With eager customers waiting to fill th pre}
herring sale held Nov. 21 in New Westminster. The bargain fish —

eir bags, fishermen prepare t

at False Creek.

—

he herring in the annual UFAWU-CKNW
selling at $1 for some 20 pounds — will

—Richard Morgan photo

Cont'd from pg. 1

Amongst the 13 board members
Who supported the guarantee of
Tepayment order was Angus
MacDonald of the United
Steelworkers of America. The
Steelworkers were involved in a
bitter jurisdictional dispute with
CASAW at Kitimat in 1972.

Two other labor representatives
_ the board, Jim MacAvoy of the

lectrical Workers, and Peter

ameron of the Confederation of
_ Canadian Unions, to which CASAW

'S affiliated opposed the order
 Tequesting the loan repayment
‘Suarantee, but went along with the
~ decision to ask for the repayment
Of Wages, though both said that in
doing so they hoped that Alcan
Would drop any intention of suing
the union as a whole. —

The majority decision, written
by LRB chairman Paul Weiler,
Claimed that the board’s action
Was necesSary to ensure that the
Intent of the original order was
Upheld.

“If the loans are not repaid...

€ panel would have authorized
_ 40t a suspension — which involves
_ hO work and no pay — but rather a

Skyway Luggage, the site of a
bitter four-and-one-half month
Strike earlier this year has an-
nounced that it will close its
Vancouver manufacturing plant

_ And lay off more than 70 of the 90
employees at the factory. The

_ Warehouse and offices will remain
Spen, though they employ only
about 20 people in total, of which
Only three or four are organized
Workers, —

Skyway’s general manager Ray

ngston said that the closure was
ae result of the company being
evicted from its premises at 1400
harles Street in Vancouver and
Not as a result of the strike this
Spring.

In that strike, the 90 workers,
Mostly immigrant women workers
Maintained a 24 hour picket line
despite being served with
Numerous court orders and in-
Junctions and finally won a dollar
Per hour increase on an average
Tate of $2.85.

Though Kingston denied that the
Wage increases were responsible
or the plant closure, represen

= tatives from the Teamsters’ Union
which now represents the Skyway

_ Workers are not so sure. Peter
_ Moslinger, a business agent for the
Teamsters warned Skyway that
the union will move to block the

again be available at the second sale slated for Dec. 5

‘vacation — which involves no work
with full pay.”

Weiller wrote that the board’s
order was in keeping with the
original intention of its earlier
order which forbade Alcan to fire
any smelter workers, an order
which he said was designed to heal
a tense situation. :

The second part of the ruling, the
request that 30 workers whom
Alean had sought to fire each pay,
the company 10 days pay might
prompt Alcan to drop its intention
to sue CASAW, Weiler said.

Burton said that the board
“obviously feels that their decision
will lead to Alcan. dropping its
appeal to the dismissal of contempt
of court charges against 12
members of the union _and en-~
courage them not to initiate civil
proceedings against the union.

The contempt of court charges
were brought against the 12
smelter workers by Alean after
they refused to honor a back to
work order from the LRB which
was filed with the Supreme Court
of B.C. The filing of a back to work

LRB decision ‘punitive’

order gives it the effect of a
supreme court order. .

“We feel that that is a false
premise on which to base a

decision’? Burton said. “The LRB _

obviously feels that those charges
against us are dismissed and that
the case is closed. That isn’t so.
Alcan still has an appeal before the
courts, and the case is still open.”

As well, Burton said that the
order which stipulated that the pay
should be returned to Alcan had
aroused a “Jot of resentment” in
the town. “If we're going to be
fined for illegal behavior than at
the minimum, that fine should be
paid to the state and not to a
private employer,” he said.

Burton speculated that, in or-
dering the payment of wages back
to Alcan, the LRB may have
overstepped its authority again.
“We have a payment of wages act
in this province that stipulates that
a worker is paid for the hours he
works. This order contradicts that
law and it amounts to forced labor
— you’ repaying for the privilege of
working.”

closure opposed

sale of Skyway luggage in B.C. if
the company moves the
manufacturing operation | to
another area of Canada. :

Moslinger said “Skyway 1S
trying to get out from under an
agreement which, by any stretch of
the imagination, is inferior, so they
can go back east and pay the
minimum wage again. |

During the strike, Kingston was
quoted as saying that the luggage
manufacturing | industry was a
“minimum wage industry” and-
that it “‘would stay that way.” He
also threatened a plant closure
during the strike if the union won

sters’ spokesman said that a
number of avenues were being
consider ed to force Skyway to keep
the plant open, and it is expected
that the union may appeal to the
provincial government and ask
that it intervene in the closure to
keep the plant open.

The union is expected to an-
nounce the course that it will follow
in the next week.

St? HEX
he a

fo

any substantial wage increases.-

Kingston announced that the
manufacturing operation would
remain in Canada, though he
refused to specific where. This es
was greeted with scepticism as 1
has been widely speculated that if

‘the Vancouver plant were to close,

production would be increased at
Skyways Seattle factory, where
workers are piad well below the
B.C. minimum wage, and some
wages are as low as $1.95 per hour.

