——_

Not

— 4d rising pric
is that & prices, the plain fact

S,, Per hoy

ES

LABOR SCENE

BY BRUCE MAGNUSON

AR will not ever — I will be
ae about this — not ever ac-
= Wage-price controls,” Rus-

Bell, research director of the
anadian Labor Congress is re-

ee Ported as saying.

Mr. Bell is absolutely right. In

~ Spite of all the propaganda blam-

in ; :
8 Wages as the main cause, if

the only cause of inflation

2 Wages are not respon-
aS The real culprit is mono-
tg Price fixing and the greed-
Profiteering ever, °
Satlce Conservative and biased
ale ia for 1972, showed aver-
ne Bze Increases of 7.6%. All
absorh of these increases were
Stee _ by price increases. In-
ve Bees. such as sales taxes
Jen adding close to 1%
oo annually since 1964,
oa taxes have in-
amount Eually by a similar
cost oF f we add the increased
Babeson Shelter and other civic
ble w ents, most working peo-
re much worse off in real

buyj
Weare hO¥er than they were a

Wages Still Lag

* eee there been much sign
Cteages Aine upon new pay in-
Bainins M first-quarter 1973 bar-
fe iS The best agreement so

Inco |S Year is that between

0
6166 and Steelworkers Local

Thompson, Manitoba.
Surface laborers’ basic
ay will rise by 45 cents
each year in a two-year

Contr
ac A : ‘
ficatig t Two main miner classi-

Hete the
hourly Dp:

"cand oH Will go up by 524%4¢

$5.53 At each year to reach
March fe $5.95 per hour by
Uician's’ 1975. A first class elec-
$4.86 Tate will rise from

This, ‘5 $5.97 two years hence.

ing a be remembered, is
living es and high cost-of-
visio even, without any
n ee future increases in
tract ne S, most current con-
Provig, tiations would have to
ftom «,\NCreases of anywhere
Nore st $1 per hour, or
Md incom, 9°! But while job
high i ae Security have rated
deme mon members’ contract
4 Settlements so far this
Nd: ne to be lagging far be-

. © in terms of wage
There i

; ee tun as to where

Monopoly price fixing .
the cause of inflation

the benefits of technological
change and increased productiv-
ity go. They are being absorbed
in monopoly profits. At the same
time, not even doctored statistics
can hide the worsened position
of the working people who
create all wealth.

Corporate profits increased by
24% in 1972. The wholesale
price index rose by 12.6%. Con-
sumer credits expanded by
18.1%. And unadjusted unem-
ployment figures showed nearly
8% of the labor force without
work in January. If allowance
is made for unemployed not cov-
ered by official statistics, the
number is probably close to one
million men and women without
jobs.

Unemployment and_ inflation
hit the working people. It is they
who suffer the consequences for
policies of the ruling class, in
which they have no say. The
working class and its trade union
movement cannot remain the
whipping boy for inflation,
which is the result of state-
monopoly capitalism and_ its
government’s policies.

Offensive Needed

With close to one million
Canadian workers in contract
negotiations this year, there is
a greater than ever need to go
on the offensive for more wages.
Any retreat from this means
surrender to monopoly and mak-
ing the workers the scapegoats
for inflation, which is the result
of monopoly control and profit-
eering. Tying wages to produc-
tivity does. not help the worker,
who is not in the position to
determine productivity. Joining
with the employers in drives for
productivity and speedup, while
surrendering the right .to strike,
is a betrayal of the interests of
the working class.

Workers in construction, auto
and railway industries, as well
as others, including those in
public services, need to expose
and demolish the lie that wage
increases are inflationary or that
they must be tied to productiv-
ity increases as measured by the
ruling class.

Cause of Inflation

There is no argument that”
something has to be done about
inflation and to roll back prices.
The real controversy has to do

with the cause of inflation, and
what measures must be taken
to combat it and curb it. The
imposition of state-regulated
wages has nothing whatever to
do with either curbing of infla-
tion nor maintaining a high level
of employment. In fact the op-
posite would be the result. It is
a device to force organized
workers to acquiesce in reduc-
ing their real-incomes to enhance
monopoly profits, and undermin-
ing their ability to fight back by
forcing concessions through the
use of their full economic and
political power. The relationship
between wages, prices and pro-
fits is a question of class strug-
gle, and of the strength of the
contending forces.

The capitalist monopolies, who
control all the main means of
production and distribution, will
raise prices and profits to all
that the traffic will bear regard-
less of whether a single worker
gets a wage increase or not. The
only alternative is to fight for
higher pay and mobilize the
community at large to support
that fight and at the same time
seek to reduce prices.

Fighting Inflation

The meat boycott has been a
lesson in this respect. Fighting
the price of food is fighting in-
flation induced by monopoly.
You cannot fight inflation in
general. And even those who do
— like Charles Munro, president
of the Canadian Federation of
Agriculture — usually come
down to the specific by blaming
wages and salaries. But neither
farmers, nor workers are’ to
blame for high fodd costs. The
enemy is the monopolies, the
processors and big chain stores,
who mark up prices at will.

Collective bargaining — re-
sults and perspectives — for
1973, tells us that the people’s
legitimate concern with rising
prices is being exploited by the
government and employers to
propagate the idea that the main
if not the-only cause of inflation
is unreasonably ‘high wages and
salary increases. This bare-faced
lie has to be demolished. This,
coupled with a stepped-up strug-
gle for more wages and income
security for low income people
at the expense of monopoly pro-
fits, is the way to fight inflation.

