One of the demonstrators who turned out to greet Bill Vander Zalm
last Friday in Vancouver. His sign carried a question on the minds of
many at the demonstration who were victim of the minister's

repressive policies.

Fred Wilson-photo

Militancy, unity wins |
settlement for UFAWU

Continued from page 1
Hewison told the Tribune Wed-
nesday, “‘They have won a set-
tlement for other industries to
shoot for, at a time when our union
is under attack, and when the
Employers’ Council was
pressuring the companies to hold
the line.”

The strike began last Sunday
when union tendermen voted
overwhelmingly to reject an offer
from the companies which would
have precluded the union’s right to
take strike action during the
lucrative herring roe season.

The evening before, the fishing
companies had caved in to the
union’s determination and just
hours before the strike deadline
raised their offer to shoreworkers
from 33 cents per hour to 70 cents
per hour, and for tendermen to $9
per day with increases as well in
food allowances and other fringe
benefits.

The union negotiating committee
temporarily lifted the strike
deadline, but later on Sunday af-
ternoon the tendermen rejected the
company offer because it included
salmon and herring agreements in
the single contract.

It was the unity of the union
membership which backed the
Fisheries Association down,
Hewison said, “‘The tendermen
were militant and the
shoreworkers and fishermen
backed them up in a display of

solidarity we have seldom seen in
our union.”’

Fishermen gave the tendermen
solid support, Hewison said, as
evidenced by their solidarity ac-
tion at Rivers” Inlet where 150
fishermen formed their boats into
a picket line to interfere with about
40 scab boats.

Early Wednesday morning after
an all night bargaining session the
Fisheries Association dropped its
demand that herring and salmon
agreements be combined in a
single contract, and accepted a
union “compromise”? that a
memorandum of agreement for the
1978 herring roe season be signed.
The memorandum means that
there will not be a strike during
this year’s herring season, but the
union retains its right to strike in
future years.

As negotiations developed it
became clear -that the single
contract for herring and salmon
was the price the companies were
demending for a settlement in
other areas. Company profits had
never been higher — 112 percent in
1977 — and the 1978 salmon run
‘promised to produce $20 million
per week. The companiés could
afford the wage increases, but they
wanted the herring agreement in
return. It was only the militancy of
the tendermen which turned back
a company demand, Hewison
Sald. oat a

East Indians organize

TORONTO — East Indians in
metropolitan Toronto have united
in a new organization, the East
Indian Workers’ Association,
founded here June 25.

The new organization with a
growing membership of 600
adopted a program to fight against
racism, for equal social and
economic opportunity for East
Indians, and to promote co-
operation between East Indians
and the Canadian trade union
movement.

Participating in the founding
meeting were Ontario Federation

of Labor spokesman Don Lee,
United Electrical Workers
representative Val Bjarnason and
G. S. Sanghera of the East Indian
Workers Association of Vancouver.

The founding of the new
organization is indicative of the
weakening of the harmful _in-
fluence of Moist element within the
East Indian community,
organizers noted, as the new

organization was winning wide

support in spite of attempts by the
Maoists to _ prevent its
organization.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—July 21, 1978—Page 8

Is the strike weapon out of date
for public employees? The
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees, Canada’s largest trade
union, is seriously debating. this
question — at least at the staff
level.

A paper on A Strike Strategy For
CUPE issued to staff members by
the union’s research department in
April of this year, poses that
question on page eleven. ‘Our
primary and most effective
weapon has been, and still is the
threat of strike and ultimately, the
strike.. Yet the evidence clearly
suggests that the power of our
strikes is not what it used to
ben

As the main strength of CUPE is
among municipal, school board
and hospital employees, most of
the problems examined by the
paper are in these fields.

The author points out that public
employers are much better
prepared to handle _ strike
situations than they were a decade
ago and that strikes in public
employment last much longer now,
sometimes as long as four and five
months. Hospital strikes have
lasted as long as ten weeks and
nursing home strikes as long as

two years. On page four the writer °

advances. this sobering conclusion:
“Public employers are now
prepared and equipped to face up
to a long strike and the public
appears more prepared to endure
it.” Another major conclusion is
advanced on page thirteen: ‘‘The
tide of public opinion is turning or
has turned against us in most areas
and this is the key to the
politicians’ resolve to take us on.”

In dealing with the ability of
public employers to handle strikes,
the paper lists a number of factors:
automation and the ability of small
supervisory crews to provide
certain key services; the ability to
store garbage for months in plastic
bags; automatic heating systems
in schools; the use of supervisory
staff in hospitals and the shifting of
patients from one hospital to
another; contracting out of key
services and the exclusion of more
and more key classifications from
the bargaining unit. In addition,
the document stresses the key role
of the professional negotiator hired
by the politicians “whose fee or
reputation is built on beating the
union down regardless of the long
term cost” and who is “‘far less
susceptible to pressure from the
union or the general public.”

