Better than half a million organized
workers are going out for more money
in the wage packet in this year’s round
of negotiations. An estimated 4,000
contracts will be in the bargaining
hopper.

Industries involved include railways,
basic steel metal mining and smelting
construction, electrical manufacturing,
petroleum and chemical, hydro, tran-
sit, meat packing, fishing and cannery,
forest products, clothing and textiles,
civil servants (federal) teaching, nurs»
ing, printing trades, finance and trade,
and public services.

From every group of workers and
employees whose contracts are open
this year comes a universal demand:
more, take-home money in the wage
packet.

And for good reason, Prices are at
an all-time high for the post war pe-
riod as they relate to take-home pay.
The heaviest increases are on food,
housing, clothing, health needs, trans-
portation and recreation, all of which
strike hardest at working class in-
comes.

- Interest and mortgage rates, taxes of

all description, medical plan and in-
surance payments in their totality rose
more than the average rise in prices.
All of these items add substantially to
the cost of maintaining homes and
families. Income tax, medical and in-
surance plan deductions bite deeply
into yross money earnings.

According to government estimates
prices rose by 4.1 percent in 1968,
added to the new social improvement
tax it means a 6.1 percent cut in take-
home pay. Rents take 35 percent and
more of a worker’s income, and it
takes four months work to pay the
average worker's total yearly taxes.”

The sustained and heavy increases
in prices, rents, interest and mortgage
rates, and taxes are the result of a
calculated policy being pursued by the
big-monied interests and governments
to adjust dowmwards the living stand-
ards of the working people so that big
business may continue its unbribled
profit-taking at the expense of the
people.

This policy has two main features:
Firstly, to establish (in -fact) wage
guidelines. Last year wage increases
were kept down to an average 6.9 per-
cent across the country as a whole.
The goal for 1969 is 6.5 percent. The
pattern has already been initiated in
railway settlements. Secondly, through
persistent application of a prices struc-
ture which bears little relation to ac»
tual production costs.

In the prevailing economic situation
organized labor must advance and fight
for a wage program aimed at restoring
purchasing power and _ protecting
gains made, and thereby making a
contribution to the fight against pov-
erty.

For 1969 such a program should
include:

(1) Substantial wage increases need-
ed to correct income inbalance which
means rejection of the 6.5 percent
guideline;

(2) upward revision of low wage
categories which get relatively worse
as a result of percentage wage in-
creases;

(3) Meaningful cost-of-living escal-
ator clauses in wage contracts for the
protection of take-home money in the
face of spiralling prices, rents and
interest rates;

(4) a guaranteed weekly income
based on receiving 40 hours pay for
every week started even though hours
of work are less than forty;

’ (5) companies to pay full cost of
medical, insurance and sick pay plans;

(6) meaningful job security and
health protection provisions;

(7) the elimination of wage differ-
entials;

(8) short term contracts of no long-
er than two years duration.

Workers of hand and brain — the
producers of all real wealth in the
country—must win a bigger share of
the wealth they produce as their right-
ful. due. ;

real money

Organized labor, as in past years,
will face a heavy barrage of employer
propaganda via the mass communica-
tion media picturing the trade unions
as economic monsters driving the
country into bankruptcy by their
money demands. This propoganda will
be based on the Big Lie that high
wages are the cause of inflationary
price rises.

Nothing could be farther from the
truth. The truth is that workers are the
special victims of inflation. For infla+
tion robs the worker of his wage gains
—which are the price of his labor

power bought from him by the employ-’

er. The truth also is that wages and
other forms of workers’ income have
always lagged behind the cost of pro-
ducing labor power. Not least, the
truth is that productivity and profits
have risen while working people have
suffered indirect wage cuts through in-
flationary price rises, taxes, and high
rents.

Only through militant struggles have
the working people been able to make
some economic and social gains com-
mensurate with the material, social
and recreational requirements of ad-
vancing standards of life. In the most
recent period workers’ actions for
needed gains in the face of harsher cor-
poration exploitation and domination
have assumed a marked militancy.

But these militant actions have not
resulted in the gains which could have
been made because of a tendency for
unions to go their separate ways in
negotiations and actions to compel re-
luctant employers to accede to the just
demands of the workers. Moreover
these gains have been nullified by gov-
ernment policy which are the policies
of the employers.

This tendency must be_ reversed.
What is needed is for the unions to
confront the employers, who in the
main are united on overall objectives,
with coordinated demands, unity in ac-
tion, and solidarity in struggles.

