FE a rR cape Ga Us OL a OVER TH at TB Mat | Rn i ds aa ds LM Osea 7 La * y LO Pe nT ee LABOR ™ BRIEF Four-month fight for decent wages, pensions Gaspé miners’ strike continues - By CLAIRE DEMERS MURDOCHVILLE — It’s been four months on the picket line for the 1,200 miners at the Gaspé Cooper Mines and Noranda Mines in their fight for justice. Their current base rate of $6.20 an hour is some $1.45 an hour less than workers in Noranda’s other Quebec operations, the mine in northwestern Quebec and _ the Montreal iron refinery. On top of this, the cost of living is higher in the Gaspé. The entire labor movement re- calls the epic strike conducted by the Murdochville miners in 1957, when the workers were con- fronted with attacks by Duplessis’ *., police. This time the strikers have turned away from the federal parliament building Feb. 14 as they tried to lobby their members of parliament. The postal workers wanted to pre- sent their MPs with Valentine cards reading, “We'll be here after elec- tion day. Will you?”. : INCO TALKS COLLAPSE SUDBURY — The 16-member Inco strikers’ negotiating commit- tee came home Feb. 10 after medi- ation talks in Toronto folded the previous day. Supervisors were » barred from crossing picket lines when the strikers got the news that Inco was continuing to refuse negotiating a satisfactory agree- ment with the 11,700 Steelworkers. here. Steelworkers’ Ontario direc- tor Stew Cooke said the union would issue a country-wide appeal for funds in the 158-day strike. SASK. LABOR BLASTS RCMP REGINA — A brief to the MacDonald Royal Commission on the ‘(RCMP released Jan. 26, charged the labor movement was being surveyed by the federal lice force and demanded there should be explicit legal protection ‘‘against this anti-democratic spy- ing.” The brief also called for an end to the double standard which exempts the police from punish- ment for breaking the law. Indi- viduals breaking the law are punished, the SFL charged, while jaws are changed to accom- modate violations by the police. $14,000 GIVEN TO INCO STRIKERS OTTAWA — A cheque for $14,543.56 was sent to the striking Local 6500 Steelworkers in Sud- bury from the 41,000-member Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Transport and General Workers © ject (CBRT). Half of the donation came from CBRT locals and individuals, with the Brotherhood matching the amount dollar for dollar from the union’s own funds. : - SUMMER SCHOOL BOYCOTT THREATENED TORONTO — ‘Your summer school will be closed down,”” Bob Buckthorpe, Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation pres- ident warned the Toronto Board of Education Feb. 13. The OSSTF head told the board the union has ordered its 33,000 On- tario membership not to apply for night schoo! and summer school jobs in Metro Toronto because full- or part-time teachers didn’t have hiring preference. He was responding to the scuttling of a tentative pact between the board and the teachers by right-wing Tories on the board which would have given Toronto teachers job security and hiring preference. JAIL UNION-BUSTERS. O’KEEFE DEMANDS PETERBOROUGH — Pat O’Keefe, assistant Ontario direc- tor for the Canadian Union of Pub- lic Employees, Feb. *12, called for jailing employers convicted of in- terfering with a worker’s right to join a union. His was the keynote address at a three-day union or- ganizers’ conference sponsored by the Ontario Federation of Labor. A former member of the Ontario Labor Relations Board, O’Keefe also called for the disbarring of lawyers ‘‘who have made a caree of union-busting.”’ BUS BUILDERS LOCKEDOUT | WOODSTOCK — Manage- ment changes in contract items approved in a Dec. ratification vote prompted the sit down strike by the 58 members of Local 636 United Auto Workers last week which resulted in Thomas Built Buses of Canada locking out the entire work force, Feb. 8. THREE YEAR PACT REFUSED AT ATLAS WELLAND — Atlas Steel Co. workers, members of the indepen- dent Canadian Steelworkers Union voted 62% last week to re- a recommended three-year pact that would have produced 33.5% wage increase. The current agreement expired Feb. 16. AECL WORKERS VOTE TO STRIKE OTTAWA —Enpployees at the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. (AECL), commercial products division, voted 93% for strike ac- tion, Feb. 7 to back demands for their first collective agreement under the Canada Labor Code. The 120 workers, members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada gave the union a strike mandate because their employer refused to resolve the contract dispute on the basis of a concilliation report resolving 14 outstanding issues in the talks. led ty ae ae ‘ * no intention of bowing to the Postal workers fed by CUPW president Jean-Claude Parrot were multi-national corporation. _ The workers maintain that the dignity of the entire region is at Stake in their struggle for justice from Noranda. With a population of 5,000 in Murdochville, the strike of the 1,200 miners affects the entire region. The fringe benefits granted to the workers are really on the “fringe” of what is needed for a decent life. For example, Laurent Synnette, who’s been working at Murdochville for 26 years, con- fided to the French-language Montreal daily La Press, he’ll be entitled to a pension of around $40 a month ... providing, as he says, he makes it to retirement age. Workers with 20-25 years of ex- perience for the most part have had at least one accident at work. When