Le By RICK NAGIN
#3 Pe ANTic CITY — The gen-
Pike me among delegates to
in convention of the
1 ie Auto Workers held here
the a Week of April was that
a eeting was not really re-
to the vital issues facing

epee tO t
Ne union,

3 tiggetetans of previous conven-
cock fas that Leonard Wood-
‘flair ad President, lacked the
ep charisma of the late
“Unable + euther. ‘Woodcock was
Of dele to maintain the attention
"State ae during most of his
ay the Union” report. It
fot until the end of his

War ana en he denounced the
Vin; €sident Nixon’s chau-

Vin
Woodtoet 2" delegates gave
aPPlause, their attention and

t
Tee, Seemed that a conscious ef-
Woods aS being made by the
flames ck forces to dampen the
Of struggle in the rank

and file and to consolidate the
position of those committed to
class peace, While scoring some
victories in this effort, most not-
ably the scuttling of Paul
Schrade, the activist Region 6
director, it is not clear that
Woodcock was entirely success-
ful.

Members of the United Na-
tional Caucus, the major rank
and file group present, constant-
ly raised the negelected issues
from the floor and, most impor-
tant, established in delegates’
minds the existence of a mili-
tant opposition.

The UNC issued a daily news-
letter on convention proceed-
ings, criticizing the half-way
measures proposed by the lead-
ership to deal with such ques-
tions as racism, speedup, plant
safety and organizing the un-
organized. However, the only
concrete issue around which the
UNC fought consistently was
for a referendum election of

uto workers meet marked time

union officers by the member-
ship instead of the present sys-
tem of election by convention.

Even on the question of
Schrade, Woodcock’s victory
was mixed when he. lost his
temper over this issue in front
of everyone on the last day of
the convention.

After Schrade was defeated
by Jerry Whipple, a conserva-
tive. Ann LeFebre, who had
been elected on Woodcock’s
slate as an International trustee
but who was a Schrade support-

-er, gained access to a micro- —
phone after some difficulty and

announced her resignation.

She charged that Woodcock
was responsible for Schrade’s
defeat, and, looking straight at
him, she declared:

“I say shame, shame on you.
You lost a great man and the’
people gained a great leader.”

These remarks were greeted
with considerable applause.

; Delegates hear NDP leader

esa

Auto “,SPeech to the United
onvent orkers’ International
tie G4, 0" last week in Atlan-
leaden Shephen Lewis, Ontario
Party, oe the New Democratic
a ~ ered the largely Ameri-
major v€nce his views on such
Cana ieee as Vietnam, and
) . ae relations. On Viet-
I moun delegates will permit,
# toriang uct that when his-
3, et back on the year

| a tion Will see in the re-
© Teocity Of bombings of such
i Nixon s € blackest hour of the
Which, ee There is a point at
-% ns Foarism and madness
i Passeq. » And that point is now

; - &xe y 60°vernment is hardly
have ae all of these years, we
ing fa as repudiated the war
i. Cause nN that would seriously
ee nent to the
“S. Worse still, our
hundr Au IS chronicled in the
Of atmame! Mhillions of dollars
Solq to nts which we have
Tumiy out country.”
Can bes to the North Ameri-
Poing ss Lewis made _ the
0d, ha © have never, thank
dian a Committee on Un-
a to fac tvities.” He went
fluences on Cansnceative U.S.
a.

rOMplic

. Whe
E a < You become obsessed
Mer, a gp cKboot of law and
“Omes snort time later it be-
invet S Shionable in Canada—
{P0sition eahionable as in the

Urin © War Measures
tober aan Quebec crisis of

Too,” You
On by, 204 Put men on the

ut
nt command the

intellectual creativity or resour-
ces to deal with elemental pov-
erty, it simply reinforces my
country’s inertia in the same
area. ;

“When you turn your entire
cultural apparatus over to the
commercial electronic media
with its celebration of medio-
crity, vulgarity and banality;
when you direct your develop-
ment of educational technology
into the hands of Time, Life and
Xerox, and Silver Burdette, RCA
and Lytton Industries, then. you
can imagine with what difficulty
the little shoots of an identifi-
able Canadian culture are nur-
tured and grown.”

Lewis named as “the greatest
single tension between our two
countries: foreign control of the
Canadian economy. And for
every Canadian coast-to-coast,
foreign control of our economy
means American control of our
economy.”

For example: ‘74% of our
petroleum and gas industry are
foreign-owned, 65% of our min-
ing industry is foreign-owned,
57% of all manufacturing is
foreign-owned. And in my Pro-
vince of Ontario, 70% of all
manufacturing is foreign-owned.

“Can you imagine the impli-
cations for the exercise of in-
dependent decision-making? One
hundred percent of the alumi-
num industry is foreign-owned,
98% of rubber, 96% of automo-
biles and auto parts, 76% of all
transportation, 79% of the che-
mical industry, 77% of the elec-
trical apparatus industry.

“It reads like a litany of a
country with a permanent mort-

mands of workers march in Moscow on May Day,

gage on its independence.”

