LABOR

UAW tells laccoca
‘we're not here to
give concessions’

By MIKE PHILLIPS

Toronto — Striking Canadian
and U.S. Chrysler workers, Oct.
15 showed that concessions days
in Canadian auto are over.

Precisely at midnight, Oct. 15,
United Auto Workers-Canada
members in Windsor, Ajax, (out-
Side of Oshawa), and Etobicoke,
(a Toronto suburb), poured out of
their plants to take up strike posi-
tions and activate well-laid strike
plans.

The strike was officially
launched after a frustrating four-
hour wait by UAW negotiators
for a call from Chrysler that never
Came. Union president Bob
White and the rest of the Chrysler
Workers’ bargaining team were
hoping for a company response to
three outstanding economic is-
Sues that remained to clinch the
€conomic package and thus pave
Way for a contract settlement.

At the same moment in Detroit,
American auto workers also pass-
ed their Oct. 15 strike deadline
and the UAW team headed by
Owen Bieber apparently wasn’t
getting any response from
Chrysler on his members’ de-
mands. A total of 80,000 workers,
10,000 Canadian and 70,000 U.S.,
are engaged in the two strikes.

Even as the Tribune went to
Press Oct. 17, there wasn’t any
Sign from Chrysler corporate
headquarters in Highland Park,
Michigan that the corporation in-
tended to shift an inch from its
Wage proposal of a $1,000 lump
Sum payment to each worker in-
Stead of an increase in the base
Tate, another twist on the phoney
Profit- -sharing plan, or its ex-
tensive demands to drastically re-
duce in- plant job classificatoins to
Climinate jobs and certain wage
Classes.

Rising Frustration

Unlike the Canadian pattern,
Parity isn’t as big an issue in the
S. talks because the UAW
leadership's pro-concessions pol-
Icy at all three auto companies has

ar

left Chrysler workers on average
only about 6 cents an hour behind
workers at the other two com-
panies.

Benefits, however still remain
much lower at Chrysler-U.S. than
they are at GM or Ford.

Pre-deadline walkouts in sev-
eral cities throughout Michigan
and Missouri, reflected the rising
frustration of American Chrysler
workers and their growing oppos-
ition to concessions.

In Canada, right from the outset
of the 1985 negotiations, Ken Ger-
rard, head of the Chrysler council
and president of the giant Windsor
Local 444 stood firm.

He reiterated the union’s stand
on the eve of the international
walkout, when he told a news
conference, ‘*‘We’ve made clear
to the company right from day
one that we’re not here in 1985 to
give concessions. Chrysler got
their share in 1979.”’

One immediate outcome of this
firmness was the announcement
Oct. 15 that Chrysler was re-
leasing the workers’ shares in
corporate stock so that the work-
ers, who got the shares during the
concessions agreement in 1980
would be able to dispose of them
as they see fit.

Detroit Calls the Shots

Originally a worker had to re-
tire, get fired or die in order to
receive the cash value of the
shares. The latest development
which resulted from a determined
campaign waged by Windsor
workers in the first place, will give
each worker the option of dis-
posing of about $6,500 worth of
stock in the corporation.

As the strike deadline passed,
eliminating the 55 cent wage gap
that sees Chrysler workers trail-
ing behind workers at Ford and
General Motors; rolling back the

company’s demand for massive

job classification cuts; settling the
local issues in the two major
Windsor plants; and resolving
skilled trades demands and other

wees seer

SSS

“We make money the old-fashioned way. We underpay
our employees.”

UTM

Labor rallies against apartheid

TORONTO — The International Day of Solidarity With South
Tican Political Prisoners was marked here Oct. 11 as 700 marched
m the South African consulate to City Hall.

Speakers included Toivo ja Toivo, secretary-general of the South-
West Africa People’s Organization of Namibia, who thanked the audi-
€Nce for their efforts in securing his release from prison. He had been
jailed since 1968. Toivo ja Toivo urged continuing efforts to secure the
Telease of those still in apartheid jails.

qcther speakers included Mayor Eggleton who unveiled a sign on the

Newly-named Bishop: Tutu Street; Dave Patterson, United Steel-
Workers; Mike Lyons and George Larter from the Toronto Labor

Ouncil.
As night fell, candles each with the name of a South African political
tisoner, were distributed to the crowd and songs were provided by
Students of Park Public School.

It was one of several such ceremonies held across Canada on this

Day of Solidarity.

LTT mn |

Everything was organized and ship-shape on the Trim Plant picket line in Ajax last week. Women are the
majority in this UAW local. Too much compulsory overtime and overbearing supervisors pushing for ever
more production dominated their complaints against Chrysler.

issues remained at the top of the
UAW’s bargaining agenda.

