lvolume 13 number 5 UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO, Waterloo, Ontario. friday 9 june 1972

Coverage in the local media of the tw week o/d strike‘ at Aye Biscuits Ltd. in Kitchenw has been extensive, yet incomplete. Because of the lack of any substantive analysis of the strike, the chevron fe/t a need to provide a more cogent interpretation. The implications of this strike are broad, for the effects are felt not

,Gord Moore, the chevron Dare strikers confronted police tuesda y afternoon, accusing them of helping management break the two-week old strike. Over 40

only by the work&s of l&e, but cops showed up to escort professional strikebreakers from the Canadian Driver Pool into the plant. The strike had been quiet until the also by those of unions across scabs were brought in, but picketers could do little to stop the combined forces of police and strikebreakers, and responded by Canada. throwing rocks and bottles.

by Mike Rohatynsky ,the chevron

Although the contract

rike: the .

between Local 173 of the International Brewery and Cereal workers and Dare Biscuits Ltd. expired toward the end of april, it was not until Saturday, may 27, that the workers voted to go out on strike. The following monday witnessed the appearance of the first picket lines.

0 that workers be granted more un dderstanding from their immediate super visors, especiallv for women with children.

Although this description of the union demands is not complete, it gives a clear indication of the workers proposals to procure for themselves better working and living conditions. The offer of Dare speaks for itself.

‘Cookie” Dare, that well known friend of the workers, originally offered an hourly wage increase of 25 cents to both men and! #women. The benevolence and generosity of Dare was clearly apparent; by a vote of 97 percent, the workers resoundingly rejected the offer.

Working conditions at Dare

Other aspects of the company’s offer were : 0 all payments for the health plan will be paid by Dare, unless there is an increase over the next two years, then the workers must make up the difference. @ in 1973 the workers will be given their pay for Rememberance Day, but not for that of 1972. Management revised its first wage package by offering hourly increases of 55 cents to men and 45 cents to women to be paid over two years.

In repiy to Cookie Dare’s offer, the workers have made the following demands.’ In the area of wages, the bargaining com- (mittee has argued for equal pay increases for men and women. This wage increase is to be 49 cents an hour for each year of the! contract. Another importnant demand concerns hours of work. At present, the work day for employees on the day-shift is eight and one-half hours. The workers want a work day of eight hours. (In the era of enlightened capitalism the 8 and one-half hour day is an anachronism).

Other union proposals are: 0 that relief people be brought in when a worker is absent or on break. At present this relief work is being performed by foreladies or foremen. l that employees receive sick-pay after four days of illness and not after eight days which is the existing condition;

The Dare enterprise in Kitchener employs :about\ 356 people; 90 percent of whom are: women. Even though their jobs within the plant may differ, all the women area categorized as “packers”. The most bitter complaint heard from the female workers concerns the excessive heat in the working areas; it is not uncommon for workers to faint because of the heat. Seemingly, the’ Dare administrators have not seen any reason to install fans in their factory which, will take in outside air and remove inside1 #heat. Hence, the air that is being circulated is that which is inside the plant.

Some women workers also are duly concerned over the fact that at times while on the production line they are not allowed to rest or to go to the washrooms. Speed-ups on the assembly line are characteristic phenomena of factory life at Dare. As one woman stated, “It’s liveable.” For coping with the heat conditions, the insensitive supervisors and the incessant speed-ups, the packers, for most jobs, are paid two dollars and 26 cents an hour.

Many of the male workers agree that they’ have received the better portion of a bad deal. Truckers receive 2 dollars and 95 cents per hour, warehousemen get 2 dollars and 85 cents per hour, and class A oven captains 2 dollars and 94 cents while class B get 10 cents less. This latter difference between oven captains has been described as “a bullshit way to cut wages.” But men, as well, are subject to the oppressive heat, the frequent speed-ups and some insensitive supervisors.

