'Break control by processors' urges UFAWU
Sean Griffin photo
• Nearly 4,000 people marched in Vancouver April 25 and demanded an end to renewed threats of another global arms race. The demonstration and a subsequent rally, sponsored by the April 26 Coalition, the UFAWU, the B.C. Peace Council and other groups, marked the second anniversary of the International Day of Anti-Nuclear Protest.
SPEC urges Bennett to initiate anti-pollution inquiry
The Society for Pollution and Environmental Control called on Premier William Bennett April 14 to launch an immediate commission of inquiry into what SPEC terms "the attitude of 'non-enforcement' which dominates pollution control efforts of the Waste Management Branch."
SPEC deputy director John Vance released a copy of a secret report prepared by the Fraser River Task Force, established by provincial environment minister Stephen Rogers in 1980 to counter growing protest about pollution of the Fraser River.
The report says investigations were completed on 40 companies, government agencies and individuals during a four and a half month period. (The task force has since been revived on a permanent basis. I
The task force found evidence of:
• illegal toxic pollution sources which had been discharging for up to 25 years without intervention by the government;
• a hands-off attitude of the Waste Management Branch which amounted to tacit approval of illegal dumping;
• tremendous profits from illegal dumping of hog fuel to fill fish habitat and turn it into real estate; and
• numerous cases of leachate from illegal dumps so toxic that
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
ed a rude surprise April 15 when more than 80 trollers demonstrated at fisheries Vancouver headquarters.
Spokesman Conrad Plensky told reporters his group and many supporters would blockade Vancouver harbor within 24 hours if the restriction of trollers to six gurdies was not immediately rescinded along with all other new restrictions.
Charging that they had never
investigating officers had to use gloves to avoid burns.
SPEC told Bennett "the report not only characterizes your government's environmental protection bureaucracy as incompetent and without zeal, but also contemptuous of its mandate to protect the environment."
been properly consulted about the new restrictions, first aired by LeBlanc in October, 1981, the fishermen demanded a meeting with the minister himself. Two days of discussion with fisheries field director Don Wilson ensured.
Plensky's group got its answer April 24 when the department announced all troll measures proposed would stay: six gurdies, westcoast closures, retention limits, two-area licensing and barbless hooks. (By April 24, 205 trollers had opted to fish in inside waters only.)
In the heated discussions with Wilson April 15, the trollers made it clear that the PTA position had not received what they considered serious discussion on the grounds.
PRINCE RUPERT - UFAWU shoreworkers told fisheries commissioner Peter Pearse April 23 that the only way to solve the B.C. fishing industry's woes is by breaking the near-monopoly of B.C. Packers Ltd., which now controls more than 70 percent of the production and distribution of fish in the province.
Union local 31 vice-president Barry Hale told the Pearse commission hearings that "nationalization of parts of the industry is essential to protect workers from monopoly control," particularly as exercised by B.C. Packers.
Hale's remarks echoed similar comments advanced in the hearing by union members Craig Wyllie — Local 31 president — Bruce Thompson, Jeannie Hart-ney and northern organizer Joy Thorkelson.
In a UFAWU brief presented to the commission that day, Thorkelson told Pearse that the Rupert industry now is controlled by four processors, B.C. Packer, Cassiar Packing Co., McMillan Fisheries Ltd. and the Prince Rupert Co-op.
"B.C. Packers now dictates to the shore section without fear of losing workers to competition, because there isn't any," particularly after the company's purchase of Canadian Fish Co.'s assets in the north last year.
"The company now has the control to decide how many B.C. shoreworkers will have jobs, how many hours we will work, when we will work and where we will work," she said.
To prove the point, the union brief cited a recent B.C. Packers move which resulted in the shutdown of the North Pacific boat-shop and reduction plant, following its purchase from Can-fisco.
"The workers were forced to take up jobs at the Port Edward plant, perhaps in different capacities and with cuts in pay in some cases or look for a job outside the fishing industry."
The brief noted that seasonal boatshop employees were not hired back until a company decision dictated by economic necessity brought them back.
Thorkelson added that B.C. Packers deprived workers from a whole week's work, April 13 to April 16, following the total shutdown of roe and groundfish operations in its facilities.
She added that fresh fish and
cannery workers in Prince Rupert feel totally insecure about losing more jobs, if B.C. Packers advances its plan to construct a new fresh fish and cold storage facility in conjunction with an expanded Ocean-side cannery.
"The Port Edward cannery and Canol, the Seal Cove plant and the Atlin plant will then be phased out and the huge Ocean-side operation will house all Prince Rupert company employees."
Thorkelson said that the company had the power, through monopoly, to lay off, consolidate jobs, apply technological advances which mean greater returns to capital and less to labor.
Wyllie told Pearse that the export of fresh frozen whole salmon to Japanese markets since 1979 has resulted in the loss of jobs for more B.C. shoreworkers.
In cross examination, Wyllie rejected a company claim that processed fresh fish embodied equal work time with canned products.
"Although most fish is processed in B.C.," he said, "there is a considerable amount leaving Canada without being processed at all, or only very nominally handled.
"We would like to see only final product leaving our plants for export."
Thompson attacked the B.C. Hake Consortium's over-the-side sales to foreign countries and called on the Pearse commission to recommend the construction of on-shore hake processing plants.
He rejected company claims that his proposal "is not economically feasible. "If it's done in Alaska and California, why not in B.C.," he asked.
Hartney urged Pearse to recommend a mandatory training program for B.C. shore-workers so that they can learn to regrade herring roe into different varieties to satisfy export demands to Japan.
"Now, Japanese technicians in B.C. do the job and this is unfair."
In other commission hearings in Vancouver April 27 and 28, Pearse heard interveners from the Fraser River Coalition, B.C. Wildlife Federation and from individual intervenors Don Pepper, a past union member and former fisheries officer and Archie Kaario of the UFAWU.
The union will present its formal submission to the Pearse commission in subsequent hearings in Vancouver.
Kaario urged Pearse to reduce the size of the seine fleet to 300 vessels and initiate a moratorium on the construction of new seine vessels.
He put forward a catch allocation plan which would see the B.C. salmon catch divided on the basis of 35 percent for seines, 35 percent for gillnetters and 30 percent for trollers.
"For the purposes of allocation, when a combination vessel is trolling," said Kaario, "it's catch should become part of the troll quota and whengillnetting, it should be part of the gillnet quota."
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THE FISHERMAN — APRIL 30, 1981/3