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