0 that the company make health plan A general criticism made by workers, contributions, regardless of increases in concerns inadequate manpower. For

,premiums ; example, on oven 4, one man must mix 26 batches of icing per shift, while on oven 1 a single worker mixes 12 batches of icing per shift,

Workers complain of the company policy of making the lowest men on the seniority list work over-time on a certain job “if, qualified”. This qualification seems to have been overlooked occassionally. One man. had to work over-time as an oven captain even though he had never worked as one

before. With these existing conditions, it is not

difficult to understand why the turnover of workers at Dare is high. On one friday, twelve new women came to work, and on monday only. four returned.

The conditions within the Dare factory provide some explanation as to why workers have gone on strike and the dynamics of the protest as it has developed since the strike breakers have made their ugly appearance.

Chuck Stoody, the chevron Strikebreakers attempting to haul goods out of the Dare plant were halted outside town monda y morning after an ‘embarassing’ collision with a Kitchener police tiruiser escorting them. This is the first time professional scabs have been brought into the K-W area to break a legal strike.

Scabbing: a modern ind W hile the press has been outspoken

on the incidence of violence on the picket line at the Dare strike they have been silent on the background

and nature of the company against which it has been directed, Canadian Driver Pool Ltd. From the press and radio accounts one ,is lead to believe that CDP is little more than an everyday trucking agency, moving goods

‘across a picket line which utiion drivers !haye declined to violate. ~..

As usual there is a good deal more here ‘than meets the eye. CDP is an avowed “‘strikebreaking” firm, one which over the .last two years has had numerous successes at breaking legal pickets, intimidating union workers and forcing them to unsatisfactory settlements.

Richard Grange, the 27 year old former college student and banker’s son who owns and directs CDP, calls it ‘the most ex-, perienced organization in the field on the NoQh. American continent” . A brochure sent to 200 corporations pushing the firm’s capabilities claims that “during their last strikes, with our aid, these companies managed to break the strike and in some cases, they managed to achieve levels of up to 80 per cent productivity.”

Grange and co. claim 48 actions over the first two years of operation; tabs for his talents range from less than 500 dollars for small jobs, on up to $75,O a time, as was the case at the ICWU strike at Redpath sugar last year.

Blitz the picket The scope of CDP is as gigantic as the

profit it reaps. Grange’s presence brings with it a host of specialized agents, modern technological equipment and a strategic knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of picketing which gives the operation a military flavour.

The basic components bear description. CDP maintains a fleet of cabs complete with non-union drivers who see nothing wrong with busting legal pickets. The drivers are all large men and are usually accompanied when driving.

In a strike such as the one at Dare in Kitchener the trucks and drivers are brought in from out of town, sneaked in along little known routes and held at a secret location until CDP officials decide the time is ripe.

Grange utilizes a system of “spotters”- paid employees who hide out in specially rented apartments near the strike who watch the picket until it looks weak. At the right moment the trucks are maneouvred into position, escorted by “support vehicles” containing paid employees and supported by masses of local police. They appear quite quickly and blitz the picket line with the aid of the cops.

The second the trucks appear CDP profesiional cameramen begin to photograph the event. Grange sees this as preventing strikers from acting against the trucks; it also gains him a set of com- (prehensive photographs from which to lay charges against any individual at- tempting to prevent the trucks arriving at their destination. One man uses a movie camera to capture the entire event; another ,uses a regular camera with a telephoto lens to take stills of specific incidents and people.

Grange sees his operation as acting within the letter of the law and utilizes every op- portunity to charge strikers. Reportedly he has laid 384 charges against picketers for “interfering” with his “work”.

CDP employees are paid handsomely for Itheir actions. Grange admits that “photographers, operations men and in- telligence squad” are paid “between $400 and $500 a week” while the “regular drivers make around $350”. Coupling this with a bonus system means the men stay well fed despite their dirty hands.

This impressive system of surveillance- coverage-attack operates within a well researched plan. Describing his work at Redpath in Toronto recently, Grange proudly announced “we spent hours going over the plans of the plant, and we set things up for a 60-second exposure at the picket”. Buffering his battle plans is the latest in technological gadgetry, including two-way

radios, special cameras, multi-channelled walkie talkie sets, transceivers and even “a little black box that can tell whether a room or a telephone is bugged.”

