What auto moguls GM seeks return to 1947 By WILLIAM ALLAN DETROIT — Harry Syversen, president of General Motors— Fisher Body Local 329 UAW, was asked to spell out just what GM had really offered the union: “Well, GM is really bargain- ing backwards,” he said. “They are asking us to put the union back from 1970 to about 1946. Sure, they have offered us some money, but they conceal from the public the takeaway program that goes with the few cents. “They offered a 3% increase which comes to a dime an hour, effective on the date of the new agreement, plus the 26c cost of living overage. Actually, this would pay us GM workers only 3% in new money, while they ignore the 5c that’s also due us, based on rises in cost of living increases since last April. GM also offered 3% increases in 1871 and 1972, but demands a cap on any cost of living raise we may get. On the other hand, we in UAW want an 8% increase and added to that would be 26c cost of living overage. This would make $4.17 an hour for an assembler, and for a skilled worker it would be $5.33 an hour for the first year.” Syversen said one of the hot- test issues in local union, bar- gaining is eliminating wage in- equities. The UAW seeks 4c an hour per worker to go into a fund for that purpose. GM of- fered li4c. On Cost of Living (COL) GM refuses to lift the cap on cost of living raises. The union says that the amount of second and third year raises depend on this—if they maintain the cap, the union will raise the ante on wage in- creases. GM wants to keep the base rates down because fringes like insurance, sickness and accident benefits are based on these rates. Adding to the base rates means workers get more if they are sick or in an accident. The UAW seeks right of re- tirement for its members after 30 years of service at $500 a month. GM says they recognize “30 and out.” However, the com- pany insists, if a worker has 30 years of service and is under 58 years of age, he or she can re- tire but with a reduction of 8% for each year the worker is un- der 58. And it would only be ef- fective January, 1972. A worker who wanted to retire at 50, after 30 years of service would re- ceive a maximum benefit of only $180 a month. GM demanded from the union that Supplemental Unemploy- ment Benefits (which with So- cia] Security and 7 years’ senior- ity adds up to 95% of their week- ly pay for one year) will not be paid to workers laid off because of a strike in Canada. GM demanded that the shop committee chairmen and mem- bers of the shop committee be eliminated from working over- time for representation purposes ‘when their own job does not work overtime. This, said Syver- sen, means the workers are left without union protection. On the clogged-up GM griev- . ance procedure, he said, the company proposals would make it even worse. On production standards, the hottest thing in the shops, GM wants union com- .mitteemen to make only one in- vestigation of a speedup com- plaint during the first hour of the shift. They would not be permitted to return. The first hour is when that line really jumps and goes and when most beefs are made. That’s why GM wants only one investigation of a speedup complaint.” GM also proposed that proba- tionary workers will not be per- mitted to file a grievance on a speedup beef and no one like a shop steward can doit for him. During the 90 days that a new worker is employed he would have no protection from speed- up. “Listen to this one by GM,” asked Syvensen. “If a produc- tion standard is settled on one shift, it would automatically be considered settled for all. There would be no guarantee that ope- rations under the standard would be set on the same basis for all shifts, or that the union would even be consulted about production standards. “Or listen to this proposal. GM demands that every time it instituted a change in line speed, all production standards griev- ances would be withdrawn with- out prejudices, Also GM told the union that all grievances arising in one model year would be with- drawn and not carried over to the next model year. “This means that thousands of grievances would be washed out with every new model. So GM would just let them pile up dur- ing the model run and never settle any, figuring each new model wipes out all grievances.” Besides these issues, things like voluntary overtime, invert seniority, shortening the proba- tionary workers’ time when he can be represented by the union from 90 days to 30, health and safety, opening up the skilled trades to black workers, all are in a state of suspension because GM just doesn’t discuss