Labor speaking out against war

By MIKE PHILLIPS

1983 has been a watershed
year for the organized labor
Movement. It marks the of-
ficial entrance of the trade
Unions into the mainstream of
the burgeoning struggle for
peace and disarmanet.

“Peace really transcends
anything else the trade union
Movement is fighting for’, On-
tario Federation of Labor
president Cliff Pilkey told the
Tribune on the eve of the mas-
Sive anti-Cruise demonstra-
tions throughout the country.

“We're battling on many
fronts’, Pilkey said, ‘‘but the
bottom line is that you need
Peace to enjoy anything you
generate through the activities
of the trade union movement.
If you can negotiate a $20 in-
Crease in wages and benefits,
yet we get obliterated in a nu-
Clear war, what good is it?”

This year has seen labor
move away from just support-
ing ‘‘motherhood”’ resolutions
on peace and begin reaching
out to rank and file workers to
get into the action. In B.C.,
with the labor federation’s
backing Canada’s first of-
ficially endorsed trade union
peace committee was formed.

Key and prominent trade
union leaders were numbered
among the 50 personalities, in
February to sign an open letter
to the prime minister demand-
ing a stop to Cruise missile test-
ing in Canada.

United Auto Workers Cana-
dian leader Bob White used the
Occasion to announce the
launching of an anti-Cruise
campaign among his members
and committing the union’s re-
sources to educating its mem-
bers on peace and working
closely with the peace move-
ment.

The two-million member
Canadian Labor Congress fol-
lowed the open letter with an
executive council statement in
March joining the CLC to the
anti-Cruise movement and
promising to meet the govern-
ment to register its opposition.

HOWARD PAWLEY

The Alberta Federation of
Labor (AFL) participated in
the Cold Lake demonstration,
while the 800,000-member On-
tario Federation of Labor has
completed a disarmament peti-
tioning campaign and_ reaf-
firmed its demand for Cana-
dian withdrawal from NATO
and Norad, declaration of
Canada as a nuclear weapons-
free zone, and opposition to
the testing and deployment on
the Cruise in Canada.

Cape Breton Steelworkers
have said no to the Cruise, and
the entire Toronto area council
of the union endorsed the April
23 rally and pledged to
mobilize its members for the
demonstration.

Building trades workers,
who aren’t affiliated to the
CLC are also organizing a con-
tingent to participate in the
April 23 rally in Toronto.

Labor leaders contacted by
the Tribune were unanimous in
targetting peace as the number
one issue for the trade union
movement. ‘‘Preventing the
threat of a nuclear war is the
paramount question facing all
the people’’, said United Elec-
trical workers, (UE) president
Dick Barry.

The UE, one of the longest-
standing, and strongest peace
advocates in the trade union
movement is renowned for the
attention it pays to mobilizing
its members around the issue
and educating workers on the
economic consequences of the
arms race.

“‘Trade unions, as organ-
izations most directly affected
and representing the working
class have a key role to play in
the fight for peace’’, Barry
said. He outlined the harmful
impact on collective bargaining
and people’s living standards
that comes from ploughing mil-
lions of dollars into the useless
arms build up. Barry also
noted how increased mili-
tarization of the economy
maximizes corporate profit
and corporate power over our

lives and the direction of our
economy.

AFL president Dave Werlin
cited his federation’s parti-
cipation in the Cold Lake pro-
test as one example of the key
role labor can play in the peace
struggle. ‘‘Working people
more than anyone else have a
vital interest in ensuring they
live in a world where they can
raise their kids without the
threat of nuclear annihilation’,
he said.

With its organizational abil-
ity and contact with working
people who make up the major-
ity of the people in our society,
Werlin said, the trade union
movement should throw its
strength behind the fight for
peace. ‘‘The leadership of the
trade union movement needs
to speak out clearly on the is-
sue, to call on the rank and file,
local union officers and staff to
be actively involved in the
peace movement’’, he said.

He added that he'd per-
sonally like to see labor coun-
cils and local unions parti-
cipate in setting up trade union
peace committees throughout
the province and that he would
be bringing a proposal along
these lines to the federation’s

executive council at an early

date.

