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LABOR SCENE

by Bruce Magnuson

eo weeks ago the Toronto
edit Complained bitterly in an
: rial that the public seem to
oe and fatalistic about

es, It prophesied that if
Passivity and _ fatalism
logic ee Overcome ‘“‘our techno-

al civilization” would ‘‘des-

into i
anarchy.” a kind of barbarous

The editorial

Were n

writer then
, whether public ser-
ee — the men and
essenti gyno perform the tasks
Such al to modern society, tasks
1g as collecting garbage, car-

or the sick, teaching the

Defend the right to strike

children, supplying telephone
and electrical services, and pro-
viding transportation — should
any longer have the right to
strike. :

The newspaper’s solution was
the same old and discredited
compulsary arbitration, which
has been tried time and again
and found unworkable. How-
ever, not to be deterred from
his aim and purpose, this edito-
rial scribe had a solution for
that too: “Governments should
hire private companies to get
public work done, and back up
their employees with police pro-

Pledge full support
to Vietnam patriots

nh
[ainst U 3
wees of th

donot May Day demonstrations around the earth stressed soli-
support to the peoples of Indochina in their struggle
- Aggression, the unity of the workers and oppressed
e world in the fight to end capitalist slavery, and the

“UP drive to compel peaceful coexistence and disarmament.
A pow s Red Square, the USSR President N. Podgorny told
Militant <1 demonstrators, “On this First of May, we affirm our

Combed

Olidarity with the courageous patriots of Vietnam, Laos and

Sion) 'a who are waging a heroic struggle against U.S. aggres-

M : ee
ember, floats in the mighty parade hailed the celebration in De-

“tree y .of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the USSR—the

i : 0 F : :
Wtion, on of sovereign socialist Soviet republics. Trade union dele-

Europ fi

tn, Year, 1972, has the po-
for th or major breakthroughs
MeL 5) Orces of peace,” Alex
Btegs 22 Canadian Peace Con-
tolg 4°" 8anizational secretary,

e
Toronty + delegates assemble in

Nee of or the National Confer-
Bess on € Canadian Peace Con-
the, 4 May 20-21,” he said,

decj :
hme “cisions will bear on
“hs of © most crucial ques-
Drigj ur time. It’s not sur-

n
: Part #8 rd People want to be

mm? YOuth organiza-
; The Peace Congress,”
OMes th ™. McLennan, “wel-
oe of all
; peace-minded
i Althor. hy the population.”
ee ts the announced dead-
lo day PPlications (May 10)
nitig, YS Off at this writing,
MWay ag PMSe from as far

a
Peelen Vancouver promises an
pons shoulg erence. Registra-
>CUtive d be sent to: National
Toe Congommittee, Canadian
tatto, Ont.” 2239 Yonge St.

REO tha: 3
the a Keynote address at
iitization ss MCe: and the or-
ne account address, will take
nti. € ascendancy of
Worig nt iy forces in he
Wsa . t)~ McL i
fe. Se w €nnan said.
ent ae be Presented on dif-
USsion YS, with a day of dis-
ip to Tevoted to each.”
ed, Hg cs he emphas-
ing the war in Viet-

fom more than 79 countries of Asia, Africa, America and

Were guests of the Soviet trade unions on May Day.

le : :
the ain stations were held throughout the socialist countries and

Cities in the capitalist part of the globe.

North Vietnam;
seriously at the Paris peace
talks; accept the seven points of
the Provisional Revolutionary
Government of South Vietnam.
This would lead to an end to
the war and a prompt exchange
of prisoners.

“The mass bombing is proof
of the failure of Nixon’s policy
of Vietnamization,” the Peace
Congress spokesman declared.
“The desperate attempt by the
U.S. to bomb North Vietnam out
of the war is an admission that
the people of Vietnam are win-
ning against the U.S. and its
puppets.” :

Second only to peace in Viet-
nam, the Conference will place
detente in Europe. Such agree-
ment would imply co-existence
in Europe of different social
systems, pointing to like agree-
ments on a world scale, and to
total disarmament. -

In calling the Conference
the Canadian Peace Congress
noted several hopeful signs for
strengthening world peace, I!-
cluding exchange visits of Can-
adian and USSR government
heads, drafting of treaties be-
tween USSR, Poland and the
Federal Republic of Germany,
and the USA-USSR agreement
banning bacteriological weapons.

With these and other indicat-
ors in mind, Mr. McLennan said,
“we see the possibility of 1972
being the year of victory over
U.S. aggression in Vietnam,

tection if necessary. In short,
break public strikes.” (emphasis
mine—BM).

It is rather obvious that the
all-out effort these days by the
mass media to brainwash the
public about strike in public
services is part and parcel ofa
carefully prepared conspiracy to
undermine and destroy the right
to strike.

The right to strike is an in-
alienable part of our funda-
mental democratic rights won
through long and hard struggle.
This right is indivisible. Any at-

tack on the right to strike for.

_any type of worker is an attack
on all workers.

What we must face up to here
is an all-out assault on demo-
cracy in general, flowing from
an employer-government assault
on living standards of the peo-
ple in the interests of monopoly
profits. :

This most dangerous and in-
sidious monopoly - government
offensive is presently spear-
heeed against unions and work-
ers in the public services. The
reason for this is quite obvious
when we stop to reflect on the
situation. These workers, by
virtue of the position they hold
as public service workers, can-
not strike without causing some
form of general public incon-
venience. Consequently they are
most vulnerable to the lying
propaganda that strikes are dir-
ected against the public interest
and against society as a whole.

It is worthy of note that a
general pattern is emerging
throughout all of Canada and all
the industrially advanced capi-
talist countries. It is- linked to
the crisis of the system of mono-
poly capitalism on an interna-
tional scale. It has distinct
fascistic overtones, such as re-
ferring to strikers as anarchists
who are out to destroy social
discipline and law and order.

