of Labor.

Luse the word “forboding”
because, MacIntyre has given
up in the face of a schism in
the labor movement which
can.only serveto destabilize
the .already unstable

relations -currently existing

between workers and their
employers in B.C, ~
In @-province where three
million worker-days have
been lost to: ‘strikes and
skouts already this year, it
is obvious that we are still
. some.distance from the gates
of industrial relations
heaven. log
Of course,
surprise here.
' “There is one theory that
B.C..’s labor woes go back to
the fact that the province
was a British colony until
late in its-own ‘history, and
that -the “lumber and coal
barons who ran the province
for so Jong were pitted
against very class-conscious
- workers, -

‘Be thats it may, “the main
fact. of “life on B.C.’s in-
dustrial battlefield is the high
degree to which the
province *s workers are

unionized: some 40 percent.

~
there’s no

L NOTE: with some foreboding _ ‘that “Dave
MacIntyre ’has resigned from:the B.C. Federation

coordinating centes
‘safety programs and such

‘president,

‘the

‘And ‘they are .far more

militant, on the whole, than

their Eastern Canadian
comrades. One of the
reasons for that is the B.C.
Fed, which takes a direct

tole in organizing strikes.
Most provincial labor

federations stick to acting as

relatively Mickey Mouse
fraternal stuff, whereas at
the Fed, according to its
im Kinnaird:
“We get right into the nuts
and bolts. of things, right
down to picketing policy.”
There is also no doubt that
Fed’s militancy is
directly related to its
ideological position to the
left of nearly every major
organization in sight, in-
cluding the NDP. :
Here’s where the politics
of it all gets very tricky — and
this is the reef upon which
Dave MclIntyre’s patience
was finally ground to shreds.

You can’t get away from

_the fact that the organized

labor movement in B.C. is
ideologically somewhat
diffuse, even allowing that a
majority of the province's
workers prefer not to join a

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for

union at all.

‘It ranges from genuine
would-be commissars to
rank-and-file loggers who'll
tell you over a beer that they
just want to get the pinkoes

- out of their hair.

The current power
struggle between the
building trades unions and
the Canadian Labor
Congress, which has resulted
in 230,000 Canadian building
tradesmen being kicked out
of the CLC, has caught the
mighty B.C. Fed in a pitiless
dilemma.

“the most militant
provincial labor federation,
the Fed excercises con-
siderable clout within the
CEC. The B.C. Fed's Kin-
naird serves as a CLC vice-
president, a heady position
of power that puts him in the
running to maybe succeed

Dennis McDermont, the
boss himself.

Except that, now, the
fraternal basis for all this has
turned to muck.

Kinnaird’s own union was
one of the ones thrown out
by the CLC. In order to
retain his various positions
of authority, he had to jump
under a new CLC-created
umbrella.

But that meant basically
abandoning his

aN

12 YR.
WARRANTY

original” —

EDITH Gardner holds up some of the painted at
South. The display has the works of many artists, all ‘of whick ire hand :
and pottery. The. display..was om from Thursday to
demonstrations. (Terry Peters photo)

allegiance, and. just. in-.
cidentally, letting some.
45,000 members of. the B:C.
and Yukon , Territory
Building and Construction
Trades council be kicked out
into the cold. ~

Once out of the B.C. Fed,
as well as the CLC, British ..
Columbian tradesmen face ~
open competition from the
large industrial unions which
would like to grab their turf.
An era of bitter internecine
union rivalry looms.

Said Dave MaclIntyre
when he announced that he
was resigning in frustration: -~
“It looks like a re-run of an
old movie..”

There are layers upon
layers of subtle ideological
fine print in the Byzantine
power struggle that continue.
to consume the’ labor,
movement.

But the bottom F line =. and

‘

Wat iy

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