_ OTTAWA — Solid unity, a firm convic-
tion that their demands were just, support
from the rest of the labour movement, and

t-minute concessions by the employer
have finally won striking Bell Canada
tmployees a tentative agreement. The
accord, announced Oct. 12, will, if ratified,
€nd the three-and-a-half month strike by the

19,500 workers.

_The operators and technicians in Onta-
No, Quebec and parts of the Northwest Ter-
Ntories, members of the Communications

4nd Electrical Workers of Canada (CWC),
had walked out June 27 to back their
demands for higher wages, full pension
MNdexing, curbs on part-time work and a
Téduction in the contracting-out planned by
the company.

| days on the picket line.

etails of the pact were not —
ased pending ratification meetings
mong the 5,700 members of the Sas- _
ewan Union of Nurses, but SUN
ident Paul Kuling told reporters —
‘riday following the announcement |
f the deal that the terms of settlement _
tially addressed the issue of par-

Nothing for workers
in Inco’s stock ploy

The final package, which CWC president
Fred Pomeroy is reported to have called
“one of the best in the country,” was ham-
mered out by federal mediator Bill Kelly.
Kelly entered the dispute informally three
weeks ago, meeting with both sides separ-
ately. He then entered formally on Oct. 11.
Twenty-four hours later, he announced that
Bell and CWC negotiators had reached a
tentative agreement, with the employer
reported to have made last-minute conces-
sions to secure a deal.

Details of the tentative accord, which
CWC members will vote on during the
week, were not available at Tribune press
time. Nor was anyone at CWC headquar-
ters in Ottawa available for comment. But
indications were that the three-year deal
contains wage increases of 5, 4.5 and 5 per
cent, plus an immediate lump-sum bonus of
$500 and another $300 in January. This was
above Bell’s previous offer, but below
CWC’s initial demand of 8.5, 6.75 and 6.75,
with a full cost of living allowance from the
beginning.

On a second key issue, pension indexing,

- Bell has reportedly agreed to an increase of

60 per cent of the inflation rate to a maxi-
mum 4 per cent annually — an improve-
ment on its original offer. When talks first
broke down in the spring, Bell Canada had
counted on the CWC crumbling almost
immediately. Its initial offer, tendered dur-
ing several weeks before the strike deadline,
had been rejected by the membership —
bucking a CWC recommendation of
acceptance — by just a slim majority. A
strike vote in May won just 51.3 per cent
support.

However, the telecommunications mono-
poly made the arrogant mistake of coming
into last-ditch negotiations days before the
June 27 deadline with an even worse offer
than the original — to test the union, as
CWC official Joe Hanafin put it then. The
Bell workers were indignant, and 2,000 in
Ontario showed their displeasure by jump-
ing the gun and walking out three full days
before the June 27 strike date.

CWC officials knew it would be tough
slogging. Richard Long, who heads the
union’s Ontario region, and a key figure in
its negotiating team, told the Tribune sev-

. eral days after his members walked out that

the union hoped to “orchestrate a short
strike, but was digging in for a long one.”
Some insiders even thought there would be
no breakthrough until December.

Bell had also figured CWC would
exhaust itself financially in a long strike,
which came on the heels of an expensive and
unfortunately unsuccessful six-month CWC
organizing drive of Bell office employees
that had drained the union’s treasury.

However, the labour movement, from
the Canadian Labour Congress down,
offered all measure of moral and picket-line
support, and helped keep the financially
strained CWC afloat. On the Canada-wide
level, the United Steelworkers and Cana-
dian Auto Workers chipped in $1-million
each to bolster the strike fund. Locally,
other unions came to the CWC’ assistance.

Even with such support, the CWC was
able to provide its members with only $50.a
week strike pay near the end, half of what it
gave initially. But membership remained
solid — so solid, in fact, that few workers
crossed the picket line, and a vote on a
company offer made last month rejected the
deal by a higher margin than the initial
rejection vote in May.

Mike Phillips

With world nickel prices soaring at
record levels, and substantial improve-
ments in productivity, the top guns at
Inco Ltd. were at a loss as to what to do
about their fabulous $316 million (U.S.)
profits for the first half of 1988.

