TRIAL OF UFAWU SEVEN CONCLUDES AUGUST 31
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
noted an abundance of conflicting evidence about the nature of Roseman's hearings, the manner in which it was intended to conduct them, and whether or not they constituted an 'inquiry' or an 'examination' under the act.
Roseman himself was confused on this point, Rankin said, while other crown witnesses testified the hearings constituted ah oral examination, not an inquiry.
The question is of more than academic interest because the seven union members were charged specifically with impeding an inquiry under the act.
As Rankin pointed out last week, the crown still was confused on this point as recently as March, when McLennan informed defence counsel it would be necessary to amend the charge to one of impeding an examination.
He later changed his mind again and reverted to the charge of impeding an inquiry.
Such confusion and doubt about the nature of the alleged offence were grounds for dismissal in themselves, Rankin said.
But whatever the court's conclusion on that point, no evidence had been presented that the unionists had done anything more at the time of the hearings than press their demand for public hearings.
The defence lawyer also assail-
ed McLennan's profligate use of 'derogatory remarks' about the accused.
During the trial, McLennan had peppered his references to union members with allusions to their having been 'arrogant' and 'autocratic' in 'accosting' or attempting to 'dictate' to Rose-man.
Events protrayed in an incomplete and heavily-edited television newsfilm — seized by combines officers from a local newsroom and entered in the trial as evidence — had been cited selectively in an apparent effort to exaggerate the volatility of scenes outside the hearing room.
In essence, though, this evidence revealed only that union members had put their position to Roseman as forcefully as possible, said Rankin, "and they were completely right to do that."
"It isn't 'arrogant' to say that you fear dismemberment of your union (which is what Hewison told Roseman)," Rankin said, "and if one feels one has certain rights, it isn't 'arrogant' to assert those rights."
(Judge Hume interjected at one point to assure Rankin that he did 'not feel that the use of that adjective advances the prosecution's case one whit'.)
Last week, McLennan at one point scoffed at Ogden's testimony that he attended the 1976 hearings because he was con-
You've worked hard for your money, now make it work hard for you!
DEPOSITS
EARN UP TO
per annum
The Provincial Credit Union Share and Deposit Guarantee Fund protects the shares and deposits of all individuals in every credit union in B.C. This protection makes credit unions one of the safest places where anyone can save.
GULF and FRASER FISHERMEN'S CREDIT UNION
803 East Hastings Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6A1R8 Phone 254-6266
cerned that Ottawa was trying to use combines legislation to smash his union for the second time in 20 years. Ogden, he sneered, "wasn't out of short pants" when the earlier combines probe took place.
As for Hewison, McLennan said, he had not even been an officer of the union — "just a member" — at the time of the 1976 hearings, when he displayed 'supreme arrogance' in arguing the union's case for public hearings to Roseman.
Rankin patiently pointed out that 49-year-old Ogden is a lifelong trade unionist with firsthand experience of the combines
harassment of the fifties, while Hewison, as UFAWU business agent in 1976, had been one of the union's top elected officers at that time.
Earlier, McLennan suggested that Tickson had threatened a security guard with bodily harm, a statement he retracted with an apology after Rankin accused him of 'manufacturing' a charge for which there was absolutely no evidence, least of all in the testimony of the security guard himself.
In summation, Rankin said the charges should be dismissed because:
• there was reasonable doubt as to whether the 1976 hearings constituted an inquiry or an oral examination;
• there was no evidence that Roseman had called the hearings formally to order or had bestowed any semblance of formality and structure on the proceedings; and
• the prosecution's evidence — based heavily on the seized news-film, marked photographs and a 'script' prepared for crown witnesses by Wapniarski — had not shown union members engaged in anything more than an attempt to insist that hearings be held in public.
SHOREWORKERS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
"Moreover," Nichol said, "while finally dropping most of their unacceptable diversionary demands, the companies are still promoting contract changes that would seriously erode long established conditions for cold storage workers.
"Overall, the offer falls far short of what shoreworkers need to keep pace with rising living costs, and it bears no relationship to the booming profits and buoyant markets enjoyed by the companies."
The proposed 55-cent hike represents an increase of about eight percent on the general labor rate of $6.72 an hour and proportionately less on fresh fish and cold storage rates of $7.37 an hour and $7.59 an hour.
Shoreworkers went into negotiations seeking $1 an hour, later revising their demand to 85 cents in an effort to spark an acceptable package offer from the employers.
Feelings among shoreworkers have run high during the past week as it became more obvious than ever that the association was not prepared to resolve the dispute.
Although a general work stoppage by shoreworkers hinges on outcome of this week's vote — and will take place only after consultation with representative committees from other sections of the industry — employees at a number of operations already have underlined their frustration over the progress of talks.
Workers have walked off the job to conduct study sessions at B.C. Packers plants in Steveston and Prince Rupert as well as at the Canadian Fishing Company's Vancouver operation.
