Trades, [WA settle jurisdiction wa

In a Labor Comment June 15,
1979, I dealt with the jurisdictional
dispute between the B.C. and Yu-
kon Building Trades Council and
the International Woodworkers of
America. The key issue was new
construction work for the lumber
industry which was being done by

contractors holding collective ~

agreements with the IWA.

The building trades maintained
that this was an encroachment on
their jurisdiction. They published
an open brief in which it was charg-
ed that the rates and working con-
ditions for IWA tradesmen were
inferior to those won by the build-
ing trades for construction work-
ers. They also charged that many
members of construction unions
were compelled to join the [WA in
order to keep working.

In a later article, on Jan. 25,
1980, I reported that the six-month
jurisdictional battle of Duke Point
in Nanaimo was over. I added,
however, ‘‘the dispute between the
B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council and the International
Woodworkers of America is not
resolved.””

I can now report that the Cana-
dian Labor Congress, with the in-
volvement of leading people from
the building trades and the IWA,
has worked out a formula which
should settle the jurisdictional dis-
pute between the building trades
and the IWA.

The agreement comes under the
heading of suggested guidelines
and is signed by a CLC committee
made up of representatives of both

industrial and building trades un--

ions appointed by CLC president
Dennis McDermott. It was subse-
quently endorsed by the CLC ex-
ecutive council.

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS.

The names of the ranking trade
union officers who signed the
agreement suggest that the odds are
in favor of its implementation, pro-
vided there is no backsliding. They
are: Robert White, United Auto-
mobile Workers of America;
James Levia, Canadian Brother-
hood of Railway, Transport and
General Workers; William Pun-
nett, United Rubber Workers;
Jack Munro, International Wood-
workers of America; J. Russ St.
Eloi, Plumbers; Roy Gautier, B.C.
and Yukon Building Trades Coun-
cil; Jim Kinnaird, B.C. Federation
of Labor; and James McCambly,
executive secretary Canadian
Building Trades.

The key provisions of the agree-

ment can be summarized as
follows:

@ The industrial unions recog-
nize the right of the building trades
unions to work on plant expan-
sions which require the construc-
tion or reconstruction of buildings
or facilities and when requested to
do so will agree to assist them to se-
cure this work;

@ The building trades recognize
the right of industrial unions to de-
liver products to the job site or to
the receiving area of a construction
project, whether the product is pro-
duced by them or carried from the
manufacturing plant, warehouse,
railhead or dockside;

@ Building trades will install
production items catalogued and
produced by - industrial unions.
Any dispute will be immediately re-
ferred to the committee for resolu-
tion;

@ Building trades engaged in
construction of an industrial plant
will agree to assist an industrial
union with the appropriate juris-
diction to organize the operation if
and when required to do so;

@ Maintenance work and re-
pair of plant facilities covered by an
agreement between an industrial
firm and a union are the jurisdic-

tion of that union. However, ifthat ~
~ caucus held in Winnipeg on May 4

work is contracted out, the union
cqncerned will make every reason-
able effort to ensure that the work
is done by building trades affiliates

Continued from page 1

cupy centre stage in this dispute
— 20-minute coffee breaks and a
15 percent staff discount — both
of which Woodward’s employees
now have but which the company
wants to take away, claiming that
other supermarkets organized by
the Retail Clerks do not have
them.

Although the staff discount is
ostensibly an economic item,
Denton emphasized that if it were
removed, the store would lose
thousands of dollars in business
since many employees who now
make the bulk of their purchases
at Woodward’s to take advantage
of the discount would take their
business elsewhere.

The dispute over the extra five
minutes on the coffee break is
strictly dictated by the company’s
anti-union policy, Denton said.

break, we’d have an anomaly —
all of the other workers, including
the unionized meatcutters, would
be getting 20 minutes but our
members would have to go back
to work after 15.

“It’s part of Woodward’s tac-
tic — they want to punish our
members twice a day for joining
the union,”’ he said.

The ‘‘puni ” tactics also
figure in Woodward’s bid to have
the parcel pickup depot workers
in Victoria re-classified, resulting
in a $1-an-hour pay cut, he said.

parcel depot workers were the
first to the join the union — and
they’re trying to punish them by
changing their classification and
cutting their wages.
“‘But the main thing,’’ he em-
ized, ‘is that Woodward’s
wants to send a message to all the
other stores: this is what happens

“If we accepted the 15-minute

““Woodward’s knows that the .

Store ‘importing scabs’
from Alberta, says union

This week, the president of
Woodward’s Store, C.N.
“Chunky”? Woodward himself
brought the message directly to
employees with a specially
prepared videotape which warns
that the demands of the Retail
Clerks ‘‘would threaten the sur-
vival of the food floors, and the
jobs of over 1,200 employees in

. B.C. —and indirectly the survival
of the whole company.”

Other ways of getting that
message out, according to Den-
ton, are less sophisticated, but no
less intensive. People work on
picketers trying to convince them
to quit the strike. In the stores
outside Victoria, employees are
harangued about the dire conse-
quences of union organization.

“They’re constantly at our
people, trying to wear them
down,” Denton said.

And in that campaign, he add-
ed, ‘“Woodward’s is always walk-
ing a thin line between what is
legal and what is a violation of the
labor code.”’

For that balancing act, the
store chain is getting the counsel
of aman whosename has been in-
creasingly identified with con-
frontation in labor relations —
Vancouver lawyer Bill Mac-
Donald.

MacDonald acted as legal
counsel for the employer during
the long and frequently bitter
strike at Pacific Press during
1978-79 and the still unresolved
strike at the Muckamuck
Restaurant in Vancouver.

