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Ottawa Journal workers to hold ©

Ha. pay dog el eb acca oa

_ rally on first year of lockout

OTTAWA —., The remaining
140 locked-out workers at the Ot-
tawa Journal intend to celebrate
the first anniversary of their plight
at the hands of a vicious
Union-busting management, by
Staging a mass rally outside the
Journal Building Oct. 25.

‘The workers are calling on or-
ganized labor and other sup-
Porters in the capital city to take
1S or 20 minutes of their time to
Join the rally’ scheduled from
12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m. and show
Management the unions’ fight for

Its members’ rights to a job is not
Over,

The Ottawa Journal, on Oct. 25
1976 locked out 160 employees, in
Ve unions, rejecting the unions’
demands that workers displaced
by a new computerized pro-
duction process be either com-
Pensated or retrained instead of
dumped onto the street.

During the lock-out the Ottawa
Journal management has been
found guilty of Bad-Faith Bar-
8aining five times by the Ontario

According to a confidential
Study by a federal Government
_ committee, unemployment is ex-
P€cted to rise by 2% annually,
with UIC payments rising to $4-
billion by 1979. So says a Toronto
Globe and Mail Ottawa report,
Published October 18th. The re-
Port claims “‘about 2.5 million in-
dividuals will draw benefits annu-
ally over the next two fiscal
years.”’

The loss to the economy as a
Tesult of escalating unemploy-
“Ment will be horrendous, running
into tens of billions of dollars. At

© same-time this rich country is
NOW going to be so poor that it
fannot afford universal social
Programs like family allowances
and old age pensions. Considera-
ton is now reportedly being given
© stopping family-allowance
Payments to families with only
One child living at home.

The fact that the capitalist crisis
—©epens was emphasized last
Week in a report discussed at a
Meeting of the Communist Party

Canada’s Central Committee in

Cronto. The report stated that
he much heralded recovery in the
Capitalist world seems to have pe-
ered out.

It pointed out that the present
“nisis is not a transient feature, or
Simply a customary cyclical crisis
x the capitalist world, but that it
S now built into state monopoly
“apitalism with its resultant eco-
nomic and political instability.
-lat the aim of the system of
Monopoly capitalism is not the
Satisfaction of the needs of the

Ople, but the accumulation of
_ Capital by means of increasing the
©Xploitation of the working
People and the achievement of
Super profits by monopoly and the

Ulti-national corporations.

Enforcer of Impoverishment
‘ he aim of the capitalist state
aS S0vernments in this situation:
Sto act as the enforcer of a policy

Labor Relations. Board. The
Journal is refusing to give sever-
‘ance pay or any compensation to
those who will be displaced.

‘When ordered by the labor

board to start negotiating in good
faith, the Journal offered 86
locked-out Typographical Union
members only 18 of their jobs
back.

On the basis of the return to.

work of two of the smaller unions
numbering 21 people, manage-
ment has been proclaiming the
* dispute is over. The union main-
tains the fight is certainly not over
and in a leafiet announcing plans
for the rally urge ‘‘all unions (to)
join in and support this
demonstration.”

“The Ottawa Typographical
Union is not against technological
change’, the leaflet stresses,
‘‘but feels throwing people on the
street does not solve anything.
We want our jobs back.”’

The locked-out workers have
been receiving support from some
of their fellow typographical
union members in other cities. To

of impoverishment of the working
people. This fact has been em-
phasized over and over again by
bourgeois politicians, the mass
media and government ministers
at both federal and provincial
levels. It was most .clearly em-
phasized by Prime Minister
Trudeau when he urged Cana-
dians to discipline themselves
and, that if they did not do so ‘‘we
will discipline you’’, meaning the
government.

This threat exposes the ban-
kruptcy of state monopoly
capitalism as a system. It points
up sharply the contrast between it
and the crisis-free socialist world
system where the aim is a planned
economy to meet and satisfy the
needs of the people.

Present signs of another
downward turn in the economies
of the U.S.A., West Germany and
Japan, further points up the fact
that the present armaments
build-up has not brought jobs and
prosperity, but has led to trade
wars and increased protectionist
measures as the capitalist world

market shrinks, and as each coun- .

try seeks a way out of the crisis at
the expense of its rivals and,
above all, at the expense of its
own working class.
Break with Tripartism

To mount an effective fight
back, workers and their trade
unions have to demand a break
with tripartism and policies of
class collaboration. However,
simply opposing tripartism is not
enough. The trade union move-

‘ment needs to.oppose it with an

alternative policy that goes in the
direction of curbing monopoly

SOUTH AFRICAN
PRODUCTS

No economic recovery
in sight as
situation deteriorates

date, according to a Local 91
ITU official in Toronto, more
than $3200 has been raised at
plant gate collections and
donations.

The recent convention of The
Newspaper Guild (TNG) also col-
lected $379 from the delegates on
the floor. As reported in the Guild
Reporter, organ of the TNG, is-
sued Sept. 23, the Ottawa TNG
local’s lockout fund has received

a total of $30,431.75 from Guild :

units across Canada and through-
out the U.S.

