Thug tactics used against Fort Francis strikers

By E. ROGERS

FORT FRANCIS — The tur- bulent class battle raging here and in Kenora .between woodlands workers and Boise Cascade, Canada Ltd., is full of lessons for working people about the brutal nature of monopoly.

The Federal and Ontario Gov- ernments, international capital, and the monopoly forest industry have teamed up. with the single objective of battering workers and the public out of the way of their greedy drive to plunder the maximum of super profits from Canada’s resources.

The $370-million _ give-away from the taxpayers’ pockets to the timber and pulp corporations has neithér satisfied their appetite for more plunder or blunted their resolve to try and crush the peoples’ resistance to this or- ganized theft.

A case in point: The Tory gov-~

ernment in Queen’s Park im- mediately rushed a few carloads of the provincial police to Boise Cascade picket lines to back the U.S. multi-national’s war on the Lumber and Sawmill workers union fighting for job security and decent pay.

The cops were sent to harass

the strikers with manhandling tac- tics, laying meaningless charges against the workers and trying to provoke picket line violence to blacken the strikers’ cause after a couple of months of legal strike action. Hounded by the Sannete

Sheriffs’ orders to seize bank accounts were common. The crown actually stole money from one of the strikers. One worker had $150 lifted from three sepa- rate bank accounts following court orders.

Vacation pay has been with- held from the strikers with some having been deprived of as much as $1,000.

A number of workers who have left the area to find work at other northern Ontario mills like Marathon, Red Rock and elsewhere, have been hounded by Boise Cascade with the result that some have been fired.

The company steadfastly re- fuses to negotiate in good faith, preferring to continue trying to break the workers’ will, smash their union and leave them and their families destitute.

One victim of police terror tac- tics told the Tribune what hap- pened when along with 35 others

Peter Voss, Lumber and Sawmill union member had his boat crushed while river picketing, by a tug manned by Boise Cascade supervisory personnel.

he was charged by the cops Jan. 30. ‘They pick you up at the mill site, you go to jail first’, the striker said. ‘They can hold you for 72 hours then you go to court and have what is called a bail hearing. There are certain condi- tions, then, that you have to meet in order to get out of jail. ‘*These conditions’, on,.‘‘are that you're restricted from picketing, you’ ve got to give

Demands security for public service workers

SFL attacks ‘right to scab’

REGINA —- Saskatchewan labor called on the provincial New Democratic Party govern- ment Feb. 9, to reject wage con- trols as harmful to workers and the economy, and to pledge never

to reimpose them. -

In its annual submission to the provincial government, the 54,000-member Saskatchewan Federation of Labor (SFL) called on the NDP government to “make it abundantly clear to the federal government and other provinces that they cannot freely

threaten Canadian workers and-

count on Saskatchewan's help to implement those threats ... For you to announce loudly and clearly that wage controls will not be reimposed will help to discredit the big lie about wages causing inflation.”

The heightening campaign by big business for so-called “right to work”’ legislation, and the cur- rent offensive against trade union and collective bargaining rights for public service workers in the

form of Ottawa’s notorious " union-busting, proposed Bill C-22

were energetically denounced in the SFL brief.

Bill C-22 proposes a formula approach to public service collec- tive bargaining that would take

away public employee union's’

rights to negotiate what they con- sider reasonable wage and bene- fits compensation, leaving this to a government computer.

The brief pointed out the prop- osed Average Comparability of Total Compensation formula, (ACTC), in Bill C-22, Keeping public service wage increases below those in the private sector, would “institutionalize the public sector as a low wage sector..."

Federation Worried

Welcoming comments by pro-

vincial government members that

. conditions,

Saskatchewan wouldn't seek legislation forcing public service workers to negotiate under these the brief stressed, “*however, we must seek further assurance that you are not com- mitted in an informal way to such a concept.”

What has the federation worred

are recent news reports suggest-—

ing an agreement between Ottawa and the provinces on the big busi- ness inspired aim of reducing pub- lic sector contract settlements below those in the private sector.

_ Last August, a conference of

western premiers held in Bran-_

don. Man., may have produced precisely such an agreement, ac- cording to a document produced by the Alberta Government enti- tled “The Western. Provinces’ Approaches to Total Compensa- tion Measurement and Compari- son”. :

The SFL brief quoted from the document which said the western premiers had “‘agreed that each province appoint a minister to meet and formalize a process for more active consultation among the provinces; in order to develop a co-ordinated information sys- tem related to wages and employee benefits in the provin- cial public service and its agencies as well as hospitals, schools and municipal organizations.”™

Right to Scab

The brief also noted the-recent demand by the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association (SUMA) for the .passage of right to work legislation. SUMA wants a version of the union-busting legislation found in several south- ern U.S. states. Right te work laws give individual workers: the power to subvert the wishes of the majority of their fellow workers by receiving union wages and

PACIFIC TRIBUNE-FEBRUARY 23, 1979—Page 8

benefits without their having to belong to the union. .

The variant being pursued by SUMA. amounts to ‘‘right to scab” legislation that would allow

individuals to flaunt the wishes of

the majority and continue to work in the face of a strike by a majority of their co-workers.

