Mass-action needed

to provide jobs

The Canadian Labor Congress
Predicts a marked slowdown in
‘le rate of wage increases, con-
tinued and growing levels of job-
lessness, more inflation and in-
creased profits for big business
during 1977. That means a con-
tinued shift in the distribution of
come in favor of big business
and at the expense of the working
Class and farmers, who are the
Teal producers of all wealth in this
Country. Unfortunately, the
€x€cutive council of the CLC
Which met in Ottawa May 10 and
ll, Produced no concrete action
Program to deal with this situation.

A few days prior to the CLC
meet, Canada’s largest industrial
union, the United Steelworkers,

eld aconference in Winnipeg. At
that gathering of delegates from
of Canada, representing this
Union’s 196,000 members, an
€conomic policy statement was
adopted. That statement not only
took note of the state of prolonged
Cnisis in the Canadian economy
and: exposed the anti-working
Class character of government
and monopoly policies, but also
Called for a complete reversal of
direction of government policies.

Steelworker Program

The steelworkers called for five
immediate changes in any redi-
tection of economic policy:
1) terminate wage controls at
Once; 2) remove cutbacks of so-
cial programs; 3) reduce personal
and sales taxes to benefit average
and lower income families;
4) undertake a large public in-
_vestment program, and; 5) set up
a Price Review Board to monitor
Prices, keep the public informed
9n prices and profits, and prevent
‘Corporations from exploiting
Monopolistic market conditions
Or monopoly profits at the ex-
Pense of the working class and the
Public interest. An excellent
Program of immediate and posi-
tive economic reforms. But here
‘gain, a concrete action program
of struggle for the implementation

of the program agreed upon was
Missing,

Yet, the senument for militant
action is growing in the ranks of
labor. Look how delegates to the
Alberta Federation of Labor re-
buffed the Alberta Tory govern-
Ment for their attack on public
Servants and the attempt to bring
G a “‘right-to-scab’’ law.
secwise, militancy has been

Own in a number of local labor
©ouncils in B.C. and Ontario,
le ae Positive and constructive

adership has been given.°
suahe Oshawa Labor Council
Chess aresolution calling on the
cae to convene a Canada-wide
a8 rence to discuss ways and
. ans of prodding governments
the vide jobs. It also circulated

'S resolution to all Ontario labor

as: and to all registered
Political parties, including the
©mmunist Party.

Need Labor Action

ae abor Councils in every com-
S Ity across this country ought
Work for the establishment of
coe sentative working people’s
- wimittees to campaign in every
Y, town, and rural municipali-
mu . cy Ought to present briefs to
‘cipal councils, canvassing

for the support of local councils to
pressure provincial and federal
governments into action on jobs.
They should interview members
of legislatures and ,parliament,

-placing ads in newspapers and

addressing interested groups.

Labor Councils should call
upon affiliated unions to organize
both employed and unemployed
to demonstrate at federal gov-
ernment offices to demand action
on jobs and an end to wage con-
trols. Similar demonstrations
ought to be organized in coopera-
tion with.provincial federations of
labor at provincial legislatures in
all provinces and in Quebec.

.The Canadian Labor Congress
should be appealed to with re-
spect to the organization of
Canada-wide demonstrations
against wage controls and for
jobs.

There is an urgent need for sol-
idarity movements with unions in
contract disputes with their
employers. Committees for this
purpose should include both
employed and unemployed work-
ers. They should combine the
demand for increased buying
power for working people, with
the demand for jobs for all those
who are unable to find a job.

Support for Students
- Special efforts need to be made
by organized labor to develop
community support for all those

young people finishing school,
and for secondary and post-
secondary school graduates seek-
ing to enter the labor market.

Weare at a point where various
alliances of working people must
come. together and develop a
program of action to carry for-
ward the. struggle against the
policies of the private monopoly
sector and its governments, and
to seek complete reversal of those
policies.

The local labor councils across
this country have a key role to
play in the struggle for jobs and
for labor unity from the Atlantic
to the Pacific. Organized labor
can become the unifying force
against the divisive schemes of
monopoly, and can develop the
strategy and provide the leader-
ship in anti-monopoly struggle,
which has long been a lvocated

‘and fought for by the Communist

Party.

