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Inside today’s paper:|

Look for the 1986 GUIDE TO BC. PROPERTIES &
inside the Homes Section. You'll find a

comprehensive guide to unique residential
and recreational real estate throughout BC:

FR ee Re oT RO

MEMBERS OF local 213 of the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers (IBEW) began picketing B.C. Tel’s
North Vancouver works vera Tiursday morning.

The action is another tactic in an
ever-widening labor dispute that
originated in the Kootenays be-
tween the IBEW and Shaw Cable.

The dispute threatens to affect
all cablevision installation in the
Lower Mainland.

Keith Morrison, assistant
business manager for IBEW local
213, said Wednesday his member-
ship is prepared to take on the
telephone company in the dispute
‘that appears to be heading
towards a major labor dispute
within the next two weeks.”

HANG CABLES

The 13 IBEW workers set up
their picket line around the B.C.
Tel yard because the telephone
company is contracted by Shaw
Cable to hang that company’s
cablevision lines.

The B.C. Tel yard at 310
Brooksbank Avenue currently
stores cable owned by Shaw.

In all, Morrison said some 300
IBEW members in B.C., all of
whom install cablevision hook-ups
for Shaw Cable, wiil join the job
action if the current contract im-

passe with the company’s.

q Kootenay IBEW employees is not

d of Electrical. Workers (IBEW) donned
ming.” The. union set up a picket line

resolved.

On the picket line Thursday,
Morrison told the 25 members of
the Telecommunications Workers
Union (TWU), employees at the
North Vancouver telephone yard,
that the IBEW would be there until
the cable was removed from the

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW
News Reporter

Doug Uren, representative for
TWU local 30, said his member-
ship supported the IBEW and
would not cross their picket line:
‘don’t think they are making
unreasonable demands. We’re all
unionist here.’’

But Harold Cummings, con-
struction manager for B.C. Tel’s
North Vancouver yard, said
Thursday the telephone company
was under contract to place cable
for Shaw and had always done so.

Because work oerformed by
B.C. Tel under that contract was
not normally done by Shaw’s .
IBEW employees, Cummings said
he was confident that a court in-
junction would have the picket line
removed within 24 hours.

According to the IBEW’s inter-
national representative for B.C.
Lena Kress, the jabor dispute be-
tween Shaw Cable and its 15
IBEW workers in the Kootenays
began Aug. 13, 1985, following the
collapse of contract negotiations.

The only issue, Kress said, is an
IBEW demand that the Kootenay __

“operation be made a closed union

shop.
NEED PROTECTION

“They (IBEW members) felt
they needed protection, because
the whole issue really is that the
employer wants to get rid of the

thé’ strike ‘placards of IBEW Kootenay local 1003 Thursday.
i d. B.C. Tel’s North Vancouver works yard on Brooksb Avenue, The IBEW action is part of
ing placed on. Shaw Cable by the union to seitle its contract with the Kootenay Socal.

pine *

yard, and B.C. Tel agreed to stop —_union."’
laying cable for Shaw during the
current labor dispute.

See Cablevision
Page 10

mt . ret : et ee

Clients Sprint to get membership fees returned

THE SUDDEN Monday night closure of Sprint Family
Fitness at North Vancouver’s International Plaza has the

club's members accusing

the club of making an

unscheduled dash with their money.

“It's a fraud,’’ North Van-
couver District Ald. Ernie Crist
said Wednesday. ‘*You don’t ac-
cept money from people for
memberships up to the fast
minute, knowing your place is in
trouble. It’s scandalous.”

Crist, a member of the Sprint
club and a lifetime member of
the previous Canadian Fitness
Club and the European Health
Spa, both of which went out of

By TIMOTHY RENSHAW
News Reporier

business in the same location,
said his $900-lifetime member-
ship from the two previous clubs
was not honored by Sprint when
that company took over the
health spa facilities in 1985.

Like other disenfranchised life
members, Crist said he grudg-

ingly agreed to pay an additional
$120 to Sprint for a year’s
membership after that club's
management promised an ex-
panded and upgraded facility.

Following Sprint’s Monday
night closure, the News was
deluged with calls from irate
members wondering why the spa,
which had been booming the day
before, had closed shop.

Before the closure of the In-
ternational Plaza Sprint location,
the Sprint Family Fitness com-
pany had three outlets in the
Lower Mainland. The North
Vancouver franchise was

operated by Hesla Investments
Ltd.

Hesla president Scott Shaw
said Wednesday the sudden
closure of his club ‘was very
disappointing, but we just
couldn’t sustain the losses any
more. We pumped too much
money into the place and the
landlords refuse to negotiate vith
us or allow us the extra space we
needed, They were wrong, and as
far as I’m concerned I have been
jerked around here.’’.

Shaw said his company in-

See Club.
Page 4