4

LABOR

GEORGE WATTS (centre) ... with Joe Mathias (I) and Art Kube at press conference.

B.C. Fed-Native meet |

in land claims slated

Close to 200 trade unionists and repre-
sentatives of Native groups will be sitting
down for what labor and Native leaders
have called an “historic” conference in land
claims scheduled for Oct. 5 and 6 in
Nanaimo.

B.C. Federation of Labor president Art
Kube, together with Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tri-
bal Council chair George Watts and Joe
Mathias, B.C. regional chief of the Assem-

bly of First Nations, told reporters Monday .

that conference organizers hoped to put all
the issues involved in comprehensive land
claims on the table and work out a joint
statement at. the end of the two days. The

conference is jointly sponsored by the B.C.
Fed and Native organizations.

Kube said they also wanted to establish
some process for joint consultation which
would continue after the conference wound
up. “We want to insure that the interests of
Indian people are never very far from those
of working people and that land claims are
settled in the interests of working people,”
he said.

; He called the conference the first of its
kind in Canada although he noted that the
trade union movement has traditionally
been supportive of land claims negotiations.

Unionists and Native leaders form the

province’s Northwest did sit down together
at a conference in Terrace several years ago.
But since that time, renewed pressure on
resources and the failure of governments to
negotiate outstanding land claims has made
the issue more urgent than ever.

Forest industry demands for logging of
Meares and Lyell islands as well as fishing
bylaws declared by the Gitksan-
Wet’suwet’en Tribal council have also
pushed land claims into the political fore-

* ground.

“The whole issue is coming to a crisis

primarily because of the attitude of the B.C. _

government and their unwillingness to
negotiate with Native people,” Watts told
reporters.

He called the conference “a very impor-
tant first step” and emphasized: “I believe
strongly that Indian people will never
achieve a better life in Canadian society
without the full co-operation of working
people.”

The conference opens at 9 a.m. in the
Coast Bastion Inn in Nanaimo. All the ple-
nary sessions are open to the public,
although workshops, scheduled from 10:30
a.m. till 12 noon on both days, will be
closed.

Canadian union backed

NANAIMO — Delegates to the first
constitutional convention of the Canadian
Regional Council of the TWA last week
overwhelmingly endorsed an executive
board recommendation instructing union
officers to dissolve the international union
and create independent Canadian and U.S.
unions.

The convention had earlier adopted a
resolution urging the regional executive of
the [WA to seek discussions with both pulp
unions to press for the creation of one union
in the wood industry.

The regional board’s statement on the.
establishment of the Canadian union
emphasized that the [WA was “established
in 1937 upon a foundation erected with
courage and dedication by generations of
earlier forest industry unionists.

“From the moment of that birth, with the
Blubber Bay strike in 1937-38; with the
coast-wide strike of 1945 that set standards
for North American labor; with the bitter
struggle of 1952, with the unfinished New-
foundland work of 1947; with our current
strike for the reaffirmation of essential labor
rights and in hundreds of other conflicts, we
have earned a reputation for tough, honest
and democratic unionism that is second to
none,” it stated.

Noting that the convention delegates
would “reaffirm our dedication to: those
founding values,” the statement declared
that there was “a need for change, for new

strategies and structures with which to
respond to changing employers, govern-
ments and societies.

“We believe that the time has come for a
major change in structure .. . to create two
great forest industry unions, one American
and the other Canadian, two equal and
distinct unions ...

“We urge this action because we believe
that IWA members from both Canada and
the U.S. will benefit from it, that they will
have stronger, more effective unions with
which to defend and enhance the human
values that they share,” the statement
declared.

The final vote was not unanimous
although no delegate objected to Canadians
having the right to determine their own pol-
icies. Several delegates from the union’s
Port Alberni local warned that the move
might throw into doubt the organizing drive
in the U.S. southwest, long supported by the
Canadian regions, and questioned whether
the timing was appropriate given the cur-
rent employer attack on wages and condi-
tions on both sides of the border.

But convention chair Jack Munro
declared the recommendation “‘overwhelm-
ingly passed” when the final vote was held.

Regional officers will now submit a resolu- _

tion to the international convention in
November to dissolve the international and
create two separate unions.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 24, 1986

Safety ignored, says HEGy

Surrey Memorial Hosptial manage-
ment cancelled a health and safety com-
mittee meeting but found the time to
plan a party — despite the scandal that
emerged from the recent poisoning of
five elderly patients for which hospital
workers were disciplined. _

“Social activities rate higher than the
health and safety of patients at Surrey
Memorial hosptial,” the Hospital Employ-
ees Union charged in a release Sept. 19.