them. Syversen said that it’s. the opinion of many GM workers that GM, by making such union- weakening proposals, wanted to turn the UAW into a company union. Many felt this strike was deliberately forced by GM .to test the union. Based on visits to other locals and talks with his own members, he said that the workers are ready to fight GM and defeat the moves to put the union ‘back to 1947. The Canadian Peace Congress has denounced President Nixon’s latest “peace plan”, as a “politi- cal manoeuvre” which will de- ceive, “no honest and informed person.” The statement of the Peace Congress National Executive fol- lows: President Nixon has now re- plied to the September 17 peace proposals of Madame Nguyen Thi Binh, Foreign Minister of the Provisional Revolutionary Gov- ernment of South Vietnam. ,She had proposed: 1. A cease fire based on cer- tain agreements, namely; 2. A fixed time for the with- drawal of all U.S. and allied troops by June 30, 1971; 3. An exchange of all prison- ers; : 4. The formation of a coalition government including members of the Saigon regime. The three leading puppet gene- rals at the top who control the police and 1,000,000 US paid and armed mercenaries would not be included—they would not under - any circumstances tolerate free elections, They would supervise them with the whole police and military apparatus given them by the USA. President Nixon has picked up two of the points of the Provi- sional Revolutionary Govern- ment, but does not even men- tion it in his text, although he is presumably negotiating with it in Paris. For domestic poli- tical reasons he tries to place all the blame and responsibi- lity on Hanoi. Unless the US is prepared to recognize as a fact of life the existence of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam and deal serious- ly with its proposals, no genu- ine step for peace in S. E. Asia has been taken. Therefore, no honest and in- formed person will be deceived by President Nixon’s political manoeuvre. It is basically a cun- ningly devised effort to influence the Congressional elections and to stall the massive protest aris- ing in the United States and around the world. President Nixon based his ar- gument on the well-known US big lie that North Vietnam is re- sponsible for the war and the continuation of it. He also stated another Big Lie that the US abides by the Geneva Accords of 1954 and 1962. He can only do this because his “silent major- ity” of US citizens are totally ‘PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 16, 1970—PAGE 6 ignorant of the text and mean- ing of the Geneva Accords. If the US had accepted the Geneva Accords there would have been elections and Ho Chi- minh would have won them, In- stead the US intervened milita- rily. On the same day that Pre- sident Nixon made his speech, it was revealed in President de Gaulle’s memoirs ‘that in 1961 President Kennedy told him that the U.S. would ‘develop its pre- sence in Indo-China to establish a breakwater against the Soviet Union”. So much for the falsehoods of Kennedy, .Johnson and Nixon that the responsibility for the war rests on North Vietnam. The responsibility rests squarely on the US government. It has conducted a war of un- imaginable ferocity. It has bomb- ed and burned to death about 2,000,000 people, dropping the equivalent in. tonnage of 500 Hi- roshima A-Bombs. It has devas- tated and chemically poisoned vast crop lands and created mil- lions of refugees. We call upon all peace sup- porters to expose and denounce the US war in S. E. Asia and to demand that the US withdraw unconditionally. : - Sign the OUTNOW petition. UI | Free, united Korea | e / e in Canadas interest | By NELSON CLARKE At the heart of the heroic struggle of the Vietnamese peo- ple lies their determination to never allow U.S. imperialism to maintain domination over half their country: In this fight, they have learn- ed well from the experience of the Korean people. It is an ex- perience that we Canadians should never allow ourselves to forget. Indeed, ont only is it to be remembered. It. needs to be the subject of active pressure on the Canadian government. The recent white paper on for- eign policy, in the Pacific area, issued by the Canadian govern- ment has nothing to say about Korea except to cheerfully note that trade (with the South, pre- sumably) is expanding. Yet only. 20 years ago Cana- dian boys were sent to die in Korea under the bloodstained leadership of U.S. general Doug- las MacArthur. 