Cape Breton unions take on
companies to stop scab labor

SYDNEY — Cape Breton
labor rallied Aug. 10, against the
use of scab labor by the Sydney
Holiday Inn, Sobey Stores, and a

local tavern, currently engaged in
strike battles with their
employees.

A march by about 500 trade un-
ionists and supporters picketed a
Sobey supermarket then repeated
their actions outside the Holiday
Inn planting their pickets on the
motel’s lawn while organizers of
the demonstration blasted the use
of scabs by the three bosses to
crush the strikes.

Carrying placards declaring
“*We are out to break strike break-
ing in Cape Breton’’, the de-
monstrators demanded the three
employers return to the bargain-
ing table and settle the disputes.

The 45 members of Local 772
Hotel Bartenders and Restaurant
Workers Union struck Holiday
Inn June 15 after being without a
contract since Jan. 31. Improved
working conditions, higher wages
and job security are the major is-
sues in the battle.

The economic situation in
- Canada today calls for united ac-
tion, first of all by organized
labor, for an end to wage controls,
for the restoration of collective
bargaining, for full employment
policies, and, for a say over all
questions of concern to the work-
ing class.

The obstacle in the way of solv-
ing Canada’s crisis of inflation and
unemployment is monopoly ¢api-
tal and, the government which
Carries out it’s dictates in the form
of policies directed against the
working class.

It is against this class enemy
that labor must unite and, to make
doubly sure that their trade
unions and its leaders continue on
a course of struggle; that they do
not abandon that course in favor
of tripartism as.a form of social
and class partnership aimed
against the working class.

United Action

The current anti-labor offen-
sive conducted by the class
enemy — monopoly and govern-
ment — calls for united action by
English and French-speaking
workers. Only such unity will as-
sure a united, independent and
sovereign trade union movement
which is indispensable to the
struggle for genuine Canadian in-
dependence, recognition of the
national rights of the French-
Canadian people and a new con-
federal pact of Canada’s two
nations.

All progressive trade unionists
have a greater than ever respon-
sibility to realize these objectives,
as well as to extend trade union
organization to include the unor-
ganized and the jobless, and
thereby strengthen unity and co-
operation of all trade unions in
Canada.

Preparations for last October
i4th National Day of Protest
proved that local labor councils

Speakers attacked the Inn for
using guard dogs during the
strike’s early stages to intimidate
the union, hiring goons disguised
as “‘security’’ personnel, and
temporarily re-opening the motel
with scab labor. The inn closed
again after about three weeks.

Described by a union official at
the rally as ‘“‘the most vicious
company in the Maritimes,’’ the
workers at Sobey Stores have
been locked out of three Cape
Breton outlets since June 30.

The Canadian Food and Allied
Workers want Sobey to guarantee
job security through a ‘no lay-off
clause’ while there is more than a
One-to-one ratio between full and
part-time workers. Tom Jones
CFAW international representa-
tive told the rally the labor
movement would ‘‘beat them
(Sobey) in Cape Breton.”’

The three employees of the
Thistle Beverage Room have
been on strike for better wages
and fringe benefits since June 24.

Gerald .Yetman, president of
the Nova Scotia Federation of

Labor

Labor called on provincial labor
minister Walter Fitzgerald to
bring all parties back to the bar-
gaining table and called on the
Cape Breton Development Cor-
poration, which was involved in
establishing Holiday Inn in Syd-
ney to use its influence to encour-
age a settlement.

He told the protestors govern-
ment must be made aware that the
use of scabs by employers to
crush strikes can’t be tolerated in
Cape Breton. “It’s a fight we all
have to get in’’, he said.

Led by Yetman, Bartenders in-
ternational representative Henry
Martel and a police escort, the
marchers included members of
the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, United
Steelworkers, Canadian Brother-
hood of Railway, Transport and
General Workers, Canadian
Union of Public Employees,
Canadian Union of Postal Work-
ers, telephone workers, highway
workers, the Letter Carriers
Union of Canada, and members
of the general public.

at the

crossroads

have a particularly important role
to play as organizing centers of
the trade unions and, as rallying
points for the democratic allies of
the working class in the struggle
for new policies and democratic
advance.

Trade-off Illusions

It is unfortunate that since last
October 14th, the Canadian
Labor Congress has turned away
from its Quebec City Convention
mandate of mass political cam-
paigning against wage controls.
Instead of leading a fightback
against wage cutting, social cut-
backs, joblessness and growing
inflation, it has embarked upon

» private discussions with leaders

of big business and government.
This has opened the door to illu-
sions about some kind of trade-off
based on modification of tradi-
tional collective bargaining.

