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LABOR | An open letter to

A letter to Dennis McDermott,

_ president, Canadian Labor Con-

. gress.
Dear Mr. McDermott,

It made my heart beat faster

when I heard about your. much
belated but nevertheless welcome

promise to ‘‘bring the whole

Weight of the labor movement’’
on the U.S.-owned and controlled
Boise Cascade Corporation: to
Negotiate in good faith with strik-
ing members of Local 2963 of the
Lumber and Sawmill Workers
_ Union in the Kenora and Fort Fr-
“ances area of Northwestern On-
tario.
~ _ It was great to hear you tell re-
- Porters, following a meeting with
Tory cabinet ministers at Queen’s
Park, that the labor movement

Was ‘‘prepared to take whatever
_ 4ction is necessary”’ to ensure the
_ Union is not defeated and broken

even ‘‘if it means ... collective

2 action within Ontario and

throughout the country . . . where
- the action will be felt the most —

"| by shutting down profits”. I

__ Understood you to emphasize that

this was no mere rhetoric, but
honest to goodness — action.
That was one month ago, Mr.
McDermott! What, if anything at
all, has been done since then to

| Mobilize the labor movement and

|

the people at large for solidarity
action with the Boise Cascade
‘Strikers?

-Following your interview,
Labor Minister Elgie told the
Press that the Ontario Tory
‘government preferred to remain
heutral in this struggle. Yet, it is
public knowledge that more than
$4-million dollars of the tax-
Payers’ money has been spent on
Ontario Provincial Police escorts
for scabs through picket lines at
the Boise Cascade operations. On
August 18, the Globe and Mail ran

4 story under the caption: ‘‘Wood ’

Strike is ‘over’ but bitterness lives
On”. Perhaps the Davis govern-
Ment considers the strike broken
and that, if left alone, the problem
will just go away. But will it?
Away back, more than 40 years

_ 480, another U.S. company from

alifornia — Shevlin-Clarke —
Paid workers $26 a month plus
board and lodging for harvesting
the last great white-pine stand of
Sawlogs in Ontario in the Quetico

Tk Reserve near Fort Frances.

In January of 1937 the Lumber
and Sawmill Workers Union had
to conduct a sit-in strike in 24 log-

| — Sing camps at Flanders, Ont. to

pine that starvation wage up to

tlarke Company packed up and
Jeft for California. But the work-
me Temained, and managed to
ep their union alive in other op-
rations, |
‘i The Boise-Cascade Corpora-
10n is now trying to bring condi-
‘tons back to what they were be-
°re a union of bushworkers was
: pavanized. The ancient buck-saw
the long since been replaced by
Power saw, and the new

Bes Ieenology has brought still more
| “Y0r-saving machinery.

: hav 28es and working cenditions
chy: Undergone a revolutionary

thanks to the union and its

8teat efforts. The latter has been

_ Won at great sacrifice and strug-

7.50 a month plus board and:
_ l0dging. As soonas the white pine
_ timber was all gone the Shevlin-

gle, such as the general strike in
October 1946, which resulted in

the province-wide contract be-

tween the Lumber and Sawmill
Workers Union and the then On-
tario Forest Industries Associa-
tion. Subsequent negotiations in
1948 and 1950 raised the issue of
free tools, including power saws
and repair depots established and
paid for by. the employers. This
was being raised at the time in
anticipation of larger scale
mechanization in the industry.

It is precisely this that the Boise
Cascade Corporation now seeks
to undo. What this anti-labor
outfit wants is a return to the
‘“‘good old days’’ of sub-
contractors and so-called ‘‘job-
bers’’ acting as slave drivers to
cut labor costs to the bone and
bring super-profits for the
monopolies in the industry. The
only power that stands in the way

_ of this happening is the solidarity

of the workers and their unions in
both camps and mills. Once that
solidarity and unity-in-action is
broken, the workers stand face to
face with defeat.

Nevertheless, even at this late
stage after 14 months of heroic
struggle, victory can still be
snatched from defeat. But to do
so requires swift and effective ral-
lying of public opinion against one
of the most callous and brutal of
all the anti-union corporations on
this continent.