"This week's vote takes place at a time when fishing industry employers, despite economic recession in other areas, are revelling in the highest earnings
and best market conditions on record." Nichol pointed out.
"In view of that," he said, "the hard-nosed attitude displayed by the companies suggests that apart from being engaged in their usual drive to maximize profits the employers also have enlisted in a unified corporate campaign
against workers' living standards generally.
"However, after seeing their living standards undermined by soaring costs and Ottawa's phoney 'anti-inflation' program, while the companies reported record profits, shoreworkers won't readily accept the role of scapegoat again."
TENDERMEN
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
offer will be discussed and voted on.
Results of the membership vote will be known by July 15, Hewison said.
The current deadlock in ten-dermen's negotiations stems from the Fisheries Association's refusal to make realistic offers on wages and contract conditions, and from the employers' attempt to restructure the bargaining process by demanding integration of the salmon and herring tendermen's agreements.
The latest wage offer represents a weighted average increase of about seven percent on rates ranging between $1,165.75 a month for cook-deckhands on vessels under 15 tons to $1,383 for skippers on vessels 60 tons and over.
"That increase would provide sub-standard rates totally inappropriate for a key group of fishing industry employees who have no control over the number of hours they work in a day and who do not receive overtime even after they have worked their basic 12 hours," Hewison said.
Tendermen made several downward revisions in their original proposal for an increase of $14.50 per day across the board, going into the last round of bargaining seeking a boost of $12.50 a day.
"This was a wholly realistic demand in view of the nature of the work performed by tendermen, the consistent rise in living costs and the companies' ability to pay," Hewison declared.
"By way of contrast, the employers' last offer of $6.78 a day is an insult coming from corporations which chalked up huge earnings, like B.C. Packers' 111 percent profit increase, during the two-year period when tender-men's wages edged upward by only 14 percent under so-called anti-inflation guidelines."
The employers' apparent lack of interest in settling the dispute was underlined by the tactics adopted by association spokesmen in dealing with a number of non-wage contract issues, Hewison added.
"On vacation pay, for example, they offered to increase the rate for a tenderman with 28 years of service from 12 percent to 12.4 percent," he noted.
"Company spokesmen who try peddling items like that under present conditions are either out of touch with reality or have no real interest in getting a settlement."
The association also has refused to budge on proposals for tightening up provisions that govern supplementary rates payable when tendermen are engaged in towing barges and camps, one of the key demands advanced by tendermen in this year's talks.
Union veteran dead at 81
Stroke fells Bert Goddard
2/ THE FISHERMAN — JULY 12, 1978
Bert Goddard, whose infectious sense of humor won him a host of friends throughout the fishing industry, will tell no more stories and jokes. The veteran shore-worker and one-time fisherman died in MSA Hospital at Abbots-ford on July 6 after being felled two days earlier by a stroke in which he suffered a skull fracture.
His death came six years after his retirement as janitor at Fishermen's Hall, the job he held for the last 10 years of his long working life and one close to his heart, for it kept him in touch with fellow UFAWU members whom he had served in various capacities over the years.
He was 75 when he retired, although many found this hard to believe because his capacity for work, his sprightliness on the dance floor, belied his years. But it was a retirement well earned.
Born into a Newfoundland fishing family, Bert Goddard knew the hardships and heartbreaks of theoutports. When he was still an infant, his father was lost dory fishing on the Grand Banks. He himself graduated as a school teacher. Instead, in 1914, he became a fisherman and seaman aboard his step-father's fishing schooner, variously fishing vessel and coastal freighter, out of his home town of Burin.
BERTGODDARD
... 58 years in fishing industry
In 1920 he left Newfoundland for Alberta, working in railroad operations at Edmonton for seven years before moving west again to enter the fishing industry in this province.
His first job was at Gosse Packing Company's old Vancouver cannery on Sea Island. Subsequently he worked at Pacific Coast Terminals cold storage at New Westminster, then at the co-op plant on Commissioner Street in Vancouver, and during his last years in the industry, at Canfisco's Home plant.
A staunch unionist, he was
among the first to join the Fish Cannery, Reduction Plant and Allied Workers Union when it was organized in the early forties and he entered the UFAWU as a foundation member in 1945, retaining honorary membership to the time of his death.
His devoted work won recognition in the many posts to which he was elected — shop steward, president of Vancouver Shore-workers Local for two terms, general executive board member for four terms, 1954-55 and 1957-58, and trustee for one term in 1956.
His political activities paralleled his union work. An early member of the CCF, he later was a member of the old Labor-Progressive Party for some years.
He also served several terms as a director of Gulf and Fraser Fishermen's Credit Union.
Bert Goddard is survived by his wife Dorothy in Abbotsford; two daughters, Lillian McMillan, Abbotsford, and Julia Bradbeer, Vancouver; five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Two daughters predeceased him.
By his own wish, no service will be held. His last request, in keeping with his life's work, was that his ashes be scattered at sea from the UFAWU organizing vessel George Miller.