LABOR London’s jobless celebrate *86’s victories, struggle in ’87 Special to the Tribune LONDON — It was a time for celebrating victories, Dec. 19, as nearly 200 of this city’s poor and jobless partied with the London Union of Unemployed Workers at the N’Amerind Friendship Centre. There was a hot turkey dinner, as well as presents and enter- tainment for the kids at the Christmas party sponsored by the ‘LUUW. LUUW president John Clarke summed up the victories that had been won during the past year. They included the campaign for an $80 winter clothing allowance for children whose families are on General Welfare Assistance. Clarke paid tribute to the sup- port of other groups, throughout the province, such as the Single Parents Assistance Movement in Scarborough, (SPAM), Ban- croft’s People Against Poverty, (PAP), and the Toronto Union of Unemployed Workers, in forcing the Ontario Liberal government to grant the winter clothing allow- ance. The campaign included a meet- ing between Community and So- cial Services Minister John i Sweeney and a delegation rep- . resenting the four organizations. The LUUW also organized - demonstrations outside Ontario Premier David Peterson’s Lon- one where a Peterson effigy clad only in red undershorts was pelted with snowballs by an angry crowd of poverty-stricken and jobless Londoners. The Ministry of Community and Social Services came urder the gun again when the LUUW, the Mothers Action Group, as well as the Legal and Education Fund, (LEAF), defended Brenda L>- Labor Brief Horvath from the ministry’s use of the notorious “‘man in the house”’ rule. Through the use of this rule, single mothers on social assis- tance oculd be denied benefits if proof of co-habitation with a man could be produced by their case worker. A secret, leaked document supplied by the Mothers Action Group revealed the dirty tricks case workers use to secure evi- dence to deny benefits to a single mother. The document claimed that signs of male co-habitation could include notes on the fridge, the possession of Citizen Band radios, and even tire tracks in the snow. Any of these were proof enough to deny benefits. Pressure from the groups defending Hor- vath forced the ministry to aban- don this obnoxious regulation. Clarke also spoke of the union’s struggle against the Lon- don. Public Utilities Commission for demanding that truant welfare utility customers provide a se- curity deposit equal to the cost of three months of their utility bill or face having their service cut off. For many people on welfare the cost of this policy is a staggeringly inhumane $300, on average. Moving quickly, the LUUW has confronted the PUC twice ~ with angry and vocal welfare util- ity customers. The problems ha- ven’t been settled yet, but the union is planning further militant action to guarantee that it isn’t resolved at the expense of the poor and the unemployed. The year ahead will be filled with as many battles as 1986 was, Clarke said. ‘“‘The Forget Com- mission will be like dealing with a sword over our heads,’ the Food Union To Discuss Autonomy TORONTO — Delegates representing Region 18 of the United Food and Commercial Workers have been called to a special convention slated for Jan. 27, and will be asked to endorse a policy paper advocating what amounts to Canadian autonomy for the 155,000 UFCW members in this country. — The proposal would give the union’s Canadian president and executive full control over Canadian operations including the union’s assets, hiring staff, approving strikes and taking control of locals. .The UFCW constitution already provides a method for the Canadians to separate themselves from the international by a system of votes in which the majority of locals and of the -membership in Canada have to agree. There’s also a system for impartially dividing the union’s assets. Region 18 represents the former members of the Almagamated Meatcutters Union which merged with the former Retail Clerks International in 1979, (now represented in Region 19), to form the UFCW. The membership is just about evenly divided between _ the two regions. The impulse toward autonomy follows the international’s re- cent bid to merge the two regions under one president after the retirement, last fall of former Region 18 president Frank Benn. The move sparked opposition within Region 18, leading to the proposal being hoisted for now. The international, however is expected to propose a candidate to succeed Benn at the Jan. 27 meeting. _ The UFCW is the second largest international union in the country, after the Steelworkers. 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 14, 1987 LUUW president said. ‘Our campaign must repudiate the Mulroney agenda — we de- serve a cast-iron assurance that there will be no cuts to the unem- ployment insurance program.” He added that the LUUW must forge its own agenda. ‘“‘Should the Peterson Liberals win a majority, they will not hesitate to imple- ment cuts in social assistance programs. Our job is to confront and expose their agenda, and we will continue to fight for funda- mental changes in favor of those on social assistance programs.”’ 