a miner hits 45 years of age, he’s already old. The iron- ore multi-nationals haven't got a good reputation when it comes to the health and security of their employees. On the average, one miner is killed every 10 weeks at Inco’s Sudbury operations where 12,000 striking Steelworkers have been conducting a five-month bat- tle with the giant corporation. Noranda refuses to pay more than a token amount for the necessary clothing required by the miners to perform their work. The miners say this is an expen- sive burden they must bear, par- ticularly when it costs about $100 a year just to buy work boots. With a net weekly pay of $160, after 48 hours of work, it’s tough for a miner to provide his family with a decent living. The miners’ wives aren’t re- maining idle. Some 400 have taken part in mass pickets and demonstrations, supporting sup- porting their husbands’right from the beginning of the strike. THOUSANDS MARCH FOR SLAIN WORKER EL CENTRO, California — Thousands of members of the Un- ited Farm Workers mourned the murder Feb. 10, of Rufino Con- treras, a 28 year old union worker shot to death by scabs. A total of 10 lettuce fars were struck four weeks _ ago by 4,100 farm workers fighting for decent wages and working con- ditions. Some 7,000 farm workers at 30 farms stayed off the job Feb. 13 to pay their respects to the slain Contreras, the father of a 5 year . old son. The newspapers have been stressing that the low price of iron, will work against the strik- ers. Last December, the company reported that the industry was dis- turbed with a number of other conflicts in Latin America in addi- tion to the instability in Zaire ... In Rouyn-Noranda they’re hint- ing about layoffs. The big corporations are look- ing to make the workers pay for the severe crisis gripping the industry. The crisis affecting the iron industry, like similar crisis in other important section of the metals industry, reflects the gen- eral crisis of the world capitalist system as a whole. And who knows, Noranda may yet brandish the threat of moving its production facilities elsewhere if the Murdochville miners refuse to tighten their belts for the com- pany. - Maybe they’ll move to Chile, where the fascist dictator Pinochet guarantees that miners work for Noranda and other companies all get the same low wages. We know that Inco ex- ported capital to Guatemala and Indonesia while it laid off workers in Sudbury. The multi-nationals are always on the lookout for cheap labor in other countries. It all proves that the striking miners in Murdochville and Sud- bury need labor’s active solidari- ty. Bruce Magnuson’s column will Profits not wages behind food — 4 Price hikes, food union charges TORONTO — Profiteering by the food monopolies and not Wages are the root of skyrocket-' ting food prices, a representative of the food workers unions says. Bill Reno, an international rep- resentative for the Canadian Food and Allied Workers union, in a brief prepared for presenta- tion to the People’s Food Com- mission Toronto hearings slated for later this month, slammed big-business ‘‘propaganda’”’ citing Wages as the culprit. ee Food workers are not respon- sible in any way for the skyroc- ketting price of food”, Reno charges in the union's brief. ‘‘One doesn’t have to dig very deeply in Official documents to find this out. Food workers are averaging in- creases of 6% in wages ... while corporate profits grew by 25% in the food sector last year.” The CFAW brief reflects recent government figures showing that food profits in 1978 jumped 21% zooming past wage increases. Reno cited this as more proof of the union’s claim that prices and not wage increases have been the engine pulling inflation upward. Reno called Prime Minister Trudeau’s defence of the profit gouging of the food monopolies, in a recent speech in parliament, a ‘‘cynical apology”’ for the rise in corporate profits. Trudeau had said the govern- ment was happy that profits were booming. and gave his govern- ment the credit for much of the _ increase. _ The People’s Food Commis- sion will be holding five days of hearings in Toronto Feb. 21-25. For people in the Toronto area, -the hearings will be held at the Palmerston Avenue Library start- ing at 2:00 p.m. : Toronto Mayor John Sewell will open the hearins on Feb. 21. More than 40 groups and indi- viduals will submit briefs to the food commission hearings in To- ronto, representing community, labor, church, school and public interest organizations. It will also -OXFAM-Canada, hear from senior citizens, welfare recipients, consumers and en- vironmentalists. The City of To- ronto. Board of Health, and the YWCA are among the organiza- tions submitting briefs. The People’s Food Commis- _sion is an independent cross- country inquiry in Canada’s food system, the organization says. It is sponsored by more than 100 or- ganizations and institutions, and it conducts hearings organized by local volunteer- working groups -concerned about profiteering, nutrition, shrinking farmland, and use of chemical additives in the food industry. Hearings have already been conducted in Calgary, Van- couver, Ottawa, London and Re- gina. The commission has held proceedings in rural centres like Cold Lake, Alta., also Willow Bunch, Sask., and Courtenay, B.C. A final report will be pre- pared by the commission when it completes its hearings in April. WAGES Fottow.... ae VAS b+ 74. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 23, 1979—Page 5