| LABOR

Hearings open up corporate attack on unemployed

TORONTO — Instead of dismantling
Unemployment insurance, the federal
government ought to restore the cuts it
made to the system and improve its de-
livery to the millions of Canadians
thrown out of work by an economic crisis
Not of their making.

That was pretty much the unanimous
Message delivered over three days of
Public hearings to the Forget Commis-
Sion studying the UI system, by or-
8anized labor, the unemployed and their

Political and community-based allies.

The commission, set up by the Mul-
Toney government ostensibly to study the
unemployment insurance system to find
ways of delivering better service to the
Jobless, is in fact a scarcely-disguised
€xercise in public relations to promote
the recommendations of the Macdonald
~-oOmmission report on the economy call-
_ Ing for the effective dismantling of UI
and replacing it with a means-tested
guaranteed annual income system.

In fact, the commissioners admit in
their background guide for the particip-
ants in the enquiry, revealingly titled

Back to the Drawing Board’’, that they

Ope to provide a forum for a public de-

‘ate round Macdonald’s proposals on
_ the UI system.

Briefly, Macdonald wants eligibility
for UI reduced, the length and amount of

nefits decreased, and a guaranteed an-
nual income to supplement the meagre

I and provide an all-in one income to
the poor that would replace most of the
Universal social benefits now in effect,
Such as family allowances.

Since the hearings were launched last

Ctober, the commission, headed by

-D. Howe Institute economist Claude
Forget, has been dogged from one end of
Canada to the other by labor, the
Churches, the unemployed, social ser-
Vice agencies and others demanding an
Upgraded UI system.

Not Surprisingly big business has been
thrilled with the commission’s work en-
dorsing all of the proposed cuts and
Pressing for further concessions that will
Het them escape responsibility to help
fund the System. Some have even called

for turning UI entirely-over to the tender
mercies of the private insurance sector.

But it was big business and the
governments who develop policies in
their interests which came under fire in a
hard hitting brief to the commission by
the Communist Party of Canada.

Like the economies of the capitalist
world in general, the brief argued, Cana-
da’s is trapped in a deepening structural

crisis fueled by the quickening process of
mergers and buyouts.

Increased monopolization of the
economy and private control over the
technological revolution are ensuring
that poverty and unemployment have
become permanent features of the sys-
tem.

The brief called on the commission to
oppose the government’s drive to free

‘The problem is jobs’ —
NAC tells Ul hearings

TORONTO — ‘‘The problem is
jobs, not unemployment in-
surance’, the National Action
Committee on the Status of Women
told the federal commission charged
with revamping Canada’s Unem-
ployment Insurance Commission.

NAC representative Laurel Ri-

chie cautioned the commission not |

to be swayed by arguments by the
corporate sector that ‘‘unem-
ployment insurance has seduced
workers away from gainful employ-
ment. It is the lack of jobs in this
country that have forced more

Canadians than ever before to use

thesystem’ So. es
Speaking for over three million
women, the organization’s compre-
hensive submission outlined the ad-
verse effects of current government

policy on women in the labor force.

“The government is moving to a

reliance on market forces’’, Richie
said, noting that recommendations
in the Macdonald report including
free trade, privatization and deregu-
lation will mean ‘‘a tremendous dis-
location for Canadian workers’’.
“Why is the government con-
templating changes to UIC, includ-
ing streamlining and reducing bene-

fits at a time when workers are most
likely to need them?”

Charging that the government was
in fact creating unemployment, Ri-
chie cited the elimination of jobs in
the public service, cutbacks in trans-
fer payments to the provinces,
subsidization of industry to purchase
new technology that displaces
workers, abandonment of the tex-
tile, clothing and shoe industries and
moves towards free trade with the

- United States.

The brief calls for the develop-
ment of full employment policies
including revitalizing Canada’s
manufacturing sector, improved so-
cial services, reduced work time and
the adoption of measures to prevent
companies from relocating in low
wage areas.

The NAC rep urged the commis-
sion to fall into step with the indus-
trialized countries of Europe which
are more generous in their social
payments than Canada. Specifically
she called for the extension of in-
surance coverage to part-time work-
ers, the majority of whom are
women and increased parental
benefits of 17 weeks for a new moth-
er with an additional 24 weeks avail-
able to either parent.

Labor pushes protection of benefits

trade with the U.S. and said that ‘‘only
drastic measures including public
ownership and democratic control of key
industries, energy and other natural re-
sources as well as financial institutions —
can begin to tackle the crisis.”’

In a 13-point program of UI improve-
ments the party called for 100 per cent
coverage of the workforce; benefits for
the full period of unemployment based
on 80 per cent of earnings prior to layoff;
and that worker contributions to UI be |
reduced to 20 per cent of the costs, with
employers and the government splitting
the difference.

