4 Conference on labor-management relations New approaches needed By RAE MURPHY HE only thing that will pre- vent baldness is hair, just as the only thing that will prevent unemployment is jobs. lt is just as simple as that, and zlas just as complicated. It is one thing to recognize the economic dislocations, pre- sent and potential, in the tech- nological revolution, it is quite another to approach these prob- lems in the context of present relations between a worker and his employer as if these were permanent and unchangeable. We have to reckon with the irresistable force of technolo- gical change and try to fit it into the immovable object of existing social relationships, and it just won’t work. Neverthe- less, the Economic Council of Canada is holding a national conference on _ labor-manage- ment relations in Ottawa on March 21-22, to try to do just that. Thus the meeting in Otta- wa has all the makings of a real psychedelic experience. John J. Deutsch, the council’s chairman, says the conference will discuss the major issues confronting labor and manage- ment. In particular it will be asked to focus attention on: * @ The need to deal. effective- Workers at GE win 1914% The three-week strike of 8,500 General Electric work- ers has ended with the work- ers accepting a new two-year contract with general wage increases of 1914 percent. Earlier they had rejected a 17 percent offer. The workers, members of the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, Sunday voted 74.8 percent in favor of the con- tract, which includes pen- sion, insurance, holiday and vacation improvements. The new contract also of- fers a high degree of job and earning protection in the event of technological change and the introduction of auto- mated processes. Skilled workmen would re- ceive an additional one to seven cents an hour under the new contract. Minimum male rate in To- ronto and Peterborough at the end of the contract in 1969 will be $2.64-7/10 an hour with toolmakers making the highest rate of $3.81-7/10 an hour. The minimum female rate will be $2.40-9/10 an hour. Workers went on_ strike Feb. 7 at 16 plants in Toron- to, Peterborough, Trenton, Guelph, Barrie and Brampton, seeking a 35 per cent wage increase. ly and equitably with the human aspects of rapid technological and other change, by assisting workers who may face job dis- placement. e The need to improve com- munications—that is, to get a better exchange of information and views both within and be- tween labor and management. As a basis of discussion at the conference, the council has published a document titled, “Declaration on Manpower Ad- justments to Technological and Other Changes.” The document states: “The council believes that labor and management need to make new efforts, in coopera- tion with government authori- ties responsible for manpower and labor market programs, to help solve manpower adjust- ment problems resulting from technological and other kinds of change.” Nobody can really argue with the concept of the council that labor and management (that is, the owners) and government have vital and contradictory in- terests in solving “problems re- sulting from technological and other kinds of change.” The basic problem remains one of labor’s actual say in these changes. As long as the employ- ers insist that the basic rights of private property are such that they will brook no inter- ference in the operations or policy of industry, such a con- cépt of “cooperation” is a sham and a meanirgless platitude. In a speech before the Can- adian Association of Purchasing Agents in Toronto, Labor Minis- ter John Nicholson said: “There is no stopping any technological change. It would be most unwise for labor or any- one else to attempt to do so... Organized labor recognizes this but, of late,’ their spokesmen have made it clear that these changes will not come ‘about at the expense of the workers and their families. Labor today is asking that they have a voice in a matter which affects them ‘so deeply. I ask you in all “seriousness, gentlemen, is there anything ‘unreasonable’ about such a request.” Nicholson, with unusual clar- ity, put his finger on the prob- lem. It is not cooperation, love and charity between the bosses and. workers that is required to come to grips with social and economic solutions of the crisis of technological change. What is involved is a respect for the rights of labor, a right to a job and to the full fruits of the technology he has created. It is impossible to get around this question only with palliatives such as retraining programs, re- settlement schemes, and a sys- tem of unemployment compen- Sation, however valuable and necessary such programs may be. One has to get at the real social problem. Coming at the question from another angle, Louis Green- span, writing in the Canadian Forum, describes the present attitude of Canadian workers thus: “We have become accustom- ed to think of the problems of technology only in connection with unemployment. We _ have neglected to consider what hap- pens where it strikes first, namely, the plant. Here a host of changes in what the Freed- man report refers to as ‘condi- tions of employment’ occur. In- sofar as the worker finds. that these changes are made without his participation he is bitterly resentful. “Throughout the summer I met with rebel groups within the unions and with individual workers. In a confused way each was an adherent of what is often referred to as a version of participatory democracy in industry. So widespread was the desire to expand the role of the union, especially in the question of technological inovation, that I often wondered whether I had stumbled upon a well organized but new version of trade union- ism within the trade unions.” It is only within the frame- work of worker participation and public control of economic planning and development that society can control the produc- tive forces the technological re- . volution unleashes. It is in this context, or ap- proaching this ideal, that we can advance programs of social adjustment, social welfare and incentives. Involved here are solutions to the problems of in- dustrial democracy and a con- stantly expanding economy which will provide jobs in the future and not a glorified form of dole. royal commissioners Inve ing labor disputes to AU to study compulsory arb! (Rand in Ontario) and en to study God knows (Nemetz in British Colllf One thing the 50 Council says is quite “clearly new approach needed.” The immediacy of this prob- Jem is reflected in the present Jabor struggles which some peo- ple refer to as “a breakdown in labor-management relations.” The refusal to face up to this problem in any positive way is reflected in the platitudes com- ing from the Economic Council, while governments send their icy THE FIRST official action by an AFL-CIO labor Ov United States in support of the Spring Peace Mobilization? the war in Vietnam was taken last week by the Santa clare District Labor Council. The delegates voted unanimously port the peace action. * * * THE CONFEDERATION of National Trade Unions ha§ an organizing campaign on a second large affiliate of the Labor Congress. The CNTU is after 850 members of th Steel Workers at the Collingwood shipyard of Canadian sh ing and Engineers Ltd., a subsidiary of Canada SteamshiP They have .already signed up 200 of the 390 workers need ply for a certification vote. * * * PRELIMINARY calculations of the Department of La? that a total of 629 work stoppages took place in Canada 1966. The stoppages involved 411,000 workers and result _time-loss of 5,048,250 man-days. Thirty-five of the stoppae already in effect as the year began; another 594 began dur? and by the end of the year 26 work stoppages were stil] in The number of work stoppages in each jurisdiction in I as follows (bracketed figures indicate the time-loss in ma Federal jurisdiction 42 (1,401,290); Newfoundland 10 Prince Edward Island 3 (11,960); Nova Scotia 34 (53,77 Brunswick 21 (19,070); Quebec 140 (1,834,480); Onl@ (1,356,480); Manitoba 13 (41,000); Saskatchewan 12 (20,930) ta 16 (46,780); and British Columbia 39 (240,230). The time loss due to work stoppages during 1966 Te 0.33 percent of the total estimated working time of non-agt paid workers. In 1965 the percentage was 0.17. In poth ¥ percentages were less than that for 1946, when the figure 0.54. * * * GEORGE BURT, Canadian director of the United AY Workers, said that the government’s manpower program ha down as far as auto workers are concerned. The Manpowe! ment had said that 3,000 men laid off from General MO September would be retrained for jobs. This has not be and they have not received alternate employment. * * * WILLIAM KASHTAN, National Leader of the co Party of Canada, in a Jetter to Prime Minister L. B. pears? ed out that in setting up the Royal Commission on the women in Canada, “no one from the trade union mov included even though the labor movement has made an ¢ to make a significant contribution to the achievement © for women in this country. Working women have als0 | looked although they make up a considerable proportl0 labor force and undoubtedly would add to the quality a” sif of the work of the commission ... If this was an over” ought to be corrected.” March 10, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUN