Look
fll

As the lockout of Local 300 of the Brewery Workers Union ie B.C.
giant breweries entered its fifth week, the union’s flying pickets this
week chased brewery trucks carrying scab beer. The breweries
have refused to negotiate with the union until it agrees to the com-
pany proposal for industry wide bargaining.

BREWERY WORKERS.
LAtN. Bm:

UFAWU shoreworkers
set to strike industry

Continued from page 1
Association to improve its offer by
holding a series of spontaneous
Study sessions, lasting two to six
hours. Further study sessions are

- expected at other fish plants this
week.

While the UFAWU prepares
strike plans, salmon fishermen will
be voting on a new contract for
minimum salmon prices for 1978,
with a recommendation from their
salmon negotiating committee to
accept. Voting began Monday over
the proposed minimum prices of 88
cents per pound for sockeye and 62
cents per pound for Cohoe salmon.
While the companies offered the
fishermen increases in minimum
prices from 10 to 20 percent,
fishermen are actually receiving
as much as double the proposed
prices when they sell their fish on
the grounds. The margin between
the minimum prices and what the
companies will actually pay is
indicative of the enormous profits
being made, the union points out.

Even with an acceptance vote

from salmon fishermen, fishermen
will join the shoreworkers and
tendermen in a _ united strike
against the companies, if a strike
becomes necessary. The UFAWU
will not sign any contract until
contracts for all three sections of
the industry are ready for signing.

If the UFAWU strikes the
Fisheries Association, one useful
spin off may be added pressure on
the Prince Rupert Fishermens’ Co-
Op to settle with its shoreworkers,
members of the Prince Rupert
Amalgamated Shoreworkers and
Clerks Union, now in the third
week of a lock out by the Co-Op.
PRASCU has declared all Co-Op
fish “hot”. and most UFAWU
shoreworkers and tendermen have
refused to handle Co-Op fish.

In spite of the hot declaration,
however, some 409 Co-Op boats are
continuing scab fishing operations,
including a number of members of
the Prince Rupert Co.Op
Fisherman’s Guild, a CLC char-
tered union that broke away from
the UFAWU in 1967. :

MFLlaunches campaign

to block right drive

WINNIPEG — A special
emergency conference of the
Manitoba Federation of Labor July
5 adopted an action program to
counter the right wing drive of
Manitoba’s conservative govern-
ment and large employers.

“We hope that our strong
mobilization and determination to
fight back will change the
reasoning of the government and
the employers here,’ Nels
Thibault, president of the MFL told
the Canadian Tribune, “In other
words, we’re not going to be chased
because we’re not going to run.
We're fighting back.”

Among the main elements of the
MFL’s action program was a
decision to have non-striking
workers visit picket lines at strikes
and lockouts in acts of solidarity.
Construction workers in Manitoba

have been manning picket lines for
over three months.

MFL affiliates are being called
upon to contribute to a special fund
to aid workers on strike or locked
out and the 250 conference
delegates also heard plans for a
“mass political rally’ on Labor
Day in Winnipeg, sponsored by the
Federation.

Union members in Manitoba will
be asked to contribute to a $1 per
month voluntary fund to finance
the campaign to defend rights and
conditions won under the former
NDP government. In particular,
Thibault said, the MFL should be
on guard to protect Autopact, the
sgovernment auto insurance
agency, and free medicare, both of
which are in danger of being
scrapped by the Manitoba Tory
government.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—July 14, 1978—Page 8

In my Labor Comment of
February 24, I summarised the
ruling of the British Columbia
Labor Relations Board which
decreed that in future the 17 in-
ternational unions in the con-
struction industry will carry on
collective bargaining with the
Construction Labor Relations
Association through a ‘‘council of
trade unions.”

It is a sad commentary on the
state of affairs in the building
trades that a unified structure for
collective bargaining was handed
down by an agency of the
provincial government with the
tacit co-operation of the majority
of unions and the B.C. Federation
of Labor, because inter-union
rivalries made it impossible for the
unions to agree on their own.

My article of February 24 closed
with these two sentences: ‘The
new situation calls for a new effort
to overcome the dis-unity and
disarray on the union side. Those
leaders who fail to rise to this level
will be judged accordingly by their
membership, sooner or later.”

The latest developments in
contract negotiations between the
unions and the CLRA indicate that
many problems that stood in the
way of unity in the past remain
unsolved to this day.

However, my experience as the

chief negotiator for a number of
autonmous local unions of civic
employees in Greater Vancouver
joined in a common bargaining
council taught me that despite the
best of intentions of those who fight
for unity, there are built-in dif-
ficulties and dangers in every
structure of this type. You have to
be guided by the principle of doing
the best you can for the members,
work out the best and most
practical program of action that is
possible and deal with internal
problems as they arise. Usually,
there is at least one two.bit leader
trying to make a name for himself
by advancing what he claims to be
the vital interest of his group as

opposed to the considered thinking .

of the majority. Such persons have
a tendency to talk-too much to the
press or to representatives of the
radio and television networks, and
usually at the wrong time and in
defiance of committee policy.
When this happens at a critical
period in negotiations, the news
media (with honorable exceptions
like the Tribune) give generous
coverage to the “‘dissident’’. After
all, the name of that game is to get
a sensational story and if the labor
movement gets another black eye
in the process, so much the better.