His approach to strikebreaking has been described in very simple terms: “If the plant can keep operating, if material gets in and out, if production remains high, the strikers will become discouraged and call off their failing tactics.” Several weeks on the picket line, continuously broken by Granges “legal” goon squads and the bargaining table becomes more appealing.

For the tougher unions Grange has an insidious range of special tactics. He maintains what has been called “a smorgasbord of picket-hating Doberman Pinschers” expensive trained killers complete with handlers “trained for crowd control and plant security.” These pleasant pets were used to break the steelworkers strike at Kenroc in 1970.

For heavy duty strikes, such as- that of a

against the “frigging international unions”, ,the victory of which would “put management and workers back into a ‘partnership”.

Some partnership. Grange feels that power today is “falling into the hands of the uneducated” (that is, the hands of working men and women). His remedy is to whip labour quickly back into line, as partners in an enterprise in which businessmen hold all the cards.

Under Grange’s masterminding and with the aid of former police and security types, CDP has found the existing legal structure particularly suited to his crusade against organized labour. In interviews he has claimed that “everything CDP does is strictly legit” and that CDP “is successful because it operates strictly according to law”. And if one were to take the recent Dare actions at face value Grange would appear to be correct. Numerous workers

Canadian Driver Pool Ltd., an avowed “strikebreaking” firm, has been hired to “create a sitljation where they (the legal picketers at Dare Cookies) see that the strike isn’t stop- ping the company from operating.” Their intimidating tactics include the use of professional cameramen and “legal” goon squads.

Teamster local at a trucking firm in Toronto, Grange reserves his big punch. Affectionately known as the ‘dirty dozen’, he employs “a group of 280-300 pound ex- policemen and prison guards” technically known as CDP’s ‘ultimate “security” force’.. If a union has a tough bunch of cookies on the line, then Grange’s goon squad means he’s “ready for them”. Cap this -armada with an ‘intelligence section’ headed up by “a three-year veteran of the Toronto police force who quit to join Grange” and you have a formidable force in action against a 300 member union.

Grange’s activities speak for them- selves-his labour of love is a viscious and bloody minded form of strike busting. Yet Grange perceives himself in rather different terms than these: “I am an artist, all my life I have created”. These artistic sensitivities are employed in a ‘holy war’ against what he considers “the sickeningly powerful international unions”.

His notion of a “creative life” is a battle

have been charged with infractions, CDP has been nursed and protected by an overzealous police force the entire time and nary a charge has been laid against them.

Yet Grange is not as clean as his moral tone might lead us to believe. While he claims that his employees take pains to remain “studiously within the law” a look at CDP’s history presents a rather different picture. April 8, 1972 Toronto Judge Garth Moore found Grange and Constable Barry Chapman (North York Police) guilty of illegal wiretapping and fined them $500 (attorney-general Dalton Bales and James Renwick (NDP-financial critic) agreed in the legislature that the fines were inadequate). This little move was part of Grange’s concerted effort to bust Local 688 ICWU strike at Redpath.

Criminal charges against Grange are reportedly being considered by a Montreal firm that had the misfortune of losing some of their electronic equipment from a warehouse owned by Pro-Con Consolidated,

researched and written by Terry Moore, Dave Robertson and David Cubberley, the chevron

ustry another Grange enterprise. Pro-Con has been described as a “trucking firm”.

Last November the Provincial Depart- ment of Transport brought charges against CDP and Inter-Continental Container Leasing, another Grange organiza tion, for violating the Public Commercial Vehicles Act by acting as truckers without a license. Grange sidestepped the charges since CDP “leases” the drivers and ICCL “leases” the trucks to the management of strike-bound plants. While the law is clearly being cir- cumvented, legally speaking Grange is clean.

Grange has had considerable experience overcoming legal traps, one of the best examples of which ipv,oIves his “security forces”. To operate a legitimate security force a permit or license is necessary, which Grange has been unable to obtain. However, since he is leasing the trucks to a company like Dare the vehicles are still his property, and since there is no law against protecting one’s own property, Grange slithers by again. Moreover since CDP “employees” are hired by the strike-bound plant they are not legally a security force unto themselves but rather ‘just employees’ doing what they’ are told.

