LABOR

Socreds move to take over gov't hiring

The B.C. Federation of labor last week condemned the Socreds’ new Bill 35, the Public Service Act, as “legislation based on political paranoia” and warned that it ‘would mean that Socred party membership would be virtually a prerequisite for a job in the public service.

The bill, which transfers responsibility for hiring and ‘firing of government employees from the Public Service Com- mission to the provincial secretary and var- ious government ministries, was tabled in the legislature Feb. 14. The only function left to the commission would be to hear appeals from employees who think they have been overlooked in promotions or from job applicants turned down for employment.

“Now instead of the fair, ‘arms-length’ body which has dealt with recruitment, Selection, appointment, discipline and dis- missal of all government employees, the provincial secretary will carry out these functions based on political considerations rather than fairness,” fedeation president Art Kube said in a statement.

He charged that the legislation was “gen- erated by political paranoia. If they want to put every employee through a_ political Screening before they are hired, they must be terribly afraid of something,” he said.

As a result, political patronage will become a way of life, Kube said.

“The government is sending a message to Prospective employees and that message is:

_ if you want to work for the government,

~ you had better be a Socred party member.”

Victoria NDP MLA Gordon Hansen has also warned that the bill is a “dangerous piece of legislation” which will create the potential for the political appointment of government employees.

following a strike vote at a nearby hotel. Ne which the union has been trying to wrin members and a job-creation program and a shorter work wee local president Evert Hoogers said he was

Members of the Vancouver local of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers marched Sunday to the Main post office

gotiations with Canada Post broke off Friday following eight months of talks in g a Commitment from the crown corporation guaranteeing job security for its k. Results of the nation wide vote are not yet released, but “happy with the mood of the members.”

The 4,300-member Port Alberni local of the International Woodworkers has voted to affiliate its full membership to the B.C. Federation of Labor, rejecting a call from IWA regional president Jack Munro for locals to affiliate only a token 50 members

_as a reprisal against the federation.

Local 1-85 financial secretary Bill Hawkes told the Tribune last week that a local membership meeting Feb. 9 had voted unanimously to endorse an executive board recommendation to continue affiliation of

Lawyers for several non-union con- tractors and the right-to-work Inde- pendent Canadian Businessmen’s Asso- ciation have filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court in an effort to overturn a Vancouver Parks Board decision which awarded a $700,000 community centre expansion project to a union contractor.

The petition, which argues that the board acted improperly by: giving the contract to a union firm rather than the low-bidding non-union company, ‘has been seen as an attempt by the non- union contractors’ lobby to pressure public bodies to accept the low-bidder wherever provincial government policies have not already imposed such a policy.

It was filed in Supreme Court by law- yer William Kaplan, one of the lawyers for the firm of Jordan and Gall which has had a high profile in recent months acting for a number of non-union com- panies involved in union-non-union dis- putes, the most notorious being J.C. Kerkhoff and Sons. Don Jordan was also one of the employers’ representa- tives on the five-member advisory com- mittee set up by Labor Minister Bob McClelland last year to draft Labor Code amendments.

Ten non-union companies, including Parkview Construction, the low bidder on the community centre project, were

board as well as the ICBA.

Non-union companies pressing court action

_ union firm, Westmount Construction,

named in Kaplan’s letter to the parks

In his letter, sent to the board before the Supreme Court action was launched, Kaplan claimed that the parks board decision awarding the contract to the

constituted an unfair labor practice, an abridgement of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and an abuse of the board’s discretion. He also argued that the board had discriminated against the non-union firm.

But the union issue was only one of several factors considered when the con- tract was debated, COPE parks commis- sioner Pat Wilson told the Tribune. She said that one significant consideration - was the advice of the city’s solicitor who told the board that Parkview was the non-union “double-breasted” company created by a union firm, Zagreb Con- struction. “Obviously that could create problems,” she said.

What has undoubtedly added to the pressure from the non-union companies to force a reconsideration of the vote is that NPA commissioner Andy Living- stone voted with the three COPE com- _ missioners to give the contract to Westmount.

Kaplan had also filed a petition for a court order forcing the parks board to turn over tape recordings of the meeting. But the board voted Monday to release the tapes voluntarily.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 20, 1985

the total membership to the B.C. Fed.

“We believe reducing our affiliation to a token isn’t in the best interests of either the IWA or the labor movement as a whole,” he said in a statement adopted by the execu- tive Feb. 8.

Whatever differences there are, he said, “it is important that the labor movement remain united in finding solutions to the common problems that face us and that can best be done by remaining fully unaffiliated to the B.C. Federation of Labor.

“Local 1-85 hopes that its decision will help to assist in bringing the IWA officers

- and the B.C. Fed officers together to discuss

and resolve their difference,” the statement said.

The local which, although decimated by unemployment is still one of the largest in IWA Region 1, is the first to oppose the call, made by Munro last month to withdraw funding from the B.C. Federation of Labor by affiliating only a token number of members. :

Munro announced at a press conference Jan. 29 that the WA would withhold funds from the B.C. Fed in retaliation for the convention defeating the WA president for federation first-vice-president, a spot tradi- tionally held by the union. However, since unions affiliate by local to the federation, with each local paying per capita dues directly, the decision on affiliation was left to each local.

In the news conference, Munro raised the issue of federation structure and IWA dele- gate entitlement as issues in the dispute.

Hawkes said that the Local 1-85 decision shouldn’t be taken to mean that the local is entirely happy with the union’s representa- tion at conventions. But he emphasized: “Withdrawing per capita isn’t the way to resolve the problems.” :

month to set a meeting with the [WA regional officers to try and resolve the split. A committee on constitution and structure has also been established which is to con- duct hearings and make recommendations for possible structural changes.

In the meantime, the Local 1-85 decision will mean that the federation will continue getting at least the $22,000 paid on the Port Alberni local’s 4,300 members. Munro had stated that by affiliating a token number of members, the [WA per capita to the federa- tion would be reduced from $183,000 to just $500.

The Port Alberni members’ call for main- taining unity has also been voiced elsewhere in the TWA.

Sy Pederson, chairman of the [WA Local

1-362 camp committee at MacMillan Bloe- _

del’s Menzies Bay logging division, said Feb. “oppose any attempt to reduce the com- mitment to the rest of the B.C. labor move- ment.”

The decision by the regional leadership to cut the affiliation “is a serious mistake that will hurt IWA members and all trade union members in B.C....and we certainly don’t support it,” he said.

“The labor movement

has always

needed, even in the so-called good times the —

collective unity of other unions and to take the opposite route serves only to weaken, not strengthen, that unity.”

Division will “only help the employers in their ongoing campaign to dismantle union organization in B.C.,”’ he said.

The issue was expected to come up at an executive board meeting of Local 1-363 on the weekend and later at a quarterly mem- bership meeting some time in March.

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15 that the committee voted to —

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AlbernilIWA staying in Fed

The B.C. Fed officers voted earlier this —