A Denver cop maces striking fa

rmers, members of the American.

Agricultural movement, who are demanding federal support for farm

Prices. :
_INCO SNUBS
UNION PLAN

~ TORONTO — INCO, which
has taken millions out of the
ground in Sudbury, and from the
’ sweat and toil of workers there,
turned thumbs down Jan. 11 to a
United Steelworkers proposal de-
signed to prevent the anticipated
layoff of more than 2,000 workers
next March.

A union propésal of early re-
tirement, accelerated attrition,
retry programs and house-
keeping and environmental work
programs was turned down by
INCO vice-president Frank Bur-
nett as “too costly to be im-
_ plemented.”’

_ CUPE SAYS NO
TO HYDRO OFFER

WINNIPEG — Manitoba Hyd-
ro’s 925 clerical and technical
workers, members of the Cana-
_ dian Union of Public Employees

voted 60% in favor of rejecting the
utility’s latest contract offer Jan.
11, and are in a legal strike posi-
tion. :
CUPE has countered the utili-
ty’s 6% wage increase offer with a
‘demand for 10%. Talks broke
down Dec. 15, six days before the
expiry of the old agreement.

PROCTER SILEX
BOOTS 46 MORE

PICTON — This eastern On-
.tario community will lose the in-
come of 46 more workers as Proc-
ter Silex division of SCM Canada
Ltd. announced in Toronto Jan. 12
it was putting the workers on inde-
finite layoff. The workers will join
‘45 others who got the boot from
_Procter Silex last month.
The plant which manufactures
small electrical appliances will be
left with 87 workers.

TEACHERS SEE
LONG STRIKE

WINDSOR — A strike by 517
Roman Catholic separate school
teachers who hit the bricks Jan. 9
protesting a breakdown in con-
tract talks, could last three
Months, teachers’. negotiators
Said last week.

__ The teachers want the school
board to agree to binding arbitra-
tion of their salary dispute.

UAW STRIKE
FOR NEW PACT

STRATFORD — About 600
employees of Canadian Fabricated
Products, manufacturers of door
trim and bucket seats for the au-
tomotive industry, went on strike

Jan. 9 after the collapse of talks for"

a new contract. :

Members of Local 1325 United
Auto Workers have been without a
contract since Dec. 15. Talks broke
down Jan. 3.

SHUTDOWN AT
COLEMAN
COLLIERIES

COLEMAN — About 350
members of the United Mine
Workers of America struck to
shut down Coleman Collieries
Ltd., Jan. 6 to protest the firing of
aunion member the company said
was involved in a fight with a
management official. =

The strike which ended Jan. 11
when the company agreed to set-
tle the issue through the normal
grievance procedure had
paralyzed the companies south
western Alberta operations.

LAYOFFS AT |.
WHIG-STANDARD

KINGSTON — Management at
the daily Whig-Standard repaid
their composing room staff, whose
labors allowed the newspaper to
accumulate the necessary capital to
install new. labor saving equipment
by announcing: Jan. 10 that 25
workers, all members of the Inter-
national Typographical Union are
to be permanently laid off this fall
and in-1979.

The $1-million program of
technological changes will reduce
the composing room staff from 49
to 24.

BOYCOTT

MUTTART HOMES

REGINA — At the request of
its sister organization in Sas-
katchewan, the 120,000-member
Alberta Federation of Labor ag-
reed Jan. 5 to extend the boycott
of Muttart Homes Ltd., into the
province of Alberta.

Muttart employees here, have -

been locked out by the company
since July when the workers re-
jected a nothing contract offer
from the company.

EDITORIAL
COMMENT

Realities of t

Layoffs are spreading like a contage-
ous disease and with worse results for
many families. Even “official” jobless
figures of 882,000 (in reality more than a
million) make mass:unemployment the

_-worst since the 1930s depression. In De-

cember, 8.5% of the workforce was idle.

Big business newspapers lament it,
and call for cuts in government spend-
ing. But what spending? Spending for
social needs? They have yet to suggest
cutting the exorbitant military budget by
50% as should be done.

They ignore the cause of the crisis —
the faltering system of state-monopoly
capitalism, and simply blame puppets
like minister of unemployment, J.S.G.
Cullen. His despicable advice for Cana-
dians to take their money out of the sock
and spend it, is no more insulting than
the entire system he is part of..

