g Labor Briefs working poor. Hotel strikers face challenge In addition to the UAW members who swelled the hotel strikers’ pi i i o the picket line April 14, a group of taxi drivers, members of the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union joined by members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers joined the picket lines last week in support of the strikers, who have been described as representatives of the Labor solidarity on hotel strikers picket TORONTO — Metro’s 3,500 striking hotel workers were uplifted b i ( , the sight, April 14 of some 300-400 United Auto Workers members who Sagi the frat day picket lines outside the Sheraton Centre and Westin Hotels. Th : . The UