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BRITISH COLUMBIA

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contracting-out and also gave them the flex-
ibility to introduce 12-hour days and
Straight-time Saturday work.

The convention resolution called the
report “part of the Socred agenda” and
noted that it “is so reactionary that it is not
Only a threat to the [WA but a threat to the
whole labor movement.”

At a press conference at IWA offices
Nov. 27, representatives of the three unions
in the forest industry — the IWA, the Can-
adian Paperworkers Union and the Pulp,
Paper and Woodworkers of Canada — as
Well as federation officers took the micro-
phone to condemn the report of the com-
Mission and to underline their support for
IWA members should they decide to reject
the report and to continue their four-
month-long strike.

“We will not allow the IWA to be
defeated in’ this dispute and we will not
allow it to drag on,” federation president
Art Kube told reporters. “We won’t allow it
because we recognize that the multination-
als in the forest industry are trying to set a
pattern for other industries and for both the
Private and the public sector.

“If they succeed in their attempts to avoid
Collective agreements by contracting-out
there is no doubt that other employers will
attempt to follow suit,” he warned.

Kube said that the program of support
adopted by the officers “won't be tele-
8rtaphed to the employers” but emphasized
that it “could include general work stop-
Pages and many other things.

“Tt will certainly include accelerated pres-
Sure on the employers,” he said, adding that
federation officers would be meeting regu-
larly with the IWA to devise tactics.
PPWC president Stan Shewaga and CPU
Tegional vice-president Art Gruntman both
‘Stated that they would do “whatever is
_ hecessary to win this dispute.”

Shewaga added that if PPWC members
Were to close down mills, “it would not be
the first time we had to go out on an illegal
Strike.”

Telecommunications Workers Union
President Bill Clark told reporters: “If it
Means every worker in B.C. has to sit on
their ass to win, then that’s what we'll do.”

Those pledges of support were reiterated

Y federation officers and president Art
Kube Monday as the IWA strike domi-
hated the opening session of the federation’s
4nnual convention.

IWA fight ‘for

: : i
CLIFF ANDSTEIN ..
to Vander Zalm.”’

The convention debate was given added
punch by the solid rejection votes against
the IIC report registered by several more
locals around the province. In Courtenay
Local 1-363, the vote was a resounding 95
per cent, in the Port Alberni local it was 84
per cent, in the Vancouver local 88 per cent
and in four Prince George locals, the report
was rejected by votes ranging from 84 to 93
per cent.

In many locals, members made it clear,
that they wanted to see their votes backed
by an escalation of strike action to ensure
that increased pressure is brought to bear on
the employers which have maintained
record proftis despite the strike.

IWA regional president Jack Munro,
who was given a standing ovation as he
entered the hall just before the resolution
was presented, told convention delegates
Monday that a weekend meeting of some
1,700 members in New Westminster had
voted 91 per cent to reject the commission
report’s recommendations.

IWA New Westminster local president
Terry Smith added: “‘Once this vote is con-
ducted, it is our intention to have a major,
major escalation of this strike in solid wood.
Inside a week, every [WA member in solid
wood could be on strike,” he said.

It it-has to continue escalating to compel
the employers to yield on protection from
contracting-out, then it will, convention
delegates pledged.

In his opening address to the conven-

*

. “send a message

AS

JACK NICHOL ... “labor movement
won't be held prisoner.”’

tion, Kube warned that the “very survival
(of) an effective labor movement in this
province is dependent on the IWA as an
effective bargaining agent.”

Pointing to the support program for the
IWA, he urged delegates to “support it
wholeheartedly.

“If we must go to the wall to win this
one,” he said to applause, “then we’ll do it.”

Jack Nichol, president of the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers Union and
a federation vice-president warned that the
position adopted by the forest industry
employers was an attempt to force the clock
back for the labor movement in B.C.

“Tf this is a signal to the labor movement
that strikes and militant action are going to
be answered by greater and greater thrusts
by the employers to roll back contracts,
then I suggest to you that the trade union
movement will have to stand on its hind feet
and say: no way!” he declared.

Replying to Premier Vander Zalm’s
warnings to unionists not to hold the pro-
vince to ransom, he told delegates: “This
convention and all the affiliates are going to
have to say to Vander Zalm that trade
unionists won’t be held prisoner by the cor-
porations, by the big forest companies and
by the politicians who speak for them.

“The gauntlet has been thrown down,”
he emphasized. “The labor movement has
to respond — this program should be car-
ried out immediately.”

Leaders of the province’s three main pub-

labor’s survival’

lic sector unions, the B.C. Government
Employees Union, the Canadian Union of
Public Employees and the Hospital Employ-
ees Union, joined other union leaders in
pledging full support to the IWA, warning
that if the recommendations in the report
were forced on the IWA, “all trade union-
ists will be in trouble.”

But HEU secretary-business manager
Jack Gerow also emphasized to federation
leaders, “if we say we are going to the wall, I
hope we are, even if it means the walls that
are in jails.”

Carpenters provincial council president
Bill Zander also took up that point, warning
that the federation would likely be facing
the courts, the Labor Relations Board and
the provincial government.

“If we say we’re going to the wall, I don’t
want to see uscoming out of the trenches in
two or three weeks,” he told delegates. “I
want to see us at the wall because that’s
where we can win it.

“We can win it but it will take the collec-
tive unity of the B.C. Federation of Labor
and the Canadian unions because the
employers are deadly serious,” he added.

Zander said that he understood that
“clearly there are things we can’t talk abou
and can’t put down on paper. é

“T understand that there will be a day-to-
day ‘tactic squad’ that will devise tactics that
have been successful to the trade union
movement over the years,” he said, noting
that those tactics may require “saying to hell
with the LRB and Vander Zalm.

““We have to devise the best tactics that
will accomplish what we’re after and do it
with the least harm to the trade union
movement. ..,” he said to applause. “But
there’s no price too dear to pay to get
behind the IWA and see to it that they win.”

Federation secretary-treasurer Cliff And-
stein also cited Vander Zalm’s threat to
bring down legislation forcing IWA
members back to work and imposing a set-
tlement, a threat made more likely now that
the government has been delivered a report
that gives the employers what they want.

“It’s not enough just to support the
IWA,” he told the convention. “We have to
be prepared to send a message to the
employers and to Vander Zalm — if they
try to legislate, if they try to take away rights
that trade unionists have had for years, and
if the IWA chooses to fight that legislation,
then each and every trade unionist will assist
them in defying that legislation.

“T have friends in jail,” he said, referrring
to Fraser March, president of the New-
foundland Association of Provincial Employ-
ees, and Newfoundland NDP leader Peter
Fenwick, both jailed for defying injunctions
during the recent NAPE strike. “And they
know what it’s like to go to jail to defend
trade union rights.”

TTENTION
TRADE UNIONISTS
“Put the trade union
movement on the

offensive”

Hear: George Hewison
National Labour Secretar
Communist Party of Canada

Wed »sday, December 3, 1986
Doors open: 5 p.m. Dinner: 6 p.m.
Ukrainian Hall, 805 E. Pender St.
Chicken dinner & refreshments
Employed: $6
Unemployed and Striking
trade unionists: FREE

Sponsored by Labour Committee, CPC

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 3, 1986 e 3