TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN s each gate. Building Trades Council secretary-treasurer Al McMurray(r) joins picketers at Kerkhoff site following court order limiting the number at Pulp workers remain firm; — B.C. Fed reiterates support _ Pulp union members have made it clear in local meetings that they are “fighting mad” over the refusal of the employers to move, Canadian Paperworkers Union vice- president Art Gruntman told the Tribune Monday. And as long as they have to maintain secondary pickets, pulp workers should have the full support of the trade union movement, said B.C. Federation of Labor president Art Kube. “The response from the membership has been excellent,” said Gruntman, comment- ing on meetings with unions locals which were to wind up this week. “They’re solidly behind the negotiating committee.” The CPU and the Pulp, Paper and Wood-. workers of Canada are reporting to union meetings following the breakdown of nego- tiations with the Pulp and Paper Industrial Relations Bureau last month. “We made the first move — we said we'd give the companies a third year but we said we wanted a cost clause that would protect our.members for increases in the cost of living over 8% per cent. But the companies utterly and absolutely rejected that and continued to demand that we give up the extra stat holiday.” Gruntman said. “Now our people are saying: the next move is up to the company.” He emphasized that it didn’t mean that the unions would not go back to the bar- gaining table, adding that a decision on the next move would likely be made this week. The contract talks were expected to be a central issue at the PPWC convention meet- ing all this week on Vancouver Island. Meanwhile, B.C. Federation of Labor president Art Kube reiterated his call for all unions to continue to support the picket lines put up by the pulp unions. _ter from _ International PACIFIC RIBUNE He stated that the picket line policy was the most effective instrument that the trade union movement had and should be upheld by all unions. If that meant sacrifice for 1WA members whose plants are being picketed by the pulp unions, he said, then it is a price that has to ~ be paid. He later told a television talk show that he was confident that the [WA would be picketing pulp mills if it had been locked out by Forest Industrial Relations. Gruntman noted that the pulp unions had met with Kube last week where the B.C. Fed president reaffirmed that the pulp unions were complying with the federation picketing policy and “told us that we were entitled to the full support of the trade union movement.” The comments were in response to a let- Woodworkers regional president Jack Munro in which he continued his efforts to have pulp pickets withdrawn. In his letter to Kube and B.C. Fed offic- ers, Munro said that he was “formally requesting that pulp pickets be withdrawn from our operations. .. “If that is an unacceptable request, it is important we have a meeting of B.C. Fed officers and possibly Operation Solidarity . to consider a mass escalation of shut- downs,” he said. The request was widely publicized through the media as a call for a general strike although Munro himself later denied that he was in fact calling for a general strike. Kube, speaking on BCTV’s Webster show, called Munro’s proposal “silly.” And in any event, such escalation isn’t on the agenda, the B.C. Fed president emphas- ized. The immediate focus is the: lockout and the secondary picketing being con- ducted by the pulp unions. Name er 2) Postal. Code ‘lam enclosing 1 yr.$14(10 2yrs.$250) 6mo.$800 Foreign 1 yr. $200 Bill me later ~~ Donation$........ READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR Coe tee C bore VHS UR ee 0 tee 12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 14, 1984 Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. VSK 1Z5, Phone 251-1186 er Ce , Ce ee ei Bee Si Se ee eo et Se ee 2.0 ob 0 te ere ys ee? s. 62 & 650! 6 Oo 0. The CPU and PPWC picket gained new legal weight Mar. 7 with the decision by the labor Relations Board upholding their right to picket MacMillan Bloedel sawmill, ply- wood and logging operations and rejecting arguments that the unions were seeking to “leapfrog” the IWA agreement. Several divisions of MacMillan Bloedel had applied to the LRB for restraints on secondary picketing, arguing that the pulp unions were forcing a disproportionately high number of IWA members off the job and were seeking by their picketing to win an agreement superior to that signed by the _ IWA last December. But LRB vice-chair Shona Moore rejected both arguments. ; “On the facts before me, I am unable to conclude that the scope