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Top: Pickets outside Surrey municipal works yard. Bottom: Just two words written on a piece of cardboard — but it has a clear message for some 30 to 40 so-called “engineers” who have been doing the work of municipal employee in Surrey since the strike there began Monday.

(Story, this page). ‘

—Sean Griffin photos

Seagram's liquor on hot list again

Seagram’s distillery in New Westminster, shut down by pickets since March 3, following an illegal

lockout by the company, has had.

its products labelled ‘“‘hat’’ by the B.C. Federation of Labor.

Seagram’s shut down their bottling operation February 28 ona half hours notice, putting more than 80 workers in the bottling plant, some with more than twenty years seniority out of work. The union reacted immediately, considering the move a_ lockout against all of its 170 employees at the distillery. Charges of unfair labor practices have been filed with the Labor Relations Board.

As one woman on the picket line related to the Tribune, ‘‘The first we heard of it was at about two o’clock in the afternoon when the company official walked in and announced: Pick up your personal belongings. You have a half hour to get out. And now they can’t un- derstand why this picket line is here. These guys are from the dark ages.”

RWDSU respresentative Al Peterson said in a_ release following the lockout, ‘‘As far as we’re concerned this is an illegal lockout and is in violation of both the collective agreement and the labor code. If the managers of this huge international corporation think they can treat workers in B.C. with such callous disregard they’ve got another think coming.”

Seagrams, officially the B.C. Distillery Company, has a notorious history of union busting attempts. In 1973 the company provoked a strike with the then Distillery Workers Union that

lasted six months. That strike, —

finally won by the union with the backing of the entire labor movement, saw numerous in- cidents on the picket lines springing from company attempts to break the lines. Seagram’s is already back. to its old tactics with closed circuit TV cameras pointed towards the picketeers, ready to film any indidents they can provoke.

B.C. Federation of Labor Secretary Len Guy released the hot declaration on Seagram’s products

March 5. ‘“‘I have assured those workers that the B.C. Federation of Labor and our affiliates will do everything possible to ensure that Seagram’s _ products and associated brands are boycotted throughout the province.”

The Federation’s hot declaration got its first test last Friday at Dominion Glass in south Burnaby. When fork lift drivers refused to load a shipment of Seagram’s bottles desined for eastern plants, they were fired on the spot. Seven drivers were involved, members of

the Glass and Ceramic Workers’ -

Union. The union gave the com- pany twenty minutes to reinstate

plied. At that point the striking Seagram’s workers put a picket line around Dominion Glass _ to prevent any shipments of hot bottles. from leaving.

“The people here have been very Zood,”’ commented Ted Shaw, RWDSU secretary treasurer on the Dominion picket line. He said that only two Dominion employees had crossed the line.

Seagram’s plans to continue the distillery operation but send the spirits east for bottling and then back to B.C. for marketing. The company is attempting to explain the closure with the timeworn allegation of “low productivity”’ at the B.C. plant.

The truth of the matter, as Shaw explained, is that the B.C. plant is less automated than the Ontario plant and loses further produc- tivity through “‘line change’’ — the major brands go to the Ontario plant while in B.C., Seagram’s bottles minor and temporary brands, thus constantly requiring different bottle lines. If the Seagram’s plant lacks productivity the problem rests with management.

“This comlany has a shameful record of labor relations,’’ Federation secretary Len Guy stated. ‘‘It deliberately provoked a lenghty strike two years ago in an attempt to break the union.: That attempt failed just as this one will.

“This callous disrespect for the jobs of workers cannot be tolerated in British Columbia.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1975—Page 12

CUPE TALKS AT NEW IMPASSE

Councils’ stand blamed

Efforts by municipal and civic administrations to use public employees as a means of driving

wages down were condemned last .

week as bargaining between various B.C. cities and

Union of Public Employees came virtually to a standstill this week.

The same intransigent employer position also forced a new strike among municipal workers in Surrey, members of CUPE local 402. :

Harry Greene, president of the B.C. division of the Canadian Union of “Public Employees charged Friday that municipal employers are working closely with business interests in an at- tempt to force wages down among public workers in order to depress general wage levels. ;

He pointed out that most of the municipal governments represented business interests and their failure to bargain in good faith had resulted in strikes and stalemated contract talks throughout the province.

In Surrey, wage offer ceilings imposed on municipal negotiators by Surrey council, headed by right- _wing mayor Bill Vander Zalm, forced a strike of Surrey municipal employees. They walked out Monday and began immediately setting up picket lines around the works yard, the municipal hall and other municipal. installations. School board workers were not affected.

“Due to the inconsistency of municipal management. at the bargaining. table, Surrey municipal workers now feel that the only course of action open to us is the withdrawal of our services,”’ the local said in a statement.

