TF

The SFU 18 Defence Committee received no commitment from at-
torney-general Alan Williams Monday after appealing that all out-
standing charges against the 18 be dropped. With spokesperson
Billie Carroll (centre) at the meeting with Williams were B.C. Feder-
ation of Labor publicity director Tom Fawkes (right), Sheila Perret,
AUCE (left), and (not shown) Prabha Khosla, B.C. Federation of
Women; and NDP candidate Judy McManus.

About turn on meeting
sparks debate at VLC

Vancouver unionists who had
hoped to hear federal can-
didates voice their  party’s
policies on labor issues will now
have to go elsewhere — the
Vancouver Labor Council voted
narrowly Tuesday to call off its
planned all-candidates forum.

But enough of the delegates
were angry at the executive’s
decision to cancel that the two-
vote majority had to be deter-

mined by a standing count — _

and that only after a 40-minute
debate on the issue.

The council had
agreéd to hold the all-
candidates forum but when
president Syd Thompson wrote
the - New Westminster Labor
Council and the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor seeking assistance
in organizing the meeting, he
got letters rejecting the idea of
an all-candidates meeting as
“inappropriate.”

B.C. Fed president Jim Kin-
naird added that all-candidates
meetings were ‘‘contrary’? to
the convention policy of sup-
porting the NDP since, he
argued, they gave a platform to
other parties. Both New
Westminster Council president
Gerry Stoney and Kinnaird call-
ed on the council to throw all
their efforts behind the NDP
rallies instead.

Fishermen's delegate George
Hewison questioned Kinnaird’s
position and told the council
that there was ‘‘nothing in the
convention policy to suggest
that all-candidates meetings are
contrary to support for the
NDP.”

earlier

_titude

He said that labor would
“miss the boat’’ if it didn’t get
into the election campaign, ad-
ding, “if we don’t raise such
issues as unemployment — then
who will?”’

Earlier, building trades
delegates, in supporting the
meeting, had also pointed to
unemployment as ‘‘an _ issue
which only the labor movement
will raise.’

Both council secretary Paddy
Neale and CLC regional direc-
tor Art Kube argued that all-
candidates meetings were of no
value since the political lines
between parties were already
clear, although Kube conceded
that such meetings might be
useful in some local unions
“‘where the political level has.
not been raised.”’ :

Syd Thompson, although he
later voted to cancel, said that
he was in favor of all-candidates
meetings but added: ‘‘I’ll be
goddamned if we’re going to
vive a platform to parties which
only get 50 or 75 votes.’’ He
cited the Rhinoceros Party and
the Communist Party.

Just before the vote,
Fishermen’s delegate John
Radosevic told -the - meeting:
‘Surely we’re not afraid of put-
ting a position before uncom-
mitted people and having them
compare and make a choice.

**Many may have a cynical at-
towards working
people,”’ he said, “‘but I’m con-
fident that when positions are
put before them, they'll know
how to vote.””

USWA boycott ‘still on’

By DENISE HARPER

KAMLOOPS A. sign
stating “‘We’re not on strike
here’ in the window of a
downtown Kamloops Radio
Shack outlet has spurred
delegates of the Kamloops and
District Labor Council to join
the United Steelworkers of
America in escalating the Radio
Shack boycott.

The sign, seen by a number of
Labor council delegates over the
Christmas shopping period, was
meant to make people think the

boycott is over, USWA labor
council delegate Darwin Robin-
son said.

Delegates also heard that 78
members of the Carpenters
Union Loc. 1540 have walked
off the job at Highmont mines,
southwest of Kamloops.

The bitter dispute resulted
from the refusal of the
employer, Commonwealth
Construction, to implement an
arbitration awarding travel time
benefits to the carpenters.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — FRED WILSON

The Saskatchewan Trade
Union Act, praised in trade
union circles across Canada as
outstanding labor legislation in-
troduced by an NDP govern-
ment, doesn’t look so good
right now. ‘

A month-long strike of some
11,000 members of the Saskat-
chewan Government Employees
Association ended last month
after Chief Justice R.W.
Johnson of the Queen’s Bench
ruled that the strike was illegal.

It all began when two SGEA
members filed a suit challenging
the legality of the strike. Ted
“Malone, leader of the Liberal
Party in Saskatchewan, echoed
the charge that the strike was il-
legal. Some labor leaders in
Saskatchewan allege that he in-
spired the court action.

The outstanding issue that
provoked the strike was wages.
The final offer of the govern-
ment was a wage increase of
something less than eight per-
cent over one year, which was
unacceptable to the SGEA. The
Association pointed out that all
of its contracts covering the
previous three years were below
inflation levels and demanded a
15 percent wage increase.

Some 200 members had been
strongly opposed to the strike
from the beginning and two of
them, James Jowsey and Shirley
Wilkes, launched a court ac-
tion, claiming the strike was il-
legal, because of irregularities in
the voting system. According to
all reports, the 200-group are
made up of right wing and
backward elements.

