Lalor

By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORONTO — The refusal by
Mtario’s big-business-loving

+0TY government to implement

ee legislation resulted in
death April 9 of 51-year old,
er of seven, Claude Dougdeen

| °N the Alcan Building Products
‘Picket line.

_ The tragic death has brewed up

| * Storm of protest and outrage

M organized labor demanding

Such legislation so that picket line

ths don’t have to occur ever
n

Dougdeen was killed in the

| <atly hours of Saturday morning

T responding to a call from his
dent to bolster the Alcan picket
€. Management was planning
'0 sneak equipment out of the
Stike-bound plant, breaking a
Pfomise they had made to the

| Steelworkers’ local union presi-

. a Not to move trucks into the

t.
The pickets apparently stopped

the truck at the gates going in. The

Ver put the truck in gear and
ugdeen was dragged under the
ack wheels of the Roclar Cartage

| Ine, truck hired by Alcan
| Management. Dougdeen’s 23-
Year old son James, was one of

€ Witnesses on the picket line
hight his father was killed.
Workers throughout the city
Were outraged in the wake of the
Ncident, to learn that Metro To-
Tonto Police were not laying

‘Narges against either the com-

pany or the Roclar driver. The
truck is said to have entered the
Alcan parking lot at about 20
miles an hour. After being side-
swiped and dragged under its
wheels, Dougdeen was dragged a
considerable distance by the
truck before it stopped.

An inquest has been ordered
and will take place June 13. The
union and the family aren’t satis-
fied with this however, because it
will only establish what happened
on April 9. Inquests can’t legally
lay criminal charges.

Both the union and the family
are considering civil law suits.
The Steelworkers have com-
plained of the police force’s
“‘secretiveness’” in conducting
the investigation. Union lawyer
Brian Shell, April 12, said police
have refused to give the Steel-
workers copies of witnesses’ and
company Officials’ statements.
The way the police and the Crown
Attorney’s office have conducted
their investigation, the speed with
which they made a decision and
the bid to pass the matter on to the
coroner, is totally unacceptable
Shell said.

A delegation of union leaders,
including Ontario Federation of
Labor president Cliff Pilkey and
Steelworkers Ontario director
Dave Patterson were to meet with
provincial labor minister Russel
Ramsay, April 15 to demand
government action to introduce
anti-scab laws in Ontario.

The demand for such legis-
lation was echoed by every trade
union and organization associated
with labor. The Metro committee
of the Communist Party called for
a judicial enquiry into Doug-
deen’s death and the laying of
criminal charges against the
company.

It also noted the role of the

police in the matter. Calling for
anti-scab laws, the party went on
to point out: ‘By classifying the
death as accidental, the Metro
Toronto Police associate them-
selves with the interests of the
corporation and ignore the in-
terests of the people, whom they
are supposed to be accountable
to.”
Ontario Steelworkers leader
Patterson said the cops’ refusal to
lay charges was evidence of *‘a
scandalous disregard of the law
when it comes to the protection of
strikers.”

He called on the Attorney-
General to intervene to ensure the
person responsible for the tragedy
is charged, and called for the labor
minister to immediately act to
bring down anti-scab legislation.

The OFL’s Pilkey called Doug-
deen’s death ‘‘a tragic but pre-
dictable result of the failure to
adopt anti-strikebreaking legis-
lation that reflects the spirit of the
Ontario Labor Relations Act’,
and called on Ramsay to intro-
duce such law in the spring ses-
sion of the Legislature.

Quebec is the only jurisdiction
in Canada with a law prohibiting
employers from using the ser-
vices of scabs to perform the
work of strikers or locked out
workers. But a spokesman for the
Quebec Federation of Labor,
Robert Demers, has pointed out
there are enough loopholes in the
law for an employer who’s really
determined to break it, to do so.

The union’s can’t do much
about it. It takes 18 months from
an infraction taking place to when
a ruling is handed down that strike
breaking has occurred.

Under pressure from the labor
movement, the Quebec National
Assembly is now considering an

’ Picket line death demands anti-scab law

amendment to the labor code that
would force companies to stop
production during a strike.

More than 400 trade unionists,
April 13 held a vigil outside the .
Alcan plant gates where Doug-
deen was killed. The mood was
sombre as one after another they
filed into the tiny picket shack to
sign their names in a book of con-
dolences for the slain worker’s
family. The death has tapped a
deep flood ofangeramongrankand
file workers, and the trade union
movement as a whole.

It is a sentiment the Tories and
the employers they serve had bet-
ter not ignore.

Cree

‘TRIBUNE PHOTO

Just as anti-scab laws would have saved Dougdeen’s life, so would |

they help workers such as these at Fotomat, in 1980, win the right to have

unions and decent conditions.

The Confederation of Canadian Union Employees
‘tis on the move’ according to the latest letter (Per-
sonal and Confidential) sent out under the signature

Union staffers’ union —

- of Paul Forder, Political Education Director of the

Ontario Federation of Labor.

