ween | =| oe WORKERS at'the construction sites of a new fish plant and a ‘shipyard in Newfoundland have walked off the job to back demands for improved wages and working conditions. The estimated cost of the construction is $16,000,000, a large portion of which is pro- Vincial government guaranteed funds. i * x * SYDNEY local of the Steelworkers Union has criticized the federal government for its delay in introducing Medicare. A strong resolution on this is being presented to the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labor in Halifax starting Sept. 28. . *, * * TORONTO policemen are asking for a 25 percent wage in- Crease, plus fringe benefits including the right to marry another member. of the force. Although in 1965 Metro police were the highest paid in Canada, they are now behind Hamilton, St. Cather- ines, Oshawa, Vancouver and other centres. ok Wine ok INCO workers in Sudbury and Port Colborne have voted to accept a new three-year contract by a narrow margin. Provisions include wage increases to $3.76 an hour from $2.78 for first class tradesmen, $3.21 an hour from $2.59 for mine drillers and $2.67 an hour from $2.221% for laborers, longer vacations and improvements’ in the pension plan. * * THE DEPARTMENT of Labor has announced that major labor Contracts signed in the first half of 1966 provided wage increases averaging 15.4 percent over two years. The raises ranged from 5 percent to 32 percent in 19 two-year contracts. — The drive is on White-collar workers jump on union train 1 WAS not so very long ago. that union leaders. would claim it was impossible to organize white collar workers, but in Quebec today, the rush to jump on the union train is perhaps more obvious among white collar workers’ than among anyone else. When Dupuis Fréres, an east end Montreal department. store, was struck, it was an epoch- making and symbolic event. Today there are more organized salesclerks in Quebec City than there are organized railway workers. Workers stand firm Management caves in REWERY workers in Toron- to won an important victory for all labor when they challenged the right of the brew- ery warehouse company to re- fuse to hire men over 40. Tony Myche was refused a’ permanent job with the com- pany because he was 44 years old. He had passed with flying colors all ‘the tests: He had worked as a temporary emplo- yee with no complaints about his work. When he reached the top of the list in seniority of the temporary workers he applied for the first permanent opening. And was refused, _Tony’s fellow workers decid- ed to have none of this. And the warehouse was closed down, fol- lowed by the men who work at the retail brewery outlets join- ing in the picket lines. As one worker at a store in the centre of Toronto said, “When they wanted. us toy fly planes or go into the army and we were over 40, no-one said we were too old.” After five days in which the supplies of beer in the stores and hotels dwindled fast the _ company caved in. It has agreed to raise its age limit on granting permanent status to 45 years. The union has already announ- ced, while voting to return ‘to work, and with Tony Myche hired, that it will appeal the 45 year restriction to the Ontario Human Rights Commission. By the time of the settlement more than 1,200 drivers and warehousemen from Kingston to Hamilton and Toronto to Brace- bridge had all walked off the job. Those stores still open were being operated by the managers. Not only did these men win a job for their fellow worker, and retroactive pay back to May ‘when he became eligible for per- manent status, but also won an important fight against the sole prerogative of management to set restrictions in hiring prac- tices. As a picketer at the Toronto warehouse expressed it, “If a man proves capable he should be hired no matter what his age and that’s what we’re out here to get.” Brewery workers picket retail outlet on Dupont St. SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE The unionization and subse- quent strike of the entire Que- bec civil service was another first, but in the last few weeks even bank employees have join- ed in the drive to bring unions into every sphere of labor. Union organizers responsible for the campaign among white collar workers are unanimous iu claiming that clerks and retail sales personnel are among the most exploited in the country. In fact, the tough old timer is often baffled to know why any- one would take a job in a bank or a Store in the first place. Forty dollars a week in the department stores of Montreal, $36 in Quebec City, and yet the retail companies and banks fight the union as remorselessly as the two-bit manufacturers of rural Quebec. The Canadian National Bank, with 400 branches and 4,000 em- ployees in Quebec, pays a basic salary of $2,600. After ten years an accountant may still only bring in not more than $4,300, but in its fight to break the CNTU's organization drive, the bank has fired six employees. The CNTU has every intention of taking the firings to court._ Elsewhere, «groups of clerks and cashiers have been hauled into managers’ offices and grilled for information. Some of those who signed up have been ordered by their superiors to put their names at the bottom of bank- drafted letters of resignation. . In Quebec City, the CLC drive to organize ‘the big department stores—Pollack, J. B. Laliberte, Paquette, the. Syndicat de Que- bec—has met with a stubborn and relentless opposition. Pollack, the largest Quebec retail outlet, has even told gov- ernment investigators where to get off. The store took one year to organize. It now refuses to make its employees’ list avail- able to the, Labor Relations Board. Paquette also took a year to come into the union orbit. Once accredited, the union had to fight the company through every level of the courts. It is at pres- ent in the appeal court where the company is trying to reverse a superior court decision in the union’s favor. In Montreal, 4,000 sales em- ployees are now in accredited unions. Quebec with its unem- ployment and endless slums has 1,800. On the banking side, the cam- paign to set up the first sizeable union of bank employees in North America has another four weeks to go. Cards come in. daily from those who were once considered untouchable. After the Canadian National comes the Toronto Dominion, say the unions, and on down the line. The school teachers of Que- bec are solidly behind their union (CIC) as well. In strikes and mass resignations they have achieved a degree of solidarity which many a blue collar orga- nizer might envy. Even among the Protestant teachers of west Montreal, there is talk of strike as English teachers realize they are getting paid less than their French equi- valents. and much less than those in Ontario. Quebec organizers used to ac- cuse the bank employees of working for glory when they ~ would not buy cards 30 years ago. CIC, CLC, CNTU, nobody works for glory any more! CRACKDOWN on Quebec labor UEBEC Minister of Labor Bellemare bared his teeth last week and said his gov- ernment would crack down on any disobedience to court in- junctions. Waving his finger at delegates of the Quebec Board of Trade, meeting in convention-in Quebec City, he said, “The government to which I belong has no inten- tion of putting up with the situa- tion in which Superior Court or- ders are defied.” He announced that, “senior officials of the Labor and Justice ministeries are already studying modifications of the law to put an end to disobedience to in- . junctions.” “Disobedience to injunctions will cause anarchy,” he - said, - “and the Government doesn’t in- tend to be pushed around by any pressure group.” He spoke of the heroic strug- gles which unions had under- gone to reach their present gains and stated that it would be a pity if, due to a few passing mistakes, these “fruits of past struggles” were destroyed. At the same convention Jean Lesage, Liberal leader of the op- position donned his halo and said he doesn’t agree that medi- care would cause inflation. The money he said would be spent — anyway and that medicare was just a transfer payment. September 30, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3 \