Families have already lost
homes and belongings trying to
exist on meagre strike-relief pay.
Some families have even broken
up as a result of the hardship suf-

| SCENE | Dennis McDermott

ByE

fered in this strike. The scars of
battle run deep. But as the great
Inco strike has shown, when

there is a will there is a way to .

overcome the difficulties. The
Boise Cascade strikers too, have
not conceded an inch of ground
with respect to the principles for
which their struggle is being
fought.

It is not silent and secret
behind-the-scenes manoeuvring
with. spokesmen and officials of
such monopolies as Boise Cas-
cade that will win the day in this
situation. Not the slightest trust
can be placed in rightist politi-
cians and bureaucrats either, be-
cause they are all out in support of
the company and seek to hood-
wink the workers.

As you and I both know, Mr.
McDermott, only an angry and
aroused public opinion rallied be-
hind the cause of the striking
workers can succeed in rekindling
the fighting spirit and confidence
that is the key weapon of all
peoples fighting for justice and
against oppression by monopoly
capital and imperialism every-
where. _

In this case the time for effec-
tive action is running out. The to
be or not to be of the Lumber and
Sawmill Workers Union in this
province is very much dependent
upon the outcome of this bitter
struggle. This in turn will have an
effect one way or the other on the
trade union movement in. the in-
dustry as a whole. ; :

Yours most sincerely,
An Old Timer in the struggle.

TORONTO LABOR DAY SPEAKER

Laberge — Quebec has
right to decide future

By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORONTO — Quebec labor
leader Louis Laberge was the fea-
tured guest of the Metro Labor
Council in its Labor Day rally and
march which counted a record-
breaking 16,000 participants.

“Labor fights for people’s
rights’’ was the theme of this
year’s parade, which snaked its
way along the four-mile route
from a rally at City Hall Square to
the Canadian National Exhibi-
tion.

Provincial and federal govern-
ment ‘cutbacks were denounced
on placards,. signs and through
slogans chanted by the marchers.
A number of current labor battles
were emphasized in the march in-
cluding the fight by Art Gallery of
Ontario. workers in their bid to
join the Ontario Public Service
Employees Union, (QPSEU) as
well as the boycott of Radio
Shack products by the United
Steelworkers flowing from their
strike, which began Aug. 9,
against Tandy Electronics Ltd. in
Barrie.

Marchers representing several
South American labor bodies in
exile participated in the parade
including Chile’s Central Union
of Workers, (CUT), Uruguayan

‘and Argentinian trade union or-

ganizations.

Louis Laberge, president of the
275,000-member Quebec Federa-
tion of Labor (FTQ) was the fea-
tured speaker at the CNE’s Labor
Day luncheon. He welcomed the
Toronto demonstration as a
significant event, noting it was

_ important ‘‘anytime a labor body

can get 16,000 people on the
streets.”
' He said the FTQ would be hold-

CUPW’s Parrot tells Hamilton Labor Day crowd:

Labor unity must be bui

‘HAMILTON — The challenge _

of building an effective united
fightback against the current of-
fensive on labor is the major test
facing the movement today, Jean
Claude Parrot said on Labor Day.

Parrot, president of the
22,000-member Canadian’ Union
of Postal Workers, (CUPW), told
Hamilton trade unionists and
their families that unity ‘“‘must be-
come more than rhetoric at a time
when we are confronted with a
situation where virtually all of our
rights are being openly threat-
ened.”

The CUPW leader, who led this
year’s parade organized by the
Hamilton and District Labor
Council, is currently free on bail
while appealing his three-month
jail sentence for defying parlia-
ment’s strike-breaking law which
ended the country-wide postal
strike last October.

‘*So we have a choice’’, Parrot
told the rally. ‘‘We can place our
faith in the goodwill and intel-

- ligence of the employers or we

can turn to ourselves and begin
the long and difficult task of or-
ganizing the entire labor move-
ment into an effective fighting
force.” ea

The CUPW leader said big bus-
iness and its government partners
are waging a three-pronged attack
on labor consisting of cutbacks in
social rights, rollbacks on labor’s

—

acquired rights ‘and reduction in
real wages.

Only the organized strength of
the labor movement, he said, can
stand in the way of the employers
lowering labor's living standards,
boosting profits through in-
creased poverty, or eliminating
social services it has taken de-
cades to achieve.

