Some 100 unemployed Carpenters and
other Building Trades workers protested
outside the offices of Pennyfarthing
Development Corporation in Vancouver
Jan. 20 in an effort to head off company
plans to hand over the construction con-
tract for a multi-million dollar, federal tax
subsidized construction project to an anti-
union firm.

The Carpenters mounted the picket line

thing is seriously considering giving the
contract for Phase II of the luxury Harbor
Cove condominium project to J.C. Kerk-
hoff and Sons of Chilliwack.

Kerkhoff, who gained notoriety last
year for firing a subcontractor after its
employees had signed up with the union,
advertises in construction trade magazines
that its operations are “open shop — no
work stoppages and eercas comple-
tion dates.”

_ Kerkhoff is also a key player in the
right-to-work Independent Contractors’

Warning that many “employer-supported
attacks on the Workers’ Compensation
Board have been made or are rumo ‘
the B.C. Federation of Labor has
demanded an immediate meeting with
Labor Minister Bob McClelland to discuss
the issue.

Federation president Art Kube said
Jan. 17: “We want to discuss with the
minister our view that undue’ political
interference in the work of the WCB is
undermining workers’ health and safety in
this province.

““We want to reiterate our position that
the massive unfunded liability that
appears to fuel the cutback mentality of

early Friday after learning that Pennyfar- .

Labor Notes

and Businessmen’s Association which is
pushing non-union construction in this
province.

The prospect of Harbor Cove going
non-union is particularly galling to build-
ing tradesmen, however, because 80 per
cent of the condominium units have
already been sold — on the basis that they
would be built by a union firm, Stevenson
Construction, at a total cost of $20 mil-
lion. Stevenson built Phase I and has com-
pleted most of the Phase II foundation
work.

Adding further insult is the fact that the
major financing is being provided by B.C.
Central Credit Union.

The Carpenters charged that Pennyfar-
thing, one of the city’s largest development
firms, “is seeking to use the current eco-
nomic conditions to gain further profit”
— by turning the contract over to a non-
union firm whose wages are up to 50 per
cent less, while selling the units on the basis
of a union firm’s bid.

Fed demands WCB summit

the board is, in fact, a debt owed by
employers and is their responsibility not
that of the general taxpaying public,”
Kube said.

The demand for the meeting follows the
latest in a series of pro-employers moves
by the WCB, a freeze on employers
assessments, which is expected to increase
the unfunded liability substantially.

Kube warned in a release: “We believe
this issue is one close to every worker in B.C.
and continued attacks on the system could
bring an atmosphere of confrontation that
will not serve labor-management relations in
British Columbia.

Ploy to go non-union slammed

The project also comes under the fed-
eral government’s tax-write off scheme,
the Multiple Unit Residential Building
(MURB) program — again on the basis
that Stevenson will be doing the construc-
tion work, the union stated.

“What Pennyfarthing is considering is
totally unprincipled and immoral,” Car-
penters Provincial Council president Bill
Zander told the rally outside Pennyfar-
thing’s offices.

Zander noted that the principal execu-
tive of Stevenson Construction, Ken Stev-
enson, holds a 40 per cent interest in
Pennyfarthing and charged that he is
“being aided and abetted in circumventing
union contracts by the actions of the
development company.” The vice-presi-
dent of Pennyfarthing, Barry Shepherd, is a
former lawyer for Stevenson.

“Look around you,” Zander told dem-
onstrators, “‘virtually every building you
see was built by union labor. We fought
for over a 100 years to win union wages
and conditions.

“We're not going to stand = while this
company puts up a project at wages that
are 35 per cent less — the rates that Kerk-
hoff is paying,” he declared.

He emphasized that the rally was “‘only
an initial protest” and would be followed
by further action. ‘“‘We’ve asked the B.C.
Fed for assistance and we’re going to be
pushing the campaign,” he said.

B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council president Roy Gautier also
addressed the rally, pledging full support
of the Building Trades Council.

He emphasized the ..1e Harbor Cove
contract was indicative of the growing
non-union threat in construction and told
unionists: ““We’ve no alternative but to
fight — and we're going to fight.”