1987, he concluded, ‘“‘will be a watershed year for the suffering for the unemployed — it can be a watershed year for the organizing of the unemployed. “We can only organize the unemployed and win our battles through united, militant action.” Fryer hits ECC report OTTAWA — John Fryer, president of the 260,000-member National Union of Provincial Government Employees, NUPGE, strongly condemned the Economic Council of Cna- da’s pre-Christmas report on government enterprise as ‘‘the second volume in a Reaganite trilogy’’. The latter was a reference to the ECC’s annual review which supported free trade and a forth- coming report expected on tax reform. Fryer said the ECC was “slavishly following the agenda of big business — the pursuit of profit with little or no regard for the needs of the people’’, in its report calling for the government to sell off Petro Canada and Air Canada. Entitled ‘‘Minding the Gov- ernment’s Business’’ the report also proposed that such public services as urban transit should be turned over to the private sector. The NUPGE president said that Canadians aren’t willing to accept an unbridled free enter- prise economy closely mirroring that of the U.S. At the same time he accused the Economic Coun- cil of ignoring the lessons of the American experience in de- regulation and other planks in the right wing agenda. Selling off Petro Canada would not only toss away Canada’s ability to control the future of a non-renewable resource but would also be giving away an important Canadian asset at bar- gain basement prices, he said. “‘The bottom line is that the Economic Council of Canada wants decisions about our ser- vices and our resources to be made behind locked doors and plush boardrooms, instead of the public arena. Perhaps it’s time to re-evaluate the usefulness of the Economic Council of Canada and see whether the public are getting their money’s worth from this government-funded body’’, . Fryer said. ® Labor in action GEORGE HEWISON UFCW autonomy in step with labor’s future The United Food-and Commercial Workers Union will be holding a special convention in Toronto this month to consider the direction of the Canadian membership: whether to seek au- tonomy; or more limited steps in that direction; or a program that leads eventually to an independent union. < The immediate question for the union will be the matter of a successor to Frank Benn, the Canadian Director, who has re- tired, amidst a flurry of speculation by UFCW members. Of more long-term significance is whether the merger between the Meat- cutters and the Retail Clerks can endure the debate over au- tonomy or independence. An even more basic question for the union has to do with the direction of the trade union movement in Canada, as oppposed to the direction’of the UFCW in the U.S. There is no doubt that the Gainers dispute opened up a whole number of questions in this respect. Given the consequences for all of labor in Canada, it is imperative that these matters get a full airing at the UFCW convention. . Grew Like Topsy The UFCW grew up like Topsy. It’s present form resembles a series of grafts. None of the transplants have fully taken hold ‘before another merger has come along. Leaving aside some earlier ‘‘marriages’’, such as the one with the Fur and Leather Workers, the first major adjustment followed in the wake of the wedding of the Packinghouse Workers with the Butcher Work- men. This merged union then combined with the Retail Clerks to form the present union — the UFCW. Often lost in this whole process is the growing inability of the | various individual locals or even components to influence International Union policy. Tremendous power is concentrated in the hands of the International President, to sanction strikes, to call off strikes, to place locals under trusteeship (such as at Hormel in Texas) etc. Ostensibly this power is to guarantee that individuals and locals don’t run amok and undermine the general welfare of the union in face of the corporate attack. Unity in Action — the Key Canadian unionists are increasingly recognizing that the key to beating off the attack from the boss must involve an aroused, united trade union membership who have the inalienable right to defend themselves and to expect the all-out support and leader- ship of their union, battle-ready and prepared for whatever the attack. A leadership that is removed from the struggles, is inviting the rank and file to do the only logical thing it can — produce its own leadership. This may result in concessions, or it may result in strategies not in the best interests of the working class as a whole. But an operative leadership, closely in tune to the membership, confiding in the membership, will invariably win the support of the workers. Size of the union has little to do with this question — leadership and democracy, everything to do with it. This brings us to the question of the fundamental direction of the trade union movement in Canada and the United States. The matter of international trade union unity is a given. But how this unity is expressed is a matter for the workers on each side of the border to decide at their own time and in their own way. Nothing can be presumed. Recipe For Separation When the labor movement in one country either has a policy of accepting concessions or at least no strategy to fight them, while in the other the official policy of the entire labor movement is a refusal to ‘“‘walk backwards’? — to accept concessions, it is a recipe for separation. The Canadian Autoworkers Union was the most celebrated case of ‘irreconcilable differences’’. The IWA and others have followed suit. All for the same reason: the Canadian workers must have the ability to walk in lock-step with their fellow workers in Canada. It is vital to the up-coming struggles of the trade union movement of this country. The Gainers dispute illustrated this. It was the Canadian trade union movement which rallied to the standard in an unprecedented display of solidarity and unity with the Gainers workers. The leadership of the UFCW in Canada wants to be in a position to reciprocate effectively. That is what this special Convention is really all about.