Corporations More Powerful

Parrot observed that corpora-
tions and governments under-
stand this fact very well and it is

~why they have jointly turned their

energies toward weakening the
right to collective bargaining and
the right to strike — the very basis
of the movement's collective
strength.. :

He warned that the balance of
power has shifted in favor of the
corporations, which he pointed
out ‘‘have become more oe
ganized ... larger, more powe
and more diversified, ... and
most of all the employers as a
class have become more united.”

The CUPW leader apres to
ight-wing groups like the Na-
tignal Citizens’ Coalition, politi-
cal lobbies like the Business
Council on National Issues, big
business ties with the Liberal and
Conservative parties, and
employers’ councils such as the
one in British Columbia, to illus-
trate his point. The B.C.
Employers’ Council, he noted

“has 16 full-time staff members
and a membership which repre-
sents the employers of 90% of the
province’s workers.’’
Unions Employers Want

He also said the corporations
want a “‘responsible”’ trade union
movement where consultation
replaces negotiation. ‘‘They
would like to replace the dem-
ocratic character of collective
bargaining — where the member-
ship makes the final decision —
with a system in which members
are often not informed of the deals
that are made and certainly not
able to vote on them’, he said.

‘The employers, he noted,
“want a trade union movement
where the leadership agrees to
accept responsibility for main-
taining productivity and high pro-
fits ... to be ‘so responsible’ that
we should go into a shell and only
come out during elections ...
and, that we should: stop all
discussion and debate concerning
the direction and orientation of
our movement. Instead of sup-
porting each other, they want us
to police each other.”

Parrot said the easy way out for
labor is to give the government
and big business that kind of a

labor movement. ‘‘If this is the

type of'unity we think will stop
the attack on our rights and on our
living standards, then the answer

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 14, 1979—Page 5

lt now!

ing a special convention if the
November federation convention
demonstrates a feeling among the
members in favor of taking a posi-
tion on the forthcoming PQ re-
ferendum on Sovereignty Associ-
ation. Such a convention, when it
takes place, would be delegated
on the basis of five times the
number of delegates participating
in regular federation conventions.

In an interview, Laberge told
reporters he personally favored
taking a position after the PQ
government announces the word-
ing of the questions which would
be put in the referendum. He be-
lieves the referendum would be
held sometime in the spring.

Whatever the outcome of the
referendum, Laberge told the
Labor Day audience, Quebec
workers ‘‘still want to be part and
parcel of this great labor move-
ment and of the Canadian Labor
Congress.”

The 1974 decision by the CLC
in convention. to give the FTQ
more autonomy within the Con-
gress made the CLC stronger than
it ever was before, in contrast to
opponents at the time who said
the move would fragment the
Cre:

Today, he said, the Quebec
people will look at the referendum
very carefully and their response
will depend on the nature of the
questions being put, as well as the
reaction by the rest of the coun-

He stressed his wish that *‘no
one gets overly excited’’ about

the forthcoming event, and _

hoped, ““we can get agreement
among our people on Quebec hav-
ing the right to decide its own
future.”

for us is very easy’’, he said.
“If we think that the corpora-

_tions’ greed for greater and grea-

ter profits will disappear as soon
as we put a trade union leader on
the Board of Directors, then the
answer is easy. If we think that
changing the attitude of manage-
ment will eliminate the fundamen-
tal law that governs a ‘free enter-
prise’ system — a law which
states that the success of
Management is measured by their

ability to extract the maximum ©

amount of surplus from our labor
— then our answer is easy’’, Par-
rot said.

‘“But’’, he declared, ‘‘if we de-
_ Sire the kind of unity. which is

necessary to. win struggles — the
type of unity which requires time
and resources and courage — the
type of unity which involves ac-
tual mobilization — in fact, the
type of unity that is more than
rhetoric — then our answer is not
easy.”

The CUPW leader cited the
epic strike by miners and smelter
workers at Inco as an example of

the potential for real unity that

exists in the Canadian labor
movement. ‘‘The support for the
Inco strikers’’, Parrot said, ‘was
an expression of unity. It was not
rhetoric..”’

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