.

LABOR

Progress still slow
toward co-ordinated
bargaining strategy

By FRED WILSON

The ranking officers of B.C.’s major
unions will get together this week at Harri-
son Hot Springs to compare notes on the
province’s troublesome industrial relations,
and they will likely inch a little closer to a
co-ordinated stand by the labor movement
against the aggressive drive for concessions
by employers and the Socred government.

Still, for trade unionists on the firing line
in the Building Trades, the maritime indus-
tries and in the public sector, the progress
towards fulfilment of B.C. Federation of
Labor convention resolutions calling for co-
ordinated bargaining is painfully slow.

Last week the federation officers met and
considered the resolution of the Vancouver
and District Labor Council calling for a
conference of unions in negotiations to
advance a co-ordinated strategy. That reso-
lution had been adopted after back-to-back
reports from the strikers at Pacific Western
Airlines and from Building Trades repre-

’ sentatives who outlined the savage attack

on their collective agreements promised by
Construction Labor Relations Association.
Colin Snell, secretary-
treasurer of the Pro-
vincial Council of
Carpenters, read to
the meeting a state-
ment by Roy Gaut-
ier of the Building
Trades Council cal-
ling for a “common
front” of unions in
negotiations in 1986.

The B.C. Fed offi-
cers also had before
them a letter from Carpenters Union presi-
dent Bill Zander suggesting that the confer-
ence be held quickly and that it consider a
proposal to take a first step towards provin-
cial co-ordination of bargaining. He pro-
posed that those unions currently in
negotiations and facing concession demands
from the employers agree to break off
negotiations simultaneously and conduct
strike votes. The tactic would be designed to
send a strong message to the government
and the employers that the labor movement
would not allow any sector to stand alone
against an all-out attack by the employers.
After the strike votes, the unions would
return to the bargaining table to see if the
attitude of the employers had changed.

Art Kube confirmed this week that the
officers agreed to propose to the ranking
officers at Harrison that a staff conference
of all unions in negotiations this year be
convened, likely early in March after the
March 7 B.C. Fed executive council meet-
ing.

Kube claimed that considerable prepara-
tions have already been completed for co-
ordination on a sectoral basis. In the public

ART KUBE

~ sector, where over 100,000 workers are cur-

rently bargaining against the premier’s fiat
that there won’t be any more money this
-year for those fortunate enough to have a
job, Kube stated that there is a “high degree
of consultation and co-ordination.” He'said
public sector negotiators have been meeting
regularly over breakfast for several months.
Sources in the Canadian Union of Public
Employees and the Hospital Employees
Union confirmed that the public sector
negotiators have been meeting, but they
indicated that the emphasis has been on
simple information-sharing and not co-
ordination. While the B.C. Government
Employees Union has been offered a wage
freeze and also faces a number of demands
for concessions, the advance guard of

CUPE, Lower Mainland civic workers,
have been offered two per cent and incre-
ments, about what Ed Peck will approve
these days. The HEU expects to face a hard
line like that presented to the BCGEU.

What is needed in the public sector, these
leaders argue, is real co-ordination aimed at
breaking the CSP guidelines and turning
back the concession demands against the
provincial public service. That must involve
some “bottom line” bargaining positions,
strike votes across the public sector, and
co-ordination of industrial action if neces-
sary.

Kube also has been working to bring
together five maritime unions, the Long-
shoremen, Grain Workers, Merchant Ser-
vice Guild, Seafarers’ Industrial Union and
the Seamen’s Local 400 of Canadian Broth-
erhood of Railway, Transport and General
Workers. The so-called “federation jurisdic-
tion” unions are all in bargaining presently,
except for the seamen, and they all are fac-
ing strident demands for concessions.

Another key set of negotiations currently
in progress is in the metal fabricating indus-
try. At least four unions are involved in this
sector, the Steelworkers, CAIMAW, Iron-
workers and the Marine Workers and
Boilermakers. Although all unions have
separately resolved to give up no conces-
sions, the bad blood between most of these
unions after years of raiding appears to be
an obstacle bigger than the present leader-
ship. At least two of the unions, however,
the Ironworkers and Marine Workers, have
had joint meetings to discuss negotiations.

In the forest industry there are also prob-
lems of co-ordination. The pulp unions are
still smarting from the IWA decision two
years ago to break up the joint bargaining
and conclude a separate agreement for less
than the pulp unions were prepared to
accept. Those events ended in the debacle of
IWA members crossing CPU and PPWC
picket lines in Fort St. John.

