LABOR

The militancy of 11 months ago when Operation Solidarity was first launched was still very much in evidence as some 400 delegates gathered at the University of B.C. June 18 for the opening session of Operation Solidarity’s annual general meeting.

But if the July 15 meeting last year was about to embark on a series of massive demonstrations and an escalating public sector strike unprecedented in the provin- ce’s history, Monday’s meeting heard Operation Solidarity chair Art Kube call on trade unionists to continue the fight by resisting employers’ efforts at union- busting and by starting “a lot of small brush fires.”

Even those “‘small brush fires,” could in turn, “develop into major fireworks,” he emphasized.

“We're moving into more troubled times...the government hasn’t finished with us yet,” Kube warned in opening the two-day meeting. ~

“Tt is clear that if we are to survive as a trade union movement, we will have to continue to struggle and fight — there is no other way.

“And any trade unionist who doesn’t see that is either a fool or naive,” he declared to applause.

Kube’s short, tough speech to the dele-

gated conference was both a reply to his critics and a call to continue the campaign through local organization and mobil- ization.

Significantly, one of those critics, Jack Munro, the main architect of the Kelowna accord who has publicly scorned calls for a general strike, was absent from the meet- ing because of “other commitments”. He had earlier absented himself from a similar B.C. Fed meeting May 16 called to discuss Labor Code amendments.

Noting that the campaign over the pre- vious several months “brought some wins and some losses as well as the Bennett double-cross”, Kube emphasized, how- ever, that “history will judge that settlement.”

He urged unionists “not to turn on one another and to remember who the enemy is.” He also called on them “not to run around calling for a general strike — but neither should they pooh-pooh it.

“Unity has to be our goal here today,” he said, emphasizing that the meeting was intended to renew the mandate of Opera- tion Solidarity, to reaffirm the commit-

ment to the Solidarity Coalition and to.

adopt a program for the year ahead.

As with the B.C. Fed meeting a month earlier, Kube stressed local Solidarity committees “to ensure that employers

‘We must fight to survive,’ meeting told —

who try to take advantage, of Labor Code amendments are resisted. .

“If we have to live by the law of jungle then let’s make sure we develop effective jungle warfare,” he said.

“We have to organize and mobilize our members,” he told the meeting. ““We have to create the situation where a phone call to a single coalition member can get us 100 people to a demonstration or 10 phone calls 1,000 people.”

Delegates were to convene in seven closed workshops at Tribune press time to discuss Operation Solidarity’s program on various issues, trade union rights, human rights, social services and full employment and other topics.

Although the workshop papers, given to delegates beforehand, covered a wide range of proposals, there was little in the way of a defined program of action. One paper, on the restoration of trade union rights, was the same program which had been almost unanimously criticized for being “‘too meek and mild” by the B.C. Fed’s delegated conference of trade union- ists held last month.

But that there would be demands for a more hard-edged program was indicated in the opening session as several delegates took to the floor to discuss Kube’s open- ing address.

United fishermen’s delegate George Hewison won a wide response when he warned delegates that the issue “‘is the sul- vival of the trade union movement.

“Bill 28 (the Labor code amendments)

has tipped the balance clearly in favor of the corporations,” he said.

He cited his own union’s experience 11 which fish plant workers last week were the targets of a decertification drive. “Oné supervisor was handing out paycheques and the other had a petition for decertifi- cation,” he said.

And that could happen all over, he warned. :

“It’s time to stop kicking one another in the head, time to stop making public utterances and resolve to unite and fight, — he declared.

_ “We've got to say right here and now that we’re not going to allow a single union to get picked off.”

Canadian Union of Public Employeés delegate Peter Wilson also responded 10 | Kube’s speech, noting that the B.C. Div- ision of CUPE had endorsed a resolution at its convention last week calling on B.C. © Fed and Operation Solidarity “to protect the right to strike and to organize by, organizing a Solidarity II including, if necessary, a general strike.”

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Winning strategy means united action

Delegates to Operation Solidarity’s annual meeting this week at the University of British Columbia were greeted with news of major settlements in the pulp industry and between the Building Trades and Expo. But before anyone jumps to the conclusion that Operation Solidarity has the Socreds and employers on the run, each of these agreements should be assessed, for they are quite different. These assessments are of critical importance to the strategic line that Operation Solidarity will pursue in the fightback.

It may be that the Expo deal was the very best that Building Trades Council president Roy Gautier could hammer out of Expo chairman Jim Pattison and the Socred cabinet, or that to achieve more required a general mobilization of Solidarity which was not forthcoming. Nevertheless, there is nothing to crow about in the Expo deal.

