a

Continued from page 1
marked in recent days by increas-
ing confrontation as employers
have put up a common front to
block any wage settlements that
match increases in living costs.

According to recent statistics
the Lower Mainland now has the
highest living costs on the conti-
nent. :

In an interview last December,
B.C. Employers Council presi-
dent William Hamilton claimed
that current wage increases of
11.6 percent were “‘too high”’ and
warned that employers would
have to ‘‘dig their heels in’’ to stop
increases from going any higher.

The confrontation of the past
week has demonstrated that em-
ployers — including the Greater
Vancouver Regional District La-
bor Relations Bureau — have
clearly done just that. :

It was that employers’ stand
which sparked a major statement
from the B.C. Federation of La-
bor Saturday in which president
Jim Kinnaird first declared “‘the
gloves are off.

““Obviously the employer is not
\_ interested in solutions or settle-

ments. As a result we will start an
escalating program of economic
action,’’ Kinnaird told a press
conference last week.

The press conference was call-
ed following a special meeting of
Lower Mainland affiliates’ staff
officers Saturday to discuss the
current labor situation and focus-
ed particularly on the B.C. Tel
dispute, the strike in the GVRD
and the bitter strike at Nabob
where professional strikebreakers
have been used. The Federation
also cited the cement strike which
is now the subject of an industrial
inquiry commission.

In the Federation’s words, the
meeting marked a shift in policy
towards militant collective action
by the Federation on behalf of
embattled affiliates.

‘In the past the Federation has
been working quietly in an at-
tempt to assist wherever possible
the negotiation of agreements,”
Kinnaird said following the
meeting. ‘‘Today we have decid-
ed that the employers involved
have little interest in reaching col-
lective agreements or acting in a
responsible manner.”

‘New management’ signs went up a

‘Employers have created confrontation’

B.C. Tel office in

Vancouver Feb. 6 during the TWU occupation. Door commit-
tee member Bill Brewer checks union cards at the door.

He said that the current
disputes were “‘the culmination of
a year long escalation of
‘stonewall attitudes’ towards col-
lective agreements by numerous
employers in the province.

“We have done everything in
our power to avoid this disastrous
breakdown in industrial rela-
tions. But it is obvious that we

have been the only people trying
to avoid it.”’

Kinnaird charged that employ-
ers had used. ‘“‘every resource in
their industrial relations strategy,
including applications to the

_Labor Relations Board for

restrictions on picketing, court in-

_junctions, strikebreakers “‘and

any other method to create the in-

_ Ladysmith walked out to back |

dustrial relations climate we are
witnessing. a
‘‘All of these disputes lead us to
change our position. Wenotethat —
the employers have used every —
legal method and loophole to |
circumvent collective bargaining. | ~
Fromnowonwewilldothesame. |
“As far as we are concerned, |
the gloves are off and we will win |
these strikes using the full forceof |
our militant tradition,’ he |
declared. :
The strike by civic workers in |
the Lower Mainland also began’ |
escalating this week as more |
workers in Surrey, Nanaimo and |

their demands for increased |
wages. Hi

Negotiators for CUPE and the }
GVRD met with mediator Ken]
Albertini Tuesday at which time |
CUPE presented its counter-
offer. GVRD negotiator Graham ~
Leslie said that the labor relations ~
bureau would examine it but the
entrenched position already
taken by the GVRD indicated
that it would give the offer little
consideration. J

Coordinated offensive is

The occupation of B.C. Tele-
phone buildings by striking mem-
bers of the Telecommunication
Workers Union marked a qualita-
tive change in the current wage
struggles. Slogns like Under New
Management and Nationalize B.C.
Tel were picked up by the news
media and drawn to the attention”
of millions of Canadians across the
country.

The one-week occupation was
ended after a Supreme Court ruling
that the 11,000 members of the un-
ion and their officials were guilty of
a criminal contempt of court and
would face heavy fines or jail sent-
ences for every day they continued
the occupation of B.C. Telephone

Company facilities. The criminal

contempt verdict was brought
down because the occupation was
in defiance of a previous court rul-
ing in favor of the company.
Facing a situation in which the.
company has more than one super-
visor for every four workers and a
highly automated operation, the
telephone workers did their best to
get a settlement without a full-scale
strike. Past experience demonstrat-
ed it is possible for the company to
hold out for along time by working
its supervisors around the clock.
However, the full-scale strike
has been launched with the active
support of the British Columbia
Federation of Labor (CLC). The

Canadian Labor Congress and its .

B.C. Federation of Labor have
some 345,000 members in B.C. and
Federation officers have declared.
that the gloves are off.

The union is determined to stay |

out until the company accepts the
proposed wage increase recom-
mended by federal conciliator Ed
Peck, which the membership voted
by a 91 percent majority to accept.

The Peck report recommended
an across-the-board wage increase
of 75 cents an hour retroactive to
Jan. 1, 1980; a further 5 percent on
July 1, 1980 and a 10 percent in-
crease July 1, 1981, in a two-year
contract. The company is seeking a
three-year agreement which is un-
vr to the union member-

ip.

The Financial Post Jan. 31
quoted B.C. Tel spokesman Keith
Mathews as follows: ‘“Because our

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEB. 13, 19881—Page 12.

rates are regulated by the CRTC we
have only so much money avail-
able.”