“We regret any problems this may create for Surrey residents but it would appear that we have no alternative.”

The members added: “Management’s total lack of concern for the needs of our municipality became evident when its chief negotiator was sent to Banff.”

The Surrey strike has been

: aggravated by he use of so-called. - engineers — some 30 to 40 of them the men and the company com- -

— who have been scabbing on the

‘municipal workers and main-.

taining some services normally

\ performed by CUPE.

seaatacanses cyan mre aes ic Crmenoman eam OBITUARY

MURIEL BLADEN

The labor and _ progressive movement of B-C. Lost one of its oldest.and for many years most devoted peace activists in the passing of Muriel Bladen after a lengthy illness on March 4.

Mrs. Bladen, who would have been 90 in September, was an ‘active worker in the B.C. Peace Council in Vancouver for many years. The highlight of her lifetime work however was in Victoria where she led a movement that gathered support and for’a long period collected medical in- struments and linen to make bandages for the Chinese people in their heroic struggle against Japanese aggression in the 1930s.

Piano cases of medical supplies and bandages were prepared week after week and month after month for shipment to China, as well as support rallied for the ‘“‘boycott Japanese imperialism’’ campaign and the movement against ship- ment of Canadian scrap-iron to Japan.

A memorial service- was con- ducted in the Unitarian Church on Saturday, with Rev. Hewitt paying tribute to Mrs. Bladen’s humanitarian peace activities and sterling qualities.

“They’reno more engineers than I am,” one picketer told mthe Tribune Tuesday, ‘‘most of them couldn’t even design a culvert.”

Several’ cars and_ trucks,

_ carrying the engineers entered the municipalities and the Canadian > ce se

works yard while the Tribune was there Tuesday, passing thrqugh the gate where municipal workers had posted a sign stating ‘‘Scabs En- trance.”

Mayor Vander Zalm also said the workers ‘‘could stay out until *‘August”’ — confirming the union’s charge that council is less con- cerned with a settlement than with trying to impose guidelines.

Elsewhere pickets from CUPE Local 407, representing some 90 workers in a number of schools in

the Vancouver area, appeared outside various schools and Vancouver Community College facilities Monday in that local’s| # efforts to back up contract i demands which have remained outstanding since December 31. Neither students nor teachers were asked to respect the lines provided they did not do any work normally} , performed by CUPE members. Some schools, however, may be closed because of lack of heat of other services.

In Vancouver, negotiations between 5,000 CUPE and MREU members and greter Vancouvel municipalities resumed Monday} — with mediator Gus Leonidas bul there were no reports of - any progress at Tribune press time. | -

=

Trident base protested —

Continued from pg. 1

to the Pacific Ocean. At the same time as these subs. become operational it is expected that U.S. super tankers will start hauling oil from Alaska through the same Straits to refineries at Cherry Point, Washington. The prospect of these huge subs, nuclear destruction, capable of travelling 40 miles an hour un- derwater, passing through the Straits while at the same time oil supertankers are passing through the narrow Straits above, was

loaded with

described by some MLAs in Vic-

toria as ‘‘horrendous’’.

e Hearings held before a U.S. Congress committee and statements made by U.S. Navy spokesmen have indicated that preparations are being made for the eventuality of the Straits being mined. Other statements indicate that B.C. has been designated as a territory over which deflecting of off-target missiles from the Trident system will be destroyed.

The only conclusion to draw from these facts is that the US. government and Pentagon con- sider B.C. expendable. Our province and its people have been moved directly into the first line of fire in the event of a nuclear disaster. Not only that. The US. government is completely ignoring Canada’s rights in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, which will, through the Bangor base and the oil supertankers be turned into a U.S.

more than certain that these subs, passing in and out of the Straits will pass through Canadian waters: There is also the possibility thal some testing for the Trident subs may take place at Nanoose Bay where the U.S. and Canada operat a joint testing site.

When Stuart Leggatt, MP fot

New Westminster raised the issue)

in Parliament last Decembel:

urging a protest, he got nowhere) ~ with the Liberal government)

External Affairs ministe! MacEachen said he had no ob: jection to Canada not being col

sulted about the location of thé)

base, and said: ‘I do not considel that it would be in Canada’s if terest to make representations the United States authoritie

concerning the establishment ol)

the base unless a peacetime el vironmental hazard appears likely to develop.”’ It appears more than likely that Canada has already secretly agreed with the base under ou! NATO-NORAD arrangements wil! the U.S. All of which points to thé urgent need for Canadians to spea! up against the base, demand if removal, and at the same tim? demand the withdrawal of Canadé from NATO and NORAD and @!

_ end to similar commitments P!

Canada which endanger oll} «

security and independence, alt,

deny Canada the role it should play; as a force for internation4 peace and detente and an end to

nuclear arms race.

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are again hot. (See story).

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