Quebec labor stages one day protest

QUEBEC — Defying the province's essential services legisla-
tion, more than 45,000 public sector workers held a 24-hour strike
to protest lagging contract talks with the Liberal government.

The strike affected provincial education and hospital workers.
Quebec health care workers under provincial law have to main-
tain up to 90 per cent of regular services during a strike.

Spokespersons for the Quebec Federation of Labor, which
organized the protest said that the public employees only pro-
vided for 50 per cent of the regular services.

Art teachers on strike

HALIFAX — Faculty members at the Nova Scotia College of
Art and Design struck for their first contract, Oct. 16, after the
administration walked out of 11th hour negotiations to reach an
agreement.

FUNSCAD, the faculty union at the art college was formed
earlier this year to bring working conditions, grievance proce-
dures and salaries into line with those at other universities.

Currently, faculty have no right to continuing employment but
are hired instead on limited term contracts of one, two, three and
five years. In recent years more than a dozen instructors have
been arbitrarily dismissed without just cause by the college’s
board of governors.

In the present talks, the administration has made it clear it
intends to maintain these sweeping employer rights. It was the
administration’s refusal to accept the faculty right of appeal to
binding arbitration, (by an independent third party), in cases of
termination, that led to the breakdown of talks and to strike
action.

FUNSCAD members have received support from the Cana-
dian Association of University Teachers, (CAUT), and from the
vast majority of students at the college, many of whom walk the
picket line daily.

The Nova Scotia Federation of Labor has also pledged full
support, and many delegates attending the federation convention
last week, bolstered picket lines around the downtown campus.

‘JOHANNESBURG — The owners of three South African
gold mines who refused to participate in industry-wide contract
talks paid the price, Oct. 25 when more than 35,000 members of
the National Union of Mineworkers shut the three mines down.

According to company reports the stayaways at the mines,
owned by Gold Fields of South Africa, was for all practical
purposes total.

The strike came in the wake of a country-wide contract settle-
ment between the 250,000-member NUM, an affiliate of the
Congress of South African Trade Unions, and South Africa’s
mine owners association the Chamber of Mines.

Forget accused of fueling UI myths

OTTAWA — The two dissenting labor members of the Forget
Royal Commission on unemployment insurance took the chair-
man’s report to task again last week for promoting the myth of the
so-called 10-40 week worker.

Frances Saboda of the Canadian Labor Congress and the
International Woodworkers of America’s Jack Munro in a minor-
ity report leaked to a Toronto paper, hit former Quebec cabinet
minister Claude Forget for ignoring the commission’s research
refuting the myth that many UI recipients only work 15 weeks to
qualify for a full year’s benefits.

The labor members of the six-person commission criticized
this ‘‘blame the victim’? approach noting that it is based on
Forget’s attitude that unemployment isn’t rooted in general
economic conditions but is an individual problem. Forget’s own
data reveals that the ‘‘10-40 week workers’’ make up only 3 per
cent of all UI claimants and draw less than 5 per cent of the
benefits paid out by the system. ;

In addition, Munro and Saboda pointed out that the incidence
of short term workers qualifying for ** 10-40" occurs in areas with
more than 11.5 per cent unemployment, and like other workers
throughout the country they are penalized for quitting a job to go
on to UIC.

Like all UI recipients, they have to produce a job search every
week to keep receiving benefits.

Cement workers reject profit sharing

SYDNEY RIVER, N.S. — Workers at the Municipal
Ready-Mix cement plant in Cape Breton, have overwhelmingly
turned down a company-sponsored proposal offering ‘“produc-
tivity bonuses” and unspecified improvements to the pension
plan, based on future profit levels, in return for substantial wage
cuts and other concessions. ;

The 120 workers voted unanimously, last week, to reject the
company deal, which would have involved an immediate 25 per
cent, across-the-board wage cut.

| ,...South African mines shutdown...

Nova Scotia Fed

From the Atlantic

Miguel Figueroa

HALIFAX — The fight for
jobs, labor’s mobilization against
free trade and solidarity with the
Gainers strikers highlighted the
annual Nova Scotia Federation of
Labor convention which con-
cluded Oct. 25.

Both Nova Scotia Premier John
Buchanan and Prime Minister
Brian Mulroney came under in-
tense fire from the 50,000-mem-
ber federation for their failure to
create jobs in the province. The
delegates also condemned the
federal Tory agenda for free
trade, deregulation and privatiza-
tion as the ‘‘kiss of death for At-
lantic Canada.”

Federation president Gerald
Yetman opened the convention
with a call on Premier Buchanan
to immediately reconvene the
legislative assembly in order to,
‘‘lay out a blueprint for jobs in this
province.”

He blasted the federal govern-
ment for ‘“‘sitting on its hands”
while unemployment continues to
spiral, specially in Cape Breton
and central Nova Scotia.

Yetman accused Mulroney of
repeatedly betraying Atlantic
Canada and cited as evidence the
fact that poverty, unemployment
and regional disparity have grown
under the Tory regime.

The newly-formed Atlantic
Canada Opportunities Agency,
(ACOA), he said, offers no hope
to labor. ‘‘It’s just what we need
— another agency when we’ ve al-
ready got a dozen other agencies
that aren’t doing anything for the
people’’, the NSFL president de-
clared.

