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FROM PAGE 8

CFU: ‘kitchen’ organ

workers unable to cope with the language of
government regulation. The CFU stepped
in and set up its ESL crusade providing
Classes in English language for farmworkers

‘in their homes. The crusade was first

launched in January, 1983 and has con-
tinued with volunteer teachers in every year
Since then.

After seven years of struggle against
Tegressive Socred policies, the CFU has
been decertified at all but one location.
Membership is down to an all-time low and
Organizing in the fields has been made more
difficult as increasing numbers of unem-
ployed look to work in the fields as a last
Tesort. The union, which has moved four
times over the last seven years to succes-
Sively cheaper and smaller locations, is sur-
Viving now on volunteer labor, donations
from others unions and fund-raising events.

But Boal and the CFU are not discour-
aged from their goal of organizing B.C.’s
20,000 farmworkers and providing each of
them with a better standard of living.

“The way that things have developed for
Our union over the last few years is much the
Same as for other unions, it’s just that our
problems are somehow bigger,” said Boal.
“But we understand that as long as our
Union exists, we can organize, we can win.”

A CFU organizing campaign is again
underway. “We’re back to organizing in the
kitchen again,” said Boal. “In the present
atmosphere of intimidation and racism, we

are forced to do our organizing in people’s.

homes. The growers are ferocious, and at
times the racism is stifling, but we are mak-
ing progress again.”

Boal explained that CFU neighborhood
committees have been established to help
deal with the local problems experienced by

farmworkers, It also. makes education on»

specific labor issues easier to cope with, he
Said.

He also emphasized that the composition
of farmworkers is now quite different from
what it was a few years ago. “Sometimes
you would only see Chinese and Punjabi
People working in the fields. But now there
are many young people, caucasians that
can’t find work anywhere else. And what
about the guy who worked in the same mill
for 20 years and now is laid off? Where does

STOP BILLS
19 AND 20

United Fishermen
and Allied Workers
Union, Local 15
Nanaimo

CANAD

so",

Phe. Bee ¥ " : s

Legislative rights for farmworkers the
subject of 1981 demonstration; (r) cur-
rent CFU president Sarwan Boal addres-
ses rally on UI changes, May, 1986.

he go to find employment in this province,
except to the agricultural fields?

‘“‘Unemployment,is a weapon. effectively
used by the Socreds and the Tories in
Ottawa,” he said.

But Boal believes that Bill 19, the Indus-
trial Relations Reform Act, is the biggest
challenge yet presented by the Socreds to his
union and the trade union movement as a
whole. Bill 19 is “designed to take away
from us the fundamental right to organize
into trade unions,” he said. “Every trade
unionist has to recognize this.

“The Socreds take a look at the condi-
tions of farmworkers and they think this is
the level all workers should be at and then
they set out through legislation to achieve
it,” he said.

He emphasized that the decreased pro-
tection for unions against the practice of
employers setting up dummy companies as
a way to operate non-union — “double-
breasting” — will have a profound effect
on the organizing efforts of the CFU.

At Fraser Valley Foods, the only remain-
ing CFU unit in the province, owner Jimmy
Pattison has attempted to freeze out the
union by contracting out most of the work.
An attempt by Pattison last year at decerti-
fication was defeated when the union was
able to prove employer interference.

But now Boal feels that because unions
will be compelled to show that companies

Greetings an

Oy We”

d Solidarity on this

Stop Bills 19 and 20

Farmworkers Union

May Day, 1987

Canadian

Sarwan Boal (President), ex
#1-4725 Kingsway, Burnab

ecutive, and staff
y, B.C. V5H 2C3

KMWORKER

are under the “same operational control
and direction” to prove double-breasting,
many owners will find it much easier to set
up dummy companies to exclude the union.

“Bills 19 and 20 are designed to send us
back to the conditions of the 1920s and
1930s,” said Boal. “The question put before
us by this new legislation is: will the organ-
ized labor movement continue to exist? The
men and women who first organized the
trade unions in this province understand
how serious things are right now. They

know what it is like to organize from
nothing.

““We can’t wait for years to solve this one.
We have to act now,” he said.

Boal said that when he first came to Can-
ada he believed it was a “great and different
kind of country than the one I had known. I
had experienced exploitation in India.
Somehow I didn’t expect it here,” he said.
“But what do you do? At some point you
just have to stand and fight against injus-
tice.

MAY DAY GREETINGS
Jrade Union Rescarch Burcau

The only dedicated labor research group in Canada to operate
continuously for over 48 years — providing unique research,
advisory, advocacy, benefit plan and computer services.

Maritime Labor Centre, #170-111 Victoria Drive
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 4C4. Telephone: 255-7346

SEAN GRIFFIN

TRIBUNE PHOTO

TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAN KEETON

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 29, 1987 e 17