The road to winning substantial
money gains in 1969 requires:

(a) bargaining coordination wher-

ever it can be usefully applied;

(b) joint bargaining on an industry
basis where practical and pos-
sible;

(c) mutual assistance in support of
strikes and for striking workers
beset by the police and the
courts.

* * *

Effective implementation of a com-
mon wages program calls for coordi-
nated actions by the trade union move-

ment which seeks the broadest demo-
cratic support to block the attempts of
governments to impose anti-strike and
compulsory arbitration laws on the
labor movement.

When such laws are already in ef-
fect as in B.C., all-out support should
be given to those unions who challenge
the application of bargaining-crippling
regulations and edicts, as for example,
the boycott called for by the B.C. Fede-
ration of Labor of the Mediation Com-
mission established in B.C, under the
anti-labor Bill 33.

Anti-labor legislation already on the
law books, as well as that threatened
in Ontario’s Rand Report proposals and
hinted about as being in the report of
the federal Woods Task Force, need
to be confronted by a united labor de-
mand for legislation which upholds the
rights of labor. Chief among these
rights is the right of strike, including
during the life of a collective agree-
ment.

United labor action for its Charter
of Labor Rights is inseparably tied to
the battle for wages, hours and condi-
tions. It assumes even greater urgency
in light of the bargaining strategy of
government and big business now un-
folding.

This strategy finds expression in a
growing intervention by goverment
into the bargaining process. This in-
tervention follows a pattern of top level
negotiations between unions, manage-
ment and government bargaining for
the workers without the participation
of the workers.

Another side is expressed through
labor legislation to limit or ban strikes,
enpowering the government to pro-
claim certain industries as being essen-
tial and on this basis ruling that dis-
putes therein between labor and man-
agreement be settled by compulsory ar-
bitration.

This carrot and club policy is based
on the fallacy of the existence of a
“labor-capital partnership.” Federal
Minister of Labor Mackasey put it this
way:

“We muSt initiate and encourage a
much greater degree of communica-
tion between labor and management.
My department must make labor and
management appreciate the fact that
they are not natural enemies, but na-
tural partners, (our emphasis) for in
the final analysis, the private enter-
prise system which provides the divi-
dends for company shareholders, prov-
ides also the jobs needed for our ever-
growing labor force . . .” (House of
Commons, November 21, 1968.)

The idea behind the “philosophy” of
“labor-management partnership” is to
create a suitable soil for top labor.
management collaboration in contrac.
tual relations, Such collaboration would
mean greater profits for the bosses and
less money in workers’ pockets.

Organized labor does not seek strife
as a way of life between labor and
managements. Neither does it back
away from struggle when militant ac
tion to achieve needed gains and just
aims is indicated. However, necessity
of struggle for improved wages, hours
and conditions on the part of the work
ing class is a hallmark of the capitalist
system.

To adopt a policy of no struggle, as
the “labor-management partnership”
idea suggests, is to be tricked into in-
adequate contract settlements. The
labor movement needs to reject. this
false concept with the full scorn it de
serves.

+ + *

Organized workers are able and wil-
ling to go all-out to make 1969 a year
to win satisfactory wage settlements.
They are in no mood to be cheated out —
of much-needed gains by any labor
management “partnership” ideas. This
is particularly true of the younger
workers who are generally the hard-—
est hit by the price spiral.

Given sound and courageous leader
ship the workers, a highly significant
number of whom are young, will give —
a good account of themselves in this —
year’s round of bargaining. The test of
good union leadership will be gauged
by how thoroughly the workers are in-
volved in every stage of contract nego
tiations. :

Full involvement of the workers in
bargaining coupled with united action ©
between unions, and workers solidarity
in struggle is the road to victories in
1969.

The central labor bodies have a res
ponsibility to lead in developing a con
mon front of unions in this year’s bat-
gaining. An agreement on steps for C0 |
ordination should be worked through
between the Canadian Congress of
Labor and the Quebec-based Canadian
National Trade Unions to further the
common interests of the French and
English speaking workers, taking fully
into account the need of erasing the
inequalities which exist in wage struc
tures as between French and English
Canada.

A common union front to win worth
while and needed gains in the 1969
round of negotiations must embrace
all unions regardless of affiliation, if
labor’s organized strength is to be fully
mobilized.

Unity and cooperation should be thé
watchword of the labor movement !? |
1969.

The Communist Party will do every
thing within its power to assist if
moulding and cementing unity, coop? —
ration and united labor action on wag?
front. J

_ Communist Party of