SUTHERLAND SECONDARY school students participated in a mock disaster drill at Lion Firefighters, paramedics ard hospital staff all took part in the exercise, MASH hospital unit set up in the Forbes Armoury. socred slams new labor bill MLA Lyall Hanson says Bill 84 a payoff to B.C. unions THE NDP’S proposed new labor legislation contained in Bill 84 is a subtiy crafted way of swinging the province’s labor-relations climate strongly Okanagan-Vernon MLA Lyall of unions, charged last in favor Hanson Thursday night in North Vancouver. “Clearly Bill 84 is a repayment of what they (the NDP) feel they owe to organized labor. There is no doubt that the intent of the bill is to unionize all of British Col- umbia,’’ the Social Credit labor critic told 40 members of a North Shore Socred constituency organization at the Canyon House on Capilane Road. **] don’t think there’s any ques- tion that ihe B.C. Federation of Labour and Ken Georgetti had a hand in the drafting of this bill,” said Hanson. He said that the process of in- troducing the bill had been handl- ed more smoothly than the in- troduction of a similar bill in On- tario. “The bill is a very, very well- crafted bill. The issues in the bill are not the big things thet jump out at us, but there are a siumber of little things,’’ he said. He added that some things that were left out of the bill, such as electoral certification, were never intended to be included, but were “used as a bargaining too!.’’ Some of the labor legislation changes Hanson criticized were: @ The number of individuals within a company. who may be exempted from union membership willbe reduced. In a company with 50 employees, for example, five might be left out of certifica- tion, rather than the current 10 to 15. @ Managers will be able to refuse to fill in during a strike. “Any member of management must voluntarily agree to do the job of a striking worker,’’ he said. @ The bill will also ban the trans- fer of management personnel from ansther location, which would affect government as well as industry, he warned. “If there was a B.C. Govern- ment Employees Union strike, the By Stephen Wisenthai Contributing Writer government would totally close down,” he said. @ Union certification will be automatic if more than 55% of a company’s employees sign union cards. “To really demonstrate how slanted the legislation is, if 45% to 55% of employees are signed up, then there has to be a vote. If there is an application for decer- tification, then there always has to be a vote,"’ said Hanson. He added that the three-person team that toured the province to discuss the new bill was biased in favor of unions. He said of the three that John Baigent is a labor lawyer who has “spent most of his career repre- senting the labor community’’; Tom Roper is a labor lawyer who has acted for ‘‘large unionized companies'’; and the chairman, Vince Ready, is = prcfessional mediator. “AH three people have one thing in common —- they all de- pend on unionization and large (5 NEWS photo Cindy Goodman s Gate Hospital last Thursday morning. which involved evacuating students on stretchers to a unionized companies for their liv- ing,”’ said Hanson. He added that there was no representative on the team for the public or small businesses. Hanson said that one sign of the big-industry bias is the in- troduction of secondary boycott legislation, which would allow unions to demand that their employers only deal with union- ized businesses. “Secondary boycotts are a very difficult thing for small companies to deal with. An awful lot of our small B.C. businesses are going to find that they don’t have any of their customers left unless they certify,’’ said Hanson. Bill 84 raising local business fears WEST VANCOUVER-Garibaldi Liberal MLA David Mitchell says some people in his constituency are having second thoughts about starting up their own business because of fears over the provincial government’s new labor legislation. Under Bill 84, Victoria’s new proposed labor code, a trade union would be certified without a certification vote if more than 55% of a company’s workforce signs union membership cards. But a vote must be held if union support among workers is between 45% and 55%. A vote would also be required to decer- tify a bargaining unit. Mitchell said that Bill 84 turns the industrial-relations clock in B.C. back 20 years. He added that he was con- cerned about the loss of a secret ballot for workers who may not want to join a union. “The major points of this bill are being rammed through and that includes the secret ballot. All of the small and medium- sized businesses are being hurt. I call it a union baif-out law,’’ said Mitchell. By Surj Ratian News Reporter He added that several people in his constituency have sounded alarm bells over Bill 84. “People in my constituency are really worried about this. ‘It now makes it much more difficult for people to consider going into business, and this is a time when we should be en- couraging business growth and the creation of jobs. “They're (provincial govern- ment) trying to force unioniza- tion. They'll force management to say ‘we have to become unionized if we want to do business with the provincial gov- ernment,’ ’’ said Mitchell. He added that the ‘‘free dem- ocratic system’’ would be elim- inated with the loss of a secret ballot. Bill 84 also bans the use of replacement workers during strikes and repeals the current prohibition on secondary picketing. But the provincial government is now considering making some changes to the ban on the use of replacement workers. Mitchell said the new labor law will increase confrontations between labor and management. Speaking in the legislature on Monday, North Vancouver- Lonsdale NDP MLA David Schreck said both the Liberals and the Social Credit parties are advocating the use of strikebreakers. “The vision of industrial rela- tions [ hear coming from those benches opposite is a vision fill- ed with notions of strikebreakers, of accepting hot goods crossing picket lines, of denying ‘teachers’ bargaining rights and of contracting out as a form of union busting,’’ said Schreck. . first Mayors move to improve N. Shore transit Lions Gate Bridge options presented THE THREE North Shore mayors will meet Friday to discuss ways of gathering public input on how to im- prove the current transpor- tation system between the North Shore and the rest of the I.ower Mainland. By Surj Rattan News Reporter On Saturday, West Vancouver District Mayor Mark Sager, North Vancouver District Maycr Murray Dykeman and North Vancouver City Mayor Jack Loucks attended a Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) conference in Richmond. One of the speakers at the con- ference, B.C. Transportation and Highways Minister Art Charbon- neau, outlined three options for improved transportation to and from the North Shore. Sager said the three options were: @ repairing the existing three lanes of tiic Lions Gate Bridge by widening the lanes and installing bicycle lanes and new sidewalks outside the bridge’s spans (ap- proximate cost: $75 million); @ replacing the existing suspen- sion structure of the Lions Gate Bridge with a cable structure and adding a fourth lane to the bridge (approximate cost: $105 million); @ building a new five-lane bridge next to the Lions Gate Bridge and then tearing down the Lions Gate Bridge (approximate cost: $105 million). Sager said he has not decided what the best option is for im- proving transportation to and from the North Shore across the Burrard Inlet. He added that Friday’s meeting would be used to discuss how the public can offer its input into the issue. “The sense of the (GVRD) mecting that I got was not should we repair it (Lions Gate Bridge), but that we should repair it, and we should do it now. “These (options) are issues that need community input. My sense is that there will be a lot of discussion on it,’’ said Sager. Loucks said if the provincial government is to consider the pos- sibility of building a third Burrard Inlet crossing, then Victoria must have a designated route planned. **You can put another lane on the Lions Gate Bridge, but you can’t put another !ane through Stanley Park,’’ said Loucks. “Something needs to be done, but [ think something needs to be done on the Second Narrows Bridge. Population on the North Shore is going to continue to grow. “If there’s going to be a greater expansicn in North Vancouver, it will be on the east end in the Seymour Plateau area,’’ said Loucks. The provincial government, he said, should first look at improv- ing the northern access to the Se- cond Narrows Bridge.