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UFAWU secretary George Hewison, one of several speakers at a solidarity. rally in

Robson Square Saturday, told some 500 demonstrators that the U.S.-Honduran ac-
tion against Nicaragua had heightened the danger in both Nicaragua and El Salvador.
He urged stepped up action to demand that the federal government press the U.S. to
end its involvement. The rally was organized by Central American Support Commit-

tee as part of a week of solidarity.

Mines decaciction boss
is ‘fronting for Socreds'

B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council

president Roy Gautier charged Friday that.

Tex Enemark, president of the Mining
Assocition of B.C. was playing ‘‘front man
for the Socreds’ election campaign’’ with his
demand for a Combines. Act investigation
of the non-affiliation clauses in Building
Trades collective agreements.

The Mining Association, in a press con-
ference Mar. 22, called on the federal
government to launch a probe of the
Building Trades union security provisions,
charging that they were ‘‘adversely affecting
the future of the mining industry.”

~The provisions allow unionists to refuse to
work with non-union or non-affiliated
workers on a job site. A feature of construc-
tion agreements for a number of years, they
were originally sought by Building Trades
workrs because the provisions which apply
to industrial unions are not effective owing
to the transient nature of construction work.

The Mining Association’s attack on the
clauses is clearly timed to coincide with
planned Socred amendments to the labor
code.

“For the last year mining companies have

~ been telling all who will listen that the in-
dustry is suffering terribly because of

_ depressed world mineral markets,’’ Gautier

said. ‘‘Now, all of a sudden in the last few
weeks, Enemark has forgotten all of the in-

dustry’s monumental problems to go on a

crusade against Building Trades unions and
the alleged effects of the long established
security clauses negotiated in the construc-
tion industry.”

Gautier noted that Enemark ‘‘campaign-
ed actively for the Social Credit party and

later served as a deputy minister in the Social.

Credit government.

“His current role as a spear carrier for
proposed Social Credit anti-union legisla-
tion is hardly surprising,”’ Gautier said.

In addition to his Socred appointments,
Enemark was also a special advisor to
federal Liberal Ron Basford during his term
as minister for consumer and corporate af-
fairs — the department which administers
the Combines Act.

The demand for a Combines probe is the
second time that the federal legislation,
which was intended to counter corporate
monopolies, has been used against trade
unions. For more than 20 years, the govern-
ment sought to use the Act against the
United Fishermen and Allied Workers’
Union, a. bid that was only thwarted by
massive labor opposition.

That the Mining Associations’ attack was
very much part of the Socred government’s
anti-labor thrust was made clear in
Enemark’s speech to the Canadian Institute
of Mining and Metallurgy Feb. 23 when he
first launched the campaign against the non-
affiliation clauses. a

His speech, which dealt specifically with
the non-affiliation clauses, referred to the
Socreds’ megaprojects and complained that
the Labor Relations Board had not taken the
“public interest’’ into account when it ruled
that such projects. as Duke Point and
Whistler were ‘‘common sites’’ thus allow-
ing Building Trades workers to exercise their
non-affiliation clauses.

He said that the LRB ‘‘should review the
entire question of non-affiliation clauses and
the limits of common site. . . balancing the
rights of construction unionized, affiliated
workers with unionized but non-affiliated
workers and with non-union employees

The prize for employers, particularly at a
time of widespread construction unemploy-
ment, is greatly reduced wage bills and
elimination of the cost of health and welfare
benefits negotiated in union agreements.

David Cadman, the president of the
Vancouver Municipal and Regional
Employees Union who was laid off
earlier this year in what was widely seen as
a political attempt by his employer, the
GVRD, to get rid of him, will get his old
job back, as the result of a close vote in
the Greater Vancouver Regional District
board of directors’ meeting Wednesday.

The GVRD board reportedly voted 35
to 32 to add $40,000 to the regional

tion services program which had earlier
been eliminated. Cadman was an infor-

VMREU leader reinstated

district’s budget to reinstate the informa-

mation officer with the department,

employed to explain GVRD programs to
local schools, and was terminated along
with the program. -

The action to eliminate the budget was
asudden move, taken after a draft budget
had already been prepared. The only
other information officer laid off with
Cadman was quickly given another job
with the GVRD.

Cadman, who had been prominent in
the three-month strike in the GVRD in
1981, was laid off by the regional district.

just as negotiations on a new contract | —

were set to open.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

low-paid, high tec
future for workers

Continued from page 1

from the Baptist and Lutheran churches.

The significance of the event could be
measured by the attendance of not only
the NDP MLA for the region, Bob Skelly
— who could be expected to be sym-
pathetic to the basic aims of the con-
ference — but also of the local Social

Credit candidate and Port Alberni mayor.

Paul Reitsma, who is noted for his right-
wing views.

Their presence showed that every
politician must show some concern about
the devastating impact the downturn in
the forest industry has had on the Alberni
region. Right now some 2,000.of the in-
itial workforce of 6,390 of the region’s
major employer, MacMillan Bloedell,
are on the streets.