Mike Lyons, executive sec-
retary of the Metro Toronto
Labor Council stressed labor’s
humanitarian perspective.
‘*Most people look at the issue
from the economic perspec-
tive, and I think that’s an
important factor, but the main
reason workers have to get.in-
volved is because trade
unionists and trade unions be-

In response to a country-
wide Toronto Star poll in
February, 1983, 52% of
Canadians opposed devel-
opment and distribution of
any nuclear weapon in
Canada. 50% specifically
opposed Cruise testing here
(40% for, 10% undecided).

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

lieve in the sanctity of human
life.”

He stressed the need for
total disarmament, nuclear as
well as conventional, noting
that millions of people have
been wiped out since the sec-
ond world war by conventional
warfare. Economically he
pointed to the opposition of
both the UAW and the Inter-
national Association of Ma-
chinists, unions which have
traditionally had large sections
of their members involved in
war production, to the idea
that arms build up create more
jobs than socially useful pro-
jects like construction and
manufacturing.

Both unions have
documented the higher return
of jobs in non-military com-
pared ‘to military production
and have been outspoken on
the disarmament issue.
‘‘Before, people would tell you
peace was O.K. but there were
jobs to be had in the arms
industry’’, Lyons recalled.

International Woodworkers
of America eastern vice pre-
sident Jean-Marie Bedard de-
cried the total waste of the
arms build up. ‘““Workers are
the physical victims of war’,
he said, ‘‘they provide the

corpses. They have to pay the
social costs of the arms build
up through reduced social ser-
vices and attacks on their living
standards at the bargaining ta-
ble. Our taxes finance the arms
bill, yet those vast resources
aren’t being used to stimulate
the economy or to create
jobs.”

He noted workers’ inter-
national responsibilities. ““We
don’t want workers of our
country shooting at workers of
any other country’, he said.

Canadian Union. of Postal
Workers, (CUPW) vice-pre-
sident Andre Beauchamps
hammered the federal gov-
ermment for slashing budgets
for social needs and services
like a decent postal service,
while wasting billions on arms.

Canada Post has_ recently
announced it wants to reduce
its budget by $45-million which
will mean a loss of some 1,500
jobs. ‘‘Yet they'll hand out $30
to $60 million to the corpora-
tions to create short term
jobs,’ he said. “I say the
money should be spent to
create permanent jobs instead
of preparing for war. We've
got more than two million un-
employed in this country to-
day, and the government is
doing nothing to create jobs.”’

WINNIPEG — Howard Pawley,
premier of Manitoba, asked by the
Tribune for his comments on Cruise
missile testing in Canada and the cam-
paign to refuse the Cruise, had this clear

answer:
““When Denmark, Holland and other

NATO countries are so clearly reluc-
tant to be involved in any way with the
spread of weapons like the Cruise mis-
sile, Iam ashamed to see how Canada’s
actions are saying, ‘this country is on
the side of the war makers’. Our na-
tional commitment to peace must be
more than word deep. Let Canada op-
pose the arms race with its actions.”
Other prominent Manitobans ques-
tioned also expressed opposition to the

Cruise tests, and opted for steps to pre-
vent nuclear war.

Dr. Linda Murray, chief physician at
the new Manitoba Federation of Labor
Occupational Health Clinic, and a na-
tive of Chicago: ‘‘As a U.S. citizen and
as a Black, I see the ridiculous build-up
of arms spending under Reagan as a real
threat to oppressed minorities and to all
working people. It is incumbent on all
of us to stop that build-up. The Cruise
should not be manufactured, tested or
deployed anywhere. The Canadian
people would do people of the whole
world a service by not allowing the
Cruise missile to be tested over Cana-
dian soil.”

Leslie Spillett, manager, Local 268,
Western Canadian Region, Interna-
tional Ladies’ Garment Workers
Union: ‘‘Allowing flight testing of the
Cruise missile is the moral equivalent to
testing the bomb itself. Canadians, in
municipal referenda and through other
means, have told the Trudeau govern-
ment they are opposéd to any testing
which makes the destruction of the
whole world more imminent. The
Government is ignoring demands by
the people to make Canada nuclear
weapons-free. This government must
heed the voice of working people who
want jobs, not bombs.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 22, 1983—Page 7