The tables may have turned this year. It is
the pulp unions that have the strongest bar-
gaining hand, and there are signs that the
employers want a quick settlement in pulp.
On the other hand, the [WA will be pressed
to the wall for major concessions.

The obvious need in 1986, as in 1984, is
for three way co-ordination against the
common employers. But nothing short of
extraordinary leadership from the federa-
tion and the forest union leadership will
accomplish that.

It is understandable that the Building
Trades are the first to call for a common
front of all unions in negotiations. With
demands before them that they cut wages
by $5 per hour, give up the hiring hall,
emasculate shop steward rights and grant
many other concessions, the trades have the
most to lose.

The Building Trades will likely be taking

_ a strike vote of the 35,000 unionized con-

struction workers in March to prepare for
the May | expiration date of the current
agreement and the expected termination of
those agreements by the contractors.
There is every likelihood that by May 1
this province’s industrial relations will be
ready to erupt. Co-ordinated action at that
point will become essential for survival of
large sections of the labor movement. The
prerequisite steps towards that co-ordination
must be put in place soon by securing strike
mandates from as many industries as possi-
ble. That would be the most powerful mes-
sage possible to the Socred establishment
that, election year or not, the trade union
movement is prepared to defend itself.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 12, 1986

pried
yor

Solidarity action last week by the Baemiploved Workers Gans onal 1 4 fired
workers at the Pizza Hut in Nanaimo win an agreement from their employer to
discuss reinstatement following an informal Labor Relations Board heari g
Feb. 6. Local management had fired employees after blaming them for the
restaurant's poor economic performance but workers, ina leaflet distributed to
customers, cited frequent instances of verbal abuse from the area manager an@
threats to their jobs if they attempted to unionize.

_

An indication of the interference by
government order that members of the
B.C. Government Employees Union can
expect was given the Carpenters Union
at the end of last month when Education
Minister Jack Heinrich unilaterally
altered the rules governing a collective
agreement between the Carpenters and
the Surrey School Board.

An order issued by Heinrich Jan. 29
deleted a key section of the tendering
rules under the School Act — which, in
turn, effectively disallowed a 10-year-old
clause in the collective agreement
between the Carpenters and the Surrey
School Board.

“The effect of Heinrich’s decree is to
strike down the agreement between our
union and the Surrey board that states
that school construction would only be
let to contractors employing union
workers,” Carpenters Provincial Council
president Bill Zander said in a statement
Feb. 4.

ing rules amended by Heinrich’s Jan. 29
order had read: “Bidding on projects is
open to all contractors wishing to submit
bids and able to comply with all the
tender requirements.” Heinrich deleted
all the words after “contractors.”

Significantly, his order came only two
weeks after the B.C. Court of Appeals
had ruled unanimously that the Surrey
School Board-Carpenters contract clause
requiring union labor was a legitimate
tender requirement under the School Act
tendering rules. The clause had pre-
viously been upheld three times by the
B.C. Labor Relations Board.

“We fought this issue all the way to the
B.C. Court of Appeals and won,”

Decree from Heinrich
guts union contract

The section of the School Act tender- -

Zander said. “Now with the stroke of 2
pen the minister of education has”
changed the ground rules.”

Zander warned that the action is
Heinrich “has serious implications {0
the whole trade union movement.

“It’s an increased abuse of power,”
charged, emphasizing that if it w
allowed to pass, it would set a dangero
precedent that government could follo
in other public sector agreements. =

In fact, Heinrich’s order presages
changes to the Compensation Stabiliza-
tion program that would alter the rules
under which public sector workers bar-
gain. Premier Bennett announced Feb. 5
that changes were impending, prompting
BCGEU members to break off nego
tions pending a meeting with govern:
ment.

But the order is also dangerou I
because it undermines local school boare
autonomy and forces the provincia
government’s anti-union, low-bid poli
cies on local boards, thus extending t
low-wage policies that have alread}
created economic havoc in the provinee
Zander said. :

“For all of thes reasons we denounc
the Heinrich decree,” he said. “It is arro
gant, authoritarian, undemocratic, unfat
and unreasonable.” *

The Carpenters president emphasize
that the order ‘“‘won’t go unchallenged
adding that the union would be “public
izing the injustice that has been done’
and would also be exploring legal chak
lenge under the Charter of Rights. .

“In the meantime, we will use ev
means at our disposal to defend out
negotiated agreement,” he said.

~

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~ IRIBUNE

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