The end result of this legal manoeuvring is an immense concentration of power in the hands of CDP which erodes the worker’s bargaining position and contravenes the spirit of existing ,law.

The wiretap affair Grange’s personal history isn’t all that

nice either. It was reported in the Globe, in connection with the wiretap affair, that in 1963 Grange was convicted of twelve charges of breaking, entering and theft.

Another interesting aspect is his open admission that “our men crossing the lines go through with trucks that have empty air reservoirs so that cutting the air lines doesn’t do a bit of good. Cutting air lines is an efficient method of stopping a picket- breaking truck since the van’s wheels will lock and bring the truck to a grinding halt. Grange’s strategy is effective but also illegal. Under the Ontario Highway Traffic Act trucks must have adequate braking facilities; no pressure in the air resevoir eliminates the brakes on the trailer’ and thus breaks the law.

Despite the wealth of suspicious evidence surrounding CDP, no governmental agency has completed a serious investigation. Labour has called him a ‘vulture’; the NDP has seen him as a threat to civilized labour- management relations. Even such a delicate personage as the former Ontario Labour Minister has described the operation as ‘disgusting’ and ‘abhorrent’. Yet for Grange and CDP its business as usual and Kitchener is their newest territory.

The i(itchener Police Department seems happy with all this and contents itself by being on time, in overpowering numbers, whenever CDP is making a run across the lines. The mayor’s office is silent on Grange but happy to’ congratulate the cops and quick to blame the strikers for the violence. Dare himself, wavering ‘morally’, has refused to say whether CDP is “a good thing . of a bad thing’! and stated only that “we have a certain course of action we want to follow”.

Despite civic and corporate silence on matters concerning CDP, Grange has made his own position clear on several occasions. His own words bring home most fully the true intent of CDP activities, now void of all moralizing, and they form the best in- dictment of police, business, press and government collusion in these areas: Its “all a head game, all psychology” states Grange. “You have the polarized forces of company and the union. Our operation is directed to creating a split in that union force so you have the radicals and the die- hards on one side and the ordinary man worried about his wife and kids and car payments on the other. You try to create a situation where they see that the strike isn’t stopping the company from operating. And so these ordinary guys who are usually the major voice in the union vote to go back to work.”

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Keeper’s! of the corporate peace

The right to strike The strike has been the only ef-

fective weapon to hand for working people in the history of industrial capitalism. It has been the means to achieving the eight hour day, a minimum wage for a decent life and tolerable working conditions.

Still, to choose *to go on strike has never been an easy decision for most working men and women. The economic decision for management is a matter of a fraction of their profit margin. For the worker it is a decision involving his very economic existence. Even a ‘successful’ strike usually entails legal charges, survival on strike pay of about $25 per week for an ex- tended period and hour after tedious hour of boring picket duty interrupted by an occassisonal dramatic incident.

However, in our so-called ‘free- market’ economy, the right to combine and -if necessary, withhold their labour is the only positive freedom open to those who work for others.

This right is now being threatened from two sides: by professional strikebreaking firms and by govern- ment legislation requiring compulsory arbitration.

The use of professional strikebreakers such as Canadian Driver Pool in the Dare strike is a clear tactic by management to assert an overwhelming force and dictate terms

.

unilateraliy. The clear superiority of resources on the side of management means power over the rights of others.

The other major threat to the right to strike is through compulsory ar- bitration which is most often proclaimed in the name of protecting the public’s right to essential services. Few people would deny the public right, but the problem is in defining what is “essential”. Some would claim that when your toilet overflows a plumber is an essential s service. By extension, this logic would cover any and every job. A clearer and more general definition is direct threat to human life. .This is covered in existing union contracts in hospitals, etc., guaranteeing skeleton staffs kept on for emergencies, ever in the recent general strike in Quebec. The more obvious meaning of compulsory ar- bitration as used by legislators and corporation heads is that of banning all strikes. This would have all grievances put before arbitration boards. However, these boards have a past record and a built-in bias towards the company in settlements. The basis of settlement is the company’s books, not social justice.

There is no replacing the right to strike, not until the workers who are the creators of wealth have control of the means of production themselves.