This class collaborationist as-
pect of CLC tripartism is a
dangerous betrayal of the in-
terests of the working class by
those rightwing trade union lead-
ers who have seen fit to embark
upon this course of action and for
which they must be severely cen-
sured and condemned.

The C.L.C. has called for
economic and social planning, for
machinery to deal with invest-
ments, manpower and equitable
distribution of income. All these
are important and legitimate
objectives.

But such planning is impossible
without nationalization of the key
sectors of the Canadian economy
which the C.L.C. has not called
for. Nor has its so called par-
liamentary political arm — the
New Democratic Party — whose
rightwing leadership is abandon-
ing one working class principle
after another in typical oppor-
tunist fashion, instead of using its
position to defend the basic in-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 26, 1977—Page 4

terests of the working class and
the Canadian people.

Cannot Agree on Limits

The only planning carried out
under private monopoly owner-
ship, both foreign and domestic,
will be planning for corporate
profits at the expense of the work-
ing people and at the expense of
Canadian independent de-
velopment.

The working class cannot agree
to limits on collective bargaining,
to wage restraints, social cut-

backs or any other kind of policies’

that place the cost of capitalist
crisis on the backs of the working
people.

The only controls working
people can support and work for
are controls over monopoly,
prices and profits, rents, land
speculators and oil corporations.

Collective bargaining by itself
cannot solve the basic problems
of the working class. The battle to
enlarge collective bargaining
must go side by side with the fight
for democratic nationalization
and democratic planning, and for
the election of a democratic,
anti-monopoly coalition govern-
ment to implement such a pro-
gram and to open the door to
fundamental reorganization of
society on a socialist basis.

. The struggle to enlarge
the scope of collective bargaining
and to establish the right of work-
ers and their unions to have a say
over the introduction of automa-
tion, technological change, the
moving or closing of plants and
factories, and health and safety, is
an integral part of the struggle
against.monopoly. The struggle
around these issues strikes at the
very heart of capitalist relations of
production.”’

(From the program of the

Communist Party of Canada
The Road to Socialism
in Canada, p. 40)

CUPW TRIES TO
END STALEMATE

OTTAWA — The national
executive of the Canadian Union
of Postal Workers has begun a
week long series of meetings in an
effort to get their stalemated
negotiations off the ground. Talks
broke off May 20, after only one
session which lasted 90 minutes.

Government intransigence and
refusal to bargain in good faith is
the cause of the stalemate.

‘ENVIRONMENT’
CLOSES PLANT

SAINT JOHN — Over 200
workers at the Irving Pulp and
Paper plant are being laid off. The
layoffs are caused by the closing of
a bleached sulphite mill for ‘‘en-
vironmental reasons’’. ~

The workers are being sacrificed
because the company cannot main-
tain ‘‘a viable sulphite mill meeting
acceptable environmental stan-
dards.”’

JUST GIVING 100%
SAY CONTROLLERS ~

TORONTO — The ‘“‘slowdown” —
by air traffic controllers could con-
tinue indefinitely, a member of the —
controllers’ association said. To- —

ronto chapter chairman Wayne |

Barry said the controllers are not ‘
on a slowdown, they just weren’t —
working to potential. Instead of

going back to giving 120% on the — ;
job they are sticking to 100%. :

Air traffic controllers in Ottawa © &

and Montreal are joining the tac- —
tics of the Toronto members.

PAPERWORKER’S
BREAK TALKS

VICTORIA — The Pulp, Paper —

and Woodworkers union says ©
talks have broken off to resolve a
strike that has

union spokesman said no further
talks were planned. The dispute,
which concerns wages and job
classification, affects 1550 work-
ers:

The use of scab labor during strikes against the Holiday Inn, Sobey
Stores and a local Sydney tavern prompted Cape Breton trade unionists
to ‘stage a picket outside the three companies.

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BISHOP MUZOREWA FINDS SUPPORT IN STRANGE PLACES
LONDON — Here during a meeting of the foreign ministers of the
U.S. Britain and South Africa, Bishop Abel Muzorewa claimed he

received the support of South Africa’s foreign minister Pik Botha for
“one man, ohe vote’’ in Rhodesia. Muzorewa and his ‘‘ United African
National Council’’ appear to be the hand-picked choice of the Western —
powers to offset the Patriotic Front, the genuine national liberation”
movement against the Smith regime.

The scons of Belfast greet Elizabeth Windsor during her tour of

Northern Ireland. In a show of typical imperialist arrogance and provo- —

cation the British monarch, symbol of hundreds of years of colonial rule
to the Irish people, staged the tour to celebrate the 25 years ofher reign.

closed a
McMillan-Bloedel pulp mill and —
two mills on Vancouver Island. A ©

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