All these terms applied to
strikes and strikers flow from a
class concept. The question is,
whose law and order? Whose
social discipline? Certainly it is
not the workers’ social discip-
line, or working class law and
order in the interests of society
as a whole that is meant here.

One well-known Toronto col-
umnist, writing under the spuri-
ous head, “The divine right of
mobs,” claimed that “violence
pays off!” Referring to the
general strike of 200,000 Quebec
civil servants, this scribe went
on to write: “After more than a
week of anarchy, the Bourassa
government has announced that
its original pay offer to the
strikers — the anarchists — 1s
being increased by $33-million.”

Quebec’s Premier Bourassa
succeeded, temporarily at least,
to beat back the demand for a
minimum pay of $100 per week
for workers in the public ser-
vices. This was the main issue
over which the government
secured legislation to break the
general strike in Quebec’s public
services.

Another prime minister, Heath
of Britain, was not successful in
breaking the strike of the British
miners, primarily because of the
broad mass support accorded the
miners by British public opinion.
Here again, the above-mention-
ed Toronto columnist deplores
this fact as a sign of breakdown
of social discipline, law and
order. He writes: “‘By preventing
the movement of coal, and thus
cutting off sources of essential
energy, 280,000 miners brought-
the Heath Government to its
knees and got a wage settlement
of 20% — far above what it
originally offered.”

Horror of horrors! British min-
ers, earning as low as $49.50 per
week in wages, getting a 20%
increase! It’s enough to cause
any and every reactionary, anti-
labour columnist, such as Rich-
ard J. Needham of the Toronto
Globe and Mail to exclaim: “We
are into a period of anarchy!”

All across Canada from Van-
couver to Halifax, the struggle
for a living wage of hard work-
ing and grossly underpaid civic,
and other public service workers
is mounting.

In Metropolitan Toronto “the
good” things are not so good
this spring. The garbage in our
public parks and on the streets
and everywhere is piling up into
a stinking mess.

But when David Archer, presi-
dent of the Ontario Federation
of Labor, somewhat timidly sug-
gested during a television inter-
view that perhaps a settlement,
such as the Borough of Etobi-
coke negotiated with its outside
civic workers, should be tried,
The Globe and Mail became
furious. “Mr. Archer’s ideas” (a

Following a meeting in: Paris
on April 14, Russell Kerr, mem-
ber of the Executive Commit-
tee of the British Association of
“Scientific, Technical and Man-
agerial Staffs (ASTMS) affiliat-
ed to. the TUC and René Le
Guen, chairman of the French
General Federation of Engin-
eers, Supervisory Staffs and
Technicians (UGICT) affiliated
to the CGT, signed a joint com-
munique on behalf of their re-
spective organizations setting
out their positions on the Com-
mon Market.

“For its defenders, the Com-
mon Market, in its present form
as an international grouping,
has value only in so far as it is
able to answer the problems
facing financial and industrial
groups, confronted by the de-
mands of scientific and techno-
logical progress and their natu-
ral concern to safeguard their
particular interests,” the state-
ment declares, and goes on to
say that the Common Market
“has encouraged the develop-
ment of multinational com-
panies based purely on the pro-
fit motive. This is reflected in
national policies whose only
concern is to satisfy these in-
terests by encouraging the free
circulation of finance capital

modest 15 per cent over two
years—B.M.) its editorial writer
suggested, ‘‘should be placed in
a strong plastic bag, securely
fastened, and surrendered to the
nearest private garbage disposal
service.” The editorial in ques-
tion was most aptly titled, ‘“Gar-
bage—A Private Industry.”

What is needed more than
ever today is a realization that
the legitimate demands of work-
ing people in public services, as
well as in private industry, can-
not be brushed aside or defeated
by mere token concessions, nor
by open strike-breaking and
repression.

There is no reason why the
benefits of increased productiv-
ity in our technological society
should be appropriated exclusiv-
ely by a handful of profiteering
parasites.

The press has reported one
Toronto development corpora-
tion, Cadillac, which increased
the value of its properties by
500% in five years, with its
profits increased by 1400% in
the same period. Yet another
particular corporation has never
paid federal income tax. How
many more such situations
exists? And why should wealthy
developers get all the conces-
sions, while civic workers doing
essential jobs are condemned to
work for sub-standard wages?

The time has come for solid-
arity and united action by all
workers in support of public
service workers battling for
their rights. The stakes include
the fundamental right to strike
of any and all workers, in addi-
tion to the economic issues in-
volved. The Canadian Labor
Congress has been very quiet to
date, on this issue. Has not the
time arrived to break this

silence?
h, if

and labor and by increased ex-
ploitation of the workers. White
collar workers in our two coun-
tries are not spared any more
than other workers, the impact
of the development of multina-
tional companies. Like them,
they suffer the harmful conse-
quences of the policies of these
firms.

“Concentration of capital and
firms, and increasingly bitter
competition as well as the fran-
tic search for profit have creat-
ed a crisis, reflected particular-
ly in growing insecurity of em-
ployment for white collar work-
ers. Whether from the point of
view of job security, grades, de-
mands for mobility or qualifi-
cations, such a policy has major
social and political repercus-
sions . . . ASTMS: and UGICT
are convinced that they are ex-
pressing the firmly-held convic-
tion of engineers and_techni-
cians of both countries in de-
claring themselves in favor of
the existing and further deve-
lopment of genuine interna-
tional cooperation between all
countriés, a. cooperation cap-
able of promoting scientific and
technological development with
respect for the authority of
each country, and with a com-
mitment to democracy and so-
cial progress,” crreet

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY; MAY 5, 1972PAGE 9