Elias Stavrides photo
• A UFAWU trawl committee met fisheries officials in Vancouver March 15 to protest a coastwide ground fish closure. Seen here (clockwise from bottom right) are department officers Keni Lorrette, John Cairns, Don Wilson, Bob Wowchuck, Ed Zyblut and union committee members Dave Cannell, Joe Boudreau, Ken Spiller, Cletus Samson, organizer John Radosevic and union secretary-treasurer George Hewison.
McMillan workers balk at unloading non-union fish
Doug March, a trawl vessel owner who has done everything in his power to develop nonunion organization in the fishing industry, tried to unload at J. S. McMillan in Vancouver March 12 and found UFAWU shoreworkers weren't sure they wanted him back.
More than 30 McMillan workers held a study session to show that the higher March's prestige rises in the non-union field, the less he is esteemed in the union sector. Thus it was that the president of the Western Fishermen's Federation found his Willow Point sitting untouched at the dock while the shore crew debated their position.
Discussions had barely begun, however, when management began unloading the vessel in violation of the collective agreement which protects shore-workers' jobs.
Indignant at the provocation, the shoreworkers stopped all
work at the plant. "Management seems to want March's fish more than they want good relations with their workers," said one. "We've been here for years, but the moment March shows up, management rushes to unload him in violation of the agreement with shoreworkers."
March was expelled from the UFAWU last year after a trial committee found he actively worked to bust the UFAWU at Quality Fish Co-op, where he was an employee.
March told the union trial committee he did not regret his actions and under the same circumstances would repeat them if he got the chance. It was this attitude that prompted McMillan shoreworkers to say that if March found the union so objectionable he should unload elsewhere.
The day-long walkout ended after an informal labor relations board hearing March 12. Management unloaded the vessel
B.C. FED
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
settlement, HEU members would take another strike vote to authorize its leadership to serve a 72-hour strike notice to hospital management in B.C.
Kinnaird said that the federation would agree to cooperate with non affiliates on a joint anti-wage restraints campaign, "if they don't put respect for laws over and above the needs of their members and don't run for cover when there are statements made about the need to take action to throw the premier out of office."
Kinnaird said that the 40,000 strong B.C. Government Employees Union, a B.C. Fed affiliate, will test Bennett's legality
in
of the wage restraint program the near future.
Kinnaird noted that the public sector restraints program may have a spill-over effect on the private sector.
"I'm convinced that there is a commitment, a conspiracy if you want, to bring controls into the private sector. -
"I think we're in for tough times with growing unemployment and bankruptcies," he said but added that "the trade union movement is not bowing down to this pressure.
He said that the federation will oppose Bennett's CSP program with a demonstration in Victoria when the bill comes up for debate in the B.C. legislature this spring.
and the product was removed from the plant.
UFAWU waterfront organizer John Radosevic said March remained defiant during a meeting with the union March 18.
"UFAWU trawl fishermen are assessing what measures to take now that March wants to return to union jurisdiction," Radosevic said. "It is significant that the man who organized Quality Co-op and is president of the Western Fishermen's Federation finds it necessary to attempt to force his way back into union jurisdiction when times get tough.
"He wanted nothing to do with union plants two years ago and worked hard to make Quality a non-union outlet. Now Quality refuses his fish and he wants to come back and expects union members to turn a blind eye."
At Quality, March personally disciplined workers who expressed pro-union views.
Radosevic noted that although the Deepsea Trawlers Association claims it is not antiunion, two DTA vessel owners accompanied March to support him during the March 18 meeting.
"McMillan workers deserve a tribute for their well-disciplined job action," Radosevic said. "It was a principled stand on a very important issue for the union and the fishing industry."
Union trawl fishermen now are balloting coastwide on the questions raised by March's actions, he said. "Trawlermen will be making their own decision on what to do about union-busters working in union plants.
"Trawl fishermen delivering to McMillan are assessing their options and the entire trawl section is voting on possible action in support of the McMillan fishermen should they be confronted by another attempt to bring union-busters into tht McMillan fold."
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SPEC demands ban on toxic chlorophenols
SPEC environmentalists and the Fraser River Coalition demanded March 18 that the provincial govenrment issue an immediate ban on the use of fungicide chlorophenols by nearly 16 lower mainland lumber mills because they are highly toxic to fish and workers.
The move was sparked by a recent fisheries department decision to lay charges against Whonnock Industries Ltd. for severely polluting the Fraser River at its lumber mill site at Maple Ridge, B.C.
Charged with five counts of violation of the Fisheries Act, Whonnock is scheduled to be brought to trial Oct. 25 to Oct. 29 at Maple Ridge provincial court.
"Under the present court system by the time the case is finished it'll be one or two years down the line," New Westminster fisheries supervisor Don Aurel told The Fisherman March 22.
Aurel said that the department currently is investigating another lumber mill at Pitt Meadows, B.C., run by CIPA Industries Ltd. where similar chloro-phenol contamination may be even more serious than at Whonnock.
He said it was too early to say whether the department will be pressing similar charges against CIPA and he insisted that the immediate health hazard to workers appears to be much more serious than on fish.
"I was horrifie'd to hear details of contamination of workers at Whonnock last week," said Aurel who recently participated in a joint government-labor-environmentalists' meeting.
"Some workers have to wear protective boots at work because the chemical can otherwise seep
through the shoes and into their feet."
Whonnock's pollution of the Fraser River originated from the company's dip tank where newly-cut lumber was dipped into chlorophenols to prevent fungus deterioration.
Several Whonnock workers developed severe dermatitis and suffered health complications which included nausea attacks, diarrhoea and internal bleeding.
Confronted with evidence of pollution at the sawmill, the provincial government moved in last month to order a clean-up order but failed to press charges, or to ban the chemical.
Suzuki Foundation spokesman Arne Thomlinson now charges that the company has failed to meet several of its deadline orders to clean up its site by March 1.
"For the company not to immediately comply to the order is equal to contempt of court," Thomlinson said March 19.
But deputy environment minister Ben Marr, the man who issued the clean-up order last month, said in a phone interview to The Fisherman March 19 that "until we have all the information in we're not prepared to make a statement."
He said a recently set-up joint group to study "how best to control chlorophenjols in the lumber industry," will be making a final decision soon.
SPEC charged March 18 that a 30-minute retention time of Whonnock's dipped lumber recommended by the clean-up order was inadequate.
"It does not take into account the lumber still dripping after this time once it is removed from the holding area.
The computer was fed with a difference of exactly one percent and wrongly ordered payments automatically.
Although the difference was in fact 1.009, the UI figure was a rounded figure provided by Statistics Canada.
( ALERT BAY)
UIC appellants urged to refuse collection of debt
More than 100 B.C. workers, including 74 UFAWU members, have lost a lengthy court battle against Unemployment Insurance Commission demands for return of alleged overpayments made in 1977.
Although the overpayments resulted from a computer error, the federal court of appeal ruled in Vancouver Feb. 16 that the workers should pay the commission back.
But union welfare fund director Bert Ogden said March 25 the commission "cannot collect a debt more than three years after the claimant has been advised of the amount owing.
"The decision now is in the hands of the commission and any worker involved in this case who now is on claim may find the commission attempts to deduct the indebtedness directly from the UI cheque," Ogden warned.
The computer error resulted in 'overpayments' of between $150 and $700 a month to workers in Quebec, Nova Scotia and B.C.
A provision in the act stipulated that extended benefits should be paid to workers where the regional level of unemployment exceeded the national average unemployment rate by more than one percent.
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THE FISHERMAN — MARCH 26, 1982/3