The newly formed ‘‘union’’ which according to the
letter, now boasts 500 members, is asking for copies
of all contracts covering staff representatives across
Canada. Such areas as salaries, COLA, car allow-
ances, pension, sickness and accident benefits, ex-
tended disability benefits, holidays, per diem, etc.
These will be used ‘‘in future negotiations by staff
union representatives.”’

Great stuff boys, this is really getting at the main
problem facing the trade union movement. There is a
great well of sympathy out there for the long suffering

" staff representatives of the trade union movement.

It’s time they all got together and ended the rank
discrimination practiced against them.

For example: it is common knowledge that staff
representatives and officers of the United Electrical
Workers union (UE) draw wages which are no higher
than the best paid employees in the union. They aver-
age out at about $23,000 a year, give or take a
thousand, we are informed.

Right off the bat we should make sure that next time
around we bring these pitiful wages up to around the:
$35,000-$40,000 level enjoyed by most unions. We
can easily answer the weak explanations of the UE
leadership that this will result in laying off half the
existing staff and cutting way back on service and

threatening the very existence of the union. Who
-_ cares, we can answer, our concem 1S keeping up the

standards of full-timers. If you don’t like it we will
-strike and how will your union look before the com-
panies and the entire public in denying your staff what
you are asking for (but not getting) for your member-
ship. We’ve got you over a barrel.

Other unions such as the postal workers union, the
United Fisherman and Allied Workers Union, and we
are sure there are many more, have, over the years
refused to give in to the concept that workers should
pay their officers and staff the same wages accorded
to middle management. The rationale for this practice

Labor in action

ae bd William Stewart

has been precisely to prevent making union posts so
attractive that the struggle to keep them was no longer
based on serving the membership, but rather hesita-
tion to go back to the job because of loss of revenue.

Anyone who is not prepared to make aconsiderable
sacrifice for the union, should not be encouraged to
leave his job in the factory or office to work for the
union. To the argument that union organizers spend
much of their evenings and weekends on the job, it
can be answered: so do hundreds and thousands of
union activists. After a tough eight hours working for
the boss these activists spend most of their evenings
and weekends, free, working for their union.

Then there is the argument, if you want to attract
top people and keep them, you have to pay top wages.
Long, long ago the labor movement answered this
argument. The kind of people who need and demand
such wages should seek them in the ranks of company
management, not the labor movement.

No one claims that in this day and age union rep-
resentatives should work for starvation wages, oreven
forlow wages. They should be paid on the same level as
the best paid workers in the industry for a standard
work week. No more — no less. Their wages at the
same time should reflect the capacity of the union for
which they work to engage the size of staff needed to
adequately represent their membership.

This decision should be made by each union and not
be dictated by some supra-organization such as
CCUE, whose sole objective seems to be to dictate to
all unions across Canada how they will pay their staff,
and how and where staff will be hired, promoted, ete.

What CCUE is setting up, whether or not they fully
recognize it, or fully support it, is a dual power struc-
ture in the Canadian trade union movement, which if

a disservice

it takes hold, will challenge the elected bodies of the
trade union movement at almost all levels. While they
are beginning at the level of wages and working condi-
tions, there is already a strong body of evidence in
existence that they will demand and win seniority —
provisions which will determine promotions at all
levels of the union.

There is also already evidence that they will inter-
fere in election procedures in the trade union move-
ment at all levels to serve their own ends, and settle
with those who dare to oppose their schemes.

We need today a united strong trade union move-
ment in Canada. Much more united in fact than it
presently is. This process will not be assisted, but
contrarily weakened by the kind of dual power being
structured by CCUE.

As an example of what we mean I mention an
attempt by Brother Paul Forder to have the distribu-

~ tion of the Canadian Tribune stopped outside the last

Ontario Federation of Labor Convention. There is
little doubt that Brother Forder’s actions were a direct
result of his anger at the consistent attack by this
paper against CCUE in which he plays a major role.

We have said before and we repeat it here. Trade
union staff representatives deserve some form of
protection. Such protection should be provided by
each union for its staff and if necessary the Canadian
Labor Congress and its provincial federations should
introduce measures for such protection into the
guide lines of the Congress and rigidly enforce them.

The solution does not however lie in the direction
being pushed by the CCUE. We hope that the 500
already drawn into the net will have a closer look at
where they are going and look for alternate methods
of solving their many legitimate complaints.

The trade union movement will be called on to
place heavy reliance on its full time staff and cadre in
the periods ahead. They are indeed a noble asset to
the entire labor movement. It is all the more reason-
able that at this time full time trade union officials
should be rededicating themselves to the aims and
objectives of the labor movement and not allowing
themselves to be set up in a way which will oppose
them to these aims.

a

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 22, 1983—Page 9