TORONTO — “‘It was the most perfectly orches- trated corporate manoeuvre I’ve seen ina long time.”” That was how Newspaper Guild representative Linda Torey described the recent carve-up of Canada’s newspaper industry by Thomson Newspapers Ltd., and Southam Inc. Torney, who's also'an executive board member of the Metro Toronto Labor Council, was speaking in favor of an executive board statement at the council’s Sept. 4 meeting which called for the federal govern- ment to issue an injunction forbidding the Ottawa Journal and the Winnipeg Tribune from stopping publication, and forbidding both Thomson and Southam from carrying through with other plans to sew up the newspaper market in Canada between themselves. The statement called for the immediate putting into _place of laws that would limit the number of news- papers a single company could acquire, force chains exceeding the limit to divest themselves of the re- quired number of papers, and prevent the acquisition by a newspaper chain of a second newspaper in the same city. Delegates were urged to write or contact the federal Attorney-General’s office demanding the injunction stopping the sale of the Journal and the Winnipeg Tribune. The unions involved in the Aug. 27 closures were never contacted about Thomson’s or Southam’s plans to shut down. Ottawa Journal circulation work- ers found out about the decision that they were de- eerie the paper’s last edition by reading the head- ne. The statement noted the increasing link between newspaper ownership and other large corporate interests. It pointed to Thomson, which next to being the largest newspaper chain in Canada also owns retail stores such as The Bay, (formerly Hudson’s Bay Co.,) Zeller’s, Simpsons and other interests such as Thomson North Sea Limited, and Thomson Scot- tish Petroleum Ltd. The statement revealed that ‘‘Mobil Oil has made no secret of the fact that it has been looking to acquire a Newspaper to represent its point of view. In Eng- land, Atlantic Richfield acquired the London Ob- server at a time when off-shore North Sea oil-fields make a voice on the British domestic scene more than useful.” : : Toronto Typographical Union president Jim Buller said the shutdown affected more than just the workers at the Journal and the Tribune, but the general public as well. ‘‘The creation of a bigger monopoly will intensify the doctoring and manipulation of the news by the daily press’’, he said. He recalled how the Globe and Mail had run three leading editorials in its pages prior to the introduction of automatic dues check off as an amendment to the Ontario labor law. Referring to the Globe's opposition to the legislation Buller said: ‘‘Do you know why (the Globe opposed the minimum union security pro- visions added to the act)? Because they don’t have it at the Globe.”’ : Describing the Globe and Thomson Newspapers in particular as one of ‘‘the cheapest, tight-fisted anti-union companies to deal with,”’ Buller reflected that he ‘‘found it strange for them to be shedding barrels of tears over workers in Poland when they Newspaper Guild executive secretary John Bryant said the Thomson-Southam move was totally con- sistent with Thomson's pattern of business in the newspaper industry. ‘* They traditionally have never started a newspaper’, Bryant said. ‘*They bury them. They go into a town start with one newspaper then buy out the competition and suck all the advertising revenue out. ‘They don’t care about news or the community they operate in’’, he said. Bryant charged that the owners of the newspaper industry in Canada ‘‘have become leaders in a mono- poly situation and anti-freedom of the press. ...” In other business the council supported the execu- tive’s call on the federal government to adopt the recommendations of Justice Emmett Hall’s review of the health care system in Canada. Hall proposed the abolition of extra billing by doctors and the replace- ment of health insurance premiums in Ontario, B.C. and Alberta with universal medical coverage for everyone in these provinces to be paid out of general Labor wants injunction on news chains -deny their own workers their basic union rights.”’ revenue. Library workers win Metro Toronto library workers, members of CUPE Local 1582, won a new one- year contract providing a 10.4% wage hike. The set- tlement also provides a grie- vance proceedure, job clas- sification, optical plan, ex- tended leave and an _anti-discrimination clause. The package was accepted by a 84% vote. CUPE 1582 workers walked out Sept.2 and received sup- port from Metro’s inside and outside workers. ee Cancer’s source operates wi Without detracting in any way from the courage of young Terry Fox in his fight against the scourge of cancer, I would like to tell you about a different kind of fight being undertaken by Gordon Lambert, veteran trade unionist and Communist Party member who is recovering from a cancer operation in a Toronto hospital. First, let me tell you the doctors are pretty certain they got it in time in Gord’s lungs and his mas- sive voice and fighting capacity will be with us for a long time. A group of his comrades and fellow trade unionists invaded the hospital last Sunday, after a meet- ing, and came away feeling con- fident in’ Gord’s recovery and happy to see him in such good shape. Gord Lambert, as many of you know, spent his entire working life, more than 30 years, working in the foundry at General Motors in St. Catharines. He was just given a retirement send-off last year which must have equalled anything ever seen in the labor movement in Ontario. | A few short months after his retirement he was informed by his doctor, on a routine check-up, that he had cancer, and last week was operated on successfully. What prompts me to write about this here, is something Gordon told us on Sunday when we landed on him in the hospital. Gord is convinced the re- sponsibility for his illness comes from his years in the foundry in the GM plant in St. Catharines. He has already put the wheels in motion to track down this assumption and to see that other workers now in the foundry, or still to work there, are protected against the same thing. In this campaign he is not likely to receive the same enthusiastic support shown for Terry Fox on the Sept. 7 telethon. Workers in Canada have been suffering serious lung damage up to and including cancer for years from industrial pollution. Studies in mines, such as Inco in Sud- bury, in steel mills such as Stelco in Hamilton, etc. are bringing to -light the high incidence of cancer among workers in hazardous areas. Yet they continue to oper- ate with impunity as the toll mounts. ; It is already quite clear that a major part of the cure for cancer lies in eradicating the cancerous conditions in industry which give rise to a high proportion of the disease among working people. This does not have to await some magic cure which can take over where greedy corporations leave off, ruining people’s health. This kind of approach is a cop-out and acts as an excuse for monopolies to continue their murder of work- ing people while publicly bleeding their hearts out for the victims of their greed. In the end, the struggles of the labor movement, and guys like Gordon Lambert, who is going to really put the run on GM, will have more to do with protecting working, people from cancer than the $10.5-million pumped out of the people through the media's manipulations of Terry Fox's courageous act. General Motors couldn’t care less for Gord Lambert or any of the many more workers they have used up and retired, many of whom have faced premature death as a result of their refusal to provide safe working conditions for their employees. Today as these corporations shut their gates and run away to make investments in more profit- able areas, they leave behind a trail of wreckage of communities, families and the very health of their employees. For this they refuse to bear any responsibility. They pass this on to the public purse — you and me. This ‘is why the battle of the 1980s includes the demand that corporations be fully responsible to the communities they live in, the workers who have built them, and the governments who, in the final account now, have any mea- sure of control over them. The question of workers’ con- trol, of public democratic control over corporate wealth is be- coming an inescapable part of the th impunity Gord Lambert pictured at last OFL convention now carries on his own struggle against cancer. daily struggle of people to make" ends meet. * * * When Gord Lambert “‘retired”’ from GM, I spoke at his retire- ment banquet and predicted that Gordon had not retired from the class struggle, Communists never do. _ Now he is back in the battle to make sure that what has hap- pened to him, will not happen to those who follow, as a result of the callousness and neglect of GM. Good luck to Terry Fox, but more than that, good luck to Gord Lambert in this battle.. The work- ing class stands by your side in this battle Gord, as it always has in the past. Let’s go get the bas- tards.