ALA A

LABOR:

VANCOUVER — Coaction,
the union coalition striking
against massive contract con-
cessions at Pacific Western Air-
lines, last week warned travellers
against the hazards of flying the
scab-run airline.

At 12:01 a.m., Sept. 20, some
1,800 ticket agents, flight atten-
dants and machinists in three
separate unions struck PWA over
its list of more than 200 takeaway
demands. The unions involved,
the United Auto Workers, the
Canadian Airline Flight Atten-
dants and the International
Association of Machinists formed
Coaction about two weeks ago to
present a united bargaining front
with the airline, one of the most
profitable in North America.

Among the concessions de-
manded by the company are a
three-year wage freeze, an in-
crease of the work week from 36
to 37 and half hours for
machinists, longer duty periods,
reduced crew rest periods, roll-
backs in vacations, sick pay and
working conditions.

This is Coaction’s second bat-
tle with PWA. About a year and a
half ago, the same kind of com-
mon front was formed to success-
fully stop the company from start-
ing a program to transfer workers
into jobs not covered by existing
bargaining units.

In a speech to the Conference
Board of Canada’s Western
Compensation’ and Resources
conference held in Calgary, Nov.

7, Alberta Federation of Labor

president Dave Werlin predicted
that if PWA forced a strike, that

_ battle would become a rallying

point for Canadian labor.

He pledged that the AFL would
be “‘lending all support necessary
for the employees of PWA to win
this unnecessary but seemingly
inevitable strike.”

Werlin exposed the company’s

_ claim that federal deregulation is

forcing PWA to seek concessions

from the unions, as ‘‘just a

smokescreen to hide their real

- motive, which is to further im-

prove profits by taking back

hard-won gains from their work-
ers.

Werlin reported that over the’

last five years PWA recorded its
highest profits ever, with an aver-
age 14.5 per cent return on its
investment. In 1984 he said, the

company garnered more than
$18-million, and for the first six
months of 1985 the company’s
profits were twice as large as
they’d been for the same period
one year earlier.

The company has done so well

__PWA’s ‘scab’ flights unsafe, says union ©

that in 1984 it reduced its long
term debt from $283-million to
only $21.5-million.

“This company is simply tak-
ing advantage of the depressed
economy to try and take away
rights and benefits that’ its em-

SkKY-SCAB Comix

CLC asked to rule in Sudbury dispute

SUDBURY — The Sudbury
and District Labor Council has
launched an appeal with the
Canadian Labor Congress over
the issue of whether an executive
member can still hold office with-
out delegate status from his or her
local union.

Last January, the delegate
status of SDLC president Sam
Enver, a member of United
Steelworkers Local 6500 was
lifted by Local 6500 president
Ron MacDonald.

During the summer, Mac-
Donald wrote CLC president De-
nnis McDermott seeking clari-
fication of whether Enver and
SDLC board member Harvey
Wyers, also a member of Local
6500 could remain on the labor
council executive.

McDermott replied in support
of MacDonald’s position and in so
doing struck Article 10 Section 3b
from the labor council .bylaws.
The article allows an executive
member to remain in office by vir-
tue of his or her election by the
council delegates.

“The action by the CLC means
that there is no safeguard for dele-
gates who are appointed by their
local union presidents against

having their delegate status lifted
on the basis of politics, personal-
ity conflict or whim’’, SDLC
executive secretary Peter Dis-
elets told the Tribune recently.

Desilets observed that the same
article had previously been ap-
proved as part of the council’s by-
laws in 1979 by former Congress
secretary-treasurer Donald
Montgomery.

Meanwhile Wyers and Enver
have launched personal appeals
with the CLC concerning their
elected status. Both were elected
in May 1984 as part of a pro-
gressive slate.

The slate defeated the previous
executive including long-time
president Elmer McVey, also a
Local 6500 member.

McVey, whose support base
was among the steelworkers, was
out-voted two-to-one by the 80
delegates attending the elections
meeting.

In the fall of 1984, Local 6500
introduced a motion in council
which would give itself 32 dele-
gates, up from 10, while small
locals would be reduced from five
to two.

This proposal was rejected by
the delegates and the bylaws

i Shutdowns plague Saskatchewan

REGINA — Tory cabinet ministers keep talking

about the strength of Saskatchewan’s economy,

but workers here have been hit recently with the

- Worst string of plant shutdowns and layoffs since
_ the economic downturn of 1982-1983.

At the endiof August., two Regina plants ceased
production. About 50 employees of Dominion
Bridge, most of them members of the United
Steelworkers, lost their jobs. Management blamed
““pdor business conditions in Western Canada’’,
with no improvement in sight.

_ And, faced with a shortage of materials, the Na-

_ tive Metals scrap steel cutting plant closed its
_ doors. The 50 employee/shareholders of the com-

pany, also members of the Steelworkers, included

_ many Native workers, a rare situation in Sask-

atchewan, where intense racism has severely li-

_ mited the numbers of skilled, organized Native
_ industrial workers. As of early November, only

four or five of the workers had found other

- employment.

