‘Contract not for sale

of productivity with no rest
Periods. This would leave the
Workers in the same bind as U.S.
Workers who have. what is call-
ed a tag relief system where
Someone tags you for a break
Sometime between when you
Punch in and out. Canadian’
Chrysler workers also have this
tag relief system, which they
had prior to the establishment
Of the rest periods. They-have
an 18 minute tag relief in the
Morning, one in the afternoon
Plus two ten minute rest periods
for a total of 56 minutes relief
during the day.

According to production work-
€rs this is little enough be-
Cause of the speed up and pres-
Sure of the production line, and
they are not about to retreat to
the American system: .

Daily transfer system; Chrys-

ler asks the right to transfer

anyone, anywhere throughout
the plant at anytime. This would
Mean that an older man, or a
Strong union man could find
himself down in the pit half
the time.

Job opportunities: Production
workers. now have the oppor-
tunity, according to seniority, to
Select their job at the commence-
Ment of each new model. The
Company is proposing to do
away with this.

Seniority: Seniority now ex-
tends throughout the whole

By WILLIAM ALLAN

DETROIT

ENERAL MOTORS Corpora-
tion locked out more than
40,000 of its employees,

members of the United Auto
Workers in the U.S. and pre-
pares to lock out thousands
more in Canada, using the ex-
cuse that all that’s involved is
several thousand foundry work-
ers who want six minutes a day
to wash their hands before eating.
Three GM foundries at Saginaw,
Mich., Defiance, O., and Tona-
wanda, N.Y. were struck by the
UAW, but involved is many
more issues besides six minute
Washup time.

Involved is the fact that there
are 1,326,000 unsold 1968 cars in
the showrooms, with GM having
59 percent of them and the UAW
charges through Leonard Wood-
cock, union vice-president that
GM actually wants a strike to
deplete its stockpile, and save
paying unemployment compen-
sation. GM, Ford, Chrysler are
faced with diminishing sales of
1968 cars.

y

Chrysler operation at Windsor
which embraces different fac-
tories involved in different ope-
rations. The Company wants to
restrict seniority to each single
operation. The workers call this
the “water faucet” theory. They
say that under the auto-pact
Chrysler wants to be able to
turn each plant off and on like
a tap in accordance with their
master plan and with no regard
for the interests of the workers
in the single operations.

Vacations: Under the old
agreement the company is ob-
liged to post the vacation sche-
dule to give workers 90 days
notice of their holidays. The
Company wants to do away with
this obligation and retreat to
the American formula where the
workers are given their vacation
pay and if they want a holiday
they have to bid for a time which
is acceptable to the company. It
is really a reverse of the old
formula of vacations without pay
to pay without vacations, union
men say.

_ Overtime: Under the present
agreement the Company is ob-
liged to spread the overtime
amongst all employees. Chrysler
wants to abolish this provision
and replace it with the “red-
apple” system whereby the com-
pany solely decides who will or
will not work overtime.

striker
‘has organized classes on i
_bor history, the story of the
UAW and the ‘uhion contract. |
What kind of ‘attendance:
‘ do they expect? :
One thousand workers. a.
day, the officials in charge of |

rations | sea pre-

the lockouts?

Auto analysts here expected
that production schedules would
have been slashed with corres-
ponding layoffs by all of the
Big 3. Instead GM in the US.
and Canada, chose the lockout
method:

There are also about 700,000
unsold 1967 cars as well as seve-
ral hundred thousand with more
age on them, built in 1965, 1964,
that are in the used car lots.

The union “branded as false
the claim of GM that the six
minute washup time was the
only reason the foundries were
down.

A UAW spokesman told this
reporter that, “in the Saginaw
Mich., GM foundry there are
46 issues between us and G.M.
In Defiance, O. and Tonawanda,
N.Y. similar numbers of de-
mands remain unsettled. You
should know that AFL-CIO Pat-
tern-makers in Sagina, Defiance,
Tonawanda get the six minute
washup time, so why does GM
refuse it to foundry workers
whom everyone knows have the
heaviest, dirtiest jobs. Other
demands are protective clothing

health and safety, transfers to
better jobs, cleaner places to
work.”

The foundry-production work-
ers involved in the washup issue
are mostly Negro workers. The
Patternmakers whom GM has
granted the washup time before
lunch to, are all white. i

General Motors of Canada, has
begun shutting down its Osha-
wa assembly plants using the
excuse of the foundry strikes in
the U.S. GM plants at Windsor,
and St. Catharines are expected
to be shut down by the company
in its lockout policy against the
UAW.

Overall, of the 164 units the
UAW bargains within the US.
only 84 have settled their de-
mands on local issues with G.M.
Last fall some 31,000 local plant
demands were on the tables be-
fore the GM management in 164
units in ove: 36 states in the
U.S. Of that 15,000 have been
settled. The UAW signed the
national GM pact in mid;Decem-
ber and gave the company 30
days to settle the local demands.

Relieved of the pressure of a
national strike hanging over
them, if they didn’t also con-
clude satisfactorily the local
plant demands, as had been the
practice in the past, GM toyed
with the local UAW plant bar-
gaining committees.

The UAW tells the story that
in the Chevrolet Division, GM
biggest division, local plant
managers didn’t even show up

‘at some bargaining sessions,

leaving the union negotiators
twidlling their thumbs.

UAW policy is not to strike
all 84 units but only several at
a time. GM has counteracted this
move by employing a massive

“Holy aerosol spraycans, Batman! Let’s get those strikers!” Windsor
police are now equipped with the new Mace chemical repellant and
other “anti-riot” gadgets. From this photo one would be excused if
they were to wonder about the sequence of usage: Do you spray
him, then bash him with the four-foot club, then shotgun him for
good measure? Are the Windsor police intending to use this anti-riot
junk against Chrysler of Canada who are currently on strike against

their workers?

lockout of already 40,000 and
threatening a nationwide lock-
out of 300,000 by Feb. 2, unless
the union capitulates and gives
up the other 15,000 unsettled
plant issues.

In Canada the same technique
is being readied by GM, and no

doubt Ford will follow suit. This
means that the $20 a month the
UAW expected to garner in from
strike assessments to help. the
Chrysler workers from over
30,000 GM and Ford workers,
will not be available. The work-
ers will be locked out.

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