Decision critical of PGA stance
LRB declares scab lists
'unenforceable'
The B.C. Labor Relations Board has issued a declaratory opinion that lists of fishermen who fished during the 1978 UFAWTJ strike are unenforceable.
While declining to issue a formal order making the lists void, the board decision, released Feb. 20, promises quick action in the form of a second hearing if use of the lists continues.
The decision stemmed from 10 days of hearings last fall into a complaint brought against the
UFAWU by the Pacific Gillnet-ters Association.
The PGA argued that the lists amounted to a declaration on the part of the union and that they were used by shoreworkers and tendermen in contravention of the provincial labor code to deny services to PGA members who fished during the strike.
UFAWU fishermen tied up in July, 1978, in support of a strike by the tendermen's section that was backed as well by union shoreworkers.
"With this declaration," the decision said, "the board expects that the fishermen and fishing vessels whose names appear on the lists shall henceforth be able to deliver and sell fish and obtain services in connection with their fishing activities as if there were no lists at all."
PGA counsel W. E. MacDonald expressed satisfaction at the decision, but UFAWU president Jack Nichol warned fishermen named on the lists that the board ruling could not change history.
TheTTTherman
Vol. 44, No. 4
Vancouver, B.C.
25 cents
Nichol, Stevens testify
Combines presses anti-union attack
Combines hearings in Vancouver last week provided additional confirmation that the Restrictive Trade Practices Commission's investigation of the B.C. fishing industry is aimed solely at union organization and collective bargaining rights.
In the latest round of hearings Feb. 22 and 23, UFAWU president Jack Nichol and former president Homer Stevens were questioned repeatedly about internal union matters far removed from the investigation's purported area of inquiry into "the production, purchase, sale, storage, transportation and supply of fish and related products."
Nichol and UFAWU secretary-treasurer George Hewison are scheduled to testify again March 12 through 14. Stevens, whose preparations for the roe herring fishery were interrupted by last
Roe pact passed in close ballot
Herring roe fishermen began heading for the grounds this week after voting narrowly in favor of a new one-year contract which provides substantial increases in minimum prices.
The new minimum labor rate for seine crewmen is $650 per ton compared to last year's $220 per ton. Gillnetters will receive a minimum of $1,200 per ton on the grounds compared with $430 in the 1978 season.
UFAWU fishermen approved the new contract by a slender 55 percent margin in a big meeting at Vancouver Feb. 23. Members of the Native Brotherhood of B.C. voted for the new pact by an equally small majority.
Terms of the new agreement also provide that company contributions to the United Fishermen's Welfare Fund will increase to $3 per ton from $2.50.
Agreement was reached on maintaining weekend closures in the roe fishery, studying the introduction of a dental plan and convening safety meetings in the industry before April 15.
See ROE — page 3
week's appearance at the hearings, is slated to testify again in mid-April.
When Stevens sought, through his lawyer, to have all his testimony adjourned until after the roe herring fishery, the investigators turned him down flat and threatened him with arrest if he didn't appear. Then, after Stevens testified for an entire day, they calmly adjourned him until April to complete the job.
In his examination of Nichol and Stevens, commission lawyer Arthur MacLennan asked a few preliminary questions about the nature of the fishing industry before getting down to the real business of the inquiry and questioning the two unionists about UFAWU policy as it relates to collective bargaining, organizing, strike action and the enforcement of contract conditions.
Nichol was asked about strike rules, negotiating procedures and their results, and about hiring and manning practices in the big boat fleet.
Stevens was questioned about strike activities, negotiations, picketing and so-called 'hot' declarations.
The union witnesses emphasized their view that such questions clearly fell outside the investigators' terms of reference and were improper because the Combines Investigations Act specifically exempts inquiries into "combinations or activities of workmen or employees" and contracts relating to "prices, remuneration or other like conditions" made between groups of fishermen and fish processors or buyers.
Vancouver lawyer Les Blond, who chaired the hearings, took the position that questions
"The fact remains that those fishermen violated trade union principle by fishing and selling their production during a legal strike," Nichol said. "Their actions are well-known to every union member on this coast."
Non-union fishermen would do well to read the entire decision, Nichol said, to see how little credence the board gave to PGA arguments that its members somehow existed beyond the bounds of fishing industry collective bargaining.
The decision, issued by Rod Germaine, board vice-chairman, and panel members Herbert Fritz and Arnold Smith, concluded that the PGA's avowed 'independent status' really means 'non-union.'
The board rejected the claims of PGA members that they derived no benefit from union bargaining and concluded that "in a real sense (PGA members who fished) crossed lawful union picket lines."
See BOARD — page 3
March 2,1979
Chinese workers launch new association—page 6
relating to unionized fishermen were permissible because fishermen are not 'workmen or employees.'
As to whether MacLennan's questions exceeded the inquiry's terms of reference. Blond said that "most of the things this union does affects the fishing industry as a whole (and are subject to investigation)."
An exasperated Nichol responded: "Yes, just as the actions of the IWA have an effect on the forest industry as a whole."
"Much the same." Blond said, "except that in this case I find that many members of this union (the UFAWU) are not employees or workmen for the purposes of the Combines Act."
Blond clung to this ruling despite a well-documented presentation by defence lawyer Ian Donald, who pointed out that the status of fishermen under law is ambiguous at best and that various court judgements, as well as sections of federal and provincial labor law, define fishermen in one context or another as workers or dependent contractors.
The questioning of Nichol and Stevens again pointed up the stark contrast between the combines branch's relentless harassment of the UFAWU and its failure to probe the extent and See UNION — page 3
meeting notices on page 2
Geofl Meggs photo
• Bargain prices on fresh seafood are Tony Capadouca's stock in trade between seasons, when he converts his collector Silver Bear into a dragger. Capadouca, a union veteran, ties up Friday, Saturday and Sunday at Steveston's Second Avenue government wharf, where he paused last week to mend his net while his wife served customers.
1r000-hour rate key target
Shoreworkers seek $1 .50 increase
By JACK NICHOL
Confronted with the economic realities of declining living standards and spiralling prices on the one hand and record corporate profits on the other, delegates to the UFAWU shore-workers wage conference have decided to go into negotiations this year seeking an across-the-board wage increase of $1.50 an hour in a one year agreement.
The conference — held in Vancouver Feb. 24 and 25 — noted that the overall nine percent annual increase in the consui
price index is only a partial reflection of the extent to which working people have marked time in terms of their living standards over most of the past decade.
Workers' productivity soared and company profits reached unprecedented levels during the same period, delegates pointed out, while additional millions of dollars have been pumped into corporate coffers as a result of a seemingly insatiable Japanese demand for Canadian fish and fish products.
The Trudeau government's wage control policy at the same time deprived fishing industry wage earners of a rightful share of the economic windfalls accruing to those who own and control the B.C. fishing industry.
While mandatory controls held wage increases to a bare minimum, corporations were allowed to profit without restriction in the export markets, confirming our contention that the government's policy reprev nted a gift to corporations
and economic shackles for working people.
Now, the British Columbia fishing industry appears to have assumed the characteristics of a gold rush in which the pay dirt is fish production — notably herring and salmon roe and frozen sockeye and pink salmon. This production is sought after increasingly by Japanese processors affected by a steep decline in domestic output caused by 200-mile limits and restrictions on
See SHORE — page 2