Over a third of the province’s 3,000 potash min-

__ ers faced nine-week layoffs this summer and fall.

They included 700 miners at the publicly-owned

_ Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, and 350 at Central

Canada Potash. Another 235 PCS miners had

__ five-week layoffs. The industry has been badly hit

in recent years by poor market conditions.
Early November brought more bad news. Mic-

rotel, a “‘high-tech”’ firm based in British Colum-

6e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 27, 1985

bia, announced an “‘indefinite layoff’ for its last 50
Saskatoon employees, beginning Dec. 13. The
plant, established in 1973 to produce pulse-coded
telecommunication modulators, once had a work-
force of 300, but its technology has become out-

dated. Many of the workers are women; few ex-:

pect to find work soon, in a city with more than
10,000 jobless.

Prince Albert was also hit with a shutdown and
the loss of a $2.5-million annual payroll. Molson
Breweries, which reported a $51-million profit in
1984, announced a consolidation of its Sask-
atchewan beer-making operations in Regina, to
““cut losses’’. Only 25 of the 73 Molson employees
in the northern city will be offered jobs in Regina.

Nine hundred and fifty Ipsco steelworkers ac-
ross Western Canada were given week-long layoffs
in mid-November, to ‘‘reduce inventories’’ in the
latest of many similar moves by the company. Five
hundred and forty-five of those affected are at the
largest Ipsco mill, in Regina, the rest in B.C. and
Alberta.

Predictably, neither Premier Grant Devine, nor
any of his cabinet members, have had anything to
say about the job losses. But the figures back the
resolutions passed at the Saskatchewan Federa-
tion of Labor convention held recently, calling for
improved severance pay and for laws requiring
companies to justify layoffs publicly before they
take effect.

committee was instructed to find
a delegate formula satisfactory to
all parties.

By last spring, after fruitless
negotiations and the presentation
of modified formulas, the CLC
was asked to mediate.

In September, CLC Ontario
representative, Ralph Ortlieb ar-
rived in Sudbury to mediate the
dispute. 3

There has been no settlement of
the issue.

ployees have earned and that th
company can well afford’, Wer
lin charged.

“Pacific Western is going to
have to join the real world where —
even for a company, stealing is
crime.”’ 4

PWA has already hired some ~
250 scab flight attendants and ~
plans to hire more outsiders to —
scab on the ticket clerks, and bag- —
gage handlers. Right now
management’s 500 staff em-
ployees are trying to keep the op-
eration going despite the slow —
down in the flight schedules and —
the obvious safety hazard to the —
public in using inexperienced or
unqualified people on the struck ©
jobs. P

Meanwhile, Local 6500, the
largest single contributor of per
capita dues, with more than 7,000
members, has refused to pay for
the past six months. 4

This has left the labor council
financially strapped. 4

The council executive hopes
the CLC executive council will
hear the Enver and Wyers appe-
als at its December meeting. It is —
also seeking support from trade —
unionists throughout the country. —

Courts block
strike efforts

REGINA — The legal system
has been no friend to Sask-
atchewan working people recent-
ly, being used repeatedly to block
the efforts of two major unions to
win new contracts.

The 200 employees of Safeway
subsidiary, MacDonalds Con-
solidated, members of the Retail,
Wholesale & Department Store
Union (RWDSU), were locked
out Oct. 21 in Regina and Saska-
toon. They were able to picket
successfully for five days, pre-
venting trucks from entering or
leaving warehouses, before they
were hit with an injunction de-
scribed by Len Wallace of the Re-
tail Wholesale and Department
Store Union as ‘“‘significantly
more restrictive than any I’ve
seen in my 40 years in the labor
movement’’. The injunction limits
the pickets to two people per
driveway, remaining at least 10
feet apart, among other restric-
tions.

Then Nov. 8, the union’s effort
to have the lockout declared il-
legal was turned back by Justice
I.D. McLellan. RWDSU said
MacDonalds violated provincial
laws requiring 48 hours-notice of
its intentions, by telling weekend
shift workers to stay home before
Officially beginning the lockout on
a Monday morning.

In both cases, the judges based
their rulings partly on manage-
ment calims of ‘‘union intimida-
tion’, though no charges of any
kind have been laid in the dispute.

Meanwhile, Safeway has un-
ilaterally implemented parts of its
latest contract offer in nego-
tiations with its store employees,
also RWDSU members. Over
union protests that the move is

illegal, the company has created a
new ‘‘bagger’’ position, eliminat-
ing part of the work now done by
clerks and cashiers. The baggers
are to earn $5 per hour, compared
to the $6.92 starting wage for
clerks and cashiers. Union mem-
bers fear the move is an attempt to
undermine their jobs, and re-
jected the latest management
offer by more than 93 per cent.
Safeway had earlier turned down
an RWDSU compromise on the
issue, which would have allowed
the company to hire baggers if
they were unemployed students.

On another front, Saskatche-
wan Government Employees
Union members are continuing
their rotating strikes around the
province, trying to win better job
security provisions in a new con-
tract. One of the provisions of the
Conservatives’ Bill 104, which
further weakened the Sask-
atchewan Trade Union Act, has
been used for the first time in the
dispute.

With government encourage-
ment, 250 employees (2 per cent
of the 12,000 affected) filed a peti-
tion with the Labor Relations
Board, asking for a vote on the
government’s ‘“‘final offer’’. The
Board is allowed to call such a
vote if 100 members apply after a
strike has lasted 30 days.

SGEU objects to the vote on
several grounds. It has no way of
knowing whether the 200 are ac-
tually union members, or whether
they have been onstrike. Nor have
any of the rotating strikes lasted
anywhere near 30 days. There is a
strong feeling here that the man
oeuvre is simply an attempt to
create divisions in the union at a
crucial point in negotiations. _