: WINDSOR — CUPE’s Ontario division overwhelm- _Ingly voted last week to throw its full weight behind ching a province-wide defence campaign for hospi- __talworkers who’ ve been fired or suspended as a result of their militant strike last January. _In an emotion-charged atmosphere, some 380 dele- Bates participated in the i8th annual Ontario Division - _ CONnvention of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, y 22-24, Number one issue on the minds of most of the CUPE delegates as they filled Cleary Auditorium to open the . Convention was the ill-fated hospital strike and the brutal Tepression directed against their brothers and sisters by the provincial Tory government and its henchmen on the Ontario Hospital Association. ~ : ‘Twenty-nine local leaders of the hospital workers Strike have been fired and about 4,600 other hospital Workers have been given suspensions of varying lengths of time for defying the reactionary Hospital Disputes Arbitration Act and striking for decent working condi- tions and a satisfactory income for their families. __ In her opening address, Ontario Division President Lucie Nicholson announced that a rally was being plan- ned in support of hospital workers, outside the provin- Cial legislature in early June. Also the convention passed — as part of the defence campaign a motion calling on the 80vernment to drop all the charges against the hospital Workers and to reinstate all the fired workers. _The convention also passed a resolution calling on local unions with the help of the Ontario division to keep up the membership status of fired workers so they can attend the national CUPE convention this October as delegates. The defence campaign resolution called on CUPE to Set up a province-wide committee using the full re- Sources of CUPE and calling on the entire labor move- ment to help in mobilizing support for the hospital work- CIS, LABOR The tension was heightened by the hospital workers’ frustration as they felt the CUPE leadership had de- serted them during the strike by failing to mobilize the union into action around the hospital workers and by failing to win the support of the organized trade union movement at large. ere While generally trying to sweep the whole embarras- sing issue under the rug, and tacitly dismissing the fired workers, in the words of hospital workers co-ordinating committee leader Cathie McQuarie, as ‘‘casualties of war’’, the leadership did respond to the members’ criti- cism by agreeing to a resolution which calls for the national CUPE office to conduct “‘a full examination and review into the hospital workers’ negotiations and sub- sequent strike.”’ : The conclusions and recommendations from the examination will be presented to the Ontario division for consideration and distribution. Though sympathetic with the hospital workers, if not very well informed about the cause of the strikers’ frustrations with the CUPE leadership, the delegates responded to the demand for an examination as a con- structive alternative to the kind of internal bloodletting which a tiny handful of ‘‘ultra-leftists’’ were calling for. CUPE Lacal 1953 delegate Jack Kirkby hit a respon- sive chord with the delegates when during the debate over a resolution demanding Ontario division president Lucie Nicholson’s resignation, he urged ‘‘a concrete examination of the events that took place during the hospital workers’ strike. “*What we need is to examine the thing and draw the ight lessons from it and get off this witch-hunting and splitting’’, he said. a The convention also overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution calling for a united campaign by all public sector unions for the right to strike. The campaign would include the creation of a public-sector union coalition mobilized on a regional, local and country-wide basis. 2 { WILL NowW CALC THIS MEETING OF THE AicHT To scAB CLUB, ER | MEAN THE KICHT TO WORK Er A. AHEM ee cee } WILL Now CALL THIS = CABINET MEETING TO OredER Ontario CUPE launches defence campaign It would educate the public and the labor movement on the right to strike and organize a series of rallies and demonstrations to demand the repeal of all anti-strike laws. The resolution also calls for the creation of strike support committees, full support including job actions by other unions to defend members affected by anti- strike laws, and a conference of public sector trade unionists to decide on action and strategy. Nicholson reported to the convention that the Ontario Federation of Labor, which also came under critical fire by delegates for its failure to support the hospital work- ers, had already been contacted by CUPE Ontario to get such a meeting organized. : In both Nicholson's opening address and later the keynote address by CUPE national president Grace Hartman the delegates were warned of the massive government assault on the trade union and democratic rights of public sector unions, and the tough battles ahead as a result of soaring inflation, growing un- employment and the severe impact of the technological revolution in micro processor technology which will seriously affect clerical workers in the, public sector. The convention demonstrated an internationalist dimension by endorsing a resolution condemningsthe fascist junta of El Salvador, and the U.S. for sending arms to the junta. It demanded that Canada use its in- fluence to condemn the flow of arms and military per- sonnel to El Salvador and that it work to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict. Other