CARPENTERS PICKET...outside devel-
oper’s offices

Drop new spy
bill, says VDLC

Delegates to the Vancouver and Dis-
trict Labor Council Jan. 17 demanded ©
that the federal government withdraw the |
revamped spy bill introduced into the
Commons by Solicitor-General Robert

‘Kaplan last week.

The new legislation is to replace Bill
C-157, giving enhanced surveillance pow- |
ers to a new civilian security agency, which
had been vigorously opposed by trade unio-
nists and civil libertarians as well as several
provincial attorneys-general. A senate
committee had also proposed amendments.

“But the new bill has changed little from
the one it replaces,” Postal Workers dele-
gate Evert Hoogers told council delegates.

sane fundamental objectionable features

remain.’

The resolution, endorsed unanimously
by delegates registered the council’s oppo-
sition “to any form of unaccountable state
surveillance” and called for withdrawal of

‘the bill “until the need for such legislation

can be fully justified and proven.”

LRB ruling ‘arbitrary, capricious’

The B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council declared Jan. 19 that it would be
entering “into a deep debate to decide its
future attitude to the Labor Relations
Board” in the wake of the board’s decision
rejecting the Building Trades application
for a common site ruling at Vancouver
General Hospital.

The Building Trades Council termed the
board decision at VGH “arbitrary, and
capricious” and charged, “‘it indicates that
the board is becoming fearful of the
government in Victoria.”

The LRB brought its decision down Jan.
16, ruling that Vancouver General Hospital
did not constitute a common, or integrated
site, and therefore the Building Trades were
not entitled to invoke the non-affiliation
clauses in their collective agreement in refus-
ing to work alongside non-union workers.

The Building Trades had downed tools
on a union project at VGH Nov. 10 to
protest construction of an adjoining project,
known as Research Facility Phase I, by a
non-union firm, Kirkwall Construction —
the first non-union company ever to be
given a VGH contract. The unionists had
returned to work Nov. 29, however, when
the LRB began hearings on the Building
Trades application.

The board’s decision will pave the way
for Kirkwall to continue its construction
work unimpeded by legal job action.

Significantly, in writing the decision,
LRB made no reference to the arguments
presented during two days of hearings in

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 25, 1984

ROY GAUTIER...
VGH site.

.assails board ruling on

November. Panel members Peter Sheen,
Daniel Bell and Wayne Carkner contended
that VGH construction was not new con-
struction following a single conceptual
plan — as had been the case at two earlier
projects ruled to be common sites —
Whistler and Duke Point — and that there
were no common entry gates or physical

sharing of facilities for the two hospital con-

struction projects.

Therefore, they ruled, “the construction
work. . .is not a body of work being carried
out on an integrated site as this board has

defined- that concept. ..Accordingly,
employees of the unionized contractors
.. are not entitled to withdraw their services
due to the presence on the property of
employees of Kirkwall.”

But that conclusion drew fire from Build-
ing Trades Council president Roy Gautier.

“One has only to compare the treatment
of these (non-affiliation) clauses by the
board a few years ago with the recent deci-
sion of the board regarding these same
clauses to see that the earlier decision hon-
estly came to terms with the subject and
made determinations that could be lived
with by all,” he noted.

Gautier charged that some recent deci-
sions of the board had been “employer
orientated and without merit as far as the
trade unions are concerned.”

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READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR

“Despite legalistic and scholastic hair-
splitting, no normal labor relations practi-
tioner could come to the conclusion that the
Vancouver General Hospital is not. ..an
(integrated) site,” he said.

The decision is likely to have an impact
on the future of B.C. Place construction
and, in fact, was widely seen as a possible”
blueprint for determining whether or not
that site is common. The construction work
for the stadium complex was done by union
contractors but the provincial government
has already vowed to throw the next phase
of development, including office towers and -
housing, as well as Expo 86 open to oe
non-union and union contractors.

An appeal of the VGH ruling will be
lodged by the Building Trades Council.

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