LABOUR

Mobilize the public to fight
privatization, says British MP

All the theories of privatization touted by
the Thatcher government and its advisers in
Britain are beginning “‘to break on the rocks
of reality” and people in Britain are seeing
more and more the “down-side” of the
Tory policy, the leading Labour Party critic
on the privatization program told a confer-
ence of trade unionists Tuesday.

“Phase 1 of privatization in Britain is
now essentially complete — and phase 2 is
where reality and experience take over from
the theory,” said Tony Blair, the Labour
Party MP for Durham and the party’s trade
and industry critic.

He said privatization was promoted in
Britain initially as a means of putting public
companies into the private sector “‘to make
them more competitive.” But then the pol-
icy spread to contracting-out of services and
finally to the privatization of big public utili-
ties such as British Telecom and British Gas
which were turned over to the private sector
as monopolies. “And by then, the original
idea of competition had gone out the win-
dow.

“It’s like drug addiction — it starts with
the soft ones and then you’re on the hard
stuff,” he said, noting that privatization was
having the same debilitating effect on the
Bnitish economy.

Blair, a Labour MP since 1983, was the
keynote speaker at a special conference on
privatization called by the Canadian
Labour Congress and the B.C. Federation
of Labour.

Some 200 unionists attended the two-day
meeting, which heard several panels of
speakers on the public sector and commun-
ity action against privatization as well as
CLC executive vice-president Nancy Riche.
The second day of the conference was
closed to the media as delegates considered
the trade union response to the privatiza-
tion program launched by Premier Bill
Vander Zalm.

In working out that response, opponents
of privatization in this province can learn a
lot from what happened in Britain, Blair
told the audience.

“Tt is absolutely essential that you mobil-
ize the public against privatization at as
early a stage as possible,” he said.

“You can’t fight it on the issue of job
protection alone, important as that issue is.””

Talking with reporters later, Blair noted

that the British labour movement had made -
a mistake in not mobilizing consumers and °

explaining to them the effects that privatiza-
tion would have on the economy and on
services.

Those effects are now becoming clearer,
particularly with the privatization of British
Telecom and British Gas, and with the
contracting-out of services provided by
local governments and hospitals.

“There might have been some savings
from contracting-out, but it has meant a
lower quality of services,” he emphasized,
reading a number of examples from a
lengthy list of contractors’ failures compiled
by the British Trades Union Congress.

TONY BLAIR...
tion critic.

““And the overwhelming source of those
savings has been pay cuts to public sector
workers and the replacement of full-time
work by part-time,” he said.

The British MP also emphasized the
“network of vested interests” that has pro-
fited from the privatization program,
including advertising companies, invest-
ment brokers and banks.

Investment companies, most of which
are integrated with merchant banks, have
made millions from the sell-off of compan-
ies, charging fees for advising the govern-
ment and arranging the share transfers as
well as broker’s commissions for selling the
shares to investors.

In addition, said Blair, much of the
money raised from the privatization of Brit-
ish companies has gone to providing tax
cuts for the wealthy. Foreign investment has
also increased, reducing still further public
control over industry.

But lately there has been a shift in Britain
“and what has really changed in the last few
months has been the realization by consu-
mers’ groups that privatization has dam-

Labour Party privatiza-

Employees at Pacific Press Ltd., which
publishes the Vancouver Sun and Province
newspapers, have settled for a 45-month
agreement providing close to 14 per cent in
total wage hikes.

Members of the Vancouver and New
Westminster Newspaper Guild voted over-
whelmingly to accept the pact, also ratified
by a vote among the members of the Joint
Council of Newspaper Unions, which does

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READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOUR

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 18, 1987

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

aged their health, their welfare and
everything else.”

Blair told the conference that the damage
created by privatization has also “put the
issue of public control and ownership back
on the agenda.

“Now we’ve got to have the courage to
re-state the case for their being crown cor-
porations and public ownership in the first
place,”’ he emphasized.

“Whether it’s a strategic corporation of
immense importance to the nation’s econ-
omy or whether it’s a basic utility that pro-
vides a service that every single person
needs, there is a case to be made for it being
under public ownership and proper public
accountability.”

The Labour Party MP called on the
labour movement to “be united” in its
Opposition to privatization and to be pre-
pared to “be as hard-minded as the
government.”

CLC executive vice-president Nancy
Riche told conference delegates that the
congress would soon be launching a
country-wide campaign against privatiza-
tion to complement its campaign against
free trade.

CLC leaders will be speaking on the issue _

at every provincial federation of labour
convention throughout the fall and the con-
gress itself will convene a special seminar on
‘privatization at the time of the CLC execu-
tive council meeting in December, she said.

In addition, the labour central has com-
missioned the production of a 20-minute
video which is being completed and will
soon be distributed across the country.

Vancouver-based researcher Donald
Gutstein is currently preparing a major
research project on privatization which will
also be available shortly, she said.

Delegates to CLC-B.C. Fed conference
spent time Tuesday discussing public opin-
ion about privatization with federation
secretary Cliff Andstein and Glynnis
Deering-Robb, of Profile B.C., a Van-
couver-based pollster.

Although that session was closed, a poll
released Tuesday by BCTV revealed that
public opinion has shifted decisively against
Vander Zalm’s privatization program. The
survey, based on 600 respondents, showed
that whereas only 32 per cent of people
opposed privatization in May, that opposi-
tion had grown to 51 per cent by November.

News unions reach pact

not include the Guild.

The contentious issue of a Saturday
morning edition, which would have had
employees working weekend hours at
straight time, has been set aside, Guild vice-
president Don Ellam said.

The agreement, retroactive to March 1,
provides for an immediate 2.3 per cent wage
hike, with a 3.5 per cent hike on Dec. 1.
Subsequent hikes will see wages rise by four
per cent on Dec. 1, 1988, and 4.1 per cent on
Dec. 1, 1989. The contract expires Nov. 30,
1990.

Additionally, a cost-of-living raise kicks
in if by Dec. 1, 1989, the Vancouver Con-
sumer Price Index has risen by more than
the 4.1 per cent wage hike. In that event the
increase could go to a maximum six per
cent.

Ellam said the Saturday edition issue, a
contentious one, has been ‘“‘put aside” by
the company. But it could be reopened dur-
ing the life of the contract, in which case full
negotiating regulations, including the right
to strike, would apply, he said.

Prior to the settlement both the Joint
Council and the Guild were preparing for
strike action.

_ Engineering

Yukon Building Trades Council
(BCYT) in support of the council’
boycott of Hyundai has drawn

_ blood from the huge Korean con

glomerate.

But the ads that the company
took out in response to the demon-
stration are as misleading as the
Hyundai industrial policy is anti
union, charged BCYT president Len
Werden.

More than 150 unionists demor
strated outside Vancouver Hyundai
Nov. 12, to highlight the BCYT call
for a boycott of Hyundai Auto pro-
ducts. The boycott was launched
earlier this year to protest the action
by the engineering arm of the
Korean multinational in teaming u

with anti-union contractor, The
_Kerkhoff Group, to build the Sky:
_ Train bridge over the Fraser !

non-union.

the demonsiiation with full-page
newspaper ads claiming that Hyun
dai Auto Products and Hyundai

“operate completely
independently of one another in
Canada” and that Hyundai Auto
knew nothing of the Kerkhoff-
Hyundai joint venture until it
became public knowledge. The ad
also stated that a Hyundai auto

~plant was being built in Quebec with

550 unionized workers.

But that was just “misleading
advertising,’ charged Werden. __
Although it was Hyundai Au
which placed the ads, he said, it was
officials of Hyundai Engineeri

who “contacted C