Penny Dean, one of the leaders of a five-month strike last year, told the Militant that the vote was "a huge victory. We knew it would be close but we figured we would win it." She ascribed the victory to "the strength of the people who stuck together."

Dean said the company installed 14 surveillance cameras around the plant, including one in the lunch room. "People were getting letters of discipline put in their files who have been here 20 or 25 years without getting a letter," she said of the company intimidation campaign. The union has filed complaints on these issues.

About 95 percent of the union members at the plant are women and a big majority are immigrants, mostly from Asia. Last April the workers, who voted in the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada four years ago, went on strike seeking a second collective agreement. Among the issues in the walkout were a guaranteed 40-hour workweek, a closed union shop, and improved benefits.

As the weeks passed, the issue in the strike more and more became the company's drive to get rid of the union.

Last October the Labor Relations Board ordered the union decertified and an end to the strike because of alleged irregularities in card-signing during the organizing drive four years earlier. Despite this blatant attempt to break the union, the workers did not give up and the union reapplied for recertification. A vote was conducted on October 24.

But the labor board held months of hearings and organized another vote January 31 that included 21 casual workers who weren't allowed to vote in October because they were hired in November after the union members were forced to end their strike. Despite the time given to the company to intimidate the workers while union supporters were prohibited from expressing their views in the workplace, the union scored a victory in the final tally.

Negotiations around the new contract began February 26. Among the demands of the union are a 67-cents-an-hour wage increase and a two-year contract. The union has filed unfair labor practice complaints to reverse the firing of union members Sam Craft and Maria Silvestre, both dismissed by the company for alleged picket-line incidents. Hearings on the complaints are scheduled in May.

The British Columbia Liberal government is proposing changes to labor law that would make it easier for companies to decertify unions and harder for workers to get organized. The proposed changes would allow the bosses to decertify the union if the company has been inactive for two years or has gone bankrupt and been sold. The proposed rules would also allow employers more access to workers in advance of union certification votes. British Columbia Federation of Labour president James Sinclair said the proposals "deliver a wish list to the employers."  
 
 
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