I was prompted to write these
comments when I read an in-
terview with Frank Stevens of the
Cement Masons Union in the
Vancouver Sun of July 7. The
opening paragraph said: ‘Top
officers of the construction unions
have been playing games under the
table with the employers to favor
unions that are big and strong over
those that are small and weak,
business manager Frank Stevens
of the Cement Masons _In-
ternational Union, charged
Thursday.”

Further, he said this “‘. . . the
electricians, carpenters and
operating engineers have received

favored treatment in talks with

Construction Labor Relations
Association’, according to George
Dobie of the Sun. To quote the
interview again: ‘. . . he further
stated that is the main reason these
three unions voted last Friday in
favor of a two-year; $1.62 an-hour
settlement while 14 others opposed
it.” Specifically criticized and
named in print by Stevens were

Jim Kinnaird of the Electrical

Disunity i in construction
unions working for CLRA |

Union, Ray Gautier of the Car-
penters and Mike Parr of the
Operating Engineers, the three top
officers of the provincial Building
Trades Council. Kinnaird and
Gaurtier are the chief spokesmen
for the new bargaining council
representing the 17 unions..,

This action by Stevens was, I am-

of
no

informed, in _ violation
established policy that

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

statements other than authorized
statements would be issued to the
news media during negotiations by
the joint bargaining committee or
any member there of. I have also
learned that a special meeting of
the larger policy committee was
held at which a resolution ex-
pressing confidence in. the officers
publicly criticized by Stevens was
unanimously adopted. Stevens was
sharply reprimanded because of
his press interview and he and his
colleagues from the 500-member
Cement Masons purged them-
selves by voting in favor of the
confidence motion.

Negotiations are scheduled to get
under way again on July 12. The
basic: package which the joint
policy committee (four from each
union) has rejected would provide
an increase in total compensation
(wages and benefits) of 81 cents an

hour in the first year and 81 cents

in. the second year, with some
additional gains for some unions
under the heading of ‘‘trade
issues.”

According to my estimate, this
would amount to slightly over 6
percent of the average rate in the
first year and slightly under 6
percent in the second year. With
consumer prices said to be in-
creasing at an annual rate of more
than 10 percent, it is un-
derstandable that the construction

unions are not too happy with the
CLRA offer.

However, with unemployment in ‘

the building trades running up to2
and 30 percent, and higher in som
trades, the leadership has to weigh —
up not only the determination of -
the employers to hold to theif
position, but also the willingness
the membership to fight at this
time. In assessing these questions,

the negotiators will also consider

the record of contract negotiaan
over the past ten years. For —
example, only one agreement was —
negotiated without a strike-lockout

since the CLRA came into the —

picture in 1970, ie. in 1977.

It is my opinion that even those
leaders who voted against the
package are weighing up in theif
own minds how much more can be
won if the CLRA decides to stand
pat and whether the members are

prepared to go‘on strike with 2,
view to substantially improving

the package.

Even though the construction

industry is in something of 4
depressed state as compared with
the 1975-1976 boom, there is no
justification for wage cuts, which

‘is what the proposed settlement

amounts to in terms of purchasing
power. However, the membership
will make the ultimate decision a5
to whether to fight now or [0

postpone the fight to another day,
after their negotiating committee

goes to them with a reco
mendation.

In the meantime it is vitally
necessary for the representatives

of all 17 unions to accentuate the —

positive and to pressent a solid
front to the employers. Eventually

they will have to make recom:

7 .

=

mendations to the membership on ~

the basis of an
assessment of the situation as they
see it at the time. The best set-

tlement is the best the unions ca —

win on the basis of their unity and
strength in a given set of cil
cumstances. Any leader who
promotes disunity at this time is
objectively helping the CLRA t0
get a cheaper settlement in terms
of overall cost.

Prairie building unions

face concerted attack

REGINA — The bosses of
Western Canada’s construction
industry are conducting a con-
certed attack on construction
unions in the three prairie
provinces, the: Saskatchewan
Federation of Labor (SFL) warned
June 30.

“There is a construction strike in
Manitoba, a strike-lockout in
Saskatchewan and a potential
strike in Alberta’, the SFL
statement announced, ‘‘Because in
all three provinces the Con-

objective —

1

|

struction Labor Relations CouncilS _

are trying to chop out of the
agreement conditions that the
unions had won in the past.”

The  58,000-member SFU
charged:
dinated effort by the Construction
Labor Relations Councils of ther
three provinces.”’

In Saskatchewan, the Laborers
union is currently involved in 2

“Tt’s obviously a coor

lockout-strike situation with the

province’s Construction Labor
Relations Council.

Naine °22 se Geta et eee Se
AGar OSS: Se. igs ce eee es
Sa aa RES

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