| ae Barrie plant m _ BARRIE — Black and Decker Is going to have to do some ©xplaining after all to the United lectrical workers over its deci- S10n to close the plant here and toss 600 people out of their jobs. a UE announced last week at Ontario Labor Minister Rus- sell Ramsay had succeeded in get- ting the run-away corporation’s and Canadian senior Management to meet the union, OV. 30, to discuss the closure. The result of union and commu- nity pressure on the company and the Ontario Tory government, the Ov. 30 meeting will include per- Hoel from the labor ministry, ne Company and the UE. Attending for the UE will be eeenal President Dick Barry, ‘Ce-president Bill Woodbeck, research director Jim Turk, Local ‘ President Jim Hamilton and € two other top officers of the Ocal. g The Company had tried to ae, Which union officers it ee to meet with, Woodbeck » Nov. 21, but ‘‘this is unacceptable,” he declared. Gi Each party has the right to de- i € whom to bring to this infor- : ational meeting. We trust the ©mpany will likewise bring a full Clegation able to answer the Qestions of the minister who Stated in the Legislature Nov. 20 the was ‘frankly, not satisfied’ Earlier in the week Local 545 president Jim Hamilton fired off a telegram to Ontario Premier Wil- liam Davis, demanding that he and Treasurer Larry Grossman take as strong actions against Black and Decker as they've taken against Stelco’s recent de- cision to close its Griffith Iron Ore Mine in Ear Falls, Ont. ust account for closure ‘Within days of Stelco’s deci- sion to close the Griffith Iron Ore Mine, the premier sent a letter to the president of Stelco asking for a review of the decision,’’ Hamil- ton noted: *‘On Nov. 19, Gross- man called on Stelco to keep the mine open so that the closure de- cision can be re-evaluated.” ‘‘Action by government can help reverse this closure,’ Hamil- ton said. ‘‘We expect the same concern with jobs in Barrie as in Ear Falls, and we expect the government to deal as toughly with American-owned Black and Decker as it has with Canadian- owned Stelco.”’ Black and Decker’s planned closure of the Barrie plant next April will cause a direct loss of 600 jobs in Barrie and another 900 jobs lost indirectly. The UE esti- mates the closure will cost the community more than $30-million a year in lost earnings. Last year the company mdde an after tax profit of more than $4- million witha return of 15 percent on its investment. resentation on various government co featuring a film version te) | Wave’’, whose main thru | between ‘opposing interest groups | are over. | provincial Tory governme - tween the building trades interna Congress. CFL cements split with Ont. parley TORONTO — In another step to formalize the split in Cana- | da’s labor movement, the right-wing Canadian Federation of | Labor held the founding convention of its Ontario council Nov. 2 6. . . . os. Othe direction of the ‘‘Ontario Provincial Council of Labor, (OPCL), was clearly spelled out by guest speaker Mark Daniels, | federal Deput Chon pagar and co-operative stance favored by the CFL. Minister of Labor, when he welcomed the group immediately asked for rep- its part, the new : Site mmittees, task forces, nd commissions. ; : ee ecavention began with a one-day education seminar f futurist guru Alvin Toffier’s Third st was that the days of confrontation *» such as labor and business, loped this theme with lavish praise for the nt and warnings that if labor didn’t ght get as nasty with the building The convention deve behave the government mi | trades here, as it does in western Canada. ting exposed the real reasons for the split be- pane ae aa tionals and the Canadian Labor ‘*moderate’’ voice which will work very closely with the political parties of big business. Many of the CFL-Ontario leaders are closely associated with the federal Liberals and the Ontario Tories. | One such leader, Joe Kennedy of the Operating Engineers, opposed a resolution at the founding meeting to increase the minimum wage, on the grounds that it would, *‘price workers out of a job’’. He warned that by adopting such demands the new council risked alienating itself from governments. : One of the first problems the OPCL will face is fending off accusations it is being set up as a rival of the Ontario Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council. The OPBTC rep- resents nearly 100,000 organized construction workers in the province. With most of the construction unions belonging to the new OPCL, critics say that the Building Trades Council may be severely undermined both financially and politically. Interim council chairman, Ralph Tersigni of the Electricians has denied this possibility but the withdrawal of Kenney’s Operating Engineers from the OPBTC would suggest otherwise. Last summer Kennedy pulled his union out of the provincial council allegedly over that body’s support for striking members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers at Ontario pa the information and explana- eae Originally provided (to him) *s nine-poi i adopted at the © In contrast to labor’s nine-point action program | last CLC convention, the new group puts itself forward as a Hydro. Black and Decker officials.” ee a Federation of Labor, 3110 Boundary R., Burnaby, Dear Brothers and Sisters: : : I read with great interest your advertisément in the ‘ancouver Sun, November 19. Under the signature of Oject: Employment, you ask for ideas to put people ack to work in your province. I was struck with the first Paragraph in your message which read, ‘Putting British Columbians back to work starts with ideas! . .. The B.C. ederation of Labor has started a new program called oject: Employment. The purpose of this program Is to Sather new and innovative job creation proposals that Will put people to work and generate long-term economic hefits for the province”’. <3 a an out-of-towner could be allowed to participate In ee program we would submit the following proposals your consideration: 1) In the short time