Benefit concert nets $1,000s _

In“‘Fleck’’xibility — smash success

__ “They can only push you so far
In this goddam country, then you
have to take a stand!”

Rats, both the human and the -

rodent kind run free in the Fleck
Manufacturing plant. The human
Tats, managing the operation for a
nich Tory who has escaped the

heat” for a’ year in the clois-
ters of Harvard University in the

U.S.; bullied and_ intimidated.

their female work force to
Squeeze every cent of profit they
Could out of them, while paying
the lowest possible wage.
In‘‘Fleck’’xibility, the play
that was the centre piece of a
benefit concert organized June 19
on behalf of the women at Fleck
on strike for the recognition of the
United Auto Workers, the union
they want to belong to and have
Tepresent them, details the degra-
dation and indignity forced on
People who have to work in

__A People’s Commission, pres-
ided over by a Roman Catholic
Priest has just completed an inde-
pendent study of unemployment
in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Travelling thousands of miles,
holding hearings in 11 centres and
Teceiving briefs from business,
Unions, churches, political and
community organizations and in-
dividuals, the commissioners
concluded that the actual rate of
unemployment in Newfoundland
this last March was an incredible
Early this month Statistics
Canada reported an increase of
1.4% in cost of living for the
month of May. This was the
biggest increase since July of 1975.
Contributing to the large monthly
increase was a whopping rise in
food prices. The 3.3% jump was
the biggest such rise in six years.
Calculated on a three-month basis
it brought the annual inflation rate
to 11.3%.

The government’s expectation
of a 4% inflation rate this year is
now in ruins. Its readjusted hopes
fora 7% inflation rate is, to say the
least, in serious doubt.

However, for labor there is a
6% limit on pay increases for all of
1978. This ludicrous policy is now
questioned by the Anti-Inflation
Board (AIB) itself, which is now
Seeking governmental approval
for an increase of 11.5% for its
Own staff.

Most Important Problem

Earlier this month, Harry Par-
Tot, Ontario’s Minister of Col-
leges and Universities, told a con-
ference of the University and Col-
lege Placement Association at the
Toronto (Harbour Castle) Hilton
that unemployment is ‘“‘the most
Important problem in the country
today.”

“Traditionally it has always

€n decided that an easy fix to
unemployment is a war. Massive
youth unemployment and a

d-up of arms around the world
are a fertile ground for war. That
a the hell out of me,’’ he

But the only solution the Tory
binet member could think of
Was job sharing to create work

sweatshops like Fleck to make a
living. But, it also shows how
unity among the workers is the
key to successfully fighting the
boss.

The benefit performance was
an unqualified success, packing
Toronto Workshop Productions
Theatre to over flowing.
Theatre, variety, and musical en-
tertainment filled the TWP stage
which was emblazonned with the
word FLECK in huge luninescent
letters. Actors, singers and musi-
cians donated their talent free,
while TWP director George Lus-
combe donated the use of the
theatre to raise money for the 90
Fleck women’s strike fund. At $5
a head plus the money collected
later at a party, the Fleck strike
fund was given a healthy boost.

The performers included Fiona
Reid (of King of Kensington
fame), Charnie Guettel, with

opportunities for unemployed
and underemployed young
people. He said ‘‘thousands’’ of

jobs lend themselves to being split |

between two people willing to
take less pay for more leisure
time.
Total Bankruptcy
In the meantime, federal labor
minister John Munro has set up a
Commission of: Inquiry into lay-

offs. This Commission is sup-*

posed to conduct hearings across

the country later this summer. It’s "

terms of reference include prior
notice of layoffs, measures to as-
sist or retrain laid-off workers and
the development of ‘‘a code of
good layoff practices.”

Nothing is said about the need
to put a stop to layoffs as socially
and economically disastrous.
Why no mention of a person’s
right to a job?

All this, shows a total ban-
kruptcy of. leadership and abso-
lute inability to find any solution
for the capitalist crisis, which
brings us ever closer to the brink
of catastrophe. ee

Bribery, Corruption, Parasites

The competition for private

‘capital investment and preferen-

tial treatment to attract. new
industry threatens to give away
the whole country to greedy ban-
kers and corporations. At a recent
industrial development fair in
Basle, Switzerland, Britain’s De-
partment of Industry, along with
Canada, occupied the most floor
space.

Among the incentives offered
to potential investors were excep-
tionally generous first-year tax
allowances of 100% on plant and
machinery, and a 54% first-year
allowance on new industrial con-
struction.

And, if company X moves into
what is termed an ‘‘assisted area”
it becomes eligible for “‘other
types of incentives.” Such so-
called incentives include capital
grants of 20 to 25% of taxpayers’
money for new buildings and, in
many places, for new plant and
machinery; loans on favorable
terms, or interest relief grants;
plus government-built ‘advance’
factories for immediate occupa-

Arms spending fuels
inflation, joblessness

selections from her cabaret prog-
ram dedicated to the problems of
working women, political satirist

Nancy White, heard regularly on ©

CBC radio, director Pam
Brighton and Maja Ardal who or-

ganized the benefit, Ontario &
Council on the Status of Women
chairperson Lynne, Gordon, g
Madelaine Parent of the Canadian +
Textile and Chemical Workers g
Arlene

Union, Susan Hogan,
Duncan, Suzette Couture,
Brenda Donohue, Mary Ann
MacDonald, and man, others.

Excerpts from ‘‘Operation
Finger Pinkie’’, a play about an
attempt to unionize secretaries at,
York University, and ‘‘The
Club’’, last winter’s successful
stage-satire on male chauvinism
were a delightful warm up for
In‘‘fleck’ xibility.

Guettel’s exploration of the
roots of economic discrimination

~~

tion, with rent-free periods and
low rentals.

