Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 17/00) - Members make the best ambassadors.

That was the message Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) president Ken Georgetti brought to Yellowknife Friday.

"The validators of the good work that unions do should be the people that live in the communities where the unions are," Georgetti said.

"And that's a significant part of the strategy of the CLC, where we're trying to teach our activists how to communicate to the media and communicate what the union movement does for the community and for individuals," he said.

"It's easy to not associate yourself or distance yourself from someone you don't know," said Georgetti, who was president of the BC Federation of Labour for 12 years before being elected CLC head in May, 1999.

"Our best validators for the work we do are our members," Georgetti said.

"We have an aggressive plan to give us a higher profile and give us better visibility at the same time, so that when we go out and talk to workers about organizing, they understand the union movement in plain terms."

Georgetti was to speak Saturday during the 13th annual convention of the Northern Territories Federation of Labour.

Georgetti acknowledged the "geography and the isolation" poses a special challenge for Northern workers.

"Employers, especially in the fly-in, fly-outs have a huge amount of influence on who comes into their properties, and how much influence they have on their employees when they're there," Georgetti said.

"I'm addressing in my speech the effectiveness of solidarity of the federation in the North. This is a good federation in the territories."

Georgetti said the CLC needs to establish a dialogue with aboriginals, both in the North and across the country.

"We have to speak to them about what their concerns are."

The CLC president pointed out unions everywhere are being affected by a changing workplace.

"We're shifting much more to a service economy. Large workplaces are not as prevalent as they were in the past," Georgetti said.

"There definitely is a lagtime between when we organize workers and when the jobs are created."

One topic Georgetti was going to address in his speech on Saturday was the issues facing Giant miners.

Hundreds of workers laid off from the bankrupt mine last fall have not received severance pay. As well, benefits under the hourly pension plan have been cut 25 per cent since April 1.

Georgetti met Friday with members of the Citizens Support Group, who are raising awareness of Giant mine issues.

"The meeting went very well," Georgetti said.