LABOUR

-Pro-Canada
meet to set
campaign
Jan. 16

in Ottawa

Continued from page 1

“But we maintain that it is being threa-
tened,” he said, pointing out that “one of
the underpinnings of supply management is
that processed products can’t come into the
country and undermine that system.”

Yet annexes to the free trade agreement
outline an extensive variety of processed
agricultural products which will be allowed
into Canada without tariffs, he warned.

In poultry alone, he said, the list includes
a wide range of products, from breaded
chicken products to TV chicken dinners to
stewing hens, most of which are now pro-
cessed in Canada under tariff protection.

“What parts of the chicken won’t be
allowed in?” he asked.

In fact, he said, U.S. agricultural officials
have stated that they are not after marketing
boards and supply management systems
themselves “but they are after the way they
operate. A’nd they are saying that they want
sweeping changes,” Easter noted.

Elsewhere, the government has claimed
that it can still use import control to protect
agricultural products which are vulnerable
to pressure from U.S. imports.

But under Section 73 of the free trade
deal, those controls would be a violation of
the free trade agreement and the federal
government could not be depended on to
defend its own industries, he said.

“I don’t like that uncertainty — and
quite frankly, I don’t trust the Canadian
negotiators to protect us,” he warned.

Easter also noted that the agreement
would further jeopardize Canada’s right to
develop transportation policies. “What
we're saying . .. to the Americans and to the
world is that we no longer have the right as
Canadians to develop transportation policy
as we see fit for Canadians —‘unless it first
suits the agreement we’ve just signed with
the U.S.”

The NFU leader emphasized that the
trade agreement has brought into sharper
focus “the two visions of Canada.

“One is the corporate vision in which
they control the economy through the free
market. :

“The other,” he said, “is the kind of
vision in which we control the economy in
the interests of people ... so that labour,
farmers and consumers all benefit.”

The U.S. economy is an example of one
in which the corporate sector has a free
hand “to produce where labour is Cheapest,
where environmental restrictions are least
and where labour standards are the lowest.

“I don’t want to be tied to that economy
and I don’t think that you do either,” he
said to applause.

Easter urged delegates to “turn their
anger and frustration outward to fight for
our survival. :

“Each and every one of you, together
with the other groups we can ally Ourselves
with across Canada .. . can build the kind of
economy we want.

“Tt will be a struggle and an intense one
but by God, we can win,” he declared.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 13, 1988

As Brian signs pact inside, demonstrators gather outside to protest free trade.

Teachers have been opting for the
union route in percentages ranging from
the high eighties to the mid-nineties, dur-
ing votes in four regions conducted by the
Industrial Relations Council.

_ South Cariboo voted for union status
by 95 per cent, Greater Victoria by 94 per
cent, Courtenay-Comox by 93 per cent
and Maple Ridge by 88 per cent,
B.C.Teachers Federation certification co-
orinator Lynne Macdonald reported
Tuesday. oo

Federation first vice-president Alan
Crawford said teachers support for union
status is “not really surprising, but the

beyond our earlier expectations.”
At press time some 30 local teachers

degree of support is something even

_ Teachers choosing union in IRC vote —

associations were taking IRC supervised
votes. Seventy-four of the 75 locals have
passed the preceding certification vote

under Section 131.2 of the Industrial Rela- _

tions Act, with Summerland, the remain-—
talks

ing local, taking the vote Tuesday.

_ The IRC vote marks the third and final
stage of a complicated process that
involved a sign-up drive and the Section
131.2 vote — which saw locals return
votes of more than 90 per cent in favour of
an IRC vote — stipulated under Bill 20,
the Social Credit government’s Teaching
Profession Act.

The inclusion of public school teachers
under the provincial labour code will
mean some changes when contract nego-

- month.

consider priorities are sick leave provi- —

teachers seek “relatively short duration —

tiations begin, for some locals in about a

Crawford said representatives of all —
locals will meet next week to map out a
general province-wide agenda for contract |

Among the items teachers will likely

sions, firing and transfer procedures, the _
evaluation process and class sizes, Craw-
ford said. _

_ Hesaid the federation will be suggesting

contracts.” There is no longer a time limit
for negotiations nor a yearly bargaining
schedule as there was under the School
Act. =:

Cold War divided labour, forum told

The reactionary forces that attacked left-
wing trade unionists during the McCarthy
years of the 1950s are still extant — but
there is much less tolerance for their ideas
today, a forum on the Cold War and the
trade union movement was told.

