Thug tactics used against Fort Francis strikers

By E. ROGERS

FORT FRANCIS — The tur-
bulent class battle raging here and
in Kenora .between woodlands
workers and Boise Cascade,
Canada Ltd., is full of lessons for
working people about the brutal
nature of monopoly.

The Federal and Ontario Gov-
ernments, international capital,
and the monopoly forest industry
have teamed up. with the single
objective of battering workers
and the public out of the way of
their greedy drive to plunder the
maximum of super profits from
Canada’s resources.

The $370-million _ give-away
from the taxpayers’ pockets to
the timber and pulp corporations
has neithér satisfied their appetite
for more plunder or blunted their
resolve to try and crush the
peoples’ resistance to this or-
ganized theft.

A case in point: The Tory gov-~

ernment in Queen’s Park im-
mediately rushed a few carloads
of the provincial police to Boise
Cascade picket lines to back the
U.S. multi-national’s war on the
Lumber and Sawmill workers
union fighting for job security and
decent pay.

The cops were sent to harass

the strikers with manhandling tac-
tics, laying meaningless charges
against the workers and trying to
provoke picket line violence to
blacken the strikers’ cause after a
couple of months of legal strike
action.
Hounded by the Sannete

Sheriffs’ orders to seize bank
accounts were common. The
crown actually stole money from
one of the strikers. One worker
had $150 lifted from three sepa-
rate bank accounts following
court orders.

Vacation pay has been with-
held from the strikers with some
having been deprived of as much
as $1,000.

A number of workers who have
left the area to find work at other
northern Ontario mills like
Marathon, Red Rock and
elsewhere, have been hounded by
Boise Cascade with the result that
some have been fired.

The company steadfastly re-
fuses to negotiate in good faith,
preferring to continue trying to
break the workers’ will, smash
their union and leave them and
their families destitute.

One victim of police terror tac-
tics told the Tribune what hap-
pened when along with 35 others

Peter Voss, Lumber and Sawmill
union member had his boat
crushed while river picketing, by a
tug manned by Boise Cascade
supervisory personnel.

he was charged by the cops Jan.
30.
‘They pick you up at the mill
site, you go to jail first’, the
striker said. ‘They can hold you
for 72 hours then you go to court
and have what is called a bail
hearing. There are certain condi-
tions, then, that you have to meet
in order to get out of jail.
‘*These conditions’,
on,.‘‘are that you're restricted
from picketing, you’ ve got to give

Demands security for public service workers

SFL attacks ‘right to scab’

REGINA —- Saskatchewan
labor called on the provincial
New Democratic Party govern-
ment Feb. 9, to reject wage con-
trols as harmful to workers and
the economy, and to pledge never

to reimpose them. -

In its annual submission to the
provincial government, the
54,000-member Saskatchewan
Federation of Labor (SFL) called
on the NDP government to
“make it abundantly clear to the
federal government and other
provinces that they cannot freely

threaten Canadian workers and-

count on Saskatchewan's help to
implement those threats ... For
you to announce loudly and
clearly that wage controls will not
be reimposed will help to discredit
the big lie about wages causing
inflation.”

The heightening campaign by
big business for so-called “right
to work”’ legislation, and the cur-
rent offensive against trade union
and collective bargaining rights
for public service workers in the

form of Ottawa’s notorious
" union-busting, proposed Bill C-22

were energetically denounced in
the SFL brief.

Bill C-22 proposes a formula
approach to public service collec-
tive bargaining that would take

away public employee union's’

rights to negotiate what they con-
sider reasonable wage and bene-
fits compensation, leaving this to
a government computer.

The brief pointed out the prop-
osed Average Comparability of
Total Compensation formula,
(ACTC), in Bill C-22, Keeping
public service wage increases
below those in the private sector,
would “institutionalize the public
sector as a low wage sector..."

Federation Worried

Welcoming comments by pro-

vincial government members that

. conditions,

Saskatchewan wouldn't seek
legislation forcing public service
workers to negotiate under these
the brief stressed,
“*however, we must seek further
assurance that you are not com-
mitted in an informal way to such
a concept.”

What has the federation worred

are recent news reports suggest-—

ing an agreement between Ottawa
and the provinces on the big busi-
ness inspired aim of reducing pub-
lic sector contract settlements
below those in the private sector.

_ Last August, a conference of

western premiers held in Bran-_

don. Man., may have produced
precisely such an agreement, ac-
cording to a document produced
by the Alberta Government enti-
tled “The Western. Provinces’
Approaches to Total Compensa-
tion Measurement and Compari-
son”. :

The SFL brief quoted from the
document which said the western
premiers had “‘agreed that each
province appoint a minister to
meet and formalize a process for
more active consultation among
the provinces; in order to develop
a co-ordinated information sys-
tem related to wages and
employee benefits in the provin-
cial public service and its agencies
as well as hospitals, schools and
municipal organizations.”™

Right to Scab

The brief also noted the-recent
demand by the Saskatchewan
Urban Municipalities Association
(SUMA) for the .passage of right
to work legislation. SUMA wants
a version of the union-busting
legislation found in several south-
ern U.S. states. Right te work
laws give individual workers: the
power to subvert the wishes of the
majority of their fellow workers
by receiving union wages and

PACIFIC TRIBUNE-FEBRUARY 23, 1979—Page 8

benefits without their having to
belong to the union. .

The variant being pursued by
SUMA. amounts to ‘‘right to
scab” legislation that would allow

individuals to flaunt the wishes of

the majority and continue to work
in the face of a strike by a majority
of their co-workers.

