————_—+

—

Labour

ye

CLC vote backs

choice,

; Freedom of choice on abortion and the
right to universal access to medical facilities
won overwhelming endorsement from
delegates to the Canadian Labour Congress
convention in Vancouver Thursday. But
the vote came after a half hour of impassi-
oned debate which demonstrated clearly
that the opposition to abortion draws as
much support from backward ideas on
women’s €quality as it does from strongly-
held religious views.

: And even where peaple have such convic-
tions, delegates declared, they should not
presume to impose them on others in
society,

The resolution at issue was one of several
adopted under the report of the CLC
women’s committee. It reaffirmed the Con-
gress’ long-standing position in support of
freedom of choice but added new sections
calling on the federal government to recog-
nize abortion as a medically required service
and to impose financial penalties under the
Canada Health Act on all provincial
governments which refuse to include abor-
ons as an insured health service under
medicare plans,

It also urged federations of labour to
pressure provincial governments to estab-
lish and fund clinics providing abortion
services,

The resolution immediately drew fire
from a handful of delegates who argued
that the Congress was advocating “the tak-
ing of lives,” touching off a debate that
wound up the final full day of the week-long
convention.

Responding to opponents who have
argued that life begins at conception, B.C.
Federation of Labour secretary-treasurer
Cliff Andstein told the convention: “I don’t
want to debate when life begins ... it’s not

my decision to make. ]

“That decision can only be made by the
woman involved,” he said, adding that the
right of any individual to control her own
body “is fundamental to our notion of
equality,

“Restrictions on a woman’s right to
choose and her right to a safe, publicly-
funded abortion constitute an attack on the
equality of men and women,” he declared.

But Newfoundland Association of Public
Employees delegate Leo Porrister insisted
that the right to choose “means the right to
take a life” and chided delegates for sup-
porting this resolution while turning down
capital punishment at a previous conven-
tion.

He said that he had supported capital
punishment during the earlier debate and
had been told by the convention that “no
one has the right to take a life, not even the
state.”

Albert Nashman, a delegate from the
Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Trans-
port and General Workers, also insisted
delegates were taking a hypocritical posi-
tion, Contrasting the stand taken in the reso-

lution to the convention’s support for child

care.
He drew resounding boos when he told
the convention: “I’m told that accidents
happen. Well, all I have to say is: you made
the mistake, you take the responsibility.”
But there was little doubt of the decisive
support for the resolution as delegates lined
up more than 20 deep at each of the eight
pro microphones on the convention floor.
“This is a deeply emotional issue,” CLC
executive vice-president Nancy Riche agreed.
“But it is also a personal issue — and
women must have the right to make a per-
sonal choice.”
Moreover, she said, having that personal
choice means having full access to all the
options.

clinics

Riche warned that the apparent victory
given women by the Jan. 28 Supreme Court
decision “‘is fading as we hear talk of legisla-
tion that would once again see abortion
criminalized.”

‘But abortion “is a medical procedure and
the Supreme Court has stated that it is not
contrary to law,” she said. “It follows then
that the only relevant legislation is the Can-
ada Health Act and the role of the federal
government should be to punish those
(provincial) governments which don’t live
up to the act ... (and) to move quickly to
ensure full access to abortion and other
reproductive health services.”

She also called a “red herring” the claim

‘ made by anti-choice groups that many

abortions are carried out in the later stages
of pregnancy.

“The facts show something different,”
she told delegates. “In 1985, 10.7 percent of
abortions occurred between weeks 13 and
20; 0.23 per cent between weeks 21 and 24;
and .03 per cent between weeks 25 and 33.

“Don’t be misled — the only issue here

/

NANCY RICHE. ... “only relevant legis-
lation is Canada Health Act.”

is a woman’s right to choose,” she said to

applause. “And until women have the right

to choose they will never be equal.”
Canadian Auto Workers delegate Bob
White reminded unionists who opposed the
issue coming to the convention floor that
the right to abortion “is a worker’s issue.
“Rich women will always have access,”
he said. “And if we really believe in equality,
working women have to have the right of
access, regardless of their economic stand-

BOB WHITE ...
workers’ issue.”

“right to choice is a

ard of living.”

He also addressed himself to “those who
hold strong views on the other side of the
issue,” telling them that if “that is your
belief for your family, your wives or your
loved ones, then no one will take issue with
It.

“But don’t attempt to make that decision
for every other woman in Canada — they
have the right to make that decision for
themselves,” he said.

Tory white paper

International affairs took a prominent
place in the Canadian Labour Congress
convention last week as delegates voted
unanimously to call for an international
conference on Middle East peace which
would include representatives of the Pales-
tine Liberation Organization, and endorsed

-a wide-ranging policy paper on labour’s

vision for peace which categorically rejected
the Tory government’s white paper o
defence.

A special resolution on Middle East
peace, endorsed in the final session of the
convention May 13, gave Congress support
to the growing world demand for a United
Nations-sponsored peace conference “to
which all concerned parties, including the
PLO or their nominees, would be invited,
with no pre-condition, to conduct negotia-
tions that would achieve a lasting peace.”

