Prince George, B.C. was the site of this year’s ninth annual Constitutional Convention hosted by 1.W.A. CANADA Locals 1-424 and 1-425. SEE PAGES 10 - 15 e RAISING THE FLAG — In November, I.W.A. CANADA Local 1-423 hosted the first ever union Weyerhaeuser Okanagan Falls sawmill. Left is local union President Troi Caldwell. Next to him is National union Presi- dent Gerry Stoney and mill manager Ben Henzler. See story on page 20. [.W.A. joins London Day of Protest against Harris government's attacks lhe Ontario government of the policies of the provincial govern- Mike Harris is going too far in ment.” The Harris government is trying to destroy the many gains that workers ae built up over decades of strug- le. It has scrapped Bill 40, the previous NDP’s labour law reform package and instituted the following changes. © no more anti-scab law. ° elimination of rights to combine bar- gaining units. © no more right to picket quasi-public property. ° elimination of protection against un- just discipline and discharge during organizing drives. Continued on page two cutting social services and gut- ting labour laws and the labour movement and social groups got together in London on December 11 for a 24 hour Day of Protest. At least 15,000 people marched through the city, braving wind chill temperatures of -30°C while another 15,000 supported the protest by stay- ing away from work. Nearly 80 I.W.A. CANADA Local 500 members working at the Total Distrib- ution Systems (TDS) packing plant in London joined the protest along with other members of the local member- ship and activists from Local 700 and Local 1000. National Second Vice President Fred Miron and staff members from the union's National office in Toronto were also in attendance in support of the protest. Brother Miron says that the Day of Protest turned out to be a bigger suc- cess than anticipated. “It’s going to be a long four years in Ontario unless the government starts listening to working people-and stops taking from them and giving more to the corporations,” says Brother Miron. Bruce Weber, President of I.W.A. Local 500 which represents the work- ers at TDS says the membership un- derstands the issues well and that there was strong support in the plant ris government is out to batter work- ing people,” says Brother Weber. “This protest was a way of exhibiting that awareness and the growing frus- tration that working people have over At the December 11 protest rally against the Ontario government, were I.W.A. members who braved wind chill temperatures of -30° C. Second from the left is Local 500 President Bruce Weber. Liberals announce deeper cutbacks to U.I. program by Phillip Legg Assistant Research Director After months of rumour and denial by the federal Liberals that their re- form of Canada’s Unemployment In- surance system would simply contin- ue the gutting started by the Mulroney Tories, Employment Minister Lloyd Axworthy has introduced major amendments to the U.I. system that will drastically reduce the benefits, coverage and access available to workers in Canada. Although in an- nouncing his proposals Mr. Axworthy has tried to portray his reforms as having a job focus - his legislative amendments include a provision to re- name the Unemployment Insurance Act the Employment Insurance Act - the centrepiece of his proposal is a $1.9 billion rollback in benefits for the unemplo: éral government is propos- ing to squeeze the U.I. system at sev- eral points to secure these rollbacks. © As a first step, U.I. weekly benefits will take an initial hit; maximum bene- fits for new applicants will drop by 11% from $448 per week currently to $413 per week. © Those trying to qualify for U.I. will have a much tougher time under the new rules. Under the proposed sys- tem, qualifying for U.I. will now be de- termined by how many hours a person has worked rather than the number of weeks. In many instances, this will ef- fectively double the amount of time it takes to qualify for U.I. ¢ For workers in seasonal industries, such as logging and forestry, new rules have been introduced to “penal- ize repeat users.” Under these changes, a person’s weekly U.I. enti- tlement will be cut with every subse- quent application for U.I. e New provisions will be introduced to further “clawback” U.I. once a worker’s yearly income exceeds $48,750. At their core, the Axworthy reforms to Canada’s U.I. system rest on two hard-edge values that hold popular currency within the business commu- nity and the main-stream media. First, the federal Liberals believe that the ULL. system must make a sizeable con- tribution to their ill-conceived and economically distorting deficit reduc- tion program. Second, the Liberals be- lieve that the U.I. system has to be purged of any provisions which, in Mr. Axworthy’s view, are a “disincentive to work.” Unfortunately, much of the public debate on these U.I. reforms does not critically challenge these views. For example, on the first point, U.I. con- tributing to deficit reduction, the cur- rent U.I. system was never intended to be a taxing source for government. It was designed as a universally accessi- ble insurance system to help support E f E ¢ a worker's income during periods of to take the protest action. R ¥ 5 “Our members realize that the Har- ne 2 i ; 2 surpluses (i.e. premiums paid in ex- unemployment. As a system, U.I. cur- rently generates significant operating ceed benefits paid out). One estimate puts the surplus for 1996 at between Continued on page two