LABOR Calls for budget fightback echo from floor TORONTO — In referring the €xecutive board’s June 6 critique of the Mulroney government’s federal budget, delegates to the Metro Toronto Labor Council opted for action over rhetoric. The frustration that has been building inside the trade union MOvement since the last Cana- dian Labor Congress convention and the CLC’s failure to launch a -fight-back around its nine-point €conomic alternative program and the Canada-wide March for Jobs, spilled on to the floor of the Council as delegates rose not to Challenge the statement’s analysis, but to criticize its lack of action proposals to tackle the budget. Hammering the Wilson budget as ‘‘a mean blow against working people’’, the executive statement restricted the council to condemn- ing the Tory document, congra- tulating the NDP_on its opposition to it, and pledging the council’s support to ‘“‘community groups and organizations working to op- pose this budget, in particular senior citizens.” United Electrical workers de- legate Al Rees said there’s never been a better time for the labor movement to mobilize the people into action, and that it’s time labour councils throughout the country, particularly the largest such council in Canada — the Metro Toronto Labor Council — pressure the federations to de- mand that the CLC mobilize country-wide action against the Tories and for jobs. Stan Dalton of CUPE Local 79 called the budget ‘‘a battle plan by the corporations against the work- ing people of this country,’’ and said workers in Toronto ‘tneed better weapons than are con- tained in this document”’ to coun- ter the all-out attack aimed against them. Dalton drew the delegates’ at- tention to the latest issue of the Canadian Tribune and the posi- tion being advanced by the Com- munist Party for the development of a People’s Majority outside of parliament to first check and then defeat the Tory majority in Parliament, saying it was too bad the NDP wasn’t advancing a simi- lar program. During the course of the de- bate, which heavily favored pressure on the CLC to imple- ment its convention decisions, and called on the labor council leadership to begin mobilizing a - more aggressive fightback in its own territory, president Mike Lyons informed the delegates that the council would be writing to the CLC calling it to take the appropriate measures to imple- - Ment its much-delayed fightback program. VISA workers launch key battle with sit-in By KIMBALL CARIOU REGINA — Following successful events in Vancouver and Calgary, representatives of to- day’s jobless, and trade unionists, spent two hectic days in Regina marking the 50th Anni- versary of the 1935 On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot. They were joined for the activities and the journey to Ottawa by a similar group of seven from Saskatchewan. At a public meeting June 6, Saskatchewan Federation of Labor president Nadine Hunt _ Welcomed the group to Regina. She compared the plight of Canada’s working people in the depression of the 1930s to the situation today, reading out a selection of newspaper headlines from the two periods showing the striking simi- larities. Doc Savage, one of the eight-man dele- gation of 1935 which met ‘‘Iron Heel”’ Bennett ‘in Ottawa, spoke for the B.C. group, giving a rousing attack on the Tory policies which have Proven so disastrous in both eras. More than 130 people attended a reception for the Trekkers at City Hall the next day. Featur- ing displays of photographs of the time, and of newspaper front pages from the Regina ader-Post, the event drew both citizens who Say the police and RCMP attack the Trekkers ang their supporters, and unemployed and wel- Striking similarities then and now fare activists from as far away as Moose Jaw and Saskatoon. Ward 6 Alderman Joe McKeown, a strong supporter of the commemoration, greeted the - delegations on behalf of City Council, and stres- sed the need for working people to organize and fight at all levels for jobs. That evening, long-time labor leader, and a founder of the Relief Camp Workers union, Bill Gilbey, led more than 100 people on a walk through the area of downtown Regina where the events of July 1, 1935, took place. Gilbey and those who were on the scene at that time pointed out the locations in which city police and RCMP were massed, the spot where they brutally attacked the public meeting of supporters of the Trekkers, and the areas where people defended themselves with stones, pipes, etc., against the batons and guns of the police. The seven Saskatchewan delegates heading for Ottawa to see Prime Minister Mulroney in- cluded Gilbey, chairperson of Regina com- memoration activities; Matt Shaw and Fred Fraser, two veterans of the 1935 Trek; Paul Megaw and Ruth Shaffer, both active in local unemployed and welfare movements; and two unemployed laid-off trade unionists: Mickey White from Steelworkers Local 5890 (IPSCO), and Lorne Wagner of the Roche Percee Coal Miners Union near Estevan. "4 TORONTO — While the strike by 250 VISA processing centre workers at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce continues, some 60 workers who had occupied the basement processing centre to highlight demands for a first contract withdrew, June 13, not quite 24 hours after their sit-in started. Management jaws hung slack, at noon June 12 when the workers jumped the gun ona 4:00 p.m. strike deadline to launch their sit-in at the Bank’s basement work centre where the VISA credit card transactions are processed