It also condemned the “senseless, brutal
violence used by Israel against demonstra-
tors in the West Bank and Gaza.”

The resolution’s support for full partici-
pation of the PLO in the peace process,

’ marked a shift in the international affairs

stance of the Congress which has tradition-
ally followed that of Histradut, the Israeli
trade union federation, in refusing to accept
the legitimacy of the PLO.

The change reflected the increasing isola-
tion of Israel for its policies in the occupied
areas — which in turn were the subject of
numerous resolutions submitted by local
unions to the CLC convention.

The virtual unanimity on the prerequisite
for Mid-East peace was also evident in the
debate on the convention floor.

“Peace will be never be negotiated in the
Middle East until the Palestinian people are
given a homeland in the Middle East,”
Ontario Federation of Labour president
Gord Wilson told the convention.

“Together we must say that everyone in
the Middle East ... should have the right of
self-determination, a place to live and to do
so within a peaceful environment,” he said.

Former Israeli citizen Sarah Shartal, a
delegate from the United Food and Com-
mercial Workers, related her own expe-
rience several years earlier while serving as a
conscript soldier in the occupied Gaza
Strip.

It was there, she said, that she “‘saw child-
ren living on garbage heaps while we grew

tomatoes on what had been their land.

“T am of that generation which has
grown up with occupation. I watched as we
became a country of occupiers who make
their profits off the cheap labour of an
occupied people,” she said.

Shartal told the convention: “If Israel is
to survive, it must make peace. And the
only basis on which peace can be achieved is
if Israel withdraws — today, as soon as
possible — from the occupied territories, if
it recognizes the Palestinian people’s right to
self-determination (and) it recognizes the
PLO and sits down to negotiate a peace
based on two independent states.”

Delegates also endorsed an omnibus
resolution on Central America which called
for Canadian condemnation of continued
U.S. military support for the contras in
Nicaragua as well as human rights abuses in
El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and
urged the establishment of a Canadian
embassy in Nicaragua.

The resolution also called for broadened
contacts with trade unions in Central Amer-
ica and co-operation with groups providing
humanitarian assistance, including Tools
for Peace. ;

In an earlier session, the convention
backed a wide-ranging policy paper chal-
lenging the Tory government’s policies on
defence and outlining the labour move-
ment’s views.

‘Entitled “Preparing for peace — labour’s
vision,” the paper noted that international
security “is enhanced, not threatened, by
arms control, and disarmament.” And the
process of achieving that, it said, “must
involve all of us — particularly workers.”

Among other policies, it advocated the
labour movement promote: increased cuts
in strategic nuclear arms; the expansion of
nuclear-weapons free zones, including Can-
ada; limits on weapons deployment in the
Arctic, with the ultimate goal of Arctic
demilitarization; a nuclear test ban and a
ban on chemical weapons; and an end to
cruise missile testing and “any program
which involves the militarization of space.”

On the defence white paper, the resolu-
tion emphasized that the Tory policy
“represents a major step backward, by
reversing the previously stated Canadian
government assumptions, that.a nuclear
conflict between the two super-powers is the
only real threat to Canada and that a

targeted

nuclear war, if fought, could only mean the
end of our civilization.”

The paper called for the “abandonment
of the program to put expensive and desta-
bilizing nuclear submarines in the Canadian
Arctic” and urged the rejection of any Can-
adian involvement in_ initiatives that
“involve a commitment to fighting a
nuclear war, particularly the Strategic
Defence Initiative, the cruise missile testing
program and the Air Defence Initiative.”

However, the paper did endorse a
“defence acquisition program that provides
for a modern, well-equipped armed forces”
and it backed away from endorsing the New
Democratic Party policy of advocating a
Canadian withdrawal from NATO. It
called instead for Canada to re-examine its
military commitments to NATO” and to
(use its voice within the organization to
express Opposition to nuclear strategies and
NATO first-use doctrine.

The policy compromises were intended
to win support of the Union of National
Defence Employees, a component of the
Public Service Alliance of Canada which in
the past has dissented from the CLC posi-
tion.

But PSAC fully endorses this policy
paper, union president Daryl Bean told
convention delegates. .

“We in the PSAC know that the people
of Canada, including the employees at the
Department of National Defence, must
have a say in how:this country’s defence
policy is formulated,” he said.

Canadian Auto Workers president Bob
White acknowledged that the policy paper
was a “consensus document,” intended to
bring the labour movement together on a
common stand.

That consensus is important, he said, in
preventing the federal government from
“going down the wrong road that it’s taking
with its white paper. ;

“We've got a government that is advocat-
ing spending less money on child care than
on two nuclear submarines. That tells you
about its priorities.

“The labour movement needs to re-
commit itself to continue to oppose cruise
missile testing, to oppose the build-up of
nuclear submarines and the cold war rhe-
toric advocated by the Mulroney govern-
ment’s white paper,” he said.

Pacific Tribune, May 18, 1988 « 7