LABOR

Action Caucus influenced
militant CLC convention

By MIKE PHILLIPS

A powerful, united and progressive new force,
the Action Caucus, made itself felt at the 14th
Canadian Labor Congress convention, and it
promises to be a decisive influence on the labor
movement in the period ahead.

Representatives from some 15 different trade
union organizations, representing workers in such
diverse industries as steel, auto, longshore, tele-

communications, and provincial and federal public

service participated in the caucus, which grew
from an informal contact and consultation between
the United Electrical workers, (UE), the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers, (UFAWU) and the
Canadian Union of Postal Workers, (CUPW).

The Action Caucus brings together progressive
grass roots trade union members and leaders from
across Canada around a program of fundamental
economic reform and for a stronger, more dynamic
CLC.

Its impact on the convention was undeniable.
Several hundred delegates took part in its daily
meetings throughout the five-day convention, and
one of its prominent participants made history by
breaking the establishment slate.

Jean Claude Parrot, president of the 23,000-
member Canadian Union of Postal Workers,
(CUPW), was the first left winger ever to break
through and win election to the CLC executive at
large, in the congress’ 26-year history. Parrot came
10th in the elections for the 10 at-large vice-presi-
dents with 1,193 votes.

George Hewison of the United Fishermen and
Allied Workers Union (UFAWU), another prom-
inent member of the caucus, took a second run at
CLC secretary-treasurer Donald Montgomery
increasing his vote from 28% of the total at the 1980
convention to 35% this time. Hewison chalked up
741 to Montgomery’s 1,366.

Caucus Led Fight

Spokespersons for the Action Caucus led and
helped win the convention’s fight to have the
leadership bring forward a resolution calling for the
nationalization of banking in Canada.

A so-called *‘Open Rank and File Caucus’’,
composed of slightly more than a dozen members
and sympathizers of the Maoist, *‘ Workers Com-
munist Party’’, flopped in its efforts to split the
Action Caucus and was isolated from the genuine
progressive forces at the convention.

While its positions on economic questions
tended to track the line taken by the Action Cau-
cus, the unity of the ultra-left with the right-wing
elements of the CLC leadership on the inter-
national affairs and peace questions wasn’t lost on
the left forces at the convention.

_ Ina document circulated among the 2,300 CLC
convention delegates, the Action Caucus set its
aim as the forging of ‘‘a massive alliance under the
leadership of the labor movement to present a
working class response to the present economic
crisis."” It calls for the kind of independent labor
political action that was expressed in the Nov. 21
rally against interest rates sponsored by the con-
gress. .

Broad Popular Alliance

The caucus proposes a short-term and long term
program that could be taken up as part of labor's
program for economic and political reform. Head-
ing the short list: total rejection of wage controls:
demanding an immediate, emergency federal
budget to stimulate the economy, increase taxes.on
corporations and the wealthy and lighten the
oppressive tax load from low- and medium-wage
earners. It calls for a massive housing program, a
one-year moratorium on foreclosures, an energy-
prices rollback, better and fully-indexed pensions
for all, legislation to end plant shutdowns and clo-
sures, and universal access to free child care.

Its long range proposals would have the labor
movement leading a broad popular alliance
demanding an industrial strategy based on public
ownership of Canada's natural resources, the
petroleum industry and key sectors of industry,
particularly those under foreign ownership, in
order to fully develop Canadian manufacturing in
the interests of Canadians. Public ownership and
democratic control of banking in Canada is a key
element of such a strategy.

The Action Caucus also wants labor to press the
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 18, 1982— Page 6

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UE president Dick Barry, right, co-chaired the Action
Caucus with CUPW vice president Andre
Beauchamp. Barry is shown here with his dele-
gation including UE secretary treasurer Val Bjarna-
son, left. :

Canadian government to take the lead among the
peace forces of the world in the fight for peace and
nuclear disarmament, and for Canada’s with-
drawal from NATO and Norad. The caucus was
the only force at the convention to project the fight
for a new and democratic Canadian constitution
recognizing Canada’s bi-national character, the
equality of French and English-speaking Canada
and the rights of Indians, women and labor in gen-
eral.

Stronger, More Dynamic

The caucus program also includes proposals to
strengthen and unify the CLC itself, for the tough
Class battles which lie ahead. These stress: main-
taining the CLC’s and its convention’s democratic
structure and setting up a CLC collective bargain-
ing program with the appropriate co-ordinating
machinery to mobilize Congress affiliates in the
fight for such demands as the shorter work week,
and full protection for workers affected by tech-
nological change.

Organization of the unorganized; total support -

for women’s struggles; and clear rejection of all
forms of tri-partism and class collaboration such as
“Quality of Working Life’ programs are also being
advanced by the caucus. Labor is urged to step up
support for national liberation struggles around the
globe, and to adopt a policy of independent labor
political action to force whatever government is in
power to implement the CLC’s convention-deter-
mined policies and programs.

Caucus co-chairmen Andy Beauchamp, first
vice-president of CUPW and UE president Dick

Barry said the caucus was an unqualified success. -

*‘Judging from the large attendance at every meet-
ing and the major labor movement figures who took
part in it there’s no doubt the caucus was a suc-
cess’’, Beauchamp said in Winnipeg.

