LABOR

The militancy of 11 months ago when
Operation Solidarity was first launched
was still very much in evidence as some
400 delegates gathered at the University of
B.C. June 18 for the opening session of
Operation Solidarity’s annual general
meeting.

But if the July 15 meeting last year was
about to embark on a series of massive
demonstrations and an escalating public
sector strike unprecedented in the provin-
ce’s history, Monday’s meeting heard
Operation Solidarity chair Art Kube call
on trade unionists to continue the fight by
resisting employers’ efforts at union-
busting and by starting “a lot of small
brush fires.”

Even those “‘small brush fires,” could in
turn, “develop into major fireworks,” he
emphasized.

“We're moving into more troubled
times...the government hasn’t finished
with us yet,” Kube warned in opening the
two-day meeting. ~

“Tt is clear that if we are to survive as a
trade union movement, we will have to
continue to struggle and fight — there is
no other way.

“And any trade unionist who doesn’t
see that is either a fool or naive,” he
declared to applause.

Kube’s short, tough speech to the dele-

gated conference was both a reply to his
critics and a call to continue the campaign
through local organization and mobil-
ization.

Significantly, one of those critics, Jack
Munro, the main architect of the Kelowna
accord who has publicly scorned calls for a
general strike, was absent from the meet-
ing because of “other commitments”. He
had earlier absented himself from a similar
B.C. Fed meeting May 16 called to discuss
Labor Code amendments.

Noting that the campaign over the pre-
vious several months “brought some wins
and some losses as well as the Bennett
double-cross”, Kube emphasized, how-
ever, that “history will judge that
settlement.”

He urged unionists “not to turn on one
another and to remember who the enemy
is.” He also called on them “not to run
around calling for a general strike — but
neither should they pooh-pooh it.

“Unity has to be our goal here today,”
he said, emphasizing that the meeting was
intended to renew the mandate of Opera-
tion Solidarity, to reaffirm the commit-

ment to the Solidarity Coalition and to.

adopt a program for the year ahead.

As with the B.C. Fed meeting a month
earlier, Kube stressed local Solidarity
committees “to ensure that employers

‘We must fight to survive,’ meeting told —

who try to take advantage, of Labor Code
amendments are resisted. .

“If we have to live by the law of jungle
then let’s make sure we develop effective
jungle warfare,” he said.

“We have to organize and mobilize our
members,” he told the meeting. ““We have
to create the situation where a phone call
to a single coalition member can get us 100
people to a demonstration or 10 phone
calls 1,000 people.”

Delegates were to convene in seven
closed workshops at Tribune press time to
discuss Operation Solidarity’s program on
various issues, trade union rights, human
rights, social services and full employment
and other topics.

Although the workshop papers, given
to delegates beforehand, covered a wide
range of proposals, there was little in the
way of a defined program of action. One
paper, on the restoration of trade union
rights, was the same program which had
been almost unanimously criticized for
being “‘too meek and mild” by the B.C.
Fed’s delegated conference of trade union-
ists held last month.

But that there would be demands for a
more hard-edged program was indicated
in the opening session as several delegates
took to the floor to discuss Kube’s open-
ing address.

United fishermen’s delegate George
Hewison won a wide response when he
warned delegates that the issue “‘is the sul-
vival of the trade union movement.

“Bill 28 (the Labor code amendments)

has tipped the balance clearly in favor of
the corporations,” he said.

He cited his own union’s experience 11
which fish plant workers last week were
the targets of a decertification drive. “Oné
supervisor was handing out paycheques
and the other had a petition for decertifi-
cation,” he said.

And that could happen all over, he
warned. :

“It’s time to stop kicking one another in
the head, time to stop making public
utterances and resolve to unite and fight, —
he declared.

_ “We've got to say right here and now
that we’re not going to allow a single
union to get picked off.”

Canadian Union of Public Employeés
delegate Peter Wilson also responded 10 |
Kube’s speech, noting that the B.C. Div-
ision of CUPE had endorsed a resolution
at its convention last week calling on B.C. ©
Fed and Operation Solidarity “to protect
the right to strike and to organize by,
organizing a Solidarity II including, if
necessary, a general strike.”

—

Winning strategy means united action

Delegates to Operation Solidarity’s
annual meeting this week at the University
of British Columbia were greeted with news
of major settlements in the pulp industry
and between the Building Trades and Expo.
But before anyone jumps to the conclusion
that Operation Solidarity has the Socreds
and employers on the run, each of these
agreements should be assessed, for they are
quite different. These assessments are of
critical importance to the strategic line that
Operation Solidarity will pursue in the
fightback.

It may be that the Expo deal was the very
best that Building Trades Council president
Roy Gautier could hammer out of Expo
chairman Jim Pattison and the Socred
cabinet, or that to achieve more required a
general mobilization of Solidarity which
was not forthcoming. Nevertheless, there is
nothing to crow about in the Expo deal.

