:
;
;
q
4

[etme

action urged over Expo zoning ©

— page 2

Hydro
sell-off
_can be

- stopped

_ -— _ page 3 —

é

Canadian Labour Congress president Shirley Carr opens convention at Vancouver

Trade and Convention Centre Monday.

CLC pledges fight
against trade deal

Canadian Auto Workers president
Bob White told a rally against |
privatization and free trade in Van-
couver Sunday that the Canada-
U.S. trade deal is particularly
dangerous because it restricts the
ability of any future Canadian.
government to intervene in the
economy as part of public policy.
Speaking with him at the rally were
B.C. Government Employees Union
president John Shields, B.C. Fed-
eration of Labour president Ken
Georgetti and Canadian Labour
Congress executive vice-president
Nancy Riche, who warned Canadi-
ans that the deal would virtually
prohibit governments from setting
up Crown corporations without
first seeking U.S. permission.
Details page 3

i

=
irs
3
ma
Oo
a
|
2)
i=
°
x
a
w
2
=)
my
rs
E

May 11, 1988
50°

Vol. SI, No. 18

Canada’s economic future was at the top
of the agenda for the Canadian Labour
Congress Tuesday as 2,000 delegates to the
Congress’ convention voted to adopt a eco-
nomic policy paper calling on the labour
movement to “carry the message to every
local community and region that the Mul-
roney trade agreement and the policies and
privatization and de-regulation are a fun-
damental attack on the kind of Canada we
have today.”

The paper, entitled “Canada’s Future
— Today’s Challenge, was a focus for the
biennial convention which is meeting on the
eve of the introduction of legislation
implementing the Canada-U:S. trade deal
and a possible federal election.

“Today more than at any other time in
our history, “the paper noted in its intro-
duction, “Canadians are faced with a clear
cut choice between two very different
visions of the future of this country.”

One vision, that of the labour movement,
sees a policy of full employment, social jus-
tice, pay equity and a universal social service
system, it said.

The other, represented by the Tory
government in Ottawa, “‘sees this country as

New policy
on raiding
affirmed

Confronting an issue that has dominated
Congress politics for the past year, delegates
to the Canadian Labour Congress conven-
tion in Vancouver voted Monday to
endorse a new policy that promises tough
sanctions against union raiding — but also
opens the door to union members to leave
one union and join another.

The new proposals, endorsed over-
whelmingly by the 2,800 delegates, were
contained in the report of the constitution
and structure committee whose recommen-
dations were brought to the convention
Monday after being endorsed by the CLC
executive council last week.

The 10-page report also dealt with the
contentious issue of mandatory member-
ship of CLC affiliates in federations of
labour and labour councils, proposing the
establishment of a Congress task force to
study ways of bringing more unions into
labour councils and making the councils
more effective.

But the most formidable problem facing
the committee was inter-union disputes and
the role that the labour central should play
in dealing with them.

The committee report noted that raiding
disputes had involved 32 CLC affiliates in
the two years since the last convention, a
record of divisiveness that has been aggra-
vated by government attacks on the trade
union movement and increased employer
pressure for concessions.

see AUTONOMY page 12

+