Police officers justify their actions at the Dare Strike with comments such as, “I’m only following orders”, “I’m just here to keep the peace”, or “it’s the strikers that are committing illegal acts”. If the ultimate reponsibility of the police in a strike situation is to “keep the peace”, then it follows that the most rational and peaceful solution would be to close the entire operation of the plant down rather than min- dlessly and forcibly escort self-avowed strikebreakers across the picket lines. By acting in support of Canadian Driver Pool, the police -reduced the workers’ ability to bargain with management and thereby induced the strikers to respond in a violent manner.

It is obvious that the private property of Mr. Dare was considered by the police to be of greater value than the human lives that could have been lost as a result of the reckless actions of the CDP drivers and their pol ice escorts.

The discrepancy between what is just and what is considered legal becomes apparent in such situations.

As one policeman stated referriug to the CDP drivers, “I know they are killers but they’re legal and I’m going to protect them.” In relation to the police CDP is within the law but in relation to the strikers they are above the law. The accident on highway 8, in which the CDP drivers slammed into each other would have resulted in charges being laid against any ordinary citizen: In this case no charges were laid. Last summer the International Chemical Workers Union pressed charges against eight employees of CDP for their actions at the Redpath strike in Toronto. The police responded by stating, “They couldn’t find the drivers.” Furthermore there were no charges laid against the CDP drivers for the reckless manner in which they raced across the lot behind the Dare plant scattering people like rabbits.

The conclusion that must be drawn from an incident such as the Dare strike is that ttiose who define what IS meant by ‘keeping the peace’ are the - same ones who have the power to have: their definition enforced. Needless to say these people are not the workers.

Local cookie maggot It would be a great mistake to

succumb to the media-induced temp- tation to view the current strike at Dare Foods Limited as an isolated and perhaps interesting incident. The’ activities at’ the (Dare plant over the last two weekssketch an outline within which future labour-management disputes may be enacted. The human suffering at Dare is not simply the television viewer’s spectacle or talk show topic the media has made it out to be; there are lessons to be learned here for all of us.

Clifford Dare is, in regard to large Canada-based industrial concerns, a rather small fish. However in relation to local industrial magnates he is an integral part of an extremely powerful’ and tightly knit club. Dare’s decision to go strike busting at the Kitchener plant is the first step in a wholly new direction for dealing with local organized labour. The use of CDP goons, an outfit well known for its Toronto activities, is a repugnant move to load the bargaining dice in favour of the corporate class. The potential success of CDP, which uses to full effect the corporate bias of existing law, is a direct challenge to the slender power labour can exert in its negotiations.

Again, the use of CDP at Dare is not a one-shot effort. Local industrialists are closely watching the, development of the strike, for in effect it forms a trial case within which the ‘might is right’

ethic of nineteenth century capitalism is being pushed to the extreme and re- tested. Dare’s role in all of this is to play the innovative boss, the true corporate luminary hoping to awaken his associates to a new and deadly method. That Dare publicly washes his hands of the affair, that he declines to judge it either good or bad, that he labels it simply a course of action among many, all of these do nothing to cover the insidious and inhuman pressure and personal violence, it finflicts upon the lives of,‘his’ workers. Dare remains guilty here, as do the mayor and other civic representatives who have done nothing to stop his act ions.

No, the three hundred men and women at Dare Foods Ltd. aren’t the only ones involved in this affair; the threat is posed to all of organized labour whom Rick Grange, and through association with him and his CDP thugs Dare, hates with a passion and hopes to render passive. The Dare action is not simply a question of whether the men and women there will win a slightly greater share of the profits from the products they make and hence a slightly better life. The Dare strike places all of organized labour on the line, for if CDP stops the union there you can bet a lot of local corporations will be happy to place their ‘labour problems’ in the all-too- willing hands of Grange and his hench- men.

friday 9 june 1972

After a week of sporadic-violence, marked by Dare’s decision to call in Canadian Driver Pool Ltd. (CDP) to take strikebound cookies through the picket lines, strikers of Local 173 of the United Brewery Workers can return to peaceful picket -duty pending the reopening of negotiations today.

