British Columbia

Clinic strikers buck
expectations, still on
line after 10 months

By SEAN GRIFFIN

COMOX — To the employers, it was
supposed to be the strike that would be
called off virtually as quickly as it began.

But the nine women walking the pick-
et line outside the Comox Medical Clinic
will be marking the first anniversary of
their action on Oct. 5. And if anything,
the last 11 months have strengthened
their resolve to stay out until they have a
first contract.

“T don’t think in their wildest dreams,
they thought we’d still be here after the
first snows flew,” says shop steward and
picket co-ordinator Donna Messer. “But
the longer we stay out, the more deter-
mined we are that we won’t just walk
away from here.”

All of the original nine strikers are still
on the picket line, she notes.

That determination is undoubtedly

“We’ve had an
opportunity to see how
labour solidarity works
and it’s been incredible.
It’s turned me into a
militant trade unionist
— and that’s the only
way I'd want to be.”

the main factor in prompting some new
moves by the employer. Wayne Viccic,
business agent for the United Food and
Commercial Workers, said he expected
some bargaining initiatives over the next
two to four weeks.

Still, says Messer, the clinic workers
wouldn’t be surprised to see the anniver-
sary date come and go without a settle-
ment of the strike that has become a sharp
focal point for residents in this north
Island community.

“We’re absolutely serious about this
— these are basic issues of union rights,”
Messer emphasizes.

Contracting-out, a union shop and
seniority provisions were the key issues
when the strike began last fall and the
employers were still demanding that
union members capitulate on all three as
acondition to discussing wages when the
last talks were held on May 30.

Tronically, the six doctors invoked
their own version of the union shop in an
effort to break the strike, as clinics in
other communities and physicians in in-
dividual practices refused to accept

Comox Medical Clinic patients who did
not want to cross the picket line. The
clinic itself has been kept open with
scabs.

Since that time, the strikers have
begun to win the campaign for public
support, and a clinic in Cumberland and
another in Campbell River have agreed
to accept patients. Several doctors in in-
dividual practices have done likewise.

Crucial to that public support has been
the support campaign mounted by the
Campbell River, Courtenay and District
Labour Council, and the profile it has
given to high incomes generated by doc-
tors at the clinic.

According to figures obtained from
the Medical Service Plan, released by the
union and the support committee, more
than $900,000 in physicians’ fees were
taken in by the clinic for the year ended
Mar. 31, 1988. One-third of that went to
one physician, Dr. D.F. Fockler.

Incontrast, wages for clerical workers
at the clinic ranged from $10,600 to
$18,500 a year while nurses earned
$13,350 to $21,800.

: “The doctors have lost a lot of cred-
ibility over this because people expect
doctors to be reasonable — and the dif-

ference here just isn’t reasonable,” says
Messer.

The strike has also been a test for the
trade union movement in the area, as to
whether local unions can win and main-
tain union organization in small units in
the service sector. The Comox Medical
Clinic is one of only two certified clinics
in the province. The other is in Kamloops
where the Office and Technical Em-
ployees Union has the contract.

“If you’re going to organize in the
service sector, it’s mainly small shops,”
says UFCW business agent Viccic. “And
we expect that when we go on strike for
a first contract, it’s going to be long.”

The strike at the clinic certainly hasn’t
changed that, he adds. But throughout
that strike, the determination shown by
the women on the picket line “has been
fantastic,” he notes.

For Messer, the strike has also been a
personal journey that has taken her from
first-time union membership to shop
steward and union activist.

“The doctors thought that the exper-
ience would make us turn against the
union,” she says. “But it’s had the op-
posite effect. We’ve had an opportunity
to see how labour solidarity works and
it’s been incredible. It’s tured me into a
militant trade unionist — and that’s the
only way I’d want to be.”

New appeal launched

A Vancouver doctor who has refused to
pay taxes for military expenditures for the
past eight years has again petitioned the
Supreme Court of Canada to hear her case.

Dr. Jerilynn Prior, of UBC’s medical fac-
ulty, and her lawyer Thomas Berger an-
nounced last week that the case is a test for
freedom of conscience under the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms.

Prior, who banks a percentage of her
taxes in anaccount held by Conscience Can-
ada, has been consistently rebuffed in her
efforts to channel the military portion of her
taxes to peaceful purposes since 1982 by
various tax courts, federal courts and the
Supreme Court of Canada.

