« Canada By MIKE PHILLIPS EDMONTON — A _long-smouldering dispute at Zeidler Forest industries Ltd. burst into flame last week with the walkout by 156 workers at the company’s plywood plant. Management’s haste in calling out local police to herd scabs into the plant has drawn the labour movement’s fire and already prompted comparisons of this fight with the epic Gainers struggle three years ago. The strike, laucnhed by IWA-Canada Local 1-207.0n March 18, brought the Edmonton workers out to join about 50 striking workers at the company’s veneer plant in Slave Lake, 250 km north of Edmonton. They’ve been out for almost two years. Local IWA leaders and Dave Werlin, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, say the parallels with the Gainers strike are compelling. Both Gainers’ owner Peter Pocklington and the Zeidler family are strong backers of, and well-connected to, the Alberta Tory party, Werlin said in an interview last week. Both companies have a history of black- mailing their workers into large concessions by threatening their jobs with plant clo- sures. In both cases, the workers had pre- viously voted by narrow majorities to turn down strike votes and accepted major con- cessions. And both were repaid in the sub- sequent negotiations with lockouts when they refused to take any more cuts. As a result of previous concessions in the Edmonton plant, 45 per cent of the work force only work part-time, without union benefits. They pose a definite threat to the existing job security of the full-time workers. The two key issues in the Edmonton strike, aside from rebuffing more demands for concessions, include preventing Zeidler from firing union members and hiring scabs as part of a settlement and the reinstatement of 22 unionized workers in the Slave Lake dispute. The Slave Lake workers were locked out on April 11, 1986. ‘Zeidler’s strike echo of Gainer’s fight The IWA has the federation’s full back- ing on this issue, Werlin said. “We fought extremely hard to force Pocklington to take back unionized workers rather than to hire scabs, and we support the IWA in principle on that matter,” he said. Zeidler’s main product is plywood and two-by-four studs for the construction industry. The bulk of company business right now is tied to the construction indus- tries of Ontario and Quebec. The union has met with the building trades unions in Edmonton and Vancouver, we and with the AFL’s backing is calling for a country-wide boy- cott of Zeidler pro- ducts. The strike began with the 2:30 p.m. shift change, March 17. When picketing resumed at 7 a.m. the next day, a squad of about 16 members of the Edmonton police showed up in full force. “You have to remember this was a legal strike, and there had been no incidence of violence of any kind,” Werlin stated. “there was absolutely no reason for the police to have any presence on that picket line.” The action began when a striker locked the plant gate using the company’s own open padlock. A Zeidler supervisor came out and calmly opened the padlock without incident. “But obviously on signal, and in a pre- arranged fashion, the police suddenly moved across the street, arrested the picke- ter who had locked the Zeidler gate, and ordered picketers who were conducting a legal picket to move away from the gate,” Werlin said. “When they refused to move, two more — this time members of the Cana- dian Paperworkers Union — were arrested just as five carloads of scabs arrived on the scene, right on cue.” One striker was injured when his foot was WERLIN run over by the first carload of scabs cross- ing the picket. According to an eyewitness, the police not only failed to take action against the driver, but refused to assist the injured picketer or call an ambulance. According to the witness the policeman in charge of the operation told picketers he had “‘seen these scams before” and that the injured striker was obviously faking and just trying to cause an incident. The picketer eventually hobbled over toa pay phone, called an ambulance and was later released from hospital on crutches fol- lowing treatment for severe bruises and strained ligaments. - Angered by this police-sanctioned vio- lence against the [WA strikers, Local 1-207 called its members off the picket line on March 18, and with a delegation of suppor- ters organized by the AFL, informed the local media they would be ready to meet them at 3 p.m. that afternoon in the offices of Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore. Waving signs and placards, the 60 or more protesters were too numerous for the mayor’s office to hold. Decore was out of town on business, so alderman Julian Kin- iski opened the city council chambers to hear the labour movement’s demands. Werlin and Local 1-207 president Mike Pisak roasted the city for allowing the police to be used as scab herders and in Werlin’s words, “as a private Pinkerton’s for this city’s most reactionary employers. “Obviously they’re being used as an extension of the Tory crackdown on the workers of this province, and we demand that they be called off.” Kiniski responded by claiming the city’s hands were tied in as much as council doesn’t direct the police force. The union leaders then called for the creation of a civilian agency to review police activities. The Edmonton force has been under intense fire these days for a chain of ugly scandals and an internal investigation pro- cess that is widely perceived in the commun- ity as little more than a mechanism for coverup and whitewash. Mayor Decore, with aspirations to lead TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAN KEETON Marchers mark the signing of the ceasefire between Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and the U.S.-backed contras in Vancouver on Saturday. The event, which followed Wednesday's protest of the deployment of U.S. troops in Honduras — broughtin to back the contras who were suffering military defeat by the Sandinista troops — heard Unitarian minister Suzanne Spencer report from a Nicaraguan visit that even opposition leaders oppose threatened U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and Central America. March proceeded to U.S. consulate on West Georgia Street. 6 « Pacific Tribune, March 30, 1988 the provincial Liberals, has repeatedly sided with the police and the controversy sur- rounding the force. The mayor’s blanket support for the police and its anti-union record, stretching all the way from deploying the riot squad against the Gainers strikers and arresting more than 1,000 trade unionists and com- munity supporters during that battle, and now serving as Zeidler’s private police force, Werlin said, raised serious questions about whether a potential government under Decore’s leadership would be much of an improvement over the current Tory regime. “This is a man who is seeking the leader- ship of the Alberta Liberal Party and appears to be trying to advance his political career on the basis of the flagging public support of the Getty government,” Werlin said. “It’s time the people of Edmonton policed their own police force. Mayor Decore should set up a public inquiry into the force and move to set up a civilian review agency to oversee the force’s activi- ties.” Pocklington gets handout By DAVE WALLIS EDMONTON — Alberta’s Tory govern- ment is short of cash when it comes to funding health care, social programs and education. When it comes to big business, it signs a blank cheque. Gainers Inc. owner Peter Pocklington, notorious for his attempt to de-unionize the company’s Edmonton operation two sum- mers ago, is one of the big winners in Tory Premier Don Getty’s latest spending spree. It was after a meeting with Getty that Pocklington agreed to settle with the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 280- P, ending the bitter six-month strike at the Gainers plant. At the time there were rum- ours of a multi-million dollar payoff. Whether there was or not, Gainers has now been given a $12-million loan and a $55-million loan guarantee. The corporate sector rarely ever pays back a “loan”’. Pocklington plans to use part of the cash to build a new hog-slaughtering plant in southern Alberta. He also hints at another plant north of Edmonton. Presumably he will find a location as far away from the larger centres and trade unions as possible. With Alberta already having excess hog- slaughtering and processing capacity, a new plant is unnecessary. The most likely long- term scenario is that Gainers, having never given up its their plans to go non-union, will simply close the Edmonton facility and give its unionized workers the boot. In the meantime Pocklington will be able to use his second facility to pressure the Edmonton workers to take more conces- sions. In addition to millions for Pocklington, the Alberta Tories have more for their big business backers. Over the last six months they have put out millions in grants, loans and loan guarantees. They include a $64.5 million grant for Japanese-owned Daishowa Canada Ltd. to construct a pulp mill near the Peace River. This plant will be supplied with timber from - the area claimed by the Lubicon Cree Indian Band and will destroy much of the land traditionally used for hunting and fish- ing. Also included are a $8.3-million grant and a $200-million loan guarantee to Alberta Newsprint Ltd. for a new plant near Whitecourt, and loan guarantees to expand Champion Forest Product’s plant at Hin- ton.