The brief was in line with other sub-
missions including the Ontario Fed-
eration of Labor, the Metro Toronto
Labor Council, the United Auto Work-
ers, the United Electrical workers, NDP
member of parliament Dan Heap and
others who made similar -recom-
mendations, calling for an end to the
hounding and intimidation of UI reci-
pients and the end of disqualifying work-
ers laid off due to a strike or lackout.

There was general support in principle —
from labor on the proposed guaranteed
annual income, but not at the poverty
levels proposed by Macdonald and cer-
tainly not as a substitute for unemploy-
ment insurance. The UE pointed out that
Ulis not part of the ‘‘safety net”’ of social
services but, ‘‘is an income maintenance
program based on insurance principles
... (which must) assure that benefits are
related to previous income and that the —

recipient does not suffer a serious |

diminution in earnings capacity.”

The Toronto Union of Unemployed
Workers blasted the commission for its
‘sham of a consultation process which
will be used to justify substantial cut-
backs in the unemployment insurance
system’’, and went right to the heart of
the matter demanding ‘‘that jobs be the ©
number one economic priority — that is
permanent jobs at a decent wage, with
equal pay for work of equal value.”

Criticising the Tory government for
having no intention of creating jobs, the
UUW stressed that since, ‘“‘unemploy-
ment is not the workers fault — they
must not be blamed or made to suffer.”’

aggCRONTO — A public rally
“ea the Tory government's in-
gril us de Havilland sellout an-
ae Called on Prime Minister
oan Mulroney, Jan. 28, to give
peecan taxpayers some real
is Into the decision to give
eM One quarter of our aero-
mere industry to a U.S.
TaNsnational.
dorseq @or2™ unanimously en-
at th By the meeting lashed out
hear; e token’’ parliamentary
Otta 28s conducted in the clubby
tion ‘Wa atmosphere as “‘a distor-
“ah Of the democratic rights of
‘the eens to express whether
s Y favor the sale’’ of de Havil-
The Boeing Corp., of Seattle.
Spo © participants at the meeting,
Ca sored by the Council of
Nadians, called on Mulroney to
hVene a parliamentary enquiry
emmittee that would tour the
htry for three months seeking
views of ordinary Canadians

about the deal that sees Canada
surrender its only fully integrated
aircraft plant to a U.S. trans-
national and king pin in the mili-
tary-industrial complex, for a pal-
try $90-million.

The Toronto meeting took
place on the eve of the completion
of the ‘‘sham’’ hearings into the
sale, which the federal Tories
wanted to close on Jan. 31. The
CoC at first was barred by the
government from presenting its
arguments against the sale to the
parliamentary committee, but
finally was allowed to present its
case when the government re-
lented under pressure from the
Opposition parties.

Speakers at the rally attacked
the deal as unsound economically
and for posing a serious threat not
only to the future of the Canadian
aerospace industry, but eventual-
ly to our national sovereignty.

- Bob. Nickerson, secretary-

treasurer of the United Auto
Workers — Canada, the union
representing de Havilland work-
ers, called the Tories’ decision ‘‘a
farce’’, which, in addition to the
hundreds of millions the govern-
ment will give Boeing as part of
the transaction, will still see Ot-
tawa continue to pour millions of
dollars into the transnational
through grants for research and
development, defense production
sharing agreements and other
means.

“The government will be in it

' whether they like it or not’’, Nic-

kerson told the meeting and he
concluded with the demand that
the federal government maintain
de Havilland as a crown corpora-
tion and an essential part of the
Canadian aerospace industry in
which the taxpayers have so
much invested in.

Toronto Disarmament Net-

- work spokesperson Bob Penner

_ Rally demands hearings on de Havilland

charged that the deal was an in-

Vitation to ‘‘the militarists to take

another chunk out of Canada.”’

He stressed that Boeing would
be a powerful lobby for federal
government military contracts,
while noting that with $150-mil-
lion secured from the U-S.
government in Star Wars con-
tracts, last year Boeing was the
biggest beneficiary of the Star
Wars pork barrell.

Penner called on Canadians to
tell the Mulroney. government
that Boeing isn’t wanted in Cana-
da. ‘‘A clear message needs to be
sent to’ Ottawa’’, Penner said,
““we don’t want Boeing’s military

production in Canada, we don’t

want more production of
weapons to fight nuclear wars
with, we don’t want Star Wars in
Canada and we don’t want our
economy made dependent on
threatening the existence of the
human race.”

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 5, 1986¢e7

CoC Toronto member Alex
MacLennan, who also chaired the
vigil Committee that organized
the recent nightly protests outside
of de Havilland’s plant gates
hammered the Tories for their
secrecy in negotiating the deal
and situated the scandal within
the Mulroney government’s
Reaganite commitment to dis-
mantling Canada’s crown cor-
porations and to integrating this
country into a continentalist em-
pire at the service of the U.S.
transnationals.

Recalling Finance Minister
Michael Wilson's federal election
promise to combine Canadair,
(which is also currently on the _
selling block) and de Havilland -
into one large crown corporation
in aerospace, MacLennan said
the Tories had forfeited their right
to govern with the de Havilland
sellout. a