by Mark Sproxton
Northern News Services

NNSL (Jan 22/97) - A labor battle could be brewing at the BHP diamond mine camp, says the president of the NWT Federation of Labor.

Jim Evoy (left) says the involvement of the Christian Labor Association of Canada with some of the contractors hired to help construct the mine has called the Northern labor movement to action.

He said other unions, such as the NWT Building Trades Council, have concerns about CLAC's legitimacy as a union. The association is more of a management-controlled employee group, he said.

"As a representative of building trades in the North we're looking at it closely," Evoy said. "Just because CLAC says 'We'll do it' that's not the end of it."

But Co Vanderlaan, Alberta Director of CLAC, said the organization is a multi-craft, multi-trade union that has been recognized as an official union by numerous labor relations boards.

"We represent a whole group of employees at particular companies and in this case the two companies are Ledcor Industries and Standard Electric," he said. "We have collective agreements with those companies and we have concluded separate agreements for those (BHP) projects."

CLAC hopes to have about 700 members at the mine site, he added.

It's a prospect Evoy would prefer not to see realized. "They're trying to impose their will on the Northern people before the Northern people have a say in the matter," Evoy said.

Vanderlaan said the organization is trying to find ways to include Northerners in its plans.

Evoy contends this is a plan by BHP to avoid a genuine unionized labor force, a suggestion the multinational mining corporation rejects.

"What we've always said it's entirely up to the workforce," said Karen Azinger, BHP's managers of external affairs. "We intend to develop a workplace where people are pleased to work there and people are treated equally."