(Our senior citizens and low in-
come groups could do with some

rent-free periods and low rentals.

But instead, they’re being
threatened with a 50% rent in-

crease, when they cannot pay

their present rents except by rob-

“bing their stomachs of decent

food, which is also being priced
out of their reach by profiteering
monopolies.)

All we are witnessing, in our
so-called free world, is bribery
and corruption by politicians and
the corporate elite to uphold
monopoly power and prolong the
life of the capitalist system which
has now become a parasitic bur-
den on ordinary working people
and society in our part of the
world.

Brainwashing Agency

What we are faced with now,
since the AIB is dead but not
buried, is a brainwashing agency
called the Centre for the Study of
Inflation and Productivity (CSIP),
whose job — under the super-
vision of the Economic Council of
Canada — will be to misinform
the people of Canada about the
economy. This will be done by
minimizing the rate of inflation
through manipulation by exclud-
ing the real impact of food and

energy price increases from the.

consumer price index.
The lesson to be learned about

the AIB period is, that controls

worked fine as a means of robbing
workers to fatten monopoly pro-
fiteers by undermining collective
bargaining, hiding the impact of
the arms drive from public view
and putting a damper on the
fightback against the- monopoly
offensive on the working class.

However, the end result of this
manoeuvring has been to aggra-
vate .both inflation and
unemployment, which in turn
cannot but deepen the crisis of
state monopoly capitalism and in-
tensify the struggle for new
pélicies of peace, disarmament,
an end to neo-colonialism and for
full employment without in-
flation.

Scene from “Operation Finger Pinkie” which was part of the theatrical

entertainment, in the recent benefit concert for the strikers at Fleck.

and social oppression against
women in our economic system
motivated by the employers’ un-
quenchable drive to maximize
profits, combined with Nancy
White’s stinging satires on the
RCMP, the federal government
and the Tories in Ontario, helped
to save the first half of the show
from slipping into a vague, liberal
kind of feminism, blurring the
class antagonism which is at the
centre of the Fleck fight. _

To the obvious joy of the Fléck
strikers and the packed theatre,
White sang: ‘‘Ontario, land of op-
portunity Where everyone can
work up to the top. And if you feel
the need to strike, Every striker
gets his own cop — ‘‘Ontario,
When it comes to confrontation,

Is there any other place you’d
rather be?”

In‘‘Fleck’’xibility, the benefit’s
centre-piece, based on the stories
of the strikers themselves, as
compiled through interviews by
Brighton and Ardal is both well
enough written and performed by
the current cast (which includes
Alan Royal and Gerrard Parkes)
that it should be seen in every
union hall and picket line across
the province.

A line from the ‘play applies
equally to everyone who walked
out of the theatre June 19: ‘‘The
last 15 weeks have taught us a lot.
We didn’t know much about poli-
tics before, but we sure know how
they run this country now.”’

INCO’s proposal for
wage freeze rejected

’ Special to the Tribune

SUDBURY — INCO is show-
ing the signs that she’s a real
‘‘mother’’ in current contract
talks with Port Colborne and
Sudbury Steelworkers.

The International Nickel Co. of
Canada’s (INCO), first offer to
the joint bargaining committee of
Locals 6500 and 6200” United
Steelworkers, (Sudbury and Port
Colborne), tabled in Toronto,
June 12 tersely demanded \a one
year extension of the current col-
lective agreement with no
changes in wages or benefits, and
the Cost of Living Adjustment
factor frozen at its present level of
79 cents.

The 13,000 Steelworkers in-
volved in the talks have greeted
the insulting offer for what it is —
a slash in their living standards

and a crude attempt by the multi- -

national to take away benefits al-
ready won through tough battles.

The joint bargaining committee
turned thumbs down on the out-
rageous proposal, appraising the
company of a few facts of life,
such as the mandate the member-
ship gave them to negotiate a jobs
and income. security package in-
cluding early retirement provi-
sions with decent pensions, in-
come. protection against further
layoffs, and a 32 hour work week.

Though the company lately has

been crying the blues about a

temporary downturn in profits,

the Steelworkers correctly note it

is their work which has made IN-
CO’s ‘profit picture better than
what the average rate of profit has
been for the whole metal mining
industry in the 15 years prior to

giant ESB Battery Co. into IN-
CO’s corporate family.

Other facts drawn to ‘‘mother’’
INCO’s attention: Steelworkers
produced the $750 million nickel
stockpile that the company will
eventually turn into a handsome
profit; also, the company saved
some $90 million in employment
costs as a result of last October’s
giant layoffs, and the impending

summer shut down at both loca- —

tions, July 17 to August 28. |

Layoffs and demotions on top
of the vicious inflation rate have
badly eroded their incomes the
workers pointed out, while pen-
sioners feel the stern grip of in-
flation on their incomes as well.

Besides, the workers know that
platinum, copper, cobalt and gold
are ‘also among the 14 minerals
they produce for INCO and that
prices and the demand for these
minerals are increasing, not the
other way around.

The workers don’t buy INCO’s
sudden cry of poverty and right-
fully demand a share in the com-
pany’s profitable future.

Conciliation meetings under
the auspices of the Ontario labor
ministry began June 16. The cur-
rent agreement expires July 10,
but in an effort to bring INCO
around to negotiate, the bargain-
ing committee has asked for and
received from the membership an
extension of the negotiations
deadline.

Feeling at the union’s grass
roots is positive, and the workers
are determined. With a united
negotiating committee fighting
INCO at the bargaining table, the
watchword in the mines and

1977. The workers also reminded plants is unity for substantial im-

INCO that it was they who
created the money for the multi-
national corporation to absorb the

provements on the framework of
the gains already fought and paid
for in hard work and struggle.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 30, 1978—Page 5