Aiale of two systems 1 4 By TOM MORRIS a Trudeau’s travels an he USSR brought home Nei 2 Canadians via the lity ay insight into the E The ind dynamics of Soviet fee uevements of social- iscussed by every- Soy teae moved from Ati et Far East to the ee and opened many big ee man is capable of : ee a planned economy. oan ae with Canada’s eco- ae, Social ills is inescap- lee ‘do some comparing: hing ie new Five-Year Plan Ye win, 971-1975) Soviet peo- tease a their real incomes may 30%. There will be Pe sho T€ goods available in iF Sine Ps and of better quality. Mil Ret n Million more people tlizens , 2Partments. (Soviet tt thes Pay between 2 and 4% “Mdinn Salaries for housing, Mites p°, between 30.40%.) ul 2 T goods and services 4 top, an stable or continue ’ thy aos consumer price in- | te latpes y 0.4% in December A'S ros t in six months. Food ing 05%. 0.7%; rents and hous- Mansnon? iclephone costs 2.1%; 050, 0 costs 0.2%; fuel thinants’°:, More than 672,000 Memplon vere, registered for Ms at the nt insurance bene- Ms 19) €nd of December. This ‘ 0 or 40% more than Mtoe tttiog M the United States of Rade, that working class Mitiat Paid with their lives for Xblish 8 a mass struggle to es- Blo a 8-hour working day niga “8° 28 1886, It would be Hats apn, NOW, close to 100 jer T, United States union Or Reutty’ to pave the way hy "ing the shorter work- Unite ne facts are that the the Chr Utomobile Workers and t ,, “Sler Corporation have Study» Joint committee to a feasibility of insti- me days Ork-week of four 10- we Chr ao to pick one or wa flor er plants to serve peetime Project for such an Iteprecie: Here is how UAW 2 Beet Douglas A. Fra- Ute, “Tibes the initial proced- % It g es nd when one or more er Plants C § are selected by ig a Mittee for a pilot pro- Oy, test wi &2 3 the 10-hour day, 4 linc “OK week, the union wt in ition USt ling. OF the following con- One. ; tid in taecterendum must be © Wor a Selected plant. If Acre by a two-thirds © OXpa: articipate in wi then tment, the pilot plan be instituted for a Tod 0; i Nor a no less than 30 ng New An than 45 days on On, tefer schedule, a sec- nly jg yndum will be held. te’ Woure tds again. ap- ‘tinued uld the schedule be ant. Fr in that plant.” or 28% who is the UAW the union’s Chrysler » has pointed out Make so drastic a LABOR SCENE by Bruce Magnuson at the end of November and 135,000 or 25% more than the year before. The average week- ly benefit paid in the 12 months ending Dec. 1970 was $35.08 e Socialism allows for con- tinually more rational use of labor power, SO that every per- son can do his job creatively and with maximum effect. This implies steady elimination of manual labor and labor-consum- - ing operations, also unskilled jobs in all branches of the econ- omy. To achieve this, the new Soviet Five-Year Plan makes provision for the training of large numbers of skilled work- ers and specialists: no less than 7,500,000 will be trained in oc- cupational schools and courses. e There are 70,000 people on welfare in New Brunswick to- day compared with 37,500 in 1967. Ontario has 320,000 peo- ple on welfare or 4.2% of its population. Food allowance in N.B. is $21. per week for a family of six; they allow $60 a month for rent. e 150,000 transient youth are expected in Toronto over the summer. The city has only 500 hostel beds. The federal gov- ernment has alloted a $40,000 grant providing a tent city can be found. The tent city has been rejected by Council. e Welfare recipients in the Vancouver suburb of Surrey have been told by. Municipal Council to “get off the dole and pick berries.” There are 2,637 Pans and priorities, for whom? welfare recipients in this muni- cipality of 96,000. With depend- ents, the welfare list tops 7,000. e Canada compares “well,” however, with the U.S. here. As many as 700,000 young people in Los Angeles County alone will be looking for work this summer, e Using 1961-65 as 100, agri- cultural output in the USSR rose to 187.5 in the period 1966-70 and aims to reach 250 under the new Five-Year Plan.. Soviet col- lective farmers’ incomes rose by 42% between 1966-1970, and are to go up 30-35% in the next 5 years. e Between 1969 and 1970 the average Canadian farmer’s in- come dropped by $611. His share of the market for his © goods is shrinking as large agri- bizz grabs more and more. Can- ada is losing farmers to the large cities at the rate of 1,000 a month. e The next five years will greatly contribute to improving working and domestic condi- tions for Soviet mothers. The system of pre-school children’s institutions will add over two million new places, the number of children in prolonged-day schools and groups will jump by 1.5 million. e Come Sept. 1971 the Fam- ily Allowance cheque will stop coming to 80% of Canadian families. With the cut-off at $10,000 (combined family in- come) the government will save Norilsk at the end of May. On the 69th parallel (which places it north of Canada’s Arctic mainland) this city typifies the tremendous growth of the Soviet North. $294 million and clear $194 mil- lion of it after paying slightly increased sums to poverty level families—and they’re making it taxable. e In the coming five years Soviet heavy industry will con- centrate more on output of goods for public consumption. The industry’s total output will rise 70%, while its consumer goods portion will jump by 90%. More cars, household goods, clothing and food at stable prices will result. e “Steel increase may be to consumers” reads the Toronto Globe and Mail story. Stelco will raise its prices 4.8% for hot and cold rolled strip and sheet steel, its hot rolled bar products will jump 3.1%. West- inghouse, General Electric, Gen- eral Motors, Dofasco, Ford, all will “adjust their prices accord- ingly.” The reason? First quar- ter profits were only $11,764,- 000! This is a drop of $4,541,000 over last year in spite of a $5,685,000 increase in sales. Stelco’s chief executive officer, H. M. Griffith predicted “dif- ficulty in achieving a satisfac- tory profit level this year.” e Soviet secondary educa- - tional establishments will turn out in 1971-75 about nine mil- lion specialists—two million . more than in the past