The ‘SFL brief also called, among other demands, for the government to implement previ- ous studies suggesting the refor- mation of provincial equal pay legislation to close the widening wage gap between male and female workers. Appropriate legislation should be immediately enacted to reflect this and the in- creased participation of women in the workforce, the brief argued.

As part of the International Year of the Child celebration proclaimed for this year by the United Nations, the SFL called on the provincial government to “‘initiate an extensive and innova- tive program in relation to child care in the province.”

The federation also reiterated its call for legislation removing the right of courts to grant injunc- tions in labor disputes. **We be- lieve the courts are being used, not as a vehicle to assist the labor relations process or to correct abuses’’, the brief said, *‘but'as a means of oppressing freedom of speech and assembly.”

DEFEND THE==- RIGHT TO STRIKE

he went :

Government backs up Boise Cascade

up all your firearms and ammuni- tion and in my case, I have to report daily to.the police station until the trial takes place. ‘‘I.was charged with mischief. All I did was kick a car!”’ Another jail victim told his story this way: ‘‘I was thrown in jail ... there was a busload of

scabs coming into the mill. It was

all boarded up and I hadn’t even got near the bus yet, but they. claimed I was in the bus’s way and I got charged with obstruc- tion.

‘‘Then,’’ he said, ‘‘when they

got me in jail they said the charge

would be mischief...”

Goon Tactics by Police

Queen’s Park’s blindness to the goon tactics of the Ontario Pro- vincial Police have emboldened Boise Cascade, and paved the way for increased violence bor- dering on attempted murder and a number of shooting incidents.

Two men peacefully picketing a log boom in a row boat had this grisly story to tell.

‘i was on the river picketing’, said one of the strikers, ‘‘I had signs all over the boat. We had been on the river three days. Union men had been running the tug and they wouldn’t cross our picket line. But, on this particular morning, they (Boise-Cascade) took the union crew off, and put supervisory personnel on the tug- boat.

‘‘In my opinion they left the dock going full speed ahead’’, the shaken striker said. “‘They ran over me. They compleiely ran over the boat.

‘There was another man in the boat with me. We went under the tug. It’s a flat bottom tug.”

Recounting his brush with death the angry striker continued: “T had a life jacket on. Under- neath the tug there’s a skid on each side so they can jump over the boom timber. The life jacket pulled me up between them, then somehow when the tug reversed engines the current pushed me

out of them skids and I was ableto {0 get out. “T don’t know Sar long I wat 1S under the water, but some guys say over two minutes. I thought] was dead’’, the striker said grim ly. ‘Since that day no’ police ficer or anyone has come to talk to me about it. ve heard the Boise company is being charged wit some small infraction about a Ii cence and safety matters ...””

The company has been ope ing the tug as a nine-ton boat. check-up revealed it is really 4 17-ton tug and as such requires i licensed operator. The question arises in the workers’ mind whether the authorities if Queen’s Park were aware of this information as well

One of Worst Industries Another complication, is tha the tug was operating in interna tional waters, allowing the buel to be passed between Canadiano U.S. authorities, to avoid the re sponsibility for laying charges.

-These thug-like tactics by tht company and its servants i Queen’s Park, instead of seriou negotiations with the union, havi raised the working people’s a’ ee in these two northern com 1 munities while it strengthens thei resolve to persevere to a victal ri: ous conclusion.

It’s the kind of anger should press Queen’s Park to im mediately undertake nationalize one of the worst industries in the province. It is kind of anger that should be ex pressed with a -broad_ politica involvement of the entire publi aimed at replacing the big business-government allianc with a democratic alliance of th working class and all peop whose lives are hurt by monopo

ly.

The need for such fundame at t change is becoming more eviden as monopoly runs riot with the ait and blessing of its governing ai lies. %

IF THEY CAN TAKE AWAY

SOMEONE ELSE'S RIGHTS,

* — NO CONTRACT SINCE 77

OUR WORKERS!” ~

WHY NOT?

THE DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS OF WORKING PEOPLE ARE BEING ERODED.

TAKE THE POSTAL WORKERS FOR EXAMPLE;

ANCES. Spe as ‘TS REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH.

CUPW EXERCISED THEIR LEGAL RIGHT, THEY WENT ON STRIKE. THEN THE GOV'T CHANGED THE RULES, THEY REMOVED THE RIGHT TO STRIKE AND SENT IN THE RCMP.

BUT THE POSTAL WORKERS AREN'T THE ONLY ONES GOV'T IS DOING A JOB ON! GOV'TS ARE DOING IT TO TEACHERS. HOSPITAL WORKERS. TRANSIT WORKERS — IN FACT ALL PUBLIC SERVICE WORKERS!

IT S DOING IT FOR ITS PAL, BIG BUSINESS. ©

“BUST THE UNION RIGHTS OF PUBLIC WORKERS, DRIVE DOWN THEIR WAGE SETTLEMENTS, SET AN EXAMPLE FOR

THAT'S WHAT BIG BIZ WANTS. “BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT BIG BIZ IS GOING TO GET!

BECAUSE THERE'S AN OLD UNION SAYING: “AN INJURY TO ONE [SAN INJURY TO ALL”. AND iT HASN'T AGED A BIT.

LABOUR UNITY 1S THE lec

THEY CAN TAKE AWAY YOURS!

Cal