No gate collection for Inco’

-_ workers says Algoma Steel —

SAULT STE. MARIE — Ina
Crummy move to help their big
business pals at Inco Metals in
Sudbury, management at Algoma
Steel Co., March’23 refused to let
Steelworkers Local 2251 conduct
4plant gate collection for the Inco
Strikers,

The union was twice denied

_ Permission to collect donations

for the Steelworkers Local 6500
Sttike fund by Algoma and local
Union executive members were
Pushed off company property by
Plant security guards when they
“l€d to make a collection.

Local 2251 president Dan Car-
roll immediately charged complic-
ity between Algoma and Inco,
Saying there was no doubt Al-
80ma was cooperating with Inco
Mefforts to stop Algoma workers

Mm displaying their financial
Support for the Inco strikers.

Carroll said the local would re-

Consider its cooperation in the

nited Way campaign this year

~ noted Algoma allowed the
»“ ited Way to collect from work-

oe On company property. But the
1,700. striking miners, smelter
Workers and their families who

_ Reed emergency drugs and medi-

ri care are denied this privilege,
€ said.

Algoma’s move indicates the
effectiveness of the massive sup-
Port Canadians are showing for
the Inco workers and their strike.

Financial support continues to
Come into Sudbury giving the
Workers and their community

| More hope that they will eventu-

ally force Inco to make the decent
kind of an offer the workers can
accept with dignity. Massive pub-
lic opinion against Inco, and the
toughening economic situation
facing the multi-national with a
shrinking stockpile as prices on
most of its metal products rapidly
rise, is increasing the pressure on
Inco to negotiate.

Despite Algoma’s move, plant
‘gate collections continue across
Canada, with the huge’ General
Motors plant in Oshawa having
completed their third collection
last week.

In Sault Ste. Marie social
events were sponsored for the
March 23 evening where local
contributions to the strike fund
were collected. Students at two
local separate schools collected
between 30 and 40 cases of can-
ned goods for the strikers and
their families. It made up the third
truck load of goods to be sent
from the Sault to Sudbury.

March 19-23 was designated
Sudbury Week in Sault Ste. Marie
and Local 6500 president Dave
Patterson was scheduled to visit
on March 22-23.

Hoover workers strike
following 97.7% vote

BURLINGTON — Workers at
the Hoover Co., took a stand
March 22 to defend their living
standard by striking the com-
pany.

Following a 97.7% strike vote,
the 114 members of United Elec-
trical workers (UE Local 520 hit
the bricks demanding a decent
wage increase and better working
conditions.

The company’s final offer after
round-the-clock negotiations with
a mediation officer included a
stingy 30 cents-an-hour wage in-
crease. This was far from satisfac-
tory to the Hoover workers

who’ ve seen the cost of living rise
by 9.2% over the past year while
they didn’t even get a wage in-
crease last year. :

UE Shop Chairman at Hoover,
Bob MelIntosh, charged the com-
pany with forcing the workers to
take strike action. In a statement
March 22;, McIntosh, who also

heads the negotiating committee, .

said ‘“‘workers can only fall be-
hind so. much and then areforced
to take a stand to mainfain their
living standard.

“Hoover workers have taken

‘that stand, and are out to achieve

our objective’’, he declared.

Brinkmanship — two

Ways of looking at it

“Ames Stiategy”’ is the title of
& quarterly review of Canadian
Mvestments published by the
A.E. Ames & Co. Ltd., 320 Bay
treet, Toronto. Here is how this
rgan of big business views
€velopments this year in the

Capitalist world in its spring 1979 ~

ISsue:

“Events have happened fast
furiously. Armed conflict, in-

 Surrection, brinkmanship, dislo-

fation through strikes and lost
troduction (no mention of
tan Ployment), political uncer-
alnty, unrelenting inflation,
“Ver-increasing prices, continu-
d €conomic distortions ... sel-
©m can a year have begun in

“Such complex, confusing and

rous fashion.”’

That certainly. sums up the
Negatives. It goes on to relate
Some ‘sporadic good news,”

SUch as: ‘‘the relative attractive-

Ness of North America’ for
‘apitalist investments, providing
Sb. ance and selectivity’ are
«Served. By this it means

_Obtainable returns in excess of

8nticipated inflation; i.e. returns
offer not only prospects of
Serving capital in real terms
also making it grow.”

{0 the opinion of this organ of
Bay

Street investors there is no
Westion but that both wages and
labor costs have to come down,
below the anticipated inflation
"ate, if real profits and capital are

© grow. ‘The anti-inflation con-

trols introduced in Canada in Oc-
tober, 1975 were something less
than successful, but did bring the
rate of increase in average income
per employed person down from
14.8% in 1975 to 5.6% in 1978, a
signal accomplishment.”
a * * *

Speaking of “‘brinkmanship’”’
and ‘‘armed conflict’, a second
way out of capitalist crisis — be-
sides robbing the working class —
seems to be provocation for a
third world war. The Maoist
Chinese aggression against.
socialist Vietnam on February 17,
was clearly such a provocation.