Now, to those of us who have to sweat
out a living the best way we can, a
number of exiting possibilities present
themselves for dealing with Inco’s
apparently embarrassing problem.

But swimming in money isn’t a condi-
tion Inco bosses always like. Particularly
not in the current global economic cli-
mate of rampant corporate takeovers.

In short, Inco was becoming too allur-
ing to investors who might have had
thoughts about taking the transnational
over.

It is a dangerous world in the corpo-
rate jungle, with predators everywhere. It
is a world of expand or die, where
mergers are taking place at an unprece-
dented pace and the process doesn’t have
to be voluntary.

The trouble with what’s known as an
“unfriendly merger” is that the existing
corporate controllers may not only have
to surrender their rights to continue reap-
ing the splendid profits and other lar-
gesse the business bestows on them, but
most horrifying, they likely won’t get the
price they want.

To avoid any business move on Inco
that might result in the tap to profits
being turned off for them, Inco’s current
corporate leadership hit upon a package
of measures aimed at preventing a hostile
takeover bid.

It involved an effort to boost share
prices by giving Inco shareholders a spe-
cial $10 dividend that will cost $1.05 bil-

Inco shareholders, will
get a special $10
dividend — to head off a
takeover bid.

lion by the time it is implemented at the
end of December.

To do this, the world’s largest nickel
producer will have to go in the red to the
tune of some $500 million.

The move has come under criticism by
the United Steelworkers which has
charged that it could result in its
members’ pockets being picked.

In an Oct. 5 statement, the union said
that by adding $1.5 billion to the corpo-
ration’s long-term debt, the special $10
share dividend would add 17 cents a
pound to the break-even point necessary
for the company to begin making a
profit, just to cover the cost of servicing
the debt.

The union says the special share divi-
dend represents a giant leap of faith by
the company that nickel prices would
remain high.

It highlights the vulnerability of the
productivity bonus negotiated in the cur-
rent contract between Inco and its Sud-

LABOURIN ACTION

bury and Port Colborne workers.

Under that deal, the bonus is paid out
on a sliding scale tied to the world price,
as long as nickel stays above $2.25
(American) a pound and Inco is making
a profit. If the price drops below that
point, the bonus disappears.

Note the route Inco took to get out of
its predicament. It just as easily could
have found a way to transfer that $1.05
billion into the pockets of the workers
whose labour has created the corpora-
tion’s wealth in the first place.

It could have sweetened the pensions,
or augmented the benefits package for
current Inco workers and their families.

Or, it could have made those funds
available for environmental protection
— not only taking the steps necessary
now to comply with Ontario govern-

The union calls
the dividend a
‘giant leap of faith
by the company.’

ment emission reduction standards (the
company will eventually put in place a
planned emission control porgram that
Inco president Don Phillips says will cost
up to $300-million), but to completely
reduce sulphur dioxide emissions and
turn off the continent’s largest single
source of the acid rain that is destroying
our forests.

But there won’t be too many Inco
workers voting at next month’s share-
holders’ meeting where the re-capitaliza-
tion plan will be ratified.

No, the scheme has two short-term
goals: first, drive up the price of shares to
make Inco stock less attractive for a
potential unfriendly takeover, and second,
to buy support for the real substance of
the whole exercise — the so-called poi-
son pill.

(By the way, despite the absolute
secrecy that was supposed to have sur-
rounded the preparations for the
announced re-capitalization scheme, it
seems, as One analyst put it last week,
that certain people were “making some
good guesses” on the appreciation of
Inco shares, as they increased by $1.50
on the day prior to the news breaking.)

The poison pill is a provision that
allows current shareholders to buy
common shares at half price in case a
hostile suitor tries to move in on the
company.

Of course, Inco left an escape hatch
open in its strategy, so that it can scrap
the whole plan if nickel prices really hit
rock bottom.

Unlike its workers, who could see their
income squeezed by Inco’s gamble, a
drastic tumble in nickel prices will leave
the corporation relatively unscathed. But
that’s life in the private property system
where corporate “winners” seem to bask
under the motto: “Sometimes you win, ©
and sometimes you win.”

ba Lbs 2

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Pacific Tribune, October 24, 1988 ¢ 7

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