Responding to President Nix-
on’s recent visit to Canada, the
NDP leader said:

“He can visit Canada to his
heart’s content. Some -will lay
roses in his path. But let his
visit not include gratuitous ob-
servations about Canada’s being
free in his view to forge a sepa-
rate identity. We'll carve out
our own independence, thank
you very much, without the per-
mission of President Nixon.

“We are not prepared to
barter our natural resources, our
mines, our forests, oil, water, gas,
as the final consummation of
the continental economy. We re-
cognize that the United States
is desperate for primary resour-
ces, but we will not serve as a
perpetual hinterland.

“We will no longer submit
ourselves objectively to the
wishes and dictates of the multi-
national corporations, be it
Chrysler, Ford, General Motors,
or any other industrial conglo-
merate to carry the name. There
comes a point when the matter
of layoffs and shutdowns and
dislocations violates the basic
rights of every Canadian worker.

“It is for all of us in Canada,

-a long, hard road back to sover-

eignty, and if we don’t start now
we'll never make it.

“We have no intention of bar-
gain basement negotiations over
the surrender of the auto pact
safeguards the greatest
single anomaly at this point is
the disparity in automotive
prices, so much higher in Can-
ada than in the United States,
not only on the same models but
on cars which are produced in
Canada for sale in both coun-
tries. :
“That may be a matter of dis-
cussion, but not the safeguards
themselves.

“We intend to deflate the
carefully calculated mythology
that we in Canada are depen-
dent on foreign capital for
growth and development. In the
last year for which figures are
available, in the multi-national
sector, only five percent of we
investment was new capita
iported from abroad. All the
rest, all the other 95% was
internally generated within Can-
ada. It’s registered itself in the
profits, the retained earnings,
the dividends, the loans of the
multi-national subsidiaries oper-
ating in our country.”

r &
i fal

The Ukrainian Senior Citizens Club in Toronto has established a

fine tradition. This May Day, as in previous years, Pensioners whose
ages range from the sixties to eighties visited the Taras Shevchenko
Memorial Park in Palermo, placed a wreath at the monument of the
great poet and sang songs to words by Shevchenko.

UE convention deals with
issues affecting unions

The 33rd convention of the
United Electrical, Radio and
Machine Workers (UE) in Tor-
onto on April 27-30, displayed
depth and quality both in the
delegates’ panel reports, and in
spirited discussion and debate
on a profusion of issues, re-
elected President C. S. Jackson
told the convention’s final ses-
sion.

He complimented the nearly
200 delegates from 62 shops and
offices, on the high level of de-
bate in discussions ranging from
world peace and Canadian in-
dependence, to civil rights and
all-in trade union unity.

In a sharp attack on the U.S.
war in Indochina, Albert Fitz-
gerald, UE president in USA,
contrasted the working people’s

Query reported

statement made

by NDP member

Ontario Communist Party
leader William Stewart this
week sent the following wire to
Reg Gisborn, the NDP MLA for
Hamilton East:

“The Hamilton Spectator has
quoted you as stating before a
recent Hamilton and _ District
Labor Council meeting: ‘We in
the labor movement are going to
have to accept-compulsory arbit-
ration in essential industries in
the near future but the switch
should be done in a rational
manner.’

“If you are incorrectly quoted
in the press, we would look

. forward to a repudiation of this

position by yourself along with
an assurance that this is not the
position of yourself or that of
your party. If not we would
strongly protest against such a
position as surrender to those
anti-labor forces who are out to
destroy collective bargaining by
depriving it of all meaning
through legislative abrogation
of the right to strike.

“Since this is a fundamental
democratic right that is indivis-
ible, it is directed against all
unions and completely unaccept-
able to the trade unions and
the labor movement in any form
whatever.” 8

A copy of the wire was sent
to Ontario NDP leader Stephen
Lewis and the press.

need for peace and improved liv-
ing standards with the Nixon
government’s shifting of the
economic burden of war and
high profits onto the backs of
the workers.

Jean Pare, UE vice-president,
told the assembly the dramatic
story of trade union unity be-
hind the nine-day strike . of
210,000 Quebec public service
workers.

Following endorsation by the
delegates of a resolution on
trade union unity, they heard an
address by George Hutchens,
president of their long-time com-
petitor, the International Union
of Electrical, Radio and Machine
Workers (IUE). He expressed
the opinion that principled trade
union unity could only be based
on continued efforts to expand
co-operation between unions.

The Officers’ Report rejected
any suggestion that the modest
wage gains of workers are the
cause of inflation. The need, it
said, was for the union to pur-
sue a vigorous bargaining policy
for substantial improvements in
wages, benefits and conditions,

The structure of this year’s
four-day meet provided for five
panels of delegates. Each panel
had before it a prepared state-
ment detailing the topic and
making recommendations, such
as calling upon governments to
solve problems on current cru-
cial issues. In all, the delegates
debated close to 100 resolutions.

“The big job now,” C. S. Jack-
son told the delegates, is to
carry the substance of those re-
ports back to the local union and
to win conviction and support
for them from the member-
ship . . .” They should then be
taken “out into the labor move-
ment and the community to win
acceptance and agreement for
these programs,” he said.

C. S. JACKSON

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1972—PAGE 7