Municipal workers prepare
for strike to back demands

TORONTO — The city’s
10,500 municipal workers told
their boss Feb. 17 they'll go on
strike if negotiations don’t pro-
duce a satisfactory agreement.

Members of Canadian Union of
Public Employees (CUPE) Loc-
als 79 and 43 voted over-
whelmingly to give their negotiat-
ing committees a mandate to calla
strike by the end of the month to
back contract demands for a new
agreement which would provide,
among other demands, a 30%
wage hike over two years.

The vote was 86.5% to strike by
CUPE Local 43 (Metro and city
outside workers), and 90% by the
inside workers, members of
Local 79. The unions will be in a
legal strike position Feb. 29.
Meetings between the unions and
negotiators for the city and metro’
began Feb. 19 in the presence of
provincial mediators. This was
the first meeting with manage-
ment since talks broke down Feb.
5. Talks began Nov. 19.

With management’s lousy

wage offer, (5.67% in 1980), and | bp

some 44 outstanding non-
monetary issues, CUPE wasted
no time in taking its case to the
public for support in the battle
that looms ahead.

Large ads placed in the three
Toronto daily newspapers Feb.
18, outlined the union’s position

LABOR
SCENE

By BRUCE MAGNUSON

The decade of the 1980s prom-
ises to be a decade of sharp class
battles both at home and abroad.
The defeat of a right-wing Tory
government after only nine
months in office indicates grow-
ing political instability. This polit-
ical instability arises from the
crisis of imperialism. That crisis
poses a threat to living standards
at home as a result of the arms
buildup, and the threat of another
world war which is not inevitable
but can and must be prevented.

For Canadians the lessons of
half a century ago and the rise of
fascism in Germany, Italy and Ja-
pan culminating in World War II
have not been lost. Nor has it
been forgotten that the staunchest
ally in defeating fascism was pre-
cisely the Soviet Union. Despite
all the provocations and cold war
antics of imperialism during the
past 35 years, the warmongers
and arms profiteers have been
held at bay thanks to the peace-
loving policies of détente and dis-
armament pursued by the Soviet
Union and its socialist allies.

At the same time peaceful co-
existence between states with dif-
ferent social and economic sys-
tems does not mean a halt to so-
cial and economic progress. On
the contrary the advance of the
socialist world system and the na-
tional liberation movement has al-
tered the balance of world forces
and brought about a rapid growth
of class and social consciousness
among working people of all cap-
italist countries, including
Canada. .

Evidence of this can be found in
a careful analysis of the 1980 fed-

in the talks and appealed to the
labor movement and the commu-
nity to back their civic workers,
by phoning municipal representa-
tives to press management to be-
gin serious bargaining.

*“We work hard for Toronto,
but it doesn’t pay”’ is the theme of
the ad campaign and the buttons
and posters being distributed by
CUPE. The ads show how civic
workers in Toronto are actually
earning less money in real terms
today than they earned in 1973.

While inflation rose by 69.8% in
Toronto between 1973 and 1979,
CUPE notes that wages only in-
creased by 65.2%. The union
charges that the 4.6% drop in real
wages has meant that civic work-

ers’ wages have been helping to
finance Toronto’s operations.
The city’s offer of a 5% in-
crease in January and 2% in Sep-
tember, which works out to an
annual increase of 5.76%, will rob
civic workers of another 5% in
real wages when. the estimated
1980 inflation rate reaches 11%.
CUPE points to recent in-
creases in the wages of other civic
workers throughout Ontario to
re-inforce its demands for a wage
hike that will protect the workers’
buying power in the face of ram-
pant inflation. Sudbury civic
workers have just won a 15%
wage hike, with 14.2% recently
negotiated in Sault Ste. Marie,
and 11% in London for 1979. In

1980 the London workers will re--

ceive a 1% wage increase for ev-
ery 1% increase in the inflation
rate over 7.5%.

CUPE also notes that private
sector wage increases in 1979 av-
eraged 10.3% and they contrasted
the offer placed before civic

workers with the recent contract -

won by Toronto Hydro workers.
That contract produced a 10%

_wage increase in the first year, 8%

in 1981 and a cost of living ad-
justment providing a wage in-
crease of 1% for every 1% in-
crease in the inflation rate over
8%. j

The civic workers al8o0 want

1980’s to be a decade
of sharp class battles

eral election in which the forces of

-the political right were stopped in

their tracks and a growing
strength of the political left has at
last become discernable.

This process could have pro-
duced even better results had it
not been for the shameful capitu-
lation of right-wing leaders of the

New Democratic Party and the

trade union movement, which
succumbed before the onslaught
of imperialist propaganda of
anti-Sovietism and  anti-
communism.

It is extremely important that
this particular aspect of the 1980
federal election be studied by
working people, particular or-
ganized workers, and that proper
conclusions from this be drawn in
preparation for, during, and after
the forthcoming convention of the

Canadian Labor Congress, as the.

main trade union centre in this
country. ; :
It is today more imperative

than ever that the interests of the -

working class be protected by
international solidarity against

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 29, 1980—Page 8

imperialist attacks. For this
reason Canadian workers must
seek to build a bridge between the
working people of all continents
with particular attention paid to
countries where the working class
has assumed political power and
countries where the revolutionary
struggles are presently .devel-
oping toward a socialist way out
of the crisis.

