More than 150 unemployed Building Trades workers demonstrated outside the downtown Vancouver offices of Expo 86 July 24 to protest the Expo board's action in reneging on the agreement negotiated with Building Trades Council president Roy Gautier. Unionists distributed leaflets outlining the facts of the Expo “‘double-cross” and demanding that the board resign — the same message that is being carried this week in ads sponsored by the Building Trades and the B.C. Federation of Labor.

VDTs cited for health problems —

A lengthy study submitted this: week by Ontario nuclear chemist Dr. Hari Sharma showing a definite link between emissions from video display’ terminals (VDTs):and health problems has given support to claims by the Hospital Employees Union that union members working at Surrey Memor- ial Hospital’s accounting department were at risk.

The HEU had initiated grievances at Sur- rey Memorial in 1983 when several of its members working on computers in the accounting department experienced abnor- ‘mal pregnancies and others suffered head- aches, nausea and eye strain. The union subsequently brought in Dr. Sharma, a University of Waterloo nuclear chemist

who has pioneered the development of —

equipment to measure very low frequency (VLF) radiation as well as electromagnetic

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(EM) fields which have increasingly been implicated in problems related to VDT use.

Dr. Sharma issued a preliminary report Mar. 11, 1983 but later broadened the study to include equipment at seven other B.C. hospitals. That report was submitted to the union and Surrey Memorial and a summary issued by the HEU this week.

He found that-the EM readings on the particular make of equipment used in the accounting department, Perkins-Elmer Data Systems (P-E), were much higher than that on equipment used in the medical records department, which was supplied by another manufacturer.

“The adverse health effects reported by accounting clerks using the P-E terminals can only be attributed to exposure of employees to high EM fields from the ter- minals,” Dr. Sharma concluded.

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TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

Members of the Retail Wholesale Union locked out by Slade and Stewart were awaiting the outcome this week of a crucial appeal of a Labor Relations Board order barring them from picket- ing the scab-driven delivery trucks of the wholesale grocery supplier.

Lawyers for the RWU, the B.C. Fed-

- eration of Labor and Slade and Stewart wound up arguments Thursday before a five-member LRB panel headed by newly-appointed board chairman John Kinzie who officially replaced resigning chairman Stephen Kelleher July 31.

- The decision will be of particular sig- nificance since it will set the pattern for future board decisions on secondary picketing under the restrictive new amendments to the Labor Code.

in an application to vary the order.

Slade and Stewart workers, who were locked out by the U.S.-owned company at its four operations in B.C. May 18, have been picketing delivery vehicles in an effort to prevent Slade and Stewart from continuing to service customers using scab labor.

But in a decision July 6, LRB vice-

_ chair Peter Sheen, acting as a one-man panel, ordered all picketing halted, rul- ing that it was in violation of the amended Labor Code provisions which stipulate that picketing is legal only at the site where employees are locked out or on strike. :

The decision brought protests from the RWU and the B.C. Federation of Labor which demanded a. full board appeal.

Meanwhile, the LRB.has also ruled against picketing by members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in Sparwood in a second decision brought down under the Labor Code amendments.

e Members of CUPE Local 2698 on

, RWU awaits pi

The RWU was unsuccessful earlier -

Other research, including that done, iron- ically, for the U.S. Navy, has also indicated adverse health effects from EM fields.

He was not as definitive in attributing the cause of abnormal pregnancies but did note that of 14 pregnancies among women using the P-E terminals at the eight hospitals stu- died, 11 were abnormal, involving miscar- riage, premature birth or birth defects.

The “cluster” of abnormal births at Sur-

rey Memorial that had originally prompted

the study, involved seven pregnancies of which only one resulted in a healthy full term baby among the women working in the accounting department.

“From limited information, it can be surmised that there is a strong possibility that the occurrence of miscarriages may be linked to exposure to high-pulsed EM fields,” Dr. Sharma stated.

‘Surrey Memorial management con- tinued to discount any links between the P-E terminals and the health problems but did agree to remove them. .

Dr. Sharma recommended that any pos- sible problems as well as concern over adverse health effects could be alleviated by using equipment which registers low EM readings — which includes some 70 per cent of the VDTs currently in use. He noted that the current technology: is available to manufacture VDTs with low EM emissions.

He also called for research which would lead to more.stringent standards covering exposure to EM fields in the workplace.

cket appeal

strike against the District of Sparwood were barred from picketing work sites of private contractors who had been hired by the district for road construc tion work. :

The decisions begin the foundation for what could, under the new code provisions, become a wall blocking unions from effectively carrying out 4 strike.

The Sparwood decision was brought down July 20 by a panel headed by LRB vice-chair Shona Moore.

Certification won at mushroom farm

The Canadian Farmworkers Union

_ finally won a small measure of justice

July 26 as the Labor Relations Board ordered a Langley mushroom farm, Hoss Farming Ltd., to reinstate five workers who had been fired for unio? activity and granted the CFU an auto- matic certification at the farm.

CFU president Raj Chouhan hailed the ruling, adding that the union woul immediately issue notice to Hoss Farm- ing owner, Harbhajan Uppal, of the CFU’s intention to negotiate a first agreement.

The automatic certification was of some importance since the procedure has been all but eliminated under the Labor Code amendments passed last month; But the LRB is authorized t© grant one where there has been af” unfair labor practice as was the case when Uppal fired the five workers.

Although the five go back with full pay, the decision was slow in coming: The CFU had protested earlier that the board expedited proceedings when the Mushroom Growers Co-operative wanted to halt picketing by the unio? but made the farmworkers wait ovet a month for a hearing on the unfair labor

_ practice.

Farmworkers had picketed the La®™ gley processing plant of the Fraser valley Mushroom Growers’ Co-operative afte? the co-op’s labor relations office! appeared on the Hoss Farming picket line to tell CFU members that they were acting illegally. But the LR forced the line down a few days late, ruling that the co-op was not an ally 0 the employer. é

GLRB rules against respecting pickets:

Picketing also suffered a blow from the Canada Labor Relations Boat July 24 which ordered members seven unions employed at Canact National Railways to stop honorin® picket lines put up by members of the Canadian Association of Communic# tions and Allied Workers (CACAW) on strike at CN-CP Telecommu® ications. ;

CLRB vice-chair Brian Keller ruled that by supporting the CACAW pickets, the railway unions had partic pated “in unlawful concerted acti and barred any further honoring of pickets. None of the rail unions contract clauses providing mem with the right to respect picket lines:

CACAW, which is in a legal strike position at CN-CP, put up picket ines around the CN yards at Port Mann and

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