International Women’s Day
Peace + Equality « Development

Child care:
winning it
in collective

bargaining

By KERRY McCUAIG

The United Auto Workers went
into negotiations with Canadian
Fab in Stratford faced with a long
list of demands for concessions: a
freeze on COLA, deletions of
holidays, gutting of the drug plan,
a 60 per cent rate for new hires
and a four-year contract.

By the end of bargaining
improvements had been won in
wages, COLA, pensions, insur-
ance, health care and working
hours. For parents there were
major breakthroughs in maternity
and adoption leave and for the
first time in the history of Cana-
dian labor an employer agreed to
contribute towards the cost of
child care.

Employer responsibility for
child care isn’t a new issue to the
bargaining table, but it has always
been among the first issues to go.
For Local 1325 at Canadian Fab it
was the last item won after an
all-night bargaining session, Dec.
11

The company, an American
Motors subsidiary, had agreed to
put two cents into a day care fund
for every hour worked by its 1,200
Stratford employees, 82 per cent
of them women.

PHOTO — KERRY Mc CUAIG

The news was immediately *
heralded as a major breakthrough 3
for labor. During a time when =
unions are fighting to hold onto
what they have the agreement
showed advances could be made.

It was a collective bargaining
trend-setter.

Although the majority of work-
ers at Canadian Fab are women,
the UAW has a predominately
male membership, 89 per cent.
Traditionally a militant union, it
has blazed the trail on a number of
economic and social questions.
Child care has been targeted as a
priority at its collective bargain-
ing conference in 1982 and the
union’s headquarters was deter-
mined to see results.

OFL Campaign

But the UAW had not latched
onto the issue out of the blue.
Awareness for the need for child
care grew with the presence of
women into the Canadian work-
force. Pressure from trade union
women made it an item for or-
ganized labor. At the 1981 On-
tario Federation of Labor
Convention a campaign was
launched aimed at winning
universal, free child care. It had a

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

Demonstrations are part of the Ontario Federation of Labor’s two-

pronged strategy for winning universal free child care: political pressure

and at the bargaining table. _

4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 7, 1984

the cafeteria of Canadian Fab in Stratford. Kee

child care victory.

two-pronged strategy — to work
in coalitions with other groups
sharing the concern and to wage a
battle at the bargaining table.

As a social issue, prime respon-
sibility for child care should rest
with government. But labor has
been the first to recognize that as
with so many other social gains,
considerable inroads would have
to be made in collective bargain-
ing before legislatures were
swayed.

The particular significance of
the Stratford settlement is that all
workers were willing to transfer a
two-cent an hour increase from
their individual pay cheques, into
child care for those workers with

children — a major indicator of

labor’s growing consciousness.

Several things came together to
make the Canadian Fab situation
a winner. An increase in car sales
swelled the workforce from 400 to
over 1,000 in a matter of months.
“The plant supplies the interiors
for all of American Motors’ North
American operations, so we had
some power,” relates chief union
negotiator Buzz Hargrove. ‘‘We
let them know very early in
negotiations that they were going
to have to come across.”’

Local conditions had also put
the membership in a fighting
mood. Cuts in provincial
government spending for child

care had forced the closure of one

of the town’s two municipal
centres. ““Workers were angry
that parents were being disci-
plined for missing work when day
care arrangements fell through,”
local president Roxie Baker told
the Tribune.

Hargrove gives Baker and plant
chairperson Mary Straus much of
the credit for the successful out-
come. Neither would personally
gain from the clause; both are
mothers but their children are
grown. Mary’s daughter works
for Canadian Fab. However the
memories of finding babysitters
for three small children had not
been forgotten.

“There were some who never
thought we’d get it,’ says Baker.
“‘And we wouldn’t have, if we

didn’t put it on the table. You just
have to keep hammering.”’

That kind of understanding
comes from long years in the
trade union movement. Baker has
been with Canadian Fab for 15
years, 12 of them as local presi-
dent. She helped bring the union
into the plant after it ran away
from Windsor to Stratford look-
ing for lower wages.

UAW Local 1325 president Roxie Baker (r), with plant chairperson Mary Straus, stand before a bulletin boardin-
ping the membership up on social issues, set the stage forthe

making efforts to sexually integ —
rate the work in the plant. |
‘‘We encourage women 10
apply for posts that men have »
traditionally filled,’’ explains
Straus, ‘“‘and if we hear aman has !
applied for a sewer’s job, we Tf
in the personnel office, putting —
pressure on to hire him.”’ ;
As for day care, much work ©
remains to be done. A joint

|

{

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Workers were angry that parents were being disciplined |
for missing work when day care arrangements fell —
through ... But the real test of the Stratford victory will

be in other unions taking up the challenge.

|
——————

—— |

Straus comes from a trade
union family and has been plant
chairperson for two years. She
divides herself between the union
office, her work as a councillor for
the township and various com-
munity boards.

Social Issues Priority

They ve helped keep their mem-
bers up on social issues through
informational leaflets, taking ad-
vantage of labor conferences and
educationals. ‘‘When one of our
members attends a conference,
we insist they report back at union
meetings,’ Straus emphasizes.

Neither buy the argument that
it’s more difficult to mobilize fe-
male workers. ‘‘In this town, our
local is the most active’’, says
Baker. It is a leading member of
the labor council and, has led
delegations to city hall. Strike
support, peace and _ solidarity
demonstrations aren’t strangers
to the membership. Peace posters
and a banner for the South Afri-
can Congress of Trade Unions
hang in the union office.

They don’t call themselves
feminists, but equality is their
major concern. In addition to the
child care clause, this contract
made major inroads in winning
equal pay for work of equal value
for the large sewing section of the
bargaining unit. The union is also

union-management committee —
has been struck to work out the
details of the program over the —
next year. The check-off will gen-

erate about $50,000 annually but

more funding is still needed. The

UAW will be going to other
unions in the area encouraging —
them to take similar action. The

committee will be asking all levels —
of government to help fund the
project and Hargrove hopes this _
combined funding will help cover
all child care costs. |

But the real test of the Stratford —
victory will be in other unions tak- _
ing up the challenge. ‘“‘The impor- _
tant thing is not to give up’’, ad-
vises Baker. ‘‘There’s been 2
change in women and labor. |
Women have been made more |
aware. They have fought to bring _
the men alongside. What one ©
union has done, others can do.”” —

The consequences could be far |
reaching, not only for potential
legislation on child care, but inthe —
public’s attitude towards of- —
ganized labor. The UAW’s vic-
tory has sent a powerful message
to all working women. It, along —
with the paid maternity leave won _
by the postal workers, says —
unions care about women. It ©
gives fresh impetus to a new slo- _
gan — ‘a woman’s place is in her
union’’. |

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