resolutions passed by the convention included a watered down statement supporting the OFL’s Day Care campaign but refusing to commit CUPE to actively supporting it with its own structure. The convention demanded the federal government prosecute the profit- eering of the oil monopolies and use the revenue gained through fines against their price-gouging to finance the nationalization and Canadianization of the industry. Policy papers on women’s rights, cutbacks, occupa- tional health and safety, were also endorsed by the con- vention. Because of the somewhat sterile discussions aimed at removing CUPE staff and officers around the Hospital Strike issue, prompted in large measure by the tactics of the ultras and the genuine frustration of the hospital workers responding to the leadership's refusal to face up to its role in the strike, a number of other important issues didn’t come before the convention. Included among these were several resolutions de- manding action to ban the Ku Klux Klan and an im- portant resolution on world peace which called for all CUPE locals to be encouraged to study and act on dis- armament and peace issues. This resolution would also have called on the Ontario division of CUPE and its affiliates to support the ac- tivities of local disarmament and peace groups and for the Ontario division to present a resolution to the CUPE national convention calling for a policy statement and consideration of the setting up of a task force study on - peace and disarmament. ~ CBC technicians fight contracting out _ is the _ 2,100 members of the National _ TORONTO —Contractingout gut issue of the strike by Association of Broadcast Mployees and Technicians ABET) ‘with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Both the television and radio ‘ fervices of the CBC have been hit _ 2 the strike which is caused by: _ Management’s insistence on ening a clause in the previ- Us NABET contract which Suaranteed that CBC facilities / and the skills of NABET mem- TS are fully used before the cor- Poration contracts work to out- Siders, The CBC wants to co-produce Contract the production of and ed Programming to outside pro- | Sucers, thus saving money on be- _ Refits to its own employees, and €Ventually cutting back on the umbers of its own staff. NABET wogkers have been ‘ fatiently waiting for the corpora- On to sign a new contract since the previous agreement expired last June 30. The union began es- calating its protests early this month, refusing to air commer- cials during the Stanley Cup play- off games. On May 8 the CBC locked NABET out. ~ A truce was negotiated but it collapsed May 21 over manage- ment’s refusal to budge on the contracting out issue. CBC’s unreasonable stand has meant a drastic reduction in ser- vice on both the television and radio networks with the 11 p.m. National newscast and the 6 p.m. news programs being reduced to dull recitations of wire service - materials. On the radio network, the usual line-up of intelligent programming has been replaced with hourly newscasts — more wire copy —and recorded music. On May 27, NABET won the support of some 4,000 other CBC announcers, film camera persons, set designers, and others who re- fused to cross the strikers’ picket lines. Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Association of Canadian Televi- sion and Radio Artists, and the Canadian Wire Service Guild, the workers staged a 24-hour show of support for the NABET strikers resulting in the CBC limping along with senior management types blinking into TV camera lights. Knowlton Nash, anchor- man for the National was among the NABET supporters who re- spected the picket line. In Vancouver, the B.C. Feder- ation of Labor showed its support for the NABET strikers by calling on all its affiliates to join the pic- ket lines outside the CBC. And in Montreal, the current seven-month strike by 200 jour- nalists escalated when the 900- member union of television and radio technicians at Radio Canada voted, May 25 by 90% to reject the corporation’s contract offer. The 200 journalists have been on the bricks since last October over wages and the demand for job security for temporary work- ers. Early last week both jour- nalists and technicians, who earn less than their colleagues in pri- vate sector networks rejected similar Radio Canada offers of two-year pacts with a 10.5%, and 10% wage increases. In a militant show of solidarity, May 27, 5,000 workers, filled the streets of Montreal to rally behind the Radio Canada strikers and demand management break the deadlock in negotiations. The protesters, members of Quebec’s three largest labor bodies, the Confederation of Na- tional Trade Unions, the Quebec Federation of Labor and the the Quebec Teachers Central, waved placards and shouted slogans de- manding the resignation of CBC president Al Johnson as they marched outside Radio Canada headquarters. AKEL wins in Cyprus AKEL, the party of Cypriot communists, polled the highest popular vote in last week’s parliamentary election winning 32.8% as against the right-wing National Rally Party’s 31.9%. The seat distribution gives each party 12 seats in the island’s 35- seat House. The Democratic Party of presi- dent Spyros Kyprianou won eight seats with 19.5% of the vote and the Socialist Party three seat with 8.1%. . AKEL general secretary, Ezekias Papaioannou told the press his party is ready ‘‘to coop- erate with all democratic forces in Cyprus.”’ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 5, 1981 — Page 7