It is important to ‘understand
that in the Soviet Union the trade
unions have a dual task as be-
tween their protective functions
on social and economic questions
and their role in-developing and
improving material production.
This dual role arises out of their
position as the largest Soviet pub-
lic organization, numbering more
than 125 million.

The Soviet trade unions’ par-
ticipation in the management of
state and public affairs is guaran-
teed by the make-up of the Sup-
reme Soviet of the USSR, with its
769 industrial workers, who are
members of Soviet trade unions.
Working-class political power in

the Soviet Union finds expression ©

in the regular publication of
documents of state bearing the
signatures of the leader of the
Communist Party, the state and of
the top executive of the trade
union centre.

It is this which characterizes a
genuine people’s socialist democ-.
racy as distinct from the abstract
and formal bourgeois democracy
exemplified in the casting of a bal-
lot at certain intervals while work-
ing people are excluded from the
day-to-day workings of par-
liamentary and state power.

Some 10,500 members of CUPE Locals 43 and 79 voted overwhelmingly

Feb. 17 to give their negotiators a strike mandate to back their contra
demands. :

improvements in vacations,
promotion policy, and working
conditions. CUPE is calling for
reductions in the work week for
40 hours-a-week employees by
one hour per week, per year, over
a five year period.

The>=CUPE.. ads charee
management has stalled negotia-
tions in the hope civic workers
will “Just forget about decent

wage ‘increases.’’ But this is a
false hope. As the ads point out
municipal workers, ‘‘live in To
ronto — one of the most expel
sive cities in the country.
have children to feed and clothe
And we work hard for the city W&
love. It’s time the employers were
told in no uncertain terms that oul
service and dedication should pay
off — for us and our families."

Jaggard’s

rests on final appeal

HAMILTON — Bob Jaggard’s
latest confrontation with the bos-
ses’ legal system has brought him
one step closer to the possible loss
of his job and livelihood.

Jaggard, a bus driver with a
26-year untarnished record with
the Hamilton Street Railway,
learned Feb. 13 that the Ontario
Court of Appeal in Toronto had

-Tejected his latest appeal of a

criminal conviction.

He was convicted in Nov. 1978
of “‘leaving the scene of an acci-
dent”’ after a confrontation with
Steel Company of Canada (Stel-
co) security guard Ronald Han-
nah on public property. Hannah
had demanded Jaggard turn over
his camera to the Selco cop, and -
when Jaggard refused, Hannah
followed him to his car and tried
to block Jaggard from leaving.

After asking Hannah several
times to get out of his way, Jag-
gard drove off and Hannah later
pressed charges. Jaggard’s sub-
sequent appeals of the conviction
were both turned down.

Though it was irrelevant to the
trial, the crown attorney was al-
lowed by Judge A.J. Marck to re-
peatedly. bring Jaggard’s
membership in the Communist

_ Party of Canada into the trial as

evidence.

Osgoode Hall law professor
Michael Mandel, who argued
Jaggard’s case before the Ontario
Court of Appeal Feb. 1, and is
preparing to seek leave to appeal:
before the Supreme Court of
Canada May 5, called the Feb.
13 judgement ‘‘shocking.”’

Mandel appealed the original
conviction and earlier appeal on
several legal grounds, including
the fact the trial judge had allowed
the crown attorney to introduce
and extensively use Jaggard’s
membership in the Communist -
Party as evidence during the trial.

He argued, that Jaggard’s polit-
ical beliefs were irrelevant to the
case, that it should not have been
admitted as evidence and the
conviction should be thrown out.
Trial judge A. J. Marck convicted
Jaggard on the basis of the lack of
credibility of his witnesses, de-

_ gard’s political beliefs — was not

livelihood

BOB JAGGARD

spite the fact that he had pro-
duced one eye witness to the con-
frontation with the Stelco cop,

and two character witnesses.

Hanah had failed to produce #
single character witness, yet hiS
testimony was accepted without
question.

“‘T was shocked by the charac-
ter of the judgement’’, Mandel
said Feb. 21. ‘‘What was most
startling was that the basic
grounds for appeal — the fact the
crown kept hammering on Jag:

4

even mentioned in the judgement,
as if it has not been raised at all.””

He called this a dereliction of
the judge’s duty. ‘‘I want to raise |
this point in the Supreme Court of
Canada’’, he said. ‘‘It has to be
explained why it’s alright to do
that.

He also said it was ‘‘frighten-
ing’’ that the judgement seemed
to assume that judges would not
be influenced by anti-communism
in arriving at their decision. ‘‘This

is totally unrealistic. Anyone

familiar with Canadian politics
knows this isn’t the case’’, Man-
del said.

Jaggard’s lawyer said the use of
his client’s political beliefs in the”
trial ‘‘amounted to a smear cam-
paign’
his grounds for appealing the
conviction were excellent, ‘I.
don’t think Jaggard has been
answered in any of the courts
yet.””

’, and noted that although —

_