However, the Canadian-Radio-
television and Telecommunica-
tions Commission (CRTC) recent-
ly awarded the company a 12.5 per-
cent hike in phone charges. Shortly
after this was announced, com-
pany sources disclosed that BA;
Tel earnings rose by $10 million in
1980, as compared with 1979. Net
earnings before deducting divi-
dends was $79,589,000, as compar-
ed with $69,175,000 in 1979. °

Labor
Comment

Jack Phillips
The B.C. Tel is owned by a U.S.
corporation, General Telephone

and Electronics and has a complete
monopoly orra vital public service.

- If the public doesn’t like the service

or the rates, it can’t take its business
elsewhere.

.The B.C. Federation of Labor
should be fully supported in its all-
out campaign of support for the
telephone workers. This arrogant,
American company, with the worst

labor record in the corporate world
of British Columbia, must be com-

pelled to settle on terms acceptable
to the workers. The workers have
demonstrated that not even the
threat of heavy fines and jail terms
can break their determination to

win.

Once this strike is won, the de-
mand to nationalize this company
must be stepped up. B.C. should
have a publicly-owned telephone
system, as they have in Alberta,
Saskatchewan and Manitoba.
Public ownership would ensure
that profits would remain in B.C.
and benefit the people. It would
make it possible to pay good wages
and at the same time purchase the
latest technological equipment on
the competitive market instead of
through costly, monopoly-con-
trolled deals. Above all, it would
give the people of B.C. some con-
trol over a.utility so vital to the pro-

"per functioning of our modern so-

ciety.

The other dispute which is shar-
ing centre-front stage with the tele-
phone workers strike is the strike of
Greater Vancouver municipal
workers, which is rapidly spreading
to other areas.

Some 10,000 municipal work-
ers, members of Canada’s largest

trade union, the Canadian Union ©

of Public Employees and two inde-
pendent unions are on strike in the
Greater Vancouver Regional Dis-
trict. They have been joined by
their fellow workers employed by
the municipalities of Nanaimo,
Ladysmith and Surrey.

The outstanding issues in Great-
er Vancouver are rates of pay,
equal pay for work of equal value
performed by female clerical work-
ers and the welfare package. The

welfare package became an issue ,

when the municipalities proposed a
number of changes in existing
benefits that the unions could not

accept.

As this was being written, the
Greater Vancouver Regional Dis-
trict Labor Relations Committee

mounted its second offensive, in -

the form of a large display ad in the
Vancouver Province Tuesday. This
followed their successful applica-
tion for court injunctions to reduce
severely the effectiveness of picket
lines at refuse dumps in Greater
Vancouver.

The ad appeared in the press on
the very day that the unions were
scheduled to deliver a counter-offer
to the negotiating committee of the
employers, through a provincial
government mediator. In my opin-
ion, the timing was not accidental.
It seems to suggest that the muni-
cipal councils are not prepared to

go very far beyond their previous:

offer, which was unacceptable to
the unions.

Inthis kind of astrike (municipal ~

services) it is absolutely necessary
for the unions to combine effective
picketing with a broad, public cam-
paign to take the issues to the public
in order to win public support.
Thousands of ordinary citizens,
including working people, will find
it much easier to sympathize with
those workers on strike against the

foreign-owned B.C. Telephone |

Company than with the striking
municipal workers — unless the is-
sues are explained to them. The

the best course |

facts of life in a municipal strike are
that garbage piles up, community

-centres are closed, cultural events

are cancelled and many other ser-
vices which people pay taxes for are

- notavailable — but the people con-

tinue to pay their taxes.
Whereas a big corporation like

Cominco in trail would lose mil-.

lions of dollars in the event of a
prolonged strike, municipalities
save millions of dollars in wages
during a strike. This makes it all the
more imperative for the municipal
unions to take their message to the
public and to build up support
around the idea of a settlement
through meaningful negotiations.
The unions must demonstrate that
they are genuinely concerned about
the public welfare and want to end
the inconvenience to the people, on
the basis of a fair and reasonable
settlement through negotiations.
At the root of all the turbulence
on the labor scene is the rapidly in-
creasing cost of living which is
sharply reducing the real purchas-
ing power of working people —
and public sector employess have in
many cases, suffered more than
other sections of the work force.
In the hard-hitting statement
issued by the B.C. Federation of
Labor Feb. 7, there was the follow-
ing in respect to the municipal
strikes: ‘‘Municipal politicians
have picked up the club we took
away from the provincial govern-
ment over a year ago and are at-
tempting the same thing the prov-
ince did by beating the public sector
unions into submission. They are
the employers who are now trying
to remove from the collective

PACIFIC

agreement things which were hard”
_won years ago. ES

“With regard to the munici
strike we must level severe criticis
at the Labor Relations Board.
stead of seeking solutions to th
strike the LRB has been hearing”
one petty employer complaint afte
another. complaints which are
insignificant they shouldn’t even
considered for a hearing. If an
thing the board has done more
lengthen the dispute than bring tht
parties closer together.”’

Addressing itself to the B.C. T'
strike, the municipal strike, the N
bob strike and the cement strik
the Federation statement declare
‘We've tried to solve problems, ©
encourage negotiations and to fin¢
solutions to the industrial relatio
problems we face. Obviously
employer is not interested in sol
tions or settlements. As a result
will start an escalating program
economic action beginning né
week. This action will be taken
cooperation with, and in consul
tion with, our affiliates.”

This militant position of the Fe
eration leadership is mo
welcome. It should be carri
down into every labor council am
every local union — and to eve
union member. 2

The big employers are coordin-
ating their anti-labor offensive
through the Employers’ Council 0
B.c. The best defence for the la
movement is to go over to the
fensive in a united, coordinated
shion. It. would appear that
Federation leadership has embar:
ed on this course. They deserve 0!
full support in this connection.

Vancouver, B.C.

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