- Judging from the contradictory
positions taken by the Maoist
Chinese leaders they have no in-
tention of a total and complete
withdrawal from Vietnamese ter-
ritory. What is abundantly clearis
that such a withdrawal will only
come about as the result of the
heroic resistance of the Viet-
namese people backed by an
aroused world public opinion, the

pressure of governments across

the world, the fraternal assistance
of the socialist states and other
friendly countries.

This is indeed a dangerous situ-
ation. A third world war would be
a devastating experience for all
lands and all peoples, which no
country would be able to escape.

Having failed in their provoca-
tive actions over a period of three
years on the Kampuchean-Viet-
namese borders through the pup-

pet Pol Pot-Ieng Sary regime, the
Maoist Chinese aggressors have
directly invaded Vietnam and are
massing forces for a similar attack
on Laos.

The organized workers of
Canada have as yet not spoken
firmly enough and loud enough on
this over-riding issue. We know
that the Union of Vietnamese in
Canada have appealed for sup-
port in the form of protest against
the Maoist-Chinese aggressors.
But the propaganda mills of im-
perialism, which arm for, and
seeks to provoke, confrontation
wherever they can, sometimes in
false manoeuvres for peace while
preparing for war as in the Middle
East, becloud the issue at hand
and confuse the situation.

What is needed now is in-
creased public pressure for the
Canadian Government to take a
public stand for the total and un-
conditional withdrawal of the
Chinese armed forces from Viet-
namese territory. Secondly, the
Canadian Government must be
pressured to accord recognition
of the new government of
Kampuchea. Thirdly, Canada
should prohibit all sales’ and
shipments of arms to Maoist
China and urge its partners in
NATO to do likewise.

Hands off Vietnam! China out
of Vietnam! Detente and
Disarmament now, as the way to
permanent world peace!

MEDICAL WORKERS
DEMAND CONTRACT

MONTREAL — Nurses and
medical technicians throughout

Quebec staged work disruptions.

March 29, protesting government
contract offers. The 23,500 nurses
and technicians involved in the
negotiations have been without a
contract since last June.

Represented in 13 different
unions, the nurses and technicians
have formed a coalition called the
Cartel des Organismes Profes-
sionals de la Sante.

JOBLESS TO PAY
FOR UIC ERROR

HALIFAX — The Canadian

- Umpires Board ruled March 29

that Nova Scotians who received
extra weeks of unemployment in-
surance benefits in 1977 because
of a government computer error
will have to pay the money back.
The Halifax Coalition for Full

Employment, last January ap-
pealed to the board on behalf of 34
recipients after a UIC board of
referees dismissed the coalition’s
first appeal of the UIC decision.
Justice Louis Dubinsky, ordered
the people March 29, to repay as
much as $700 to the UIC. The
coalition plans to appeal this deci-
sion to the federal courts.

PULP WORKERS
PROTEST
SUSPENSIONS

PRINCE GEORGE — Pulpmill
workers, members of the Pulp,
Paper and Woodworkers of
Canada slowed down the opera-
tions of the Intercontinental Pulp
Co., here March 28, by honoring
the picketline set up by the wife of a

* gorRyY, RHODES, BUT IF I LET YOU GO HOME I'D
HAVE TO 0O THE SAME IF ANY EMPLOYEE HAD
A HEART ATTACK.”

By K. CARIOU
EDMONTON — To have
working conditions fit for human
beings, is a key issue in the
seven-week struggle between the

United Mine Workers union and >

the Cardinal River Coal Co.

UMW local president Roy
Strembke has rejected the com-

pany’s propaganda that the union’

is turning down a good offer. The
15.8% wage hike over two years

offered to skilled trades workers _

and the 15.5% offered to equip-
ment operators, Strembke points
out, only covers base wage rates
and not benefits.

A key issue in the strike is the
present shift system which is
scheduled to give the miners one
weekend off a month. They work
seven days straight, getting one
day off in the first cycle, two in the
second cycle and four in the third
seven-day cycle. Coupled with a

for long, tough fight

general lack of recreational and
cultural facilities in-the commun-
ity at the best of times, this leaves
the workers with very little in the
way of a social or family life.

As elsewhere, coal mining in
Alberta is a dangerous occupa-
tion. In 1977, more than 1,000 of
the approximately 2,500 coal
miners in the province were in-
jured on the job. Two were killed

-and 44 were permanently dis-

abled. :
The Cardinal River strikers
started collecting their $60-75 a
week strike pay March 23 and
they are digging in for a tough
fight. Like the Inco strikers,
postal workers, railway workers
and growing numbers of other
Canadian workers they have de-
cided to resist the big business of-
fensive against labor to smash liv-
ing standards and force accep-
tance of wage offers that are less
than inflation.

. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 6, 1979—Page 5 ~