| Chris ST ee eat a hy. Mine toh ate, eR Conair ©, OE siesineenaeis eet "_ WAGING WAR ON WORKERS Enforced Joblessness Statistics Canada has just re- January b y 0.3 per cent. This is oon drop in more than four 4 ae “victory’’ over inflation is tet € less brilliant when one ic Bnizes that price drops were clothing (due. to after- Gs tmas sales), transportation aad to reduced package air fares 8 falling oil prices) and in heen (also related to post- 0 ay sales). Un the other hand, most of the > ae of life increased in ind —food, housing, and health Noe onal care. fe teless, the yearly in- in Tate fell to 8.3 per cent in iba , a significant drop from igo of 12.8 per cent in June, Who Are the Winners? is aoe the federal government the b, ing that Canada is winning me attle over inflation, itis being ague about who exactly is win- Ning, ‘ Just as murder can end the vic- é S problem with a nagging | “ugh, so strangulation of the B Momy can reduce inflation. Ut is this a cure and should we ee it as a victory? or workers, the answer is no, Sr business the answer is yes. _ | Not Workers Canada’s tight-fisted economic Policy has thrown close to two ion people out of work, forced {other half-million onto part- © work, and made millions Ported that ave: i : rage prices actual- t declined in the month of more vulnerable to corporate de- mands for rollbacks and take- “aways. A lower inflation rate-is little consolation for someone on unemployment insurance and even less for those who have exhausted their UI benefits. Lower inflation is little benefit for the majority of Canadians who are working, since their rate of wage increases is falling faster than the rate of inflation. The falling rate of inflation is little benefit to most Canadians since, while saving rates are fall- ing with inflation, loan rates are not falling as fast. Big Business Is the Winner The battle against inflation. is being fought to help big business. The battle plans have strengthened the multinationals’ grip on the economy by bankrupt- ing smaller competitors, by weakening workers and their unions through skyrocketing unemployment and accompany- ing fears for job security, and by redeploying.. government re- sources. from people to corporations. The planned result of this fight against inflation is a strengthened big business community, with more resources to introduce labour-replacing technology; a ‘weakened and disheartened labour movement, less able to fight the job and security-destroy- ing plans of the corporations; and a more passive population which believes the attack on workers somehow has been necessary to protect Canada’s economy. eee 1 got to admit my inflation has been cured.” se Dire chrene Pane Inflation and Unemployment . . . | Winning Battle, But Losing War The only hope for working people is to fight back. The prob- lem is not inflation. It is un- employment. It is takeaways and rollbacks. It is an economy di- rected to the interests of big busi- ness, not of working people. The solution to these problems is made worse by the attack on workers’ living standards and jobs, since the spending power of workers is the essential ingredient to any worthwhile recovery plan. Labour’s Fightback Labour’s fightback centres around five demands. First fed- eral and provincial wage controls must be ended. Second, there must be an emergency program of job creation to deal with people’s needs — housing, social services, health services, and municipal works projects. There is a lot of socially-necessary work that needs doing and a lot of workers who are available to do it. Third, the federal and pro- vincial governments must extend income support to those being hurt bythe depression. Un- employment - insurance benefits should be extended as long as a person cannot find work. Pen- sions need to be increased dramatically, not rolled back by six and five. Welfare and other social assistance programs must be increased to provide people a decent standard of living. Fourth, prices: of necessities must be controlled. Energy prices must not be moved to the world level. Hydro and home heating fuel prices should be frozen. The federal government should re-introduce the subsidy on bread and milk. Provincial governments should extend rent control to all - tenants and limit increases to five per cent. Medicare should be made available to everyone without premiums (as in seven provinces already) and doctors should be forbidden to extra-bill. — Finally, provincial and federal governments must adopt an industrial strategy which will build Canada’s productive capa- city, to be used in the interests of people’s needs, not corporate profits. This means taking control of our natural resources and developing them under public” ownership. It means nationalizing our financial institutions so the wealth they control is put to use for the people of Canada. It means developing our manufac- turing base around the basic necessities of life for Canadians, not focused on export. There are solutions to our economic depression, but they require labour to fight as it never has fought before. Unless we fight now, the working people of Canada will continue to suffer from big business’ economic policies. THERE'S PLENTY OF OTHERS TO (F YOU DON'T LIKE THE IDEA WEE MADE SURE Take YOUR PLACE! Gov’t Policy Has Turned Canada’s Recession Into Worst in Western World Although the causes of Cana- da’s present economic crisis are complex, the response of federal and provincial governments has made matters. worse. The Gross National Product (GNP), which measures the total value of goods and services pro- duced by Canadians, fell five per cent in 1982, compared with a drop of 134 per cent in the U.S., and an average decline of half a per cent in the 23 Western indus- trialized countries in the Or- ganization for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD). Worse still, Canada’s un- employment rate jumped more than any other Western industrial- ized country, going from 7.6 per cent in 1981 to 11 per cent in 1982 —an increase of 3.4 per cent. The average for all OECD countries was an increase of only 1.4 per cent. The cause of Canada’s poorer performance, compared to other Western countries, is the federal government’s tight-fisted fiscal and monetary policies. One way governments can slow down the economy is by reducing the amount of money in circula- tion. This is referred to as the money supply. While the money supply in- creased by 5.9 per cent in OECD countries other than Canada in 1981 (the latest year for which this kind of figure is available), the Canadian government, through the Bank of Canada, reduced the money supply by five per cent. One of the results of this was to drive up Canadian interest rates, as borrowers had to bid higher for available funds. The real interest rates in Canada (after allowing for inflation) were the highest in the Western world. Canada not only strangled the money supply, it also adopted a tight-fisted fiscal policy. Fiscal policy refers to the government’s use of spending and taxing powers to stimulate or de- press the economy. By spending more and/or re- ducing taxes, governments can encourage economic growth. The reverse is also true: spending less or taxing more restricts growth by reducing consumer spending. * John McCallum, an economist writing in The Financial Post, has shown that Canada’s policies of raising taxes and restricting spending ‘‘implied significantly more tightening of fiscal policy than in all major countries except Britain.” The result of these deliberate policies by the Canadian govern- ment has been to turn Canada’s recession into a depression, and to make Canada’s depression the worst in the Western world. GE Says: Depression | ‘Healthy Thing’ ‘SA recession, like any other crisis faced squarely is a healthy thing. At the end of a recession, we are all better for the experi- ence, just as steel is stronger for having been through the fire. And one of the most important benefits is that we have been prepared for the mext reces- sion.”” —General Electric’s Communicator, Erie, Pa. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 8, 1983—Page 5