“*As soon as an employer hires
MacDonald, you know what
their attitude is,’’ Denton added.
‘*He’s like another lawyer that us-
ed to be involved in labor rela-

‘tions — when an employer
wanted a strike he went to him.”’

Probably more important,

MacDonald is the former chief
negotiator for the food industry
employers, B.C. Food Industry
Labor Relations Council.

Clearly Woodward’s, the sixth
largest corporation in the pro-
vince, is looking at big stakes in
the strike — which may also ex-
plain why, according to the Retail
Clerks, it is ‘spending thousands
of dollars a day”’ at strikebreak-
ing rather than taking the relative-
ly inexpensive route to settlement. .

Denton said that there were
some 15 security guards at the
Victoria store alone. ‘‘And
there’s $60,000-a-year executives
wrapping groceries inside.”

He also charged that the store
‘4s importing scabs from Alber-
ta’? to keep the food floor
operating.

It’s shaping up to be a tough
battle but Denton added that the
Clerks ‘‘weren’t really surprised”’
considering Woodward’s long
standing antagonism to trade
union organization.

“] think they’ve gone over-
board, too,”’ he said, noting that
as a result of Woodward’s hard-
nosed stand, he had signed up
several new members at the store
and was expecting a big turnout
for the meeting this week.

The Retail Clerks have also
stepped up picketing, hitting
Woodward’s trucks bound for
the Victoria store as they sought
to board B.C. ferries. The main
distribution centre in Richmond
has also been picketed and
members of the Canadian Allied
Manufacturers Wholesale and
Retail Union which holds the cer-
tification there have honored the
lines.

Denton said that the B.C.
Federation of Labor was pro-
bably going to be involved “‘very
soon,” as the union stepped up

SS Sy NS

action against the store.

when you join the union.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 20, 1980—Page 12

of the Congress. Where there are
recognized area practices on main-
tenance between industrial unions
and building trades, these practices
will continue;

@ Both groups agree that when
requested to do so, they will assist
each other to organize their appro-
priate jurisdictions as recognized
by the Congress.

The committee could do no.
more than agree in principle with
the suggested guidelines, which it
did. On that basis, it then recom-
mended acceptance to the CLC ex-
ecutive council and to their respect-
ive organizations. Now that the
CLC executive has unanimously
endorsed the guidelines, the agree-
ment is open for endorsation by the
construction unions and the major
industrial unions directly involved.

Here in B.C. the outstanding
dispute is between the building
trades and the IWA. If that can be
resolved, then jurisdictional prob-
lems with other industrial and some
public sector unions can be tackled
in the same spirit.

While the agreement on jurisdic-
tion is a positive development, it
could be adversely affected by cer-
tain other events which are shaping
up.

At a national building trades

(immediately prior to the CLC con-
vention) it was reported that the
head offices of the 17 international
unions of the building trades, locat-
ed in the U.S., had decided to with-
hold per capita tax to the CLC on
behalf of their Canadian members.
Three reasons were advanced for
this action:

1) Industrial union encroach-
ment into the building trades’ jur-
isdiction;

2) The problem of the Quebec
Federation of Labor and the build-
ing trades in that province. (The
QFL, with no subsequent opposi-
tion from the CLC, accepted into
affiliation the locals of the Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers which had broken away
from their international union. If
the QFL had not accepted them,
they would have joined a rival trade
union centre in order to maintain
their bargaining rights under Que-
bec law.);

3) The voting structure at CLC
conventions. (The top leaders of
the building trades in the U.S. want
representation at CLC conventions
to be based on a bloc-voting sys-
tem. A proposal to institute such a
system was defeated by the CLC
convention.)

The fact that the building trades
were represented at the CLC con-
vention by less than half the num-
ber of delegates they were entitled
tois aclear indication that the inter-
national leaders have set them-
selves in opposition to the policy di-
rection of the CLC, particularly in
respect to Canadian autonomy.

However, as demonstrated by
the agreement on jurisdiction out-
lined above, the Canadian trade

_ the CLC and its policies, it will

- three weeks to conduct as. ares

union movement is quite capable
of running its own affairs as aa
tional trade union movement. All”
attempts to deny it that right wil
eventually be defeated. a
On July 14.and 15, there will
national building trades conf
in Calgary, with delegates appolr ~
ed by the international presidents
If that conference decides to take
the building trades farther down
the road to outright oppositi

ate some difficulties for the
However, I am confident that!
labor movement is able to C0)
with such problems.
TheB.C. Building Trades
cil and the IWA can makea
cant contribution towards g
teeing the unity of the CLC by
ing their jurisdictional problems'
the basis of the guideline d
ment, to which they have affix
their signatures. There is no dow
in my mind that such an agree!
is possible. But it would be
to assume that there will be no ©
position to it.

Constructio
unions take
strike vote

Building trades unions are P!
ceeding to conduct a strike
among their 45,000 members
talks reached an impasse last
over the issue of wages
universal affiliation clause.
vote is expected to take clo
new legislation governing SY
votes.

Roy Gautier, chairman of
bargaining council of the b
trade said last Friday that the
cil had had ‘‘no response”’ fro
Construction Labor Relations’
the bargaining council’s bottey”
line position.

The bargaining council had
tially sought to have a ©
clause included in a new agree
but when CLRA refused to ¢
sider the demand, the count
sented altered wage demands. “
have to protect our members ff
the erosion of inflation,” Gait
said. i

The affiliation clause, ©
would give unionists the
refuse to work beside non-ulm
workers, is of key importance
CLRA had demanded the rem®
of such clause in the individ
trades agreements.

Contracts between the va
building trades unions and C
expired April 30. +

Tuesday, Carpenters busi
agent Colin Snell told the va
couver Labor Council thi
unionists might take job action.
put pressure on CLRA to ba

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