Previous to CDP’s involvement with the Dare strike, the strikers picketed in an orderly fashion. In fact there was an in- cident in which one picketer actually tried to keep Dare trucks, which were parked on the property at the time, from being sabotaged

. by a few outsiders. Dare workers limited ’ themselves to three hours of picket duty per

, day thus reducing their numbers;--after this they would return to their homes having

’ avoided damaging Dare buildings and having cleaned up any litter at the site.

The CDP broke the picket line for the first time on the morning of June 1; they removed several Dare trailers meeting with little, or no resistance from the four or five picketers on duty. This was the first of many confrontations with CDP and, later on, with the Kitcheher police force who provided protection in the form of escorts for CDP.

After this initial incident the picket lines swelled from a mere hand full of strikers to as many as three hundred people throughout the next seven days. There were however Inever enough strikers to deal effectively ‘with the strike&akers and they suc-

cessfully crossed the picket lines six timesi removing at least a dozen truckloads of! Dare goods.

Due to the intervention of CDP and the, ensuing loss of any viable means of negotiation for the workers many thousands of dollars damage were inflicted on the Dare buildings by way of rock and bottle throwing. Well over half the windows were broken, truck tires were slashed and wind- shields shattered. Since this was the first instance of professional strikebreakers being used in Kitchener, strikers viewed it ‘as an issue which concerned all other unions in the area. As one Dare worker put it: “If they win here, you’ll be next.”

Active resistance began almost im- <mediately; yet the picket line at its strongest was certainly never a dangerous threat to the CDP with its fancy equipment, well paid and trained employees and con- tinual police. protection.

- Police support began on the second day of CDP’s involvement in the strike. With police direction and reinforcement scab drivers, managed to cross the picket lines ; trucks were quickly loaded, only to tear out of the loading bays and over the lawn of an apartment building on Ninth Avenue. ‘Building inhabitants were frightened to the extent that several women emerged crying.

Damage to the trucks included broken, windshields, torn wipers and the occasional

jbloodied driver; despite the nature of the jCDP exit, Kitchener police allowed the: [trucks to proceed at speeds well over the 30 imph limit throughout residential districts.

Strikers are quite adamant in blaming the CDP and the police for the violence that has occurred throughout the strike. “We were having a peaceful strike and nothing at all happened until they brought their strikebreakers%, and that’s when all the violence started and everybody got so riled up” said’one union member. Another noted that if the trucks crossed the picket lines, thus interfering with a legal strike, that it was his and everybody else’s job in the union to try to stop them.

“The cops escort them in and out. We’re on a legal strike and they’re trying to break us and the cops give them all the support they need and push us out of the way.”

Tension mounted as police kept steady patrol on the strikers and continued to’ escort CDP across the picket line. A break in the tension arrived on the fifth day after CDP intervention. Radio station CHYM heard that CDP trucks were coming into town via highway 8 and a car was sent out to report on the truck’s progress for the twelve noon news. The CHYM car parked off to the lside of the highway on top of Freeport Hill. As the convoy of three trucks approached, led by a Kitchener police cruiser, the cruiser

stopped suddenly to warn CHYM not to announce the- arrival--of the CDP trucks. This lead to a five vehicle accident involving the police cruiser, the three CDP trucks and another vehicle; damage was estimated at approximately 8000 dollars. Charges are supposedly pending against the constable driving the police car. It should be in- teresting.

- CDP made up for lost time the following day by running five trucks through picket lines. Albert Gill, president of local 173, attempted to block CDP drivers with his car, but Gill was dragged from his car and thrown to the ground by a number of Kit- chener’s finest. He ’ was arrested and charged with dangerous driving.

A number of strikers and their supporters complained of being pushed and kicked by police, and one women was reportedly hit on the head with a bottle.

Strikers were massed on the picket line, again Wednesday, anticipating another attempt to load the remaining cookies.

At noon Dare announced a three-point program: one, that no more products would be taken out of the plant; two, that management and supervisors will return to work; and three, that all charges for illegal acts will proceed.

Having removed the initial threat of the Canadian Drivers Pool, negotiations will begin between management and local 173.

. Photos by chuck stoody and gord moore, the chevron

the chevron