By establishing minimum wages at the standard B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council (BCYT) rates the BCYT has effec- tively negotiated a 50 to 100 per cent increase for non-union labor, while under- mining its own collective agreement by $5 per hour. The letter of understanding between the BCYT and Expo is careful to state at the outset that it is without prejudice to other arrangements. But how could this deal possibly not prejudice current negotia- tions with the Construction Labor Rela- tions Association (CLRA)? The $5 per hour package in benefits that non-union contrac- tor J.C. Kerkhoff’s employees won’t get are just the concessions that CLRA wants from the Building Trades.

It is difficult to see what real benefits organized labor will get from this agree- ment. Kerkhoff retains a competitive advantage in wages, while union labor has conceded an important jurisdiction. Rather, what has been bargained is a contract for “labor peace” at Expo running until May 31, 1986. This is a peace that BCYT may find itself in no position to deliver before the — agreement expires.

And to whose advantage is labor peace at. Expo? If there was one place in British Columbia where the Socred Labor Code can be shown to be unworkable and des- tructive, at great cost to its authors, it is there. In this sense, the Expo deal is an extension of the B.C. Federation of Labor

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 20, 1984

Analysis

Fred Wilson

decision to resist the strong pressure to block implementation of the new Labor Code, and instead to live with the new code at least until the next election.

The militancy of the Carpenters Union in withdrawing their labor from Expo when Kerkhoff arrived on site showed the lever- age that Solidarity could have at Expo. The Carpenters’ action actually forced some significant improvements in the agreement over a preliminary agreement work out a week earlier. In particular, the Socreds con- ceded an important principle that a fair wage is a negotiated wage by agreeing that any increases in the standard rates nego- tiated by the BCYT would be passed on to all at the Expo site. The deal was also expanded to include ail suppliers to the site, insuring for example, that Rempel Concrete pays its drivers the standard Teamster rate. Another last minute concession was a clause providing that any employers organ- ized on the site and faced with a strike vote must either immediately sign the standard agreement or leave the site.

If job action won those concessions would it not also have been possible to challenge provisions of the new Labor Code — particularly the not yet proclaimed Section 73(1) and Section 44 which impose a form of right-to-work legislation in the construction industry by banning the use of non-affiliation clauses and eliminating inte- grated sites?

In contrast, the Canadian Paperworkers’ Union and the Pulp, Paper and Wood- workers of Canada are this week recom- mending acceptance of a new contract, a settlement that has been called a victory by CPU vice-president Art Gruntman. That settlement was only reached after pulp workers voted to strike in defiance of Bill 18, the Pulp and Paper Collective Bargain- ing Assistance Act — the corporatist bill

=

that gave the Socred cabinet the autocratic right to impose the terms of employment and to change them at will.

However, the Labor Code amendments and Bill 18 still hang over the pulp workers. In this case, as at Expo, the art of the possi- ble was determined fundamentally by the leadership, or lack of it, provided by the B.C. Fed and the Operation Solidarity council. Instead of bringing the fight against the code to the rank and file and preparing a united stand to stop its implementation, the Operation Solidarity leadership has avoided the call for mobilization.

Certainly the insidious influence of the labor movement’s right wing found in the leadership of the Munros and Stoneys have been the major obstacles to the fightback. But a general malaise in the top councils of labor must also be appraised; a profound lack of confidence in the working class to mobilize, unify and fight for democracy and justice.

. Operation Solidarity has put on paper a three-year “flow chart” outlining its stra- tegy leading to a possible 1986 provincial election. This flow chart estimates continu- ing government repression throughout 1985 when “extra parliamentary action” will be paramount. It notes important collective

bargaining battles to come, particularly wo the public sector. But what is missing is 2%) conception that extra parliamentary action can stop the Socreds from implementing their program. It is a pale shadow of the towering strength Solidarity achieved only4@ few months ago when it was on the edge of bringing the government down.

One cannot escape the conclusion tha! the three year strategy is based ona terrib miscalculation about the significance of new Labor Code. The terms of the code have been consistently underestimated i each public statement from the B.C. Fe and the organized opposition to t legislation — easily the most importal

Solidarity has faced yet — has bee# nothing more than pathetic.

Neither the Socreds nor the employe® have miscalculated their objectives. + wave of decertifications and union bustin’ campaigns are now in preparation, and they won't take three years to implement. ‘a this reason the necessity of a general mob” zation in Solidarity II will arise over eve battle to come.

The battle grounds will be thrust Solidarity, be it the current transit lockout, the scab-herding at Slade and Stewart, the battle over non-union contractors at Exp or in some other struggle about to. bre4 out. |

For union and community leaders and for Solidarity activists the ultimate con'

is for a winning strategy. All.of the expe ience of the last year has demonstrated that only co-ordinated mass economic and polit- ical action will bring victory, in the sho term or in three years from now, The roa® block to winning must be removed.

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