we have been in B.C. we have Noticed many factories either shut down or operating on Short staff and time. We have also observed quite a few idle hands, on either pogy, welfare or neither. It struck Us that it would be a good idea to put these idle hands to Work in these establishments. They would thus cease : a Charge against the public purse, produce neede Wealth, pump money into consumption. They wa ee probably feel much better which, after all, is what fe is all about. We notice on tely that people are looking at 30 per Cent rent increases (to $450 a month) for run-down rag- 8 apartments. We are given to understand this 1s be- Cause there is a housing shortage in the area of the an mainland. Unemployment in the building trades 1s wel Ver 30 per cent. Our second idea is to put the building- trades Workers to work building new houses. Aside from Providing work for B.C. workers we understand that for job created building housing almost five are gener- M other areas of the economy. : k © see that close to half the loggers and mill wor ald ©.0n the street, Such a mass housing program wou = Vide a welcome shot in the arm for the lumber Ustry ‘ : (3) As an ex shipyard worker I was particularly dis- essed to see the a state of our shipbuilding se Couldn’t help but notice too that of all the ships 10 the bor, none but the B.C. ferry fleet or tug-boats were ying Canadian flags. ated BIE 8: another great idea. Why not build our own Good ideas need good leadership Labor in action William Stewart ships in Canada and man them with Canadian crews. “This will provide jobs for miners, steelworkers, elec- tronics workers, carpenters laborers, shipbuilders, sea- men, longshoremen, etc.”’ We are reminded while we are in B.C. that we are a country which faces the Pacific rim countries as well as European countries and have no marine of our own. en have another novel scheme which we think would create a lot of jobs and put a lot of new capital into circulation. Most workers who are now lucky enough to have a job are working forty hours a week. Our suggestion is that this be reduced to 32 hours a week with the same pay. This would provide jobs and full income for most of the unemployed and also give us all a little more time to spend with our families and whatever. We . + wish to take full credit for this last idea as some ries in West Germany have already thought of it. (5) Here’s another one and we must give the British coal miners some credit for this one. After all, part of any “Project” to create new jobs, has to be a plan to keep the ones we have got’. How about just refusing to let companies make our jobs obsolete. We could just de- clare that a worker's right to his or her job is more fundamental than the bosses’ right to a profit. We realize that we are on thin ice here because there are some people out there who think this is dangerous talk which should find one banished to the Soviet Union, but surely this is no time for faint hearts. (6) We were hearing the other day that one of the reasons for the interest rate drop in Canada was because the banks and financial institutions have so much money they don’t know what to do with it, and there just aren’t enough borrowers out there. We suggest we borrow the whole works from them to be paid back out of the dividends we create out of investing the money in creat- ing jobs for all Canadians. Asa side benefit from this the vacation industry would have a boom just catering to all the banking fraternity who would have nothing else to do but sit around and live on their dividends. Anyway we don’t want to take over the whole idea bank in B.C. particularly since we are an outsider, even having spent 15 years of our life here. We did not want to go back to the unmentionable place in the east however without doing our bit for Project: Employment. In looking over our’proposals we are forced to con- cede a bit of a flaw in the package. There is likely to be some resistance out there to these ‘‘ideas’’ and it just might force a look at how we would need to go about putting them into effect. Maybe this could be the second part of Project: Em- ployment. After you assemble all these ideas you could then put another ad in the Sun, asking for ideas about how to win support for these ideas. Perhaps by then another election will have taken place and all our prob- lems will be solved. Then too maybe another election will have taken place and none of our problems solved. In that case another ad or series of ads could ask for new ideas to solve this problem. We are reminded somewhat of a statement made by Robert White, Canadian Director of the United Auto- mobile Workers, speaking to the Alberta Federation of Labor Convention last year when his union was bucking the concessions trend set by the U.S. leadership of his union. He said, in respect to that and other questions, that the membership of his union had elected him to lead and that’s exactly what he intended to do. He was sure that there were some of his members who may not agree with his opinions on this or that question but when enough of them disagreed they could remove him. In the meantime the union leadership would carry out the task assigned to them, to lead, not just follow. It struck us at the time as an interesting and useful appraisal of the tasks of leadership in the labor move- ment in these difficult times. There are no easy solutions to today’s problems facing working people and no easy way consequently for leadership to exercise its functions. : For the rank and file its task appears to be that of choosing the kind of leadership that will indeed lead them in the difficult struggles they now face. In their deep collective wisdom they have fashioned an alterna- tive economic and social program that meets not only their needs but that of the overwhelming majority of Canadians. They must match that program witha leader- ship prepared and able to lead them to victory. ~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 28, 1984 e 7