and approved by phone. The strikers have the full backing of the two-million member Cana- dian Labor Congress, which has indicated that this is a key strike in the fight to organize the unorganized that the Congress does not intend to lose. The CLC’s involvement includes bolstering strike pay to $300 a week (the average wage is $340 a week), and through the assistance the United Auto Workers have provided to the Canadian Union of Bank Employees (CUBE), at the bargaining table. Organizing in the banks has been an uphill battle since CUBE was launched eight years ago. The VISA centre is the largest single unit to be organized into a union. Most of the units currently in existence are small branches. CIBC, the third largest of the country’s banking houses with 32,000 workers, so far has 12 of its branches organized. Union officials say bargaining is just starting on behalf of 150 workers at four other Commerce branches. Better wages, benefits and job security, in addition to worker com- plaints about rampant favoritism, are the key issues in the strike. The VISA workers were certified last September. CIBC Officials showed they were ready to play ‘‘tough guy”’ with the occupiers. When the union tried to get food inside to the workers, security guards wouldn’t let it in. They cut off all telephone com- munication to the occupied area, and security was strengthened at the only entrance to the sit-in location. The inside workers kept in touch with the picket line outside through a walkie talkie system. Union members say they’re staying out until the Commerce management wakes up to the new reality — a decent first contract for CIBC workers. As the crisis of capitalism deepens, and employers desperately seek ways and means to increase profits, Labor must not fall into poisoned trap tinue to warn against this trap containing the poisoned bait. But such a program has to be coupled with a More and more attention is focussed on the intensi- fication of labor. Employers have resorted to the fron- tal assault — demands for concessions at the bargain- ing table, invocation of management rights to intro- duce collective agreement. The frontal assault is in- creasingly being complemented by more subtle Psychological warfare. Like the alchemist of old, the modern employer hoped to convert arsenic into gold in the minds of the worker. The Quality Circle and all of its myriad forms Is the latest psychological weapon hurled at the work- er. In his ‘Theory Z’’, William Ouchi, an advocate for - the Quality Circle, argues ‘‘that involved workers are the key to increased productivity.’’ (p. 4). : _ in tracing the success of the Japanese corporations in implementing the Quality Circle, Ouchi stresses that such circles cannot be forced and must appeal to the worker. What is not pointed out by Ouchi is the dire consequences for the worker. At Toyota which has had a form of Quality Circle for years, a team of 10 “assemble at least 50 cars per hour but at the moment (we) manage 60 ... in 1967 it took 30 ... to do the Same job’. (p. 23, World Trade Union Movement 0. 5). = The working day has been extended, the workers Voluntarily’’ forego their 19-day holiday entitle- Ment, and regularly work weekends. In short, trade Labor in action|t union rates and conditions are thrown to the breeze by the workers themselves. Workers’ health and safe- ty has deteriorated. Many unions in North America have confronted the slick and sometimes not so slick p.r. of corporate psychologists in the battle for the allegiance of the workers which Quality Circles pose. Many unions and most federations of labor have outright opposed Qual- © ity Circles. Nevertheless Quality Circles still persist as the employers seek to introduce them over the objections of the labor movement. The basis of the appeal to the worker for this Trojan Horse is the seeming ineffec- tiveness of the trade union movement in creating a humane workplace. The Quality Circle appears to offer such a possibility without struggle. This illusion is akin to a person beating his head against the wall ‘feeling good when he stops.’’ - The union movement is absolutely correct to con- program to make the labor movement seen as relevant to the salvation of the worker in the struggle for the humane work environment and for decent rates and Conditions. We cannot surrender that image to the boss. That is where the CLC 9 point Action Plan comes in. Finally, in deciding that it cannot travel in two directions at once, and survive, Canadian labor needs to withdraw from Labor Market Productivity Center. The Center, according to its own propaganda, is a bonafide Quality Circle in that it ‘‘recognizes that enhanced productivity is best achieved through equal partnership and shared responsibility between busi- ness and labor’’ and ‘‘encourages productive prac- tices that can make Canadian industries fully competi- tive on domestic and world markets’. A number of leading trade union figures in Canada serve on the board of directors of the Canadian Labor Market and Productivity Center in the mistaken belief that such a vehicle (which contains the Who’s Who of big business and the various levels of government) is the instrument to create jobs. It will not, except at the expense of union jobs and conditions. The Canadian Labor Market and Productivity Center is the philosophy of Quality Circles, and tri- partism at the highest level. It is an instrument for labor’s undoing. ee PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 19, 1985 e 5