By establishing minimum wages at the
standard B.C. and Yukon Building Trades
Council (BCYT) rates the BCYT has effec-
tively negotiated a 50 to 100 per cent
increase for non-union labor, while under-
mining its own collective agreement by $5
per hour. The letter of understanding
between the BCYT and Expo is careful to
state at the outset that it is without prejudice
to other arrangements. But how could this
deal possibly not prejudice current negotia-
tions with the Construction Labor Rela-
tions Association (CLRA)? The $5 per hour
package in benefits that non-union contrac-
tor J.C. Kerkhoff’s employees won’t get are
just the concessions that CLRA wants from
the Building Trades.

It is difficult to see what real benefits
organized labor will get from this agree-
ment. Kerkhoff retains a competitive
advantage in wages, while union labor has
conceded an important jurisdiction. Rather,
what has been bargained is a contract for
“labor peace” at Expo running until May
31, 1986. This is a peace that BCYT may
find itself in no position to deliver before the —
agreement expires.

And to whose advantage is labor peace at.
Expo? If there was one place in British
Columbia where the Socred Labor Code
can be shown to be unworkable and des-
tructive, at great cost to its authors, it is
there. In this sense, the Expo deal is an
extension of the B.C. Federation of Labor

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 20, 1984

Analysis

Fred Wilson

decision to resist the strong pressure to
block implementation of the new Labor
Code, and instead to live with the new code
at least until the next election.

The militancy of the Carpenters Union in
withdrawing their labor from Expo when
Kerkhoff arrived on site showed the lever-
age that Solidarity could have at Expo. The
Carpenters’ action actually forced some
significant improvements in the agreement
over a preliminary agreement work out a
week earlier. In particular, the Socreds con-
ceded an important principle that a fair
wage is a negotiated wage by agreeing that
any increases in the standard rates nego-
tiated by the BCYT would be passed on to
all at the Expo site. The deal was also
expanded to include ail suppliers to the site,
insuring for example, that Rempel Concrete
pays its drivers the standard Teamster rate.
Another last minute concession was a
clause providing that any employers organ-
ized on the site and faced with a strike vote
must either immediately sign the standard
agreement or leave the site.

If job action won those concessions
would it not also have been possible to
challenge provisions of the new Labor
Code — particularly the not yet proclaimed
Section 73(1) and Section 44 which impose
a form of right-to-work legislation in the
construction industry by banning the use of
non-affiliation clauses and eliminating inte-
grated sites?

In contrast, the Canadian Paperworkers’
Union and the Pulp, Paper and Wood-
workers of Canada are this week recom-
mending acceptance of a new contract, a
settlement that has been called a victory by
CPU vice-president Art Gruntman. That
settlement was only reached after pulp
workers voted to strike in defiance of Bill
18, the Pulp and Paper Collective Bargain-
ing Assistance Act — the corporatist bill

=

that gave the Socred cabinet the autocratic
right to impose the terms of employment
and to change them at will.

However, the Labor Code amendments
and Bill 18 still hang over the pulp workers.
In this case, as at Expo, the art of the possi-
ble was determined fundamentally by the
leadership, or lack of it, provided by the
B.C. Fed and the Operation Solidarity
council. Instead of bringing the fight against
the code to the rank and file and preparing a
united stand to stop its implementation, the
Operation Solidarity leadership has avoided
the call for mobilization.

Certainly the insidious influence of the
labor movement’s right wing found in the
leadership of the Munros and Stoneys have
been the major obstacles to the fightback.
But a general malaise in the top councils of
labor must also be appraised; a profound
lack of confidence in the working class to
mobilize, unify and fight for democracy and
justice.

. Operation Solidarity has put on paper a
three-year “flow chart” outlining its stra-
tegy leading to a possible 1986 provincial
election. This flow chart estimates continu-
ing government repression throughout 1985
when “extra parliamentary action” will be
paramount. It notes important collective

bargaining battles to come, particularly wo
the public sector. But what is missing is 2%)
conception that extra parliamentary action
can stop the Socreds from implementing
their program. It is a pale shadow of the
towering strength Solidarity achieved only4@
few months ago when it was on the edge of
bringing the government down.

One cannot escape the conclusion tha!
the three year strategy is based ona terrib
miscalculation about the significance of
new Labor Code. The terms of the code
have been consistently underestimated i
each public statement from the B.C. Fe
and the organized opposition to t
legislation — easily the most importal

Solidarity has faced yet — has bee#
nothing more than pathetic.

Neither the Socreds nor the employe®
have miscalculated their objectives. +
wave of decertifications and union bustin’
campaigns are now in preparation, and they
won't take three years to implement. ‘a
this reason the necessity of a general mob”
zation in Solidarity II will arise over eve
battle to come.

The battle grounds will be thrust
Solidarity, be it the current transit lockout,
the scab-herding at Slade and Stewart, the
battle over non-union contractors at Exp
or in some other struggle about to. bre4
out. |

For union and community leaders and
for Solidarity activists the ultimate con'

is for a winning strategy. All.of the expe
ience of the last year has demonstrated that
only co-ordinated mass economic and polit-
ical action will bring victory, in the sho
term or in three years from now, The roa®
block to winning must be removed.

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