The SGEA communications
director, Sandra Sorenson, was
quick to point out that the ac-
tion was really a challenge to the
Saskatchewan Trade Union
Act. She therefore called upon
the NDP government to agree
to stand as a co-defendant with
the SGEA before the court.
However, the NDP government
did not respond in the affir-
mative.

In ruling that the strike was il-
legal, Chief Justice Johnson
noted that only 60 percent of
SGEA members participated in
the strike vote and that the ma-
jority in favor of strike was 62
percent’ of those who voted.
Mathematically, this meant that
only 37.2 of the total, eligible
voters cast a ballot in favor of
strike.

In his judgement, the Chief
Justice examined both the union
constitution and the Saskat-
chewan Trade Union Act. He
noted that the act would take
precedence only if the constitu-
tion did not clearly spell out the
question of voter eligibility. He
found the union’s definition of
eligibility to be ‘‘indifferent’’

and therefore ruled that the
Trade Union Act came into
force.

The Saskatchewan act states
that it shall be an. unlawful
labor practice for an employee,

a person acting on behalf of a

labor organization or any other
person:

‘*(d) to declare, authorize or
take part in a strike unless a ma-

‘Sask. gov't union strike
undermined by NDP Act

jority of employees who are
members of the trade union
selected or designated to repre-
sent the employees in* the ap-
propriate unit concerned and
who are eligible to vote have
voted by secret ballot in favor
of a strike, but no vote by secret
ballot need be’ taken among
employees in an appropriate
unit of two employees or less;”’

By comparison, Section 81 (1)
of the Labor Code of British
Columbia lays down the follow-
ing guideline in respect to strike
authorization:

LABOR
COMMENT

BY JACK PHILLIPS

‘**No person shall declare or
authorize a strike and no
employee shall strike, until after
a vote has been taken by secret
ballot in accordance with the
regulations, of the employees in
the unit affected as to whether
to strike or not to strike, and the
majority of those employees
who vote have voted in favor of
strike”’

This i is in line with established
trade union practice across
Canada.

It is significant to note that.

the Saskatchewan Trade Union
Act stipulates that a quorum for
a vote to determine whether a
unit of employees is to be
represented by a specific union

for collective bargaining pur-

poses is ‘‘a majority of the
employees eligible to vote’’ and
then states, ‘‘the majority of
those voting shall determine the
trade union that represents the
majority of employees for the
purpose of collective bargain-
ing.’

If this formula also applied to
strike votes, as it should, the
court could .not have declared
the strike illegal.

While every effort should be
made by a union to involve all
of its members in a strike vote,
the less government interference
in such matters, the better. For
my money, the trade union
movement must fight to-protect
itself from an ever-increasing
interference in the running of its

‘internal affairs, and also to

restore many of the freedoms it

-has lost.

Donald Ching, a Saskatoon
lawyer and former Saskat-

chewan deputy minister

labor, was part of a team t
drafted the act. He was recen
quoted as saying that the inten
tion of the act is that in ca
where the union constitution
unclear or quiet on the qu
tion, the entire membershi
shall be considered the eligib
voting group. In that case, ©
strike vote would require ana)"
solute majority. :

He added that where a unio
constitution so provides, “te”
majority of the members pal —
ticipating in a vote hold sway”
over all, whether they voted 0
not.”’

Larry Brown, execut
secretary of the Saskatchewa
Federation of Labor, and on
time executive assistant in th
office of the minister of labo
was sharply critical of the ‘all
biguity’? of the government
legislation. :

Premier Blakeney at ont
stage described the case before
Chief Justice Johnson
‘arguable’? by both side
Then, when the decision ca
down, he said he was not SU
prised. He also refused to co!
sider union demands to amen@
immediately the Trade Union
Act to remove the obvious ine
quily. 4
The SGEA will be making its.
appeal against the Johnso
decision in February. In the
meantime, it is still without 4

settlement, but all of it
members -have returned tO
work.

If premier Blakeney were
Liberal, Conservative Of
Socred, and not a New
Democrat, there would be loud
and angry denunciations from
most of our prominent trade
union leaders in British Colum~
bia. Coupled with those denun=
ciations would be messages of
solidarity and a call to elect thé
NDP next time around in ordef
to. set things straight. Now
there is, in the main, an embar=
rassing silence.

This is yet another case tO
prove thatthe trade union
movement must. never cease 10
represent aggressively the in-
terests of its membership, in the
economic and political arenas
always asserting its independent
role as the defender of the
working class. It also proves, aS.
we have learned in this pro-
vince, that the election of an

NDP government is not by itself
a guarantee that the trade union
movement will obtain the kind
‘of labor legislation it is entitled

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 18, 1980—Page 8