merging several
smaller units and organizing
unorganized public workers, we

have been able to build one, multi-

unit, viable local which has been
able not only to meet its per capita
responsibilities to the national of-
fice, but also maintain a full time
business office and employ a staff
of two.” :

Ferguson reveals that if the new —

per capita increase is endorsed in
convention, his local would pay
$81,216 a year for servicing,
representing 61 percent of the
local’s total payments to the na-
tional office in Ottawa. -

‘“At best,” he writes ‘“‘we might
expect less than full time access to
one national servicing represen-
tative, but if the funds were held at
the local level we could increase our
present staff to five.”

Although this suggests that the
local union could do better as an in-
dependent union outside of
CUPE, which would mean sever-
ing ties with the Canadian Labor
Congress, the B.C. Federation of
Labor and the Kamloops Labor
Council, the following proposals
indicate that this is not the course
favored by the leadership of Local
900. It is offered as an alternative,
both to what exists now and to go-
ing independent: -

‘1. Maintaining the CUPE locals
in B.C. in their present form and
transferring the great bulk of the
servicing and funding to district
councils, an option which would
also have the advantage of placing
servicing much closer to the mem-
bership. —

2. The removal of onerous ser-

-vicing responsibilities from the na-

tional union would enhance its
ability to fully meet its co-
ordinating, defence and research
responsibilities and bring CUPE
back on course to the stated intent
of serving as a federated union.
‘The alternative to this kind of
restructuring is a biennial appeal
for a per capita increase. . .”
For those who claim that denial
of the proposed increase will mean

the demise of CUPE, the article

closes with this:

Labor Comment
Jack Phillips

without the resources needed to.

-membership’s needs?”

' perfect structure, but a question of |

tion will be sufficient to meet the

themselves forcefully in the strug:
gle for policies to meet theneeds of |
the membership and advance thé |
cause of organized labor as 4 |
whole. .

“What is needed instead is a~
sincere overhaul and restructuring | —
of our union which takes into ac- |
count the many positive ex-—
periences of other large industrial _
unions which are organized on the
basis of larger self-servicing locals
on an area basis.. Anything less |
than this would spell the end of |
CUPE as an effective defender of
public sector unions.” 3

An earlier article in the April | —
issue made these points about the -
CUPE structure:

@ History has dictated that ~
Canada is a large country 5,000 )

miles long and about 300 miles |

wide. A heavily centralized, tightly
controlled servicing structure can- |
not effectively deal with the many |

regional peculiarities and
disparities.

@ Thecentralized structure has
worked against the union’s ability”
to address adequately the needs of -
the membership. :

@ On paper, CUPE is a very —
democratic union in that all locals ©
enjoy complete autonomy and are
answerable solely to their member- | >
ship. But in practice, this falls”
under the weight of the concentra- —
tion of finances, staff and services |
in Ottawa which leaves the locals

carry out adequately the wishes of}
the membership. :

‘Should we not be looking at the -
possibility of merging our smaller
locals into larger, composite locals, »
of pooling our resources.on 4
regional or district level, of dispens-"
ing with the exterisive, centralized ©
departmental structure and utiliz- |
ing more regional, specialized ser- |
vices, and consequently retaining
more of our dues in our locals and ~
regions, closer to the membership —
where they can be used to meet the

Any serious examination of
these problems cannot be made in»
isolation from the attacks on the”
living standards, job security and
trade union rightse of public
employees, a point which Ferguson -
emphasizes. It is not a question of
democracy for the sake of
democracy in terms of seeking the

what are the best formstoprovidea | —
more effective union which would
encourage wider involvement by
the membership in running theif |-
own affairs. ;
No structural changes, no major —
infusion of membership participa- |

challenge of the eighties for public
employees, unless they express |

| will deal with this aspect of the |

problem, the question of policy -

and program, in my next article.

\