LOCKED

wa OT

Shown here on the picket line in the middle of last winter, Ottawa

Journal workers are planning a mass. rally on October 25, the first

anniversary since the lockout.

Management refusal to negotiate
forces Windsor postal walkout

By MIKE McLISTER

WINDSOR — At 11:30 p.m.

Oct. 16, the Windsor local of the
Canadian Union of Postal Work-
ers (CUPW), walked off their
jobs. This took place in the after-
math of a demonstration, the pre-
vious week which ended with an

power, making it clear that the
working people are not against all
controls. That they are against
wage controls, but in favor of
price controls on selected food-
stuffs, rents and overall dem-
ocratic curbs on the multinational
corporations.

The alternative has to include
an effective wage policy to win
compensation for price rises plus’
current inflation, while at the
same time improving living
standards.

Wage controls must go, and
collective bargaining has to be
fully. restored and extended in
scope. The economy must be ex-
panded to absorb the jobless,

while income must be redistri-—

buted in favor of the working
people through a shorter work
week, expanded social services,
increased pensions and lower
taxes on working people. We
need a program of low cost
housing, a policy of equal pay for
work of equal value, for men and
women.
Back to Work Program

Moreover, a program to put
Canada back to work must in-
clude public ownership of energy
and natural resources and
development of secondary indus-
try on that basis. A new made-
in-Canada Constitution based on
an equal voluntary partnership of
English- and French-speaking na-
tions that make up this country.
Expansion of trade with the
socialist and newly-liberated
countries, a guaranteed annual
income, stable markets and prices
for the farmers, a 50% cut in arms
expenditures, and’ withdrawal
from NATO and NORAD.

This kind of program, ad-
vanced by the. trade union move-
ment and with full support of all
anti-monopoly forces, can prom-
ote real Canadian unity and pre-
serve and extend our country’s
independence.

agreement that if workers went
back to their jobs management
would engage in meaningful
conciliation.

Management then proceeded to

show complete disregard for the.

welfare of their employees and
the talks broke down. The CUPW
executive .went to the member-
ship, which voted to strike until
postmaster Gagne was ready to
negotiate.

Bruce Dickie, president of the
local, in a press release, said, “‘if
Mr. Gagne is as prepared to deal
with the problems we have, as he
is prepared for the strike he has
caused, then we should be back to
work very shortly.”’

There are five major issues in
the strike. Noise pollution is at
excessive levels due to ‘the
machinery. Tests were made a
year ago but the results were not
released. The union has asked for
headphones or ear plugs, and
have even offered to pay for them
themselves.

Gagne maintains that it is na-
tional policy that they are not. al-
lowed in the post offices.

The illegal use of casuals is
another issue. One half of the
manual sorters have been placed
on the encoding machines, and
management has refused to hire
people to replace the displaced,
although there is no decrease in
the work.

Contract Ignored

The contract provides for a
large enough permanent work
force including replacements, in-
stead casuals are used. It also
provides for overtime to be of-
fered to full time employees dur-
ing times of high volume of mail to
be complemented by casuals.
This is not being done.

ae

3 CANADIAN UNION OF POSTAL WORKERS
- The need for CUPW’s campaign

to expose problems in the.post of-
fice, is illustrated by the Windsor
walkout.

At a time of high unemploy-
ment when Canadians are
demanding full time permanent
jobs, the government continues to
pursue a policy of denying the
benefits of union security. It is
using these workers essentially as
hostages to force speed up upon
its workers.

Along with this, the post office
has begun the policy of eliminat-
ing the day shift over the next five
or six years. These jobs are the
most coveted. While afternoons
leave little or no time for a social
life, the midnight shift is univer-
sally viewed as having intolerable
effects on the physcial and mental
well being of those forced to work:
it for long periods.

“As it is, it takes an average of
at least 8 years seniority to even
have a prayer of working days,”’
one worker told the Tribune.

In the post office’s attempt to
cut manpower, a policy of hiring
two part time workers instead of
one full time has been
instituted.

Not-so Subtle Hints

There have been many com-
plaints of harassment of union of-
ficials and workers. Dickie spoke
of an incident when he took of-
fice, when he was lectured by
management on how he should
handle union procedures and
problems and was left with not-
so subtle hints that he might not
be there very long if he didn’t fol-
low the advice.

Union members have also been
subjected to harassment and in-
timidation in the efforts to get the
workers to take a bigger work
load. Another example of
Management’s pettiness was
shown during the last meeting
with the union over working
conditions.

Management stated that if the
union complained too loudly, the
hours of the afternoon-shift would
be changed from 4 p.m. to 12:30
a.m. to 5:00 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.

The union has come out in total
support of its executive. Techni-
cally the strike is illegal, although
the national executive has given
its support. There is no contract.
Striking is prohibited until one
month after negotiations have be-
gun. ‘‘This show of solidarity is a
fine example to the labor move-
ment in Windsor,’ a spokesman
for the Windsor region of the

Communist Party said. ‘“‘With the
slander and abuse that is sure to
come from the media, it falls upon
communists and progressives to
step forward and defend the right
of postal workers to strike and to
collective bargaining.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 28, 1977—Page 5