of picketing is dis- proportionate,” the ruling stated. On the issue of the pulp unions’ bargain- ing demands, it concluded: “The employers’ demand for a three year agreement on the pulp side has not been coupled with an agreement to forego the accommodations that the employer seeks from the pulp unions. The IWA and the pulp unions packages cannot be compared in the sense of saying that one is superior to the other at this point in time. CPU and PPWC by their expanded picketing seek to resist the employers’ demand for. certain ‘conces- sions’ roughly equivalent to those success- fully resisted by the [WA. “On the basis of all the evidence before me,” Moore’s decision stated, “I conclude that it is an over-simplification to say that the respondent unions seek to obtain more than the IWA. If the respondent unions accepted the employers’ proposals, they would accept an agreement arguably infe- rior to the IWA settlement.” : The Pulp and Paper Industrial Relations Bureau has refused to withdraw its conces- sionary demands for the elimination of one ‘of three statutory holidays from the contract. That issue “looms particularly large,” said Gruntman, because pulp workers see little reason to give up a stat holiday to increase. plant running time when the employers often run the mills for only 3 weeks a year as it is. E The employers just “want the right to run the mills when they want to run them and shut them down when they want to,” he said. ““We’re not prepared to accept that.” - x LRB orders} end to picket) of Kerkhoff| Members of the Building Trades} unions were expected to meet quickly to determine how they would react to | the decision by the Labor Relations } Board late Monday night instructing | the trades to cease and desist picketing | non-union contractor J.C. Kerkhoffs}_ Harbor Cove condominium project. } _ In his ruling, brought down at Trib] une press time, LRB vice-chairman Ken | Albertini declared that picketing by the } B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council and the Provincial Council of Carpenters was in contravention of the } Labor Code. _ | He ordered them, their “officers, | members, servants and agents and all 4 other persons having knowledge of this | order to cease and desist picketing at OF near the construction project of J.C. | _ Kerkhoff and Sons at Creekside Drive | and West Ist Ave.” : In issuing the order, Albertini rejected arguments by lawyers for the Building Trades and the Provincial } Council of Carpenters that union con- | tractor Ken Stevenson, in fact, con- trolled the developer on the project, Pennyfarthing Development Corpora- } tion, and used that control to turn the} contract over to Kerkhoff and so cif- cumvent the union agreement. The} union had argued that because Steven- | son and his former corporate lawyer Barry Sheppard between them owned | 60 per cent of Pennyfarthing shares, | they effectively controlled the devel-} opment company. “4 But Albertini argued that Sheppard | had severed connections with Steven- | son and that he, together with Penny- } farthing president Tony Hepworth, used their 60 per cent control to ensure | that the contract went to Kerkhoff. “I am convinced that if Pennyfar- } thing were under the control or direc- | tion of Stevenson Construction, the job | would not have been awarded to a non- | union contractor,” Albertini stated. | Because there is no control, he } added, no case can be made for a} lockout. : ; The LRB vice-chairman also rejected the union’s defence picketing based on f the Charter of Rights, although written | reasons for that decision are to be | issued later. 1 The ruling, not an unexpected one, | followed several days of hearings last | week at which unemployed Building |” Trades members who were picketing the Kerkhoff site, filled the galleries. The decision also followed a court | injunction issued Mar. 8 in B.C. | Supreme Court limiting pickets to 12 | __ per gate. But the reaction to that order | indicated how Building Trades unem- } — ployed, many of whom have not | — worked for 18 months, are likely to view any order which will assist Kerk- hoff in his non-union crusade. Pickets at the gates were indeed held to 12 the following day, but scores of others were close by the site, calling themselves “concerned citizens.” _ For all of them, the issue is not just. } this site but also other major projects including B.C. Place — where Kerk- | hoff, among other non-union contrac- } tors, intends to bid for work. : Pickets were expected to be at the site again Tuesday morning. This week, however, the Building Trades will be. meeting with the B.C. Federation to map out a strategy to fight the non-union threat.