A lot of workers are ready to look at
reality, at facts: Class-conscious workers
who refuse to be bought off or steered
off from the battle for workers’ rights
will earn lasting respect in the labor
movement, as the right-wing phonies
reap unending revulsion. That’s one re-
ality.

Another is that the socialist world did
away with unemployment long ago and
gave jobs to all, at decent wages. So it can,
be done. But under capitalism that calls
for a hard, united fight and the stamina

- to struggle both against the ruling class

and for labor unity. —
“Slow and steady wins the race,” Cul-
len says. Slow and steady what? Malnut-

Promoters of

A widespread campaign is‘in progress
to break down public rejection of nuclear
war. Millions can see that such a war,
however “beautified” by propaganda,
will solve nothing for mankind and in-
flict incurable ills — perhaps human
oblivion. o

Now that we have seen the long-with-
held confessions about “news” planted
by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency,
fake “terrorist” messages composed by
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and
the vomiting up of diaries of a demented
prime minister whose dog advised him
on matters of state, is it surprising to
discover that hidden in the “news” that’s
piped into our homes or left on our
doorstep each day, there lies a multi-
million dollar campaign to sell nuclear
war?

The mind-managers of the system
want us to believe nuclear war is like a
TV show — we'll just watch while the bad
guys get seared and have deformed
children.

It’s a lie. But imperialism’s campaign
to wipe out our revulsion at memories of
the living dead of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki — victims of U.S. atom bomb-
ing — has been crowned with new “evi-

dence.” A U.S. government report (Mili-
‘tary Standing and Force Posture Review)

publicizes its opinion which the big busi-
ness media heads: Russia could not win
atom war, U.S. says.

Such propaganda is not aimed at the
Soviet Union; it is intended to lull us,
here, into a state of acceptance of the

he job crisis

rition? Living in doorways? Wrapping
our feet in rags? Is that the big “just
society” we heard about when the corpo-
ration bosses chose Pierre Trudeau as
the boy who could fix the working
people?

There are plently of steps that can be
taken. The government can stop corpo-
rations (including multi-nationals) from
mass firing of workers. If the govern-
ment won't do it, a government respon-
sible to workers will have to. They can cut
taxes on low and middle incomes. Raise
purchasing power. Cut the scandalous
arms budget. Cut profits. Boot out the
union-busting “Anti-Inflation Board”
whose job is to destroy union bargaining
power. Stop the theft of monies, created
by Canadian labor, being shipped out by
corporations to set up shop in slave labor
areas like Chile and South Africa.

In the longer view: We need secon-
dary industries to process our plentiful
raw materials — increase jobs and the
country’s income. We need public own-
ership to ensure industry’s benefits to all
Canadians. We need joint ventures with
socialist countries whose economies are
booming. For this the government
should ‘be backing détente, not under-

- mining it with a vast military build up.

To do battle for these measures re-
quires a united struggle throughout the
trade union movement, involving Com-
munists and New Democrats, and seek-
ing mutual programs with farmers.and
all who are carrying the dead weight of
the monopoly system.

nuclear war

Pentagon and NATO generals’ hopes of

mutilating the world in favor of im- |

rialism.

Back in 1947, says Prime Minister
Mackenzie King’s diary, the USA was
ready to launch an atomic war against
the USSR, but as one big capitalist daily
complained nervously the other day,
neither King, nor the British govern-
ment, nor the USA breathed a word of it
to the people, although King saw the war
as only three weeks off. The U.S. gener-
als and war-millionaires have been play-
ing with the idea ever since.

The Trudeau government's current
saber rattling is part of that, but is out of
keeping with the needs of .Canadians.
President Carter's promise of more
troops for NATO is an affront not only
to Europeans but to the vast majority of
the world’s people whose only advantage
lies in extending détente, finding ways to
peaceful co-existence of different social
systems.

Masses of people the world over are
Scinabelbor the prohibition of the neut-
ron bomb and an end to nuclear testing.
They are demonstrating and speaking
out for disarmament as demonstrated by
millions who have signed and endorsed
the Stockholm Appeal.

This prestigious Appeal which. ur-
gently needs many more Canadian sig-
natures on it, is one of the best ways of
telling an arrogant government at Ot-
tawa that Canadians will not be led to the
nuclear auction block in attempts to
cover up the sores of imperialism.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 20, 1978—Page 3