GOLD MININGS A DANGEROUS Busi Wess
THE MINERS TRKE RISKS, -

AND SO 00 WE INVESTORS, You Never
KNOW WHEN A BAK MIGHT DRoP

ON YOUR FOOT

- 25 years ago...

LAY OFF 1,000
AT MASSEY-HARRIS

Close to 900 workers coming
from all sections of the big
Massey-Harris-Ferguson im-
ete lant in Toronto have

laid off, with more ex-
pected said Phil Kearns, presi-
dent of UAW Local 439. Some
workers expect it to reach over
the 1,000 mark and see the plant
turning into a “ghost place”.

The layoffs are coming two
months ahead of the unusual
layoffs at inventory time Aug. 1,
he said, and amounts to 20% of
the workforce.

Kearns declared the loss of
export markets and decentrali-
zation of the company’s opera-
tions to cheap labor areas in
Germany, Australia, South Af-
rica and other countries were
responsible for the cutbacks in
staff.

The Tribune,
June 13, 1980

50 years ago...

BOSS PRESS SPEWS
TORONTO — Now that the
hot weather has come, the
charitable heart of the boss press
has been touched and a number
of papers are carrying on a
“fresh air fund” for workers’
children. :
Once a year they come out
with the truth. They tell about
the children of the unemployed
ill-clad and starving, about chil-
dren living in industrial areas
where there are no playgrounds
or parks. ;
And what is their remedy?
Here is an extract from the Daily
Star: “How idle it would be to
fuss and fume and to criticize the
things which make such condi-
tions possible. Far better to find
a way out to discover a haven of
rest and play and health where
boys and girls can be taken for
two or three weeks to discover
life anew”. :
The Worker,
June 21, 1930

Profiteer of the week:

Hiram Walker makes you think of booze. It
should. They own Gooderham and Worts,
Barclays, with shares in Corby and Bacardi.
But the $131,879,000 tax-free profit in the six
months ended March 31, was partly from
ownership of Consumers’ Gas, and Home Oil.
Whichever the fuel, profits were up from
$111,786,000 in those months a year earlier.

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186

Subscription Rate: Canada $10 one yr.; $6.00 for six months;
All other countries, $12 one year.

Second class mail registration number 1560

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 13, 1980—Page 4

EIDIITORILAL
COMIMUEINT

Crisis billed to workers

In his mini-budget back on April 21,
Finance Minister Allan MacEachen pre-
dicted that unemployment and the cost
of living would keep going up. He pro-
posed nothing that would turn this
calamity around. The May Business Re-
view from the Bank of Montreal agrees
that the economy’s “tempo has dropped
off markedly.” :

Capitalism’s prophets say we are head-
ing into tough times, and they all agree
the burden of recession or depression
should be borne by the working people.

Gerald Bouey, governor of the Bank
of Canada, said May 30 that the U.S.
recession being brought into Canada will
increase unemployment, but he cites the
real enemy, inflation. And he wants to
diminish inflationary expectations
among workers, such ‘as diminishing
wage increases to keep workers abreast
of the inflation.

He and his government should fight
inflation, that’s true. But there is ample
evidence that the mythical unemploy-
ment-inflation teeter-totter does not
exist — both keep going up. To fight
inflation in a real way means to generate
jobs, and genuine long-life projects in
the interests of Canada, and to make the
multi-nationals and Canadian corporate
elite foot the bill for the crisis of their
making. oy :

Bouey wonders whether people will
“take a lower rate of increases in wages
...” Not likely — particularly the million
and more jobless — while profit charts
are zooming through the roof, and the
minister of defence dares to announce
military spending estimates for 1980-81
of “slightly over $5-billion.”

Oil policies Mexican-made__

The visit to Canada of Mexico’s presi-
dent José Lopez Portillo has brought to
the fore questions of a deeper and more
indigenous kind than how much Mexi-
can oil we’llimport. Mexico’s response to
being a neighbor of the powerful im-
perialism known as the USA, has been an
independent stance. It is a pattern
against which Canada might check its
own independence of policies.

_As the editor of Maclean’s, Peter
Newman has pointed out: Trudeau
could “absorb some useful lessons on
how an economy can be run in the inter-
ests of its own citizens.” Mexican law pre-
vents foreigners from acquiring more
than 49% ownership of local companies,
although about 40% of industrial pro-
duction is foreign owned, mainly from
the USA.

The big and significant exception is
oil. That resource and its production is
entirely owned by the Mexican people
through Pemex (Petroleos Mexicanos),
whereas, apart from the small role allot-
ted to Petrocan, Canada’s oil, gas and
other resources are largely in the hands
of transnational corporations. The bulk
have headquarters in USA. In fact slight-
ly more than one-quarter of our oil as-
sets, and one-tenth of refining capacity
belong to Canadians, and to corpora-
tions at that.

Dictation by the foreign oil giants and
their servants in government not only

The 5,000-worker layoff at Massey-
Ferguson in Toronto is a good example
of Cartex’s recession policies shipped a~
ross the border. It’s high time to ship_
them back by establishing independent
policies for Canada. -

While workers go jobless the goverl
ment continues to hand out millions t0—
corporations. Ford was a notorious”
example. Currently, $50-million is being
gift-wrapped for Michelin Tires, thé
multi-national from: France which
forced a change in Nova Scotia labor laws”
so it could operate scab shops. Those ate —
the shops the Trudeau government 8 |
going to finance. |

The government.is blunt about which
side it’s on. While paying directly into big
business profits, Trudeau admits he is
“considering” an income tax hike for
workers. More billions of dollars would
be wrung out of working people by kill”
ing the inflation-indexing in income (aX ~
calculations. ¥

We need policies to expand the
economy, take our future out of thé
hands of the USA and the corporate —
elite. We need policies to stop the ruina__
tion of our country and the impoverish=
ment of people. *

It would be a good thing if workers —
across this land began thinking of a mass
lobby to Ottawa to insist upon such
changes — to demand jobs, and job”
guarantees and a 32-hour week. The
Carter recession, compounded here ®
the ruling class of Canada, must be Te_
jected by workers through stepped-up —
economic, social and political action, Just”
as economic, social and political mean’ —
are used against them.

pushes prices charged Canadians towal™
the world price, in contrast to Mexico E
two-price system, but aggravates the 1S
lation of some parts of the country fro
the sources of oil.

The message is that while Mexico 14
nationalized its oil and processiNgy
Canadians are at the mercy of the tra
nationals and are being gouged. Reje™
tion of the USA’s push for a North
American common market should g°
hand in hand with Canadianization of
our own resources, with oil at the head of
the list. 3

NDP & NORA

The North American Air Defen@ —
agreement integrating Canada into U» a .
military operations, was quietly renewe? —
for a one-year period, May 12. It seem®
there was not a’ peep of protest in the
House. Strong differences in the New
Democratic Party apparently bowed 10 —
the Ed Broadbent line, altering ND*-
convention decisions, as Canada W& -
once more saddled with this expensi¥€
anachronism. Official NDP literatuy
proclaims: “New Democrats ... woul”
withdraw from big and costly defen?
organizations such as NATO a
NORAD that are no longer useft
Canada’s defence dollars should
committed to defending peace inter™
tionally, not worn out military alliances