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Several local labor councils, together
with the United Fishermen and the Smel-
ter and Allied Workers joined environ-
mental and Native organizations June 16
to demand that the federal government
launch a full inquiry into Alcan’s pro-
posed Kemano Completion Project.

The various groups, all of which would
be affected by the massive hydroelectric
and aluminum smelter project, agreed to
join forces in pressing the demand follow-
ing a one-day conference sponsored by the
T. Buck Suzuki foundation, a research
group founded by the UFAWU three
years ago.

The conference also called on the pro-
vincial government to demand that Alcan
be ordered to file a formal application for
the hydroelectric power project under the
Utilities Act.

More than 500 fishermen marched in
protest in Port Alberni to demand the
scrapping of the federal government’s
proposed Pacific Fisheries Restructuring
Act which would effectively impose a tax
on fishermen to finance a scheme that
would eliminate 35 to 40 per cent of the
industry.

The action, backed by members of the
United Fishermen and Allied Workers

Labor Notes

can inquiry demanded

, The Kemano Completion Project calls
for damming and diverting the Naniko
and Nechako Rivers in the northwest to
provide power for two new aluminum
smelters, one at Vanderhoof and one at an
unspecified location.

Alcan has applied for permits to cover
the smelters but insists that the hydro
proposal is beyond any inquiry’s reach
because it was given almost exclusive
water rights by the W.A.C. Bennett
government when the first Kemano power
project and the Kitimat smelter were built
in the 1950s.

“The province should require Alcan to
apply for all relevant permits, including a
water use permit,” said Foundation direc-
tor Arnie Thomlinson. :

Fishermen protest Act

Union as well as other fishermen’s groups,
followed protests across the province
against the legislation.

The federal government introduced the
bill two weeks ago in the hope that it could
be passed hurriedly before Parliament
adjourns for the summer June 29.

On June 19, the Vancouver and District
Labor Council called on NDP and Tory
MPs “not to allow passage of the Act.”

Carpenters hack
in labor councils

Delegates from the United Brother-
hood of Carpenters and Joiners were
expected to go back into local labor coun-
cils across the province this month follow-
ing the decision of the Canadian Labor
Congress executive council in May to re-
affiliate the union directly through provin-
cial labor federations.

Per capita fees have already gone into
councils from many Carpenters’ locals
and delegates’ standing awaits only con-
firmation from the CLC.

The executive council’s decision caps a
long campaign by the union to get the
Congress to accept affiliation through
provincial labor federations rather than
through the CLC-established building
trades set-up which would have forced
consruction unions into dual structures in ©
violation of international charters and
would have frozen out their industrial
locals.

The Carpenters have been out of the
Congress since 1981 when the Building
Trades were expelled because of the inter-
nationals’ failure to pay per capita. The
fees had been withheld in an effort to exact
unacceptable concessions from the CLC.

In this province, however, although
formally outside the B.C. Fed, the 15,000-
member Provincial Council of Carpenters
has worked closely with federation unions
and committees.

Building Trades fined $30,000

The B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council was hit with a $30,000 fine for con-
tempt of court in its picketing of the Penny-
farthing condominium construction project
where anti-union contractor J.C. Kerkhoff
and Sons was attempting to begin work.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Allan
McEachern handed down the sentence
June 22 after hearing a representation from
a lawyer appointed by the attorney-
general’s department call for “a penalty
which will bring home to the unions that
lawlessness will not be tolerated as a means
of advancing their cause.”

Chief Justice McEachern ordered the fine
paid in two instalments, the first half in
three months and the remainder in six
months.

The sentencing of the Building Trades
had been put over from March when the
council was convicted of criminal contempt
for picketing the construction site ‘in
defiance of a Supreme Court order limiting
pickets and a cease-and-desist order issued
by the Labor Relations Board and subse-
quently filed in Supreme Court.

Unemployed Building Trades members
began picketing the construction site Mar. 5
after the developer, Pennyfarthing Devel-
opment Corporation, took the contract for
the job away from a union contractor and
turned it over to Kerkhoff.

At one point during the battle with the
notorious right-to-work contractor, some
1,500 pickets were massed on the streets
adjoining the False Creek project site.

Building Trades leaders had appeared in
court June 15 to hear Chief Justice
McEachern’s sentence but it was put off a
further week to last Friday after Peter Gall, .
the lawyer for Kerkhoff, declined to make
any submission regarding the penalty that
should be imposed.

At that time Chief Justice McEachern
called on the attarney-general’s department
to appoint a representative to make a sub-
mission to the court. Vancouver lawyer
Jack Giles was appointed the same day.

At the sentence hearing, Gall again

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 27, 1984

declined to make a submission although his
client, Bill Kerkhoff, had earlier told repor-
ters that a stiff fine “‘could deter unions from
disrupting Expo.”