five years. School building will expand to provide six million new places. Enrolment in vocational schools will increase by 400,000 which will add up to the training of 7.5 million skilled workers by 1975--: e A survey made of last year’s graduates at the. Univer- sity of Toronto showed that out of 158 who made job applica- tions only 78 were successful. - Of 58 seeking employment at community colleges two were hired. In industry, of 23 seeking work one got a position. Re- search, three out of 53. The O-hour day retreat change in the workers’ life style, I feel a substantial ma- pority is needed. . . . A mere 51% isn’t enough.” Mr. Frazer heads up the union side of the joint committee. Serving with him are Bill Gilbert, president of Jefferson Assembly Plant Local 7, Detroit, and Charles Brooks, president of Local 444, Windsor, Ont. The article in UAW Solidarity of June 1971 from which the above quotes are taken says that, “The four-day week may help. solve problems of absen- teeism and guarantee workers three-day weekends every week.” Charles Brooks, writing in the June 3 issue of Local 444 News, claims “the four tens is the opening of a great debate dur- ing the remainder of this con- tract; but of greater importance is the fact that industry and union are both serious about a shorter work week.” (emphasis mine—B.M.) Mr. Brooks claims that de- spite discipline and Green Stamp bribes, absenteeism goes as high as 20% on certain Mon- days and Fridays. AS many as 40,000 quit at Chrysler in 1969. Mr. Brooks writes, “while ab- senteeism and manpower turn- i r Canadian plants, we have the best rating of any Chrysler plant in North America: This is mainly because over the years we have done things differently in our con- tracts.” (my emphasis—B.M.) Yet Mr. Brooks is all for an International Agreement and predicts that the Ford and G.M. workers of Canada will eventu- ” production by auto ally demand a similar agree- ment. It may well be that the Chrys- ler Corporation is considered as a good place to experiment with all sorts of things, including the ten-hour day. But that does not mean that all the so-called “new” approaches are going to benefit the workers. Certainly not the 10-hour day. , The danger inherent in this kind of experimentation is that for the large number of auto workers who are young and energetic, the promise of a long weekend may, for the time be- bait on the hook which will make them go for it. Young workers have little or no experience with the long and hard struggle to shorten the workday along with the strug- gle to improve earnings and fringe benefits. For the older workers a 10- hour day under speed-up condi- tions will be unbearable. In the long run, no worker, young Or old will be able to take it. To cure the absenteeism, it is not a longer workday which is needed, but a shorter workday, as well as a shorter work-week. As William Allan has report- ed from Detroit (Daily World, May 27), “From 1947 to 1969, workers in the U.S. increased by 11214%, while the work force increased by only 17.3%.” Allan further reports how a leaflet issued by Dodge Local 3, UAW reveals how this speed-up production affected their jobs. “If Chrys- ler wants to know why absen- teeism is a problem, all they got to do is look at their policies. In the first place they’ve been adding so much work to each of our jobs, we have to take off every so often just to relax and rest.” The leaflet went on to point out that workers now were doing in three days the amount of work they used to do in five days. — (emphasis B.M.) : It was also shown where workers at the plant mentioned here produced more than they did a year ago with 1000 less workers, at a time when 400,000 auto workers are without jobs in the U.S. A 10-hour day with no over- time after eight hours estab- lishes a new situation in the plants where fatigue is sure to make workers more prone to accidents. Coffee breaks, lunch and wash-up periods and other concessions, won by a long ted- ious struggle, go out the win- dow. Work quotas will become heavier, instead of lighter. Holi- days will be eliminated. Bonus and piece-work schemes will be added to overtime and speed- up. Working conditions in gen- eral will worsen. In the end a smaller and smal- ler work-force will produce more and more at less cost to the company. Eventually over- time will lengthen the work- week when the company so de- sires, because it will be much cheaper than to hire new work- ers. Since a matter of basic prin- ciple is involved here—and the auto industry is not the only one where this anti-labor gim- mickry is being promoted—it is more than high time to stop, look, and think twice before leaping into the open shop con- ditions of the past before unions .arrived on the scene as an instrument to protect the workers. It is hardly conceivable that experienced labor leaders will, be gullible enough to overlook the dangers involved in scut- tling the shorter work day. That is the issue, regardless of the number of days worked in a week, What is basic to the trade union movement today is the shorter work day with increased take-home pay. That is the an- swer to the redistribution of benefits that now accrue to the employers, and which will in- creasingly be derived from tech- nological change and increased productivity. This issue is closely related to industrial speed-up and the conditions of work in mines, mills, factories, shops and places of service. No employer will voluntarily agree to shorten hours of work. Consequently, to. suggest that any corporation is prepared to do so without a. struggle is to mislead workers. The only rea- son that any employer would consider a shorter work week is on the basis of the same num- ber or longer hours of work. The employer is out to increase exploitation, not diminish it. The longer workday, even when based upon a shorter work week, is a gimmick to increase exploitation. It must be expect- ed that no experienced and self- respecting trade union leader will swallow this poisonous gimmickry. Those, if any, who do so do not deserve any con- fidence from the workers. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE’ 18, 1971—PAGE 5