The ‘SFL brief also called,
among other demands, for the
government to implement previ-
ous studies suggesting the refor-
mation of provincial equal pay
legislation to close the widening
wage gap between male and
female workers. Appropriate
legislation should be immediately
enacted to reflect this and the in-
creased participation of women in
the workforce, the brief argued.

As part of the International
Year of the Child celebration
proclaimed for this year by the
United Nations, the SFL called
on the provincial government to
“‘initiate an extensive and innova-
tive program in relation to child
care in the province.”

The federation also reiterated
its call for legislation removing
the right of courts to grant injunc-
tions in labor disputes. **We be-
lieve the courts are being used,
not as a vehicle to assist the labor
relations process or to correct
abuses’’, the brief said, *‘but'as a
means of oppressing freedom of
speech and assembly.”

DEFEND
THE==-
RIGHT TO
STRIKE

he went :

Government backs up Boise Cascade

up all your firearms and ammuni-
tion and in my case, I have to
report daily to.the police station
until the trial takes place.
‘‘I.was charged with mischief.
All I did was kick a car!”’
Another jail victim told his
story this way: ‘‘I was thrown in
jail ... there was a busload of

scabs coming into the mill. It was

all boarded up and I hadn’t even
got near the bus yet, but they.
claimed I was in the bus’s way
and I got charged with obstruc-
tion.

‘‘Then,’’ he said, ‘‘when they

got me in jail they said the charge

would be mischief...”

Goon Tactics by Police

Queen’s Park’s blindness to the
goon tactics of the Ontario Pro-
vincial Police have emboldened
Boise Cascade, and paved the
way for increased violence bor-
dering on attempted murder and a
number of shooting incidents.

Two men peacefully picketing
a log boom in a row boat had this
grisly story to tell.

‘i was on the river picketing’,
said one of the strikers, ‘‘I had
signs all over the boat. We had
been on the river three days.
Union men had been running the
tug and they wouldn’t cross our
picket line. But, on this particular
morning, they (Boise-Cascade)
took the union crew off, and put
supervisory personnel on the tug-
boat.

‘‘In my opinion they left the
dock going full speed ahead’’, the
shaken striker said. “‘They ran
over me. They compleiely ran
over the boat.

‘There was another man in the
boat with me. We went under the
tug. It’s a flat bottom tug.”

Recounting his brush with
death the angry striker continued:
“T had a life jacket on. Under-
neath the tug there’s a skid on
each side so they can jump over
the boom timber. The life jacket
pulled me up between them, then
somehow when the tug reversed
engines the current pushed me

out of them skids and I was ableto {0
get out.
“T don’t know Sar long I wat 1S
under the water, but some guys
say over two minutes. I thought]
was dead’’, the striker said grim
ly.
‘Since that day no’ police
ficer or anyone has come to talk to
me about it. ve heard the Boise
company is being charged wit
some small infraction about a Ii
cence and safety matters ...””

The company has been ope
ing the tug as a nine-ton boat.
check-up revealed it is really 4
17-ton tug and as such requires i
licensed operator. The question
arises in the workers’ mind
whether the authorities if
Queen’s Park were aware of this
information as well

One of Worst Industries
Another complication, is tha
the tug was operating in interna
tional waters, allowing the buel
to be passed between Canadiano
U.S. authorities, to avoid the re
sponsibility for laying charges.

-These thug-like tactics by tht
company and its servants i
Queen’s Park, instead of seriou
negotiations with the union, havi
raised the working people’s a’ ee
in these two northern com 1
munities while it strengthens thei
resolve to persevere to a victal ri:
ous conclusion.

It’s the kind of anger
should press Queen’s Park to im
mediately undertake
nationalize one of the worst
industries in the province. It is
kind of anger that should be ex
pressed with a -broad_ politica
involvement of the entire publi
aimed at replacing the big
business-government allianc
with a democratic alliance of th
working class and all peop
whose lives are hurt by monopo

ly.

The need for such fundame at t
change is becoming more eviden
as monopoly runs riot with the ait
and blessing of its governing ai
lies. %

IF THEY
CAN TAKE AWAY

SOMEONE ELSE'S
RIGHTS,

*  — NO CONTRACT SINCE 77

OUR WORKERS!” ~

WHY NOT?

THE DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS OF WORKING PEOPLE ARE BEING ERODED.

TAKE THE POSTAL WORKERS FOR EXAMPLE;

ANCES.
Spe as ‘TS REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH.

CUPW EXERCISED THEIR LEGAL RIGHT, THEY WENT ON
STRIKE. THEN THE GOV'T CHANGED THE RULES, THEY
REMOVED THE RIGHT TO STRIKE AND SENT IN THE RCMP.

BUT THE POSTAL WORKERS AREN'T THE ONLY ONES
GOV'T IS DOING A JOB ON! GOV'TS ARE DOING IT TO
TEACHERS. HOSPITAL WORKERS. TRANSIT WORKERS —
IN FACT ALL PUBLIC SERVICE WORKERS!

IT S DOING IT FOR ITS PAL, BIG BUSINESS. ©

“BUST THE UNION RIGHTS OF PUBLIC WORKERS, DRIVE
DOWN THEIR WAGE SETTLEMENTS, SET AN EXAMPLE FOR

THAT'S WHAT BIG BIZ WANTS.
“BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT BIG BIZ IS GOING TO GET!

BECAUSE THERE'S AN OLD UNION SAYING: “AN INJURY TO
ONE [SAN INJURY TO ALL”. AND iT HASN'T AGED A BIT.

LABOUR UNITY 1S THE lec

THEY CAN TAKE
AWAY YOURS!

Cal