Giles, a corporate lawyer who has
appeared for employers in several union
disputes, sought a heavy penalty against the
Building TradesCouncil, arguing that it had
engaged in “a grave assaulton the rule of
law” and had given “no recognition of its
grave injury to the people of B.C.”

He cited the fines of $30,000 and $35,000
imposed on the unions involved in the Len-
kurt strike in 1966 and the occupation of
B.C. Telephone offices in 1981.

But he noted that those fines were levied
“against one union alone” emphasizing that
the Building Trades unions involved
“amount to at least 12.”

He charged that the Trades had engaged
in “criminal contempt for the purpose of
advancing all unions” and urged that the

. penalty “should be one which is not seen as

a licence fee for engaging in unlawful acts.”
Significantly, however, Giles asked Chief
Justice McEachern to put off sentencing for

a week to see whether or not the Trades

would be prepared to make an apology and
to see what example they would set by their
actions.

The latter comment was widely seen as a

reference to the continuing dispute over -

Kerkhoff’s contract at Expo and the possi-
bility that the Trades may exercise their
non-affiliation clauses and shut down the
site to protest the non-union contractor’s
presence.

Giles’ bid to delay sentencing was seen as
an effort by the attorney-general’s depart-
ment to hang the threat of heavy fines over
the Building Trades as they consider any
action at Expo following the Expo board’s
move in reneging on the agreement with the
Building Trades.

Defence lawyer Harry Rankin told the
court that a substantial fine “would not
advance the public interest.” He added that,
contrary to the picture of union-inspired
lawlessness painted by Giles, Building

Trades leaders had “kept order ina difficult
situation.” Moreover, he said, events were
often inflamed both by provacative news
coverage and by the statements of Kerkhoff
who acknowledged that he had not moved
quickly for an order to open the site because
he wanted to gather evidence for a civil
action, That action is still pending.

Rankin aiso cited the emotional aspect of
the dispute, emphasizing that members of the
Building Trades were suffering 65 per cent
unemployment and “‘Kerkhoff was seen as
the thin edge of the wedge.” For the same
reason — heavy unemployment among the
membership — the council could not meet
a heavy fine, he said.

He also tendered an apology to the court
on behalf of the Building Trades.

But the apology was “‘not sufficient to
finish the matter,” warned Chief Justice
McEachern, declaring that the Building
Trades action “‘was substantially more
serious than the B.C. Telephone case.”

He did allow that the unionists involved
had been under the “misapprehension
.. that the court order was not binding till
the courts had dealt further with it.

“Tf that was not the case, I would be
disposed to impose a fine substantially in

excess of those cited by Mr. Giles,” he said. :

board vote
sparks Expo
job action”

Continued from page 1

tentative pact, agreeing to fone
strikes and use of its non-affiliaor
clauses for the duration of the fait com
struction and agreeing to work alone
side non-union workers provided t
were paid the basic union rate, mia
the benefits package worth about $54”
hour. :
The Carpenters Union expressed He
objections to the agreement ali ie
members registered a convincing 92 ie
cent vote against it following a Lowe
Mainland membership meeting
18. The union also staged a thr
walkout when Kerkhoff appeared 0?
the site but later agreed to return !
work to maintain the solidarity of the
Trades position.

But the board’s rejection changed?

that, putting job action back on
agenda in the battle against Kerkho |

and Bennett’s open site policy.

The board’s stand made it clear that
the government is less concerned Wit
building Expo than it is with imposing
that policy.

Not surprisingly, the board is m
up of several figures close to te
Socreds, including Pattison, Her

Capozzi and Peter Brown of Canarim

Investments as well as Socred Touris™
Minister Claude Richmond himself. ##
addition, there are key corporate exec
tives such as H. Clark Bentall of the
Bentall Group and Dr. Norman Kee

Jr., the president of Teck Corporatio®

one of the key companies in Northeast

coal development.

Bennett made no move to interven
despite the board’s stand and its imme
diate effect on Expo construction. A®
Section 73 of the Labor Code — givin’
the cabinet authority to designate PIO”
jects such as Expo economic develoP”
ment projects, thus restricting union
rights — has still not been proclaimet

_ suggesting that the government &

awaiting the right political timing fo"
action.

On the Expo site itself, Expo mal

agement has created a project that §

modelled very much after the Labor
Code amendments covering a COM
struction project. Each phase of cot
struction has been separated from
adjoining projects by heavy chain lin

fences, each with its own entrance.

Speculation has also been fuelled
that Bennett may be seeking the right
conditions for a snap election in 48
attempt to get a mandate that will carty
him beyond the inevitable financial dif-
ficulties of Expo and the Northeast co
deal.

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