Se, ia 3 E
“—s : ee ARE —
——. MUNRO_DOCTRINE. e8 seh
oS 2-s-es ere _ .

not for a

Housing for the people,

fast buck —

TORONTO — Speaking as
chairman of the Metropolitan
Toronto Committee of the Com-
munist Party of Canada, Nelson
Clarke made the following pres-
entation to the Ontario Task
Force on Housing, on April 3:

The shaky crumbling founda-
tions on which the housing poli-
cies of the present Ontario gov-
ernment rest were revealed last

. week in a flash by Mr. Allan

Grossman, the Minister in charge
of the Ontario Housing Corpor-
ation, when he said that he could
not understand why the opposi-
tion was against plans to pro-
vide “good legitimate housing at
reasonable costs having regard
for today’s market” just because *
“some developer or builder is
going to make’a fast buck out of
development.”

As long as it is the making
of a fast buck that dictates hous-
ing policy, there will be no solu-
tion to the housing problems of
the people of Ontario, nor any
relief from exorbitant rents.

A Public Utility

Housing must be provided to
meet the needs of people, not
to fill the pockets of land specu-
lators, developers and big cont-
ractors. Just as the provision of
water mains and sewers for ex-
ample has long been seen as the
function of a public utility, so
housing must come to be looked
upon as a public utility.

The practicability of such an
approach has, of course, long
been demonstrated in the social-
ist countries. where massive
housing construction has been
undertaken over many years by
the state on behalf of the work-
ers, and where rentals run be-
low 10% of income.

In this short statement, we
can only set forth a number of
basic principles which should
govern housing policy in this
province.

1. There must be massive pub-
lic land-banking, not to provide
developers with cheaper land,
but to ensure the extensive con-
struction of housing under the
public sector.

Land Available

What is going to.be done, for
example, to guarantee that areas
of open land like the Downsview
Airport, and the old Langstaff
Prison Farm are made available
for housing? What is going to
be done to guarantee that under-
utilized industrial land in the
city core becomes available for
housing without some speculator
reaping a fat profit?

2. Publicly owned land must
be used to provide publicly
constructed housing — and not
just for low income people. We
cannot accept the idea that the
public sector should operate
only in the -provision of hous-
ing for low-income people as a
kind of extension of welfare. It
is this attitude that is respon-
sible for the so-called “ghettoiz-

- ation” of Ontario Housing Pro-

jects. The government having it-
self created this problem, and
engendered whatever opposition
exists to OHC housing in certain
neighborhoods, then exagger-
ates the extent of opposition,
and uses this as a pretext for
limiting new projects.

Must Serve Needs
Public bodies must take the
initiative in co-operation with
the trade unions, professional
groups and community associa-
tions in developing non-profit

housing. Such co-operation could
provide all the fully-trained, ful-
ly-qualified manpower necessary,
both to design and produce
housing which would meet the
needs and serve the interests of
the working population.

3. We believe the governmen-
tal bodies closest to the people
— the municipal councils. with
the fullest involvement of com-
munity organizations — are in
the best position to develop
plans for housing development
that will really meet the needs
of people. It must be pointed out
too, of course, that such a pro-
gram engenders’ considerable
employment both directly in con-
struction, and in the production
of materials.

_ Reduce Interest Rates

At the same time, we believe
that the financing of such pro-
grams should be assumed by
senior governments as they do
now, inadequately, under the
provisions of National Housing
Act. What is most needed at this
level is a drastic reduction of
interest rates. An example to be
recalled was the Veteran’s Land
Act in operation after the Sec-
ond World War which provided
housing funds at 3.5%.

4. We favor rent supplement
programs which will make pos-
sible a--coming together in one
well constructed, high quality
building of low income tenants
with people able to pay an eco-
nomic rent, on the basis of the
drastic reduction of rentals
which would be possible in pub-
licly owned and controlled build-
ings. Again we condemn the
idea that rent supplements can
only be extended by offering
bribes in the form of fast-bucks
to private developers.

5. There must be the strong-
est insistence on the principle
that no tenants in Ontario Hous-
ing should be required to pay in
rent more than 20% of the in-
come of the principal breadwin-
ner in the family.

Rental Review Board

6. We call for the enactment
by the provincial government of
legislation which will clearly
establish the right of tenants to
bargain with landlords through
crganizations of their choice on
rents, and all conditions within
their buildings.

7. We believe that the present
strong upward pressure on rents
demands as an immediate meas-
ure, the establishment of a ren-
tal review board which will have
the power to freeze, and roll
back rent levels. Such rent con-
trol will continue to be necessary
at least until other provisions of
this statement are enacted—that
is as long as housing remains
basically under the control of
the private sector.

We are quite aware that many
of our proposals run counter to

‘the dedication of the present

Ontario government to the main-
tenance of a private profit sys-
tem which, we would submit,
runs counter to the interests of
at least 95% of the people of this
province, and which is becom-
ing increasingly unworkable.
This only makes it all the more
important that there should be
massive, united action by the
people of this province includ-
ing the labor movement and the
community organizations if we
are to begin to achieve the kind
of housing policies which will
serve the interests of the work-
ing people who make up the
overwhelming majority in this
province.

Sok Ss ;
; 3 PACIFIC TRIBUNE=FRIDAY~ APRIL TS 197S=PAGE n

A SAS TEN Ss

NA VACIT I PMUBIST
wie sane