The focal point of the anti-
monopoly struggle to overcome
the present economic crisis and
the constitutional crisis, and to
win an independent and united
Canada, has to be the working
class and its trade union move-
ment. Only this will make it pos-
sible to go forward to new hori-
zons where working people, who
produce all wealth, will have the
decisive voice in determining
economic and social policies.

oe 0S cower wee

young workers

an hour to put you on his
wage), Prime
high and if you
his job) and last

can’t expect too much).

crash job program at
each year for the next

trol. This would go a

THE JOBLESS FORCE, 1.5 MILLION

highcs. wncisploy men. fate since
compiled in 1953 — 8.3% or one In every 12 workers jobless. For
14-24 over 15% are without jobs or job ee
And what do our governments offer to the 1.5 million people out
looking for work? A sampling of their solutions read like a bad joke.
If you’re under 24 fora dollara day, plus board you can join Barney
Danson’s brown shirts and work for the armed forces (the old
4930’s work camps idea revisited), or if you're a aie poh ial
the Ontario government will give your boss a dollar

aie a aay roll (often at below the minimum
Minister Trudeau tells you not to set your sights too
don’t like that move elsewhere (just don’t apply for
and least Ontario’s Liberal leader, Stuart a
h his pear! of genius which is to subsidize business 20% 0

Oe nnereela wages providing it’s under $10,000 (after all you

r hand the Communist Party proposes a massive
ela union rates to build 400,000 housing units
five; and the development of resource and

dustry under public ownership and democratic con-
pears ah i long way to solving the unemployment crisis.

iigures were fir.

Aworker on legal strike is dragged from the picket line by police, whil

— WINNIPEG FREE PRESS/GARY CAIRNES

PHOTO

strikebreakers are escorted into the plant to take his job. Where is this

man’s human rights? .

Manitoba’s human rights
record far from perfect

WINNIPEG — Trade union
and human rights are often used
by the press to attack socialist
countries and, by implication, to
suggest. ‘‘our way of life’ is a
model. A recent quick survey of
the daily press in Manitoba, gov-
erned as it is by the NDP, unco-
vered several shortcomings.
“Reluctance to provide

_-adequate child care services

stems in part from the notion that
a woman’s place is still in the
home’’ said the director of the
province’s women’s bureau. She
said there is “‘virtually nothing”’
available in programs for six: to
12-year olds. Cited also is lack of
professional staff. About half of
.Manitoba’s women between 15
and 65 are in the labor force.
x ae &

The Manitoba Human Rights
Commission says low vacancy
rates in apartments had led to in-

_creased discrimination by land-
lords against minority groups,
single parents and welfare reci-
pients. “‘Young singles, welfare
recipients, persons of Indian an-

cestry, families and single parents
are tagged as ‘high risk’ and tend
to be given low preference.”

ek ok

A special Manitoba University
subcommittee states that many
scholarships discriminate on the
basis of such things as sex. The
issue came up when a will desig-
nated sum of money to help ‘‘a
male student’? take graduate
studies in English literature. The
Manitoba Human Réghts Act does
not apply to wills according to the
university’s solicitor.

* * *

In terms of trade union rights,
there is nothing in Manitoba’s
labor legislation to prevent an

- employer from implementing

compulsory overtime even
though it violates the 40-hour
week.

There is nothing in the pro-
vince’s labor legislation to pre-
vent an employer during a legal
strike from bringing in non-union
labor with the full cooperation of
the police.

U.S. nuclear arms
production forges ahead

MOSCOW — “Nearly six
weeks have gone by since Ameri-
can proposals aimed-at giving a
unilateral advantage to the U.S.
were turned down by the USSR’”’,
writes the: Soviet foreign policy
weekly ‘‘New Times’’, comment-
ing on the renewal of Soviet-
American strategic arms limita-
tion talks in Geneva.

“The estimation of the U.S.
position by the Soviet side has

been proven correct,’’ says the -

magazine. ‘‘Following the return
home of the U.S. delegation, an
attempt was made to threaten
Moscow with a renewed spiral-
ling of the arms race.

“The U.S. Defence Depart-
ment is now. moving to
materialize this threat with the
development of the MX missile
system, the Trident atomic sub-

marine, the B-1 Bomber and
especially the Cruise Missile.
These are precisely the kinds of
strategic weapons the American
military see as most promising.

“‘The re-enforcement of a
‘strategy of deterrence’ by the
Cruise Missile system will be in
vain,’ New Times writes, ‘‘be-
cause the U.S. does not have a
monopoly on such weapons.”

The magazine stressed that the
Soviet Union is not refusing to
seek mutually acceptable solu-
tions and compromises on the
basis of reciprocity. *‘But the
USSR has no wish to achieve
them at the expense of its securi-
ty. Agreement can be reached on
the one acceptable basis — that of
complete equality and equal
security.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 27, 1977—Page 5