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Special to the Tribune

HAMILTON — ‘‘We want our jobs back!”’
_ This was the battle cry of some 150 angry steel-

| Workers as they demonstrated outside Stelco To-
) Wers, here, Feb. 19, then marched on to a rally at

Hamilton City Hall.

| Of the

: low
; either jobs or the propects of collecting

Chanting: ‘‘We want jobs!; We want to work!;

) and, The old gray mayor he ain’t what he used to

p

+ , the laid-off Stelco workers, represented

¢| Some 1,500 yet to be recalled to work in the wake of
| the victorious four-month strike by Local 1005,

United Steel workers.
€ bitter reference to the mayor reflected the

| City’s disappointment in the behavior during the
_ Strike of Mayor Bill Powell, himself a former Stelco

Worker, who has carefully cultivated an image in
community since his election as a so-called

_ “labor mayor’’ as the representative of ‘‘the whole

community.”’

In a leaflet to the community, released at the
“emonstration, the Hamilton Regional Committee
: Communist Party blasted Stelco for trying
(0 frighten the union and the community with the
_ 00 layoff, no recall’’ of 400 union members, the

Indefinite layoff and slow recall of hundreds more,
/ 4nd the threat of permanent layoffs through the

transfer of jobs to Nanticoke sometime in the
future,”’

: The party accused Stelco’s friends on the
: Hamilton-Wentworth Regional Council of

ing their master’s voice”’ and voting to disal-
Welfare benefits to Stelco workers without

Unemployment Insurance benefits.
The leaflet called on the people of Hamilton to

_ Talse a public outcry to: force the regional council

Teverse its decision and provide welfare benefits

_ 4nd relief for all Stelco workers not presently work-

LABOR

Stee! giant out to teach union a | n

-Stelco workers hit layoffs

ing and not collecting UIC; force Stelco to end the
layoffs, end the speed-up in the plant and imme-

- diately recall all those laid off; demand that Stelco

not undertake any further expansion of the Nan-
ticoke facility at the expense of jobs at the Hilton
Works in Hamilton; and demand a 32-hour work
week with no reduction in take-home pay.
Stelco is charged by-the workers and community
of Hamilton with trying to “‘teach’’ the entire
community ‘‘alesson”’ for striking, and supporting
the workers in the four-month fight which saw the
whole community benefit with a victory by Local

- 1005 that broke the wage and benefits pattern the

steel industry imposed on workers at Algoma Steel
in Sault Ste. Marie and Stelco’s Nanticoke works.

Noting the crisis in the construction and auto
industries, the Communists pointed out that
‘Stelco is not in trouble ... Last year’s profits
were down because Stelco was down for five

months — a situation that could have been pre-

vented if Stelco had negotiated in July what they
negotiated in December.”

The communists charged that Stelco *‘doesn’t
give a damn about Hamilton, its workers, or the
people who live and work anywhere in this area.

“If they did,’’ the leaflet continued, ‘they
wouldn’t have forced a strike on this community in
the first place. They wouldn’t be introducing
speed-up inside the plant while 1,500 workers are
outside walking the streets. They wouldn’t be
choking the market or using the wages of the 1,500
laid-off workers to finance the wage increases they
negotiated in December.”

The leaflet went on to note, “‘they wouldn’t be

asking for tax deferrals and new tax loopholes

while hundreds are losing their homes because
they have no income to pay their mortgages and
taxes.” :

TO — KERRY WILSON

‘We want our jobs back’

Angry steelworkers protest outside Stelco Towers in Hamilton the
layoffs of 400 workers and the late recall of hundreds more follow-
ing the four month strike which broke the negotiation pattern in the
steel industry.