‘We're not operating under a
strike deadline now,”’ White said,
Oct. 15, ‘‘so we have to solve all
of the outstanding issues clearly
before we leave the bargaining
table.”

As negotiations during the first
day of the strike dragged on, it
became clear to Canadian
Chrysler workers that despite
fancy titles given the executives
“‘running’’ Chrysler Canada that
the final decisions continue to be
made in Detroit by cigar-chomp-
ing Chrysler boss Lee Iaccoca,
whose 61st birthday happened to
coincide with the strike.

This was particularly evident
with what White had called a sud-
den ‘tightening up’’ of the
Chrysler position by 8 p.m., Oct.
15, on all bargaining fronts. Union
negotiators were subsequently
left waiting some four hours for
the phone to ring as they joined
with reporters to watch the col-
lapse of the Blue Jays in the 6th
game of the American Leage
finals.

Digging In

Up to 8 p.m. both sides were
claiming guarded optimism, that
what White called a ‘‘frame-
work”’ for an economic agree-
ment was within reach, though
both sides argued that a lot of
work would still need to be done
on the other issues.

But from that point on, the pace
completely changed suggesting
that a decision from ‘‘on high”’
had been made that a strike-free
Canadian contract wasn’t meant
to be.

It isn’t as if the company can
afford to taunt the workforce too
much. Complaints from the plant
workers from Windsor to Ajax all
focus on the corporation’s con-
stant pushing for greater pro-
duction, more compulsory over-
time, and the whittling away of
such human amenities as clean
up time and environmental relief
for certain areas with onerous
conditions.

At press time union officials
were warning that the longer it
took Detroit to give Canadian
Chrysler executives the green
light to settle, the more the strik-
ers would dig in their heels on the
picket line. Mass meetings were
slated for workers in Windsor,
Ajax and Etobicoke on Oct. 20, to
either inform the members of the
company’s stalling or ratify if a
contract is in hand.

CUPE meet leaves
issues unresolved

Special to the Tribune
WINNIPEG — Discussion on constitutional changes to base
the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ dues structure on a
fixed percentage of members’ hourly wagés dominated the open-
ing sessions of the union’s biennial convention, Oct. 14-18.
This long-time desire of the smaller CUPE locals had been
made more pressing by the increasing number of part-time work-

_ ers and the ensuing difficulty of a flat rate per capita dues struc-
_ ture.

-_A recommendation of non-concurrence with such a change
was referred back by the 1,300 delegates Oct. 14. The next day,
the committee's resolution for a .61 per cent formula dues struc-
ture was defeated by a mere 40 votes short of the two-thirds

majority needed for a constitutional change... |

Advocates of the percentage dues structure hope that by the
end of the convention there could be an agreement reached in
which the union would go over to the long-awaited percentage

_ dues structure gradually over a stipulated number of years.

In other business the convention concentrated on task force
reports and policy papers. The paper on technology policy gener-
ated criticism, from delegates for being too much a statement of
fact, rather than a policy statement that projects: solutions and

: outlines a bargaining: strategy.

None of the papers included any real action proposals. This
was left to the resolutions. By adjournment Oct. 15 only a handful
of resolutions had hit the floor — the policy paper discussions

taking up the lion’s share of the convention’s time.

~ The economic policy statement, dealing with privatization,
free trade, deregulation public sector cuts and the demand for full

employment - — the key questions facing CUPE members and the

labor movement as a whole — had not come forward for dis-

= cussion at the convention, at press time.

The policy paper on contracting out drew “discussion from

: delegates across the country who see it as a major issue in all
up-coming negotiations. A delegate from St. Charles New-

foundland drove home the seriousness of contracting out when
he told the convention that, ‘‘if things continue the way they’re
going, two years from now Many people attending this ‘con-

_ vention today won't be here any more.”
Veteran B.C. CUPE member Harry Greene demanded that the’

Canadian Labor Congress come on side with CUPE on the

- contracting out battle. ““CUPE can’t do it alone’’, Greene said,
“we need a. massive organization of trade unions and concerned

ed to fight.”
_Qther convention resolutions dealt ae Goreegineaped.
rsing assistants within the medical care ‘system, oi

Day Carew workers called Ginatit child care syster ma 5“ hodge
* and of Prime Minister Brian Mulro:
ns to privatize child care. ather than develop a national

an control over the economy.

.

Peart colts to use federal and provincial
is in job. creation dollars in favor and

ue care: a sat ig orp a the CLC to ec convene a a

She urged.

rooms