The country-wide campaign
against free trade was intently
discussed by the delegates. A
special policy paper on the CLC’s
campaign noted how the federal,
and most of the provincial gov-

-ernments, are ‘‘combining with

the business community to attack
us.””
The paper warned that, “‘unless
working people unite around op-
position to market-based policies
(of free trade, deregulation and
privatization), the conservative
forces will win.”

Canadian Union of Postal

Workers delegate Gordie Ash~

echoed the sentiments of most
delegates when he branded the
Tory government’s three-
pronged attack as a sellout of
jobs, of decent wages —a sellout
of the working class.”

Though the paper also spoke of
the need for the labor movement
to put forward a “‘positive alter-
native economic strategy’’ based
on ‘‘creating and saving jobs’’,
and maintaining Canadian control
of our economy, no specific alter-
native program was put before the
convention.

Instead, the NSFL executive
recommended, and the conven-
tion endorsed, a $20,000 ‘‘public
awareness campaign’’, which
delegates sharply criticized for
neglecting the promotion of la-
bor’s own program for jobs and
economic and social rights in

-Nova Scotia in favor of a six-

month public relations effort in
which labor is to sponsor blood
donor clinics, host fund raising
events for the United Appeal, and
sponsor such recreational activi-
ties as bowling leagues and dart
tournaments.

Labor solidarity was much in
evidence at the convention with
the thunderous. ovation the dele-
gates gave to Vickie Beauchamp,
one of the United Food and
Commercial Workers strike lead-
ers at Gainers.

She noted how broad support
for the Canada-wide boycott
campaign had forced Gainers to
reduce meat shipments into Nova

meets —

Scotia from 300,000 pounds 10”
80,000 during the last month.

The convention raised more
than $8,500 in support of the —
Gainers strikers and their “his:
toric struggle’, and collected
thousands of dollars to support
workers at Nystone Chemicals
DeBirt, N.S., who’ ve been on the
picket line for more than i
months.

Another convention highlight
was the warm tribute paid toJ K.
Bell, the recently-retired NSF¥
secretary-treasurer, outspoke®
left winger and long-time progres”
sive trade union leader.

Red-baited from union leader
ship in the 1950s, *‘Jim’’ Bell was
honored for always standing 1",
by his socialist principles 40”
maintaining, “‘his loyalty to his
members in the shipyards and !
all workers in Canada and inter
nationally.” ee

Among the numerous” other
resolutions adopted by the cO™
vention included support for
Canadian Auto Workers’ di
organize Michelin, the det
for a 32 hour work week with ;
loss in pay, and a call on the
chanan government to bring *
anti-scab legislation. the

The delegates also gave
federation’s official support t©
African National Congress; de
South African Congress of Tf
Unions, the United Demoe r ‘
Front, the Congress of ul eo
African Trade Unions and a
anti-apartheid forces in Sout?”
rica, and called for complete set :
nomic and political sanction
against the Botha regime. iid

Peace and international 9°,
darity were on the convention f
agenda as well, with a call IY.
the delegates for continued effo i
to achieve nuclear disarmame y
and criticism of the Mu ¢
government’s ‘*shameful | ding
weak-kneed stance regat’ ‘ary
American support for mili eh:
dictatorships in Chile, El Salvé |
dor and Guatemala.” ad

In rejecting increased depé
dence on the U.S. market wees
free trade arrangements, sed
gates also called for incre fi
trade with ‘‘third world a”

cialist countries.”

as

By MERLE TERLESKY

EDMONTON — With pub-
lic pressure mounting against
the provincial and federal
Tories’ neo-conservative
agenda, and a mushrooming,
country-wide support move-
ment for the Gainers strikers,

- Board, Oct. 28, ruled that the
company’s looting of the pen-
sion plan was an unfair labor
pratice.

In a 96-page ruling, the
board upheld Local 280-P,

_ United Food and Commercial
Workers’ unfair labor practice
charges against the meat pack-
ing firm owned by Tory milli-
onaire and Edmonton Oilers
boss Peter Pocklington.

Gainers was found to have
bargained in bad faith by: ref-

the Alberta Labor Relations ~

Support for Gainers

using to make a concrete con-
tract offer to the union until
June 13; misleading the union
in making no effort to re-
negotiate the pension at the
same time as the company was
moving to cancel it; and not
informing the workers that it
was cancelling the pension.

Alberta Federation of Labor
president Dave Werlin wel-
comed the board’s decision as
“a victory for the Gainers
workers in filing the charge
against Pocklington” but noted
that, “the board has applied no
remedy, but has reserved juris-
diction in the event that the
two parties do not settle.”

The ruling came in the wake
of a call from a United church
forum, Oct. 26, urging its
members to step up solidarity

workers

with the strikers. The forum
men

closed with strong agree
for the church to consider ae if
lishing an ad in support O°
boycott.

In other solidarity develo
ments, the union organ tof
fundraising event in SUP. :
the strikers’ children Otte oe
which drew about 740 Peal
and turned away more ©
200 at the door., oped

The Oct. 28 labor boats
decision was greeted DY Tops
labor movement as iMPO'™ ne
both for affirming tha’ sted
workers pension 1g eee are |
beofre the strike and thus 4 |
preserved by the strik i
because it adds pressure ae
company to bargain.

6 ¢ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 5, 1986