‘How does uni

aathis week we-aquired a copy of a letter addressed
To All Canadian Business Managers-Agents, giving
Particulars about the upcoming Canadian Federation of
Labor (CFL) Convention, March 31 to April 2, Ottawa,
Ontario, ©
, After outlining the dates, place and informing the Bus-
Ness Agents that there will be a caucus held on the
€vening of March 30, the letter goes on as follows:
“The Asbestos Workers are entitled to 10 delegates,
as Well as two International delegates. It is my intention
tohave you, as business agent of your local union, as one
of our delegates at this convention. We are enclosing for
your information a copy of the Convention Call, your
Credential (copy of which has already been forwarded to
'. McCambly) and a hotel reservation form which you
Must complete and return. ;
‘If for any reason you are not able to attend this
Convention please notify the general office as soon as
foe so that we may arrange for an alternate dele-

F “Looking forward to seeing you in Ottawa, I am,
raternally yours, Andrew T. Haas, General President,
Washington D.C., (Heat and Frost Insulators and As-
tos Workers Union).
le This is called democracy, building trades style. The
‘ter does not even have the decency to name the in-
vidual to whom it is addressed, just ‘‘All Canadian
aes Managers-Agents, Dear Sirs and Brothers
NOt Sisters you note). e,
Here by a stroke of his magnificent Washington D.C.
Pen, President Andrew T. Haas, elects the delegation to
€nd the convention to found a new Canadian trade
Union centre, to which he, and another appointee from
the international union will also journey.

‘ollowing: “This organization will be ‘a federation of
- OF unions dedicated to unity through democratic ac-
°n combining the individual and collective strengths of

lated unions to promote the best interests of their

Members and all working people of Canada.

Noble aims indeed, but one is entitled to ask, since

When is unity to be achieved through splitting the Cana-

tian labor movement, and since when is democracy

In the preamble of the convention call we find the _

Labor in action
William Stewart

expressed through the autocratic selection of delegates
by a Washington president for a Canadian trade union
convention?

But reading through the document there is more.

The new organization, we are informed will accept.
resolutions only from its affiliated international or na-
tional unions, (it so far does not have any national
unions interested in it), ‘“a Canadian conference or from
a Canadian officer designated by an international or na-
tional union.’’ This simply means that all resolutions will
be screened by the international unions before being
forwarded to the CFL conventions. Local unions will
not have the right, as in the case in the CLC to forward
resolutions directly to the conventions. .

For the founding convention (get this) ‘“‘only the
Canadian executive board of the Building and Con-
struction Trades Department may submit resolutions or
propositions at any time’’.

There is no significant precedent for the shackled
structure being foisted on building trades workers by the
U.S. internationals. It is not only an insuli to building
trades workers, it is an insult to the democratic trade
union ‘traditions of our country for which Canadian
workers have struggled long and hard,

Canadian workers are demanding more control, more
democracy, both of which are essential in their fightback
against a combined government-employer assault. They
are also discovering in this process that unity of their

is essential. Gee
ered reckless attempts of the U.S.-inspired building
trades leadership to restrict their democracy, further
weaken their control over their affairs and split them
away from the main centres of organized labor on both
the economic and political fronts, can only serve in the

ty arise throu

h splitti

gh splitting?
long run to strengthen the struggle for autonomy and
democracy among building trades workers.

If one studies the history of the trade union movement,
one will find that at times of extreme difficulty for the
capitalist system, splits occur in the ranks of the unions.
These are inspired by workers’ impatience with the in-
ability of the unions, in many instances, to meet the new
challenges facing them. But at the same time splits are
deliberately engineered by corporations who seek to
weaken the resistance of their workers to attacks on their
wages and working conditions.

We are seeing both kinds of splits in the trade unions in
Canada today, but this building trades split does not come
from the ranks of the workers at all. It is inspired by the
building trades leadership in Washington D.C., who are
now openly discussing a split with the AFL-CIO there.

One would be unwise indeed to underestimate the
potential damage that this split could inflict on the
fighting capacity of the Canadian trade union movement.
At the same time however, it probably heralds the begin-
ning of a struggle to forever end the autocratic, class-
collaborationist rule of the Washington-based Building

Trades Department over Canadian construction work- —

ers.
These workers have a history in the trade union
movement of this country, which taken as a whole, is
second to none in the struggle in the defence of their
economic interests and also for democratic

and policies for the trade union movement and for all
Canada.

This spirit, supported by the rest of the trade union
movement in Canada, will rise up in the CFL to put an
end, once and for all to made-in-USA, class-
collaborationist, undemocratic control over Canadian
building trades workers.

How long this will take will depend to no small extent
on the-work. of progressive elements in the building
trades who have fought tirelessly against the Washington
brass throughout the history of the unions in Canada.

Once again they are called on to conduct what may be
the last battle in the struggle for full autonomy and de-
mocracy for Canadian building trades workers.

25.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 5, 1982—Page 7