Four trade unionists who personally
fended off red-baiting and attempts to des-
troy their unions during the Cold War gave
that advice to fellow trade unionists at the
Centre for Socialist Education forum in
Vancouver Sunday.

Jack Phillips, Homer Stevens, Al King
and Ernie Knott related their experiences in
fighting Canada’s version of McCarthyism
and the reasons, both domestic and interna-
tional in scope, for the rise of the ultra-right
during that period.

Phillips told of the fight against raids by

‘the Trades and Labour Congress, the

former labour central to which his union
was affiliated, in the late Forties and early
Fifties.

Phillips became secretary of the Van-
couver Civic Employees Union, Outside
Workers, in 1947 when U.S. President
Harry Truman announced his plan to “roll
back Communism world wide,” British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his
“iron curtain” speech and the Liberal
government in Ottawa adopted the Abbot
plan.

It was also a time when the top right-wing
echelons in the labour movement and the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
sought “to destroy the influence of the
Labour Progressive Party,” Phillips, then
an LPP member and later labour secretary
of the B.C. Communist Party, related.

In attacking the left-centre leadership of
the Vancouver civic union the congress
twice tried to set up alternative locals. But
the union persevered and later, as part of the
Canadian Union of Public Employees,
forced the Canadian Labour Congress to
allow the new local, 1004, to Participate in
all labour bodies affiliated with the con-

gress.

Stevens, past president of the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, said
the Cold War “was more than an attack
within the labour movement. It was an
attack on the minds of people no matter
what (occupation) they were in.”

Stevens, who headed a union that for 20.

years was expelled by the Trades and
Labour Congress, and its successor, the
CLC, also related attacks on the union by
the fishing industry employers during the
period.

And he recalled the problems he and
other union officials had in visiting the Uni-
ted States — visits that were necessary
because of the international nature of the
Pacific fishery.

“I remember spending six hours on two
different occasions trying to get across the
line ... you could get across the line alright,
carrying your Communist Party card; the
only thing you had to do was rat on your
comrades.”

Al King, former president of the Mine,
Mill and Smelter Workers Local 480 in
Trail and Kimberley, described the lengthy
red-baiting campaign and ultimately unsuc-
cessful raid on the local by the United
Steelworkers.

“Tt is fair to say that that raid, which took

place some 30 years ago, has left scars that
are still a part of that community today, —
unfortunately,” he said.

Retired woodworker Ernie Knott noted
he was expelled twice from the International
Woodworkers for his Communist Party —
membership.

Stevens said the Cold War “presented a
favourable climate for a big-business assault
on labour” and scored some successes in
dividing labour both domestically and
internationally. And, he said, some of the
current peace victories would likely have
happened sooner were it not for McCarthy-
ism.

Phillips said his local was able to resist
right-wing attacks because of the support of
the membership and the policy of the execu-
tive to keep the members fully informed of
what was going on. And he credited the
“strong radical tradition in the B.C. labour
movement” for blunting the worst effects of
the Cold War.

“The question is, is McCarthyism dead
for all time? No, the forces are still around,
but they are much more subdued,” Phillips
said.

There is much less tolerance for such
ideas now, but, he cautioned, “‘the price of
liberty is eternal vigilance.”

Tniroductory cubschoieaanar | |

Introductory subscription offer

: $

E Three months for only $3

E Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street

| Vancouver, B.C. V5K 125. Phone 251-1186

: NAING nc occ We ERR E AERA KEE. ote aeRO 30k seen da kc
SB: PCG A85 Mite 5 Fi igs: Sct ws gs ta oe
en es ee Postal Codet 2s ASR Tig sRes Aa
& lam enclosing 1 yr.$160] 2yrs.$280) 6mo. $100

; ‘Introductory offer, 3 mo. $3) Foreign 1 yr. $250 Bill me later

READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOUR |

'
SS OS CE A ee ee