20 years ago, MacArthur was driving mercilessly through North Korea. He was soon to be forced ‘back with the help of the Chinese People’s Volunteers, strongly backed by the Soviet Union. (The unity of the Soviet Union and China in those days was decisive in winning that historic victory). In the 45 days in which U.S. troops occupied Sinchon county in the north, they murdered 35,000 people, one-quarter of the total popula- tion of the area. This is only one fact out of the dark story of bar- barous massacre from _ those days. During the whole war, the United States destroyed 8,700 factories, 600,000 homes, more than 5,000 schools in the north- ern half of the Republic. The Koreans first. encountered U.S. imperialism in 1866, when the U.S.S. Sherman intruded up to the outskirts of Pyongyang perpetrating atrocities on the population. In 1882, the U:S. imposed an unequal treaty on Korea allowing U.S. business- men free access to its ports._In 1895 Korea was seized by Jap- anese imperialism. But the U.S. ‘was prepared to work out a deal over the next few years. The U.S. Secretary of the Army revealed in 1905 that an agreement had been worked out recognizing Japan’s occupation of Korea in return for Japan’s recognition of the U.S. occupation of the Philip- pines. When Japanese and U.S. im- perialism finally came to blows in World War II, President Roosevelt was prepared to adopt another policy. Meeting in Cairo in 1943 with Winston Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek he joined in signing a solemn declaration: “The aforesaid great powers, mindful of the enslavement of the people of Korea, are deter- mined that in due course Korea shall become free and indepen- dent.” But after the defeat of Japan, it became obvious that there were big differences as to what was meant by “due course.” The Koreans fought to liberate them- selves, and largely succeeded. The Soviet armies, finishing off the Japanese in Manchuria en- tered the northern part of Korea. U.S. imperialism decided what Korea needed was a “trustee- ship.” They could not establish it for the whole country, but were able to instal their puppets in - above, ‘the creators of your own power in the south. i: The U.S. occupation aut ities in the South acted 4 agent for the National City he of New York, which brings gether the Rockefeller, Mae and DuPont interests. They | ed former Japanese property” turned it over to these BM U.S. monopolists. pom Under Occupation Ordinar 52, they empowered themsely “To transact all forms of ind trial activity, including the traction of metallic and metallic natural resources; processing and_ fabricating by materials and chemicals, fot manufacture of any articles | industrial or commercial PY poses, machinery, motive ©. transportation equipment, ship and aircraft parts and eat | ment, electrical equipment # appliances, textiles and food P cessing.” ma It is within this framewor U.S. domination that the ‘e puppets in South Korea acted ever since. It was tend this domination to mineral-rich north that the of 1950-53 was waged by sis United States—a war which if finally ended at the dividing! (the 38th parallel) where it! “ gan, with the U.S. aggres! || stopped, but with the cou! still divided. ; nt What a world of differ | there. is between that arroge | declaration of annexation © tained in Ordinance 52 as qU® and the proclamal of made to the people by the © mander of the Soviet fof which entered the north in ! It is worth quoting in full, i cause here is summed uP 3 difference between imperiali and socialism: The representative of w world’s first working class 8 said: “Citizens of Korea! “Your country is now ina But this is only the first page the history of Korea. j “Just as a flowering garde? the result of the work and @ of man, happiness can only achieved by the heroic strug and tireless work of the Kor people. “Citizens of Korea! ee J “Remember that happiness !! | in your hands! You now hat your freedom. . Everything d pends on you, yourselves. Al “The Soviet Army has creat’, all the conditions to enable ™ Korean people to embark U free creative work. e “You yourselves must beco™ not to & the sé of sR = AB piness.” It is this vision which the US? has been blacking out in ™ south through all these years: (To be continued) STUDENT SUPPORT TO DRAFT RESISTER® WINNIPEG — The Universit) of Manitoba Students’ Union | joining the Winnipeg Committ) to assist War Objecters to ® the increasing number of U” draft resisters arriving in Win" peg. 3 The Students’ Council }”) voted a $300 grant to the com mittee. Winnipeg is stated to one of the largest centres in C ada for draft resisters, with t or three reported to be arrivisl daily.