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LABOUR

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Season’s Greetings

to the friends of labour

from the members & staff

of Carpenters Shop Local 1928 (Industrial)

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Season's Greetings

Nanaimo, Duncan & District Labour Council

Seasons Greetings from the executive, staff and membership.

Office and Technical Employees Union Local 15

Aims and purposes of our union:

Promoting, protecting and championing the legitimate struggles of professional, technical, office, clerical, and support employees toward achieving economical well-being, improving general

welfare, and defending their-rights as workers and citizens.

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 16, 1987

Probe CSIS intrusion Fed delegates demand

Trade unionists in B.C. want a full piiblic inquiry, including public hearings and the full disclosure of information, into the operations of the federal government’s spy agency, the Canadian Security and Intelli- gence Agency (CSIS).

Some 900 delegates unanimously en- dorsed the demand in a resolution adopted Dec. 4 as they wound up in the annual B.C. Federation of Labour convention in Van- couver.

The resolution, a composite of several submitted by local unions, condemned the federal government’s use of the CSIS and the RCMP “to intrude into and disrupt the legitimate business of the labour movement and other legal Canadian political organiza- tions.”

It endorsed NDP justice critic Svend Robinson’s call for a parliamentary inquiry into CSIS operations and also called for a full public inquiry into CSIS and RCMP “violations of democratic rights.”

The various resolutions submitted had been prompted by revelations earlier this year that CSIS had been spying on a number: of trade union and democratic organizations, including the New Demo- cratic Party, the Canadian Union of Public Employees and the B.C. Féderation of Labour.

The disclosure was in turn prompted by the admission in court that Quebec activist Marcel Boivin had been an informer and agent provocateur for CSIS, working within the Confederation of National Trade Unions. Boivin had also infiltrated the Parti Communiste de Quebec.

Following the revelations, Carpenters Provincial Council president Bill Zander released a series of letters from 1985 between the union and the federal govern- ment in which then Solicitor-General Perrin Beatty admitted that a CSIS agent had acted as a spy, taking part in meetings organized by an opposition slate during elections in the union’s Local 452. What particularly alarmed trade unionists was Beatty’s claim that in carrying out the spy- ing activities, the agent was guilty of “no wrongdoing.”

“What we’re seeing with CSIS is an attack on our fundamental liberties which we have fought for as workers — the right to organize, the right to protest and speak out,” federation secretary-treasurer Cliff

Andstein told delegates.

Carpenters delegate Bill Zander reminded the convention of the 1985 incident in which a CSIS agent interfered in the Local 452 election, calling it “another form of intimi- dation that seems to be happening right across the country.

“CSIS has absolutely no business inter- fering in our union — or in any other union, for that matter,” he said.

In other business, delegates voted unanimously to back an emergency resolu- tion submitted by the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union calling on the federal government to press for the rejection of a recent international trade ruling on B.C. salmon and herring that threatens more than 4,000 shoreworkers’ jobs.

The resolution was prompted by a deci- sion last month of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which ruled that federal regulations stipulating that

Canadian herring and some species of sal-

mon be processed in Canada before export violate the GATT. The ruling was based on a grievance initiated by the U.S.

The decision, which if allowed to stand would open Canadian waters to U.S. fish buyers, was made by a GATT panel. It now goes before the full membership of GATT for a final ruling.

Noting that the GATT decision contra- dicted several international treaties as well

as Canadian legislation, B.C. Fed delegates called on the federal government to plac “the strongest possible position before the full GATT membership to achieve a rejee tion of the panel’s findings.” If that 1 unsuccessful, they said, then Ottawa should “assert Canada’s sovereignty by noir compliance with the GATT ruling.”

“If this ruling stays,” Victoria shore worker Gerry Craigie told delegates, “! simply means no work.”

Craigie said that when he began in thé industry 10 years earlier, he got 10 months work in the year. “This year I’ll probably get 11 weeks — and the only reason I gé that is because of the regulations (requiring processing) on sockeye, pinks and herring, he said.

“I don’t want the only fish processing plant in B.C. to be in the provincial museum — where I’ll have to pay $5 to se it:

UFAWU president Jack Nichol said that International Trade Minister Pat Carney had counselled fishermen “not to rock the boat, so we don’t jeopardize free trade.

“Other coastal states have gone to great lengths to protect their right to harvest sal mon from their rivers,” he said. “The ques tion is: does Canada have the fortitude to stand up for its resources?

“The Tory government should stand up and tell the U.S. that we won’t comply with the GATT ruling. If it persists ... then we should serve notice to scrap the Canada- U.S. salmon treaty,” he said.

Delegates also registered their condem- nation of the “so-called Meech Lake pro- cess” for amending the Canadian Constt tution and called on the Canadian Labout Congress to press the federal government to: ‘i

© Accord full status to the Yukon and the Northwest Territories in constitutional negotiations;

@ Introduce amendments that fully pr tect the right of women;

@ Begin good faith negotiations with aboriginal people on self-government and settlement of land claims;

© Introduce constitutional amendments guaranteeing labour rights, including the right to organize, to bargain collectively and to strike.

Longshoremen’s Union delegate Dan Cole, whose union is currently fighting government back-to-work legislation before the Supreme Court, emphasized the impor- tance of enshrining labour rights, warning that those rights were increasingly under attack by government and the courts.

“The Charter of Rights says we have the right to associate but what the law says is that once you associate, you can’t do any- thing else,” he said.

In another area, the convention backed a special resolution calling on the federal government to develop an independent for- eign policy based on:

© Declaring Canada a nuclear-weapons free zone;

© Supporting a comprehensive treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons; _ © Calling for a multilateral freeze on nuclear weapons production followed by balanced reduction;

@ Declaring opposition to Star Wars and — any militarization of space;

© Reducing arms spending and diverting monies to socially-useful projects. ;

It also called on the federation to strike a committee to promote the involvement of organized labour in the peace movement. —

The resolution was coupled with motions calling for an end to cruise testing and the - development of a plan for the conversion of the Nanoose Bay maritime weapons test range. is