The situation in British.Columbia
is referred to in these terms: ‘‘The
more recent trend, particularly in
British Columbia, for accrediting a
group of employers, who hire a
professional negotiator, removes
the employer even a step further
from the scene of bargaining. The
municipality in such an instance
cannot even bargain directly with
its own employees since it has
given over its bargaining rights to
the new accredited council of
employers.”

According to CUPE, these
developments where the real
employer no longer bargains
directly with the union, ‘“‘will
certainly increase the frequency
and length of strikes.”

The paper then goes on to stress
the growing importance of regional
and provincial organizations of
public employers which have hired
full time professional and research
staff ‘who now have a strong

~ controlling interest in the course of

bargaining”, naming as examples
the Public Employers Council of
British Columbia, the Ontario
Municipal Association and the
Manitoba Association of School
Trustees.

The role of the corporate sector
of the economy is pinpointed as a
major factor in the increasing
conflict between public employees
and the state, on the following
grounds:

e The heavy demands made by
this sector on government budgets,
causing government expenditures
to outstrip revenues.

e The expansion of the cor-
porate structure through the ab-
sorption by government of the cost
of maintaining the superstructure,
such as railroads,

LABOR.
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

hydroelectric power, harbours,

airport, sanitation, schools and
universities, unemployment in-
surance, etc.

e Inaddition to their traditional
benefits, the corporations now
want the public to pay for direct
subsidies and outright grants, fast
depreciation allowances for
machinery grants to locate in
economically depressed regions,
research and development grants,
easy credit arrangements, etc.

In line with this, a key question is
posed: ‘‘With governments _in-
creasingly assuming the financial
obligations of benefits to cor-
porations, is it any wonder that
they have difficulty in providing
decent conditions of employment
to their employees?”’ Almost as a
footnote to this question, the author
points out that ‘“‘the corporate
share of tax revenue is declining at
the same time that corporate
demands on the public treasury
are increasing.”

Another important conclusion, at
least in respect to municipal and
school board strikes, is that the
public employers save money
during a strike, because while their
wage bill is sharply reduced, the
tax money keeps rolling in.

According to CUPE, these
factors combined are making
traditional public service strikes
less effective.

Having posed these serious
questions, the author then suggests
some answers:

e Public sector unions must
refine their strike techniques,
“turn the screws a little tighter”
and be prepared to stay out on
strike a little longer.

e Post-controls bargaining
must recognize that the wage
control period demonstrated a
considerable weakness in the labor
movement as a whole.

Four basic proposals are offered
for consideration:

1. Strikes must be made more
effective in stopping the operations
of the employer.

2. There must be greater co-
ordination in both bargaining and

Mea oe —

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highways,

strikes, particularly — in
metropolitan areas. In this con-
nection, the author advances the
idea that the multi-employer strike
can be effective, such as a com-
bination of employees from the

municipal school board, univer- —

sity, hospital and library sectors.
He also advances the idea of

broadening the bargaining unit

with the objective of province-wide
collective agreements where
feasible. Obviously, in the field of
hospitals, where the main financial

control is in the hands of a
provincial government agency, ~

this is a must. However, some —
CUPE leaders strongly object to
the concept of provincial
bargaining units of municipal and
local school board employees on
the ground that_it would restrict
local autonomy. I will not comment
on that controversy in this article.

3. More effective use of

picketers’ time, such as using _

excessive manpower in
distributing leaflets about the
strike or circulating a petition, in.

addition to the patrolling of work-

sites.

4. A more effective use of
public relations techniques to
influence public opinion.

In his opening page, the author
makes this statement:
employees in many jurisdictions
are no longer content merely to
keep pace with the private sector.
A brighter and more militant breed.
of younger public servants are

determined to win conditions .
superior to the private sector. They —

are succeeding in many cases.
That is as it should be” (my em-_
phasis: J.P.) ;

Here, in my opinion, lies the
basic weakness of the paper. There
is no examination of the role of the
Canadian Labor
provincial federations of labor and
local labor councils in helping to
set overall strategy and tactics
and supportive actions to bring

‘strikes to a successful conclusion —
in the shortest possible time. This

reflects a certain narrowness and
conceit flowing from the concept
that CUPE is the largest union in
Canada and can go it alone. The
idea of going it alone in order to
win ‘superior conditions as com-
pared with the dominant, private

sector, instead of joining with the

workers in that sector for the
common good, will if allowed to
run its course, separate CUPE

from the rest of the labor

movement, to the detriment of

public employees and the labor

movement as a whole.

The strike of the Trail civic

employees has been going on since
last February. If the B.C.

Federation of Labor, the local
labor council and the Steel workers

(the dominant unionin Trail) came _
into: the picture in a decisive —

fashion, the strike would soon be

settled in the interests of the
workers. CUPE cannot afford to —

ignore such considerations.

bes

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“Public

Congress,