: 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.
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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