AQuakerby conversion and the daughter
of a U.S. conscientious objector, Prior said
“it doesn’t make sense under the new Con-
stitution (of Canada) not to allow a full
hearing” of the case based on conscientious
objection and historical context.

A court victory would likely mean Prior
and some 500 other Canadians could see the
withheld portion of their taxes used for non-
military purposes, she noted.

Prior’s case was rejected by the tax court
on the grounds that it lacked the mandate to
consider constitutional arguments, while the
Trial Division of the Federal Court and the

Federal Court of Appeals have accepted fed-
eral government motions to dismiss the case.

Last February, the Supreme Court of
Canada rejected an application for Leave to
Appeal by Prior and Berger.

Berger and Prior have said that the fact
that the Federal Court of Appeal’s three
justices did not consider the historical con-
text of the case are reasons for launching a
rare second appeal.

“To launch a second appeal is quite note-
worthy. It’s only done if there has been a
sufficient change in legal precedents since
the original appeal,” Prior said in an inter-
view.

Ina press release Berger cited two recent
cases he said established the importance of
hearing constitutional cases and considering
historical background. “The fact is that Can-
ada has recognized conscientious objection
to military service since 1793, and as far
back as 1842 it allowed Quakers to direct

in ‘peace tax’ case

DR. JERILYNN PRIOR... UBC medicine faculty member has withheld military portion
. of taxes for eight years.

their military taxes to peaceful purposes,” he
added.

Prior said the Court of Appeals found no
“nexus in law” between taxes paid and Par-
liament’s subsequent allocations of tax rev-
enues.

“We argued that the connection is in my
conscience. A Quaker feels morally respon-
sible.”

Prior said Appeals Court Justice G. Addy
had commented that “chaos” would result
from widespread withholding of taxes,
which she said acknowledges that there is a
connection between the withholding and
military spending.

Berger and Prior filed the new appeal
with the Supreme Court of Canada on Aug.
20.

Prior said conscientious objectors across
Canada calculate the amount of the taxes
they withhold each year mainly on federal
budget allocations for military expenditures
that range between eight and 12 per cent.
They deposit it in an account in Victoria
called the Peace Trust Fund.

“The money belongs to the government.
It’s waiting for the government to use it for

peaceful purposes.”

Bumaby NDP MP Svend Robinson in-
troduced a private member’s bill July 4
which would channel that tax money into
non-military uses, she related.

Prior said the withholding of tax money
could be seen as both a strategy for broader
action and as “a personal imperative.” For
her, the latter is most important, she said.

Conscientious objection for Prior goes
back to her parents and incidents like the
Vietnam War, when her husband refused to
submit to the U.S. draft. The nuclear build-
up of the Eighties “just makes it more im-
perative,” she said.

“As the human race, we have totally
under-developed skills at human relations,
especially concerning conflict resolution,”
she said, citing responses to the situation at
Oka, Que., and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

But, “I’m nota pacifist by any means. ’'d
use active resistance, like barricades, to pro-
mote my point of view.”

Arash of CF-18 crashes has forced the
Department of National Defence to in-
crease the minimum altitude for CF-18
flight training but an Innu leader is ques-
tioning why similar restrictions have not
been placed on other fighter aircraft.

Thirteen CF-18s have crashed since

_ 1984, including five this past year, but 13
Tornado GR1 fighter bombers, used by the
British air force, have also gone down
since January 1987.

Crashes prompt Innu safety fears

The most recent crash of a Tornado,
about 10 miles north of Sheshatshiu, Lab-
rador prompted Chief Daniel Ashini to call
on the House of Commons Defence Com-
mittee for a full investigation into the crash
and the safety of RAF training with Tor-
nados in Innu airspace over eastern
Quebec and Labrador.

The crash rate of the CF-18 is reported
at .77 per 10,000 hours, while the Tornado
crash rate is .70 per 10,000 hours. Despite
the similar crash rates the Tornado can fly
at 100 feet, while the CF-18 is limited to
250 feet.

“You have to wonder why DND will
order restrictions on CF-18 flying, when

the Tornado, with about the same crash
rate, is still allowed to fly in Innu airspace
without the same restrictions,’ Chief
Ashini is quoted in Update, a newsletter
covering NATO activities in Labrador and
Quebec.

“We are very concemed about the
safety of our people who are in the country
each fall and spring. Thenumber of crashes
will only go up as the number of low-level
flights increases,” Ashini said.

Pacific Tribune, August 27, 1990 « 3