Though Skyway has been evicted
from its Vancouver building, of-
ficials of the Teamsters’ Union are
not prepared to allow the plant to
close without a battle. A Team-

SKYWAY PICKETS, April 1976 .

fight to

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation
has launched an action in the
Supreme Court questioning the
validity of Anti-Inflation Board
ordered roll backs in teachers’
salaries.

The AIB ordered teachers’
wages rolled back in early Oc-
tober, even though the settlement
figures were those imposed
through the process of binding
arbitration contained in the Public
Schools Act of B.C.

At that time, BCTF president
Bill Broadley charged that the AIB
had ‘‘totally shafted a group of
employees committed to following
the legal processes available’’ and
that the AIB ‘‘had kicked the feet”’
from under the Public Schools Act.

The BCTF action is not directed
at the AIB itself, but at the Bur-
naby School Board and the

provincial government, and has

been launched on behalf of the
Burnaby Teachers’ Association
and one Burnaby teacher. A BCTF
press statement said that the
action seeks court rulings on the
authority of the provincial

_ government to enter into an anti-

inflation agreement with the
federal government, and a decision
as to what the exact effect of that
agreement is.

A key aspect of the BCTF action
is whether or not the Anti-Inflation
Measures Act has any retroactive
application. This question is
particularly central to the
teachers’ action as the rollbacks
were ordered a full nine months
after the contracts went into effect,
and in fact, B.C. did not even join
the federal program until more
than six months of the contract
term had expired.

Under the Public Schools Act,
binding arbitration reports must
be handed down by December 31 of
the year previous to im-
plementation. British Columbia
did not enter into the federal
program until June 23 when the
provincial government signed a
memorandum owhich controlled
wages retroactively to October 14,
1975, and the AIB order applied
back to that date.

So far the AIB has ruled on only
19 of 46 agreements that were
settled through arbitration last
year, so some_ teachers’
associations will be in the position
of having two separate agreements
awaiting a decision from the AIB.

A final question in the BCTF
action is whether or not the already
existing arbitration provisions of
the Public Schools Act override the
retroactive application of the
federal controls.

In addition to the Supreme Court
action, the BCTF has launched a
multi-pronged campaign to fight
the federal controls program.

The BCTF campaign calls upon.

UPHOLSTERERS
TTERKATIONAL
UR LOCKE

a
sqpit

. . facing closed doors again.
—Sean Griffin photo

= BCTF takes AIB

courts

all local teachers’ associations not
to sign any agreements covering
two years, and states
unequivocally that ‘‘present
controls and their application
make it impossible for teachers to
carry on any effective form of
collective bargaining.’ The BCTF
pointed out that this means that it
“will not be able to hold increases
contained in 1976 contracts nor
establish suitable increases for
BOTT rs

The BCTF is also recommending
that no teacher group accept any
process which recognizes the
present controls nor take any
“apparent short-run advantages”’
such as averaging wage increases
over two years on the. basis of
controls.

As well the teachers’ federation
is urging “political opposition in all
its ramifications as the only route
to the return of collective
bargaining rights,’ and urging
teachers to ‘‘harass and obstruct
the bureaucratic operation of these
controls.”’

B.C. TEL
Cont'd from pg. 1

At hearings of the CTC held in
Vancouver in September, 1975
strong opposition was voiced by the
NDP. provincial government and
citizen’s groups, to granting a rate
increase to B.C. Tel without going
into its dealings with sister com-
panies, such as Lenkurt Electric,
from which B.C. Tel buys the
major part of its equipment and
supplies. Lenkurt is part of the
GTE monopoly. ;

It’s no secret that B.C. Tel hides |
its profits in the inter-corporate
maze to the detriment of the B.C.
public. Nevertheless, federal
government regulating agencies
have consistently refused to allow
consideration of this question, and
have defended B.C. Tel’s right to
earn 9.5 percent as a rate of return
on its investment. .

By persisting in this attitude, the
CTC has ignored the significance of
a study by the federal department
of communications early in 1975 —
which showed that 82 percent of
B.C. Tel’s total business at that
time about $250 million — was with
GTE-controlled companies with
which it is linked.

Undoubtedly, B.C. Tel considers
that the present political climate in
B.C. — with Social Credit govern-
ment back in power — is favorable
for the company. B.C. Tel was a
strong opponent of the NDP
government, and favored the
return of the Socreds. No one
knows what political debts the
government owes B.C. Tel, but it is
undoubtedly substantial. This is
the first application for a rate boost
made by B.C. Tel since the election
of the Socred government. The
sympathy of the government was
shown in June of this year when the
Socred government made no ef-
fective protest to the Anti-Inflation
Board against the June rate in-
crease.

Judging by the boosts recently
granted oil and natural gas
companies, and the favorable
attitude of the Socred government
to big business, B.C. Tel has every
reason to believe Victoria will not
stand in the way of the 15 percent
rate boost it seeks.

However, an indignant public
can still force hearings in’B.C. into

the utility companies application, :

and popular protest can defeat this
latest assault on people’s living
standards if united and vocal.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 3, 1976—Page 3