In the words of one participant, ‘‘there
is no reason to expect that they will ever
be called back.’’ Along the town’s main
streets, empty storefronts attest to the
spinoff effects of mass unemployment.

Workshop participants had a lot to
mull over, following the presentation of
papers documenting the causes and con-
sequences of unemployment by several
key figures in the labor movement.

Earl Foxcroft, president of Local 1-85,
led off the discussions with an outline of
the situation in Port Alberni. He noted
that according to local statistics, more
than 2,000 welfare claims have been filed
with the human resources office, ex-
ceeding the yearly average by at least
1,000 claims. %

Similar grim figures are available from

the Unemployment Insurance Commis-
sion. ‘‘To date there are 4,700 registered
the UIC — of this total, a percentage are
millworkers who are back to work, but
still on active claim. The yearly average
for this time of the year is about 1,600 to
1,700,’’ Foxcroft noted.

Emil Bjarnason, economist and head
of the Vancouver-based Trade Union
Research Bureau, said the current depres-
sion ‘‘is the product of government policy
. . . because those governments saw no
other way of curtailing inflation.”

Monetarism, the policy of limiting the
supply of money brought in after the
failure of the mid-70s wage and price con-
trols.does reduce inflation, ‘‘but what a
price,” he said.

Turning to the question of private-
sector pensions, he urged unions to fight

~ for indexed plans, noting that workers

who retired in 1975 receive benefits that

today have only one-third of their former —

purchasing power. The current situation
forces many jobless to withdraw their
payments for ready cash, wiping out their
pension plans, he added.

The fight for a reduced work week with
no loss in pay and worker decision mak-
ing on matters of technological change
must be high on the agenda for office
workers, argued Jean Greatbatch, a
researcher with the Hospital Employees
Union.

Citing several studies, Greatbatch said
the intrusion of computer technology —
the “‘second industrial revolution’’ — in-
to offices has resulted in mass reductions
in the workforce and the replacement of
semi-skilled secretarial jobs with
keypunch work that is not only low-paid
drudgery, but is also dangerous.

Video display terminals have been
blamed for ‘‘cluster’”’ pregnancy abnor-

- malities among groups of women
operators, the latest being workers at Sur-
rey Memorial Hospital. Severe eyestrain
has also been cited as a major hazard of
VDT use, she said. —

“Private sector employers have com-

2

puterized their offices to maximize
fits, while the public sector has “J
onthe microchip bandwagon” inth
of cutbacks to public services.
ment reports predict massive unem
ment for public sector workers in the!
and unions “‘must respond to the thr
Greatbatch warned.

IWA staff member Clay Perry W®
of government efforts — thro
likes of science and universities mu™
Pat McGeer’s “‘Discovery Parks,” 7,
introduce low-paid, non-union
technology plants into the provin
ignoring the needs of the forest ine©

Perry argued that 20,000 people ¢
be put to work in silviculture — P:
nursing and reforestation — for the?
term benefit of B.C.’s forest ind
Unfortunately, his remedies were di
ed from the question of ownersht
control of B.C.’s key resource ind
except for a brief mention of P
“total public, private or mixed O¥
ship’’ of silvicuture.

Bob Skelly, the region’s MLA, la
ed into an indictment of the
multinational corporations in th
industry which pull up stakes and m
their operations to foreign countii,
take advantage of anti-union laws ®
low wages.

Skelly’s recommendations
somewhat disappointing, however. ©
solution to ‘‘ownership concentrall
was to grant about 20 percent of the 1#
currently held by forestry giants to 5
“Jocal operators who have a comil
ment to keep this community going

The MLA did not mention
tionalization of any of the large c
tions as an alternative, although the
was committed to that course 4
NDP’s annual convention last fall.
did he suggest a get-tough “‘use-it-OF
it” policy regarding tree farm lic
although the point was raised by
workers from the floor.

The Native perspective on unemp™
ment was forcefully presented by GO
Watts, chairman of the Nuu-chah-l
Tribal Council, who said that less th
percent of the workforce in the reg!
four wood mills was Native, and
less than .1 percent in the service
dustries. ~ ;

Natives used to make up a large Py
tion of the workforce in the fishing |
dustry, until fishing companies fo
cheaper to move canneries and redu
plants into large centres such as |
couver, he noted.

‘History has proven that the path!
stable healthy communities is ©
through short lived economic gains
giving our natural resources to mult
tional corporations on the premise ©
they will provide employment for ©
citizens,”’ said Watts. ‘

Of the dozens of recommendatl®
produced by conference workshops; ©
was the emphasis placed on the conti"
organizing of the unemployed by tra
unions and labor councils. Other suse
tions ran the gamut from demands fot”
six-hour work day at eight-hour
through increased union organizing
women and minorities to the devel
ment of a native-run fishery.

Noteworthy was a recommendatl
from the workshop on Native rights t
the ‘“‘Day of Reality’? become an an®
event. That’s a request that will
seriously considered by the conferen?
trade union organizers, who note?
potential of organizing the commu™
around a program for putting the Albé

,

valley back to work. 4