Caucus Influenced CLC

‘To make it more successful in the future, it will
have to continue between CLC conventions and
the job now will be to set up structures for caucuses
everywhere throughout the country.”’

He and Dick Barry agreed that the work done by
the caucus in preparing for the convention had a
positive impact on the fight-back program pro-
jected by the CLC leadership and adopted by the
convention. “‘The fact the caucus was organizing
toward the convention made the CLC leadership
aware there was a militant mood out there, and I
believe it influenced their decision to move
ahead,” Barry said.

Stressing the need to “‘broaden contacts and
liaison’’ among progressive forces throughout
Canada, the UE leader also noted that the caucus
will work to ensure the CLC leadership imple-
ments the convention's decisions.

“We won't just be preparing for the next
convention’, Barry said, ‘‘we’ll be monitoring
CLC actions throughout the period leading to the
15th convention, and we’ll mobilize in the locals, at
the labor councils and provincial federations to
ensure the convention decisions are carried out.”’

_ towns and cities toward the end of the summer, ending up in

jobless march, |

general strike

By CLAIRE DASYLVA

QUEBEC — Plans'for a great march of the unemployed on |)

Ottawa, and a call for a Canada-wide general strike against- wage

controls were launched by delegates to the 51st Congress of the |

Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN), May 23-29. —
While the two million-member Canadian Labor Congress was —

meeting in Winnipeg, the CSN, Quebec’s second largest trade | j
union central met here to also hammer out an action program to 4
tackle the current economic crisis and to elect a new president. |

He’s Donatien Corriveau, president of the 90,000-member So- —

cial Affairs Federation, the largest in the CSN, and he replaces |
Norbert Rodrigue the CSN’s militant president of the past six a

years.

Under the congress’ theme *‘All together for new powers,”’ the

1,800 delegates discussed what the CSN calls the massive “‘re- |) |
organization of the workforce’’ in Quebec, aimed at the elimina- |}/
tion of thousands of workers’ jobs; the economic crisis; and, the |}}
ways for workers to get out of it. Among the main resolutions |/§

adopted by the convention was an action plan proposed by the 5
outgoing executive which includes a strategy for ‘‘national nego- |
tiations’’, a ‘Great March of the Unemployed’’, and a Canada- |

wide work stoppage for sometime this fall with the co-operation —
of the CEQ, the QFL and the CLC.:

The CSN pledged itself to work with both the QFL and the |

CEQ to build the kind of labor unity in Quebec that will be able to
secure real gains and conduct truly national negotiations to estab-
lish universal working conditions within Quebec. The plan also
aims at gaining better conditions for the unorganized.

Along the lines of the Great Unemployed Trek of 1935, the
CSN plans to organize a March through a number of Quebec

Ottawa to underline the federal government’s responsibility for.
the current economic crisis, Canada’s record-breaking, high

unemployment levels, and to show the Trudeau government that |

workers and the unemployed are united in their demands.

The CSN will be asking the CEQ and QFL to join with it in ©
asking the CLC to support and help organize this march on.
Ottawa.

The delegates debated and adopted a very good document on
the conditions for women in Quebec, forcussing on the struggle of
women’s rights primarily those of women workers.

By a narrow vote, the convention decided against the CSN’S
continued participation in Québec’s Occupational Health and
Safety Commission. The private sector workers tended to favor —
the CSN’s participation, while the public sector workers were
opposed.

But as Corriveau explained later, in a press conference, it’s a
question of the CSN’s participation on the commission and not
necessarily the CSN’s affiliates.

Among the many resolutions from the local unions adopted at |

the convention, dealing with thousands of workers involved in
more than 30 struggles including strikes, lockouts and plant clo-
sures, the convention gave its full support to the strike by the
workers against the Montreal transit commission, especially the
maintenance workers who are CSN members.

Denouncing what the CSN executive called in one of its resolu-
tions, “the unprecedented and continual development of the”
arms industry which represents a new danger of war; that for the
first time in the history of humanity we are confronted today with
the very real risk of self-destruction ...’, the convention de-
cided to support the great rally in support of peace and disar-
mament, in New York.

During the convention, May 27, delegates joined several hun-
dreds CEQ members before the Quebec’s National Assembly to
denounce the recent Parizeau budget which brutally attacks pub-
lic service workers: -

With the help of the CEQ and the QFL, the CSN is planning
another demo outside the national assembly June 11, on the same
question.

The only other CSN executive position which saw a change
after two ballots was that of first vice-president. Gerald Larose,
president of the CSN’s Montreal labor council, defeated Michel

Chartrand to replace the only woman on the outgoing executive, :

Giséle Cartier.

Trade unionists from many countries were invited to the con-
gress including representation from the South African Congress
of Trade Unions, France’s main central labor body, the commu-
nist-led CGT, Portugal’s Intersyndical, Spain’s Workers’
Commissions, Italy’s CGIL, the World Congress of Labor, to
which the CSN is affiliated, and others from Yugoslavia, Bel-
gium, Mexico, Switzerland and Latin America.

The presence and contributions of these international dele-
gates enriched the CSN convention and encouraged the con-
gress’ pursuit of militant, democratic and bold trade unionism in
solidarity with workers throughout the world.

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