Earlier, union assistant secretary-
business manager Lee Whyte expressed
the HEU’s outrage at the disciplining of
two members over the recent incident in
which a toxic disinfectant was accidently
served as fruit juice to five patients.

Calling the disciplining, in which one
member received a three-day suspension
without pay, a “witch hunt,” the union
charged that inadequate funding by the
provincial government and the privatiza-

‘ tion of some hospital services are the real

culprits.

HEU secretary-business manager J ack
Gerow called on the provincial govern-
ment Sept. 10 to restore health care fund-
ing, charging that “Surrey Memorial,
like other hospitals across the province,

Postal cuts challenged |

Canada’s postal unions and the Can-
adian Labor Congress have launched a
national campaign aimed at bucking the
federal government’s move to cut back
and deregulate postal servies, and privat-
ize the Canada Post Corporation.

Union locals are taking to shopping
malls and going door to door distribut-
ing a leaflet that asks Canadians to “Act
Now for a Better Postal Service.”

. Spearheading the campaign are the
Canadian Postmasters and Assistants

Association, the Canadian Union of Pos- _.

tal Workers, the International Brother-
hood of Eelctrical Workers, the Letter
Carriers Union of Canada and the

-Union of Postal Communications Em-

ployees (a component of the Public Ser-
vice Alliance of Canada) with CLC
assistance.

The unions charge that the federal
government’s deadline of 1988 to make
Canada Post financially self-sufficient is

part of the process to privatize postal —

services.

They call instead for improved service,
door-to-door delivery for all households,
expanded services and product sales and
adequate staffing.

“By starving Canada Post (of) the
necessary funding now and by setting
unrealistic targets for reducing the deficit
to break even is really a fancy way of

Fed hits WCB giveaway

The B.C. Federation of Labor has
slammed the Workers Compensation
Board for reducing by $13 million
employer contributions to the board’s
fund for 1986. :

The board said the reduced assess-
ments will be utilized by business to
create jobs, but “the WCB has not
demanded a commitment from employ-
ers that the money will be used for this
purpose,” B.C. Fed president Art Kube

noted.
Kube said the $13 million could be

added to the $10 million the board has
saved through cutting administrative
costs — “which really came from cut-

ting injured workers off and reducing the ~

Labor Briefs

- second outbreak of scabies among hi

’ postal service has to be profit orien!

- door delivery, the union campaign not

Was. 4 ee

7

t

ae

-;

i

has had to cut corners because Of tHE”
five-year restraint program and the lac
of adequate health care funding.
He said cutbacks have resulted m |
inadequate training of hospital employ- |
ees, noting that the dietary aid whoma®
vertently served the disinfectant Mico”
quat from an unlabelled jug had rece™
only four hours training “from 4 “fy
employee.” ~ re
The union angrily noted that hospital
management cancelled a health
safety committee meeting with the unle
last week, but “took the time the fo
ing day to hold a social committee ™
ing to plan an upcoming party. J
The HEU is also angry ovet

tal patients in the last three months.
Management neglected to inform
health and safety committee
second outbreak.
Noting that scabies are parasites #
breed in dirt, the union noted that
hospital is eliminating 20 housekeepiM
positions effective Oct. 16, replae
these with 10 part-time positions.
duties will be performed under P:
contract with Versa Services. :

privatizing Canada Post,” wrote C
president Shirley Carr to Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney last summer. ae

“In fact, your government’s whole
philosophical approach that a national

highly questionable,” she stated.

“During the past six months, Canada |
Post has closed 72 post offices and elim
nated over 50 rural routes,” CUPW res
ident Jean-Claude Parrot warned im
recent letter to a newspaper.

Cutbacks enacted by Canada P
management, under the directio
Mulroney’s Conservative governm
also include the elimination of door
door services. The union’s campale®
note that more than 11 communi
now receive mail by group letter boxes;
and the post office plans to servi
communities this way by next Maret

Canadians want and expect door

citing a survey which found more th
per cent support for the service. Anot
survey, conducted for the Canada
review committee, found more than
per cent of Canadians favor a publicly
owned postal service. 3

The Act Now leaflet has four tear
sections mailable to Mulroney, Oppost
tion leader John Turner, New Democrat -
leader Ed Broadbent and locals MPs. —

benefits of -others” — and used for |)
research and restoring terminated pr

grams and services. S:
Observing that 26 more workers We!
killed on the job in 1985 than in 1984, the
federation president charged the WC?”
with “failing miserably to carry out
mandate.
“Giving the employers of this pfO
vince $13 million will not be used 10
create jobs or expansion, and it will not
stop the slaughter in the workplace,
Kube asserted. 7
The federation is hosting a seminar on
the WCB at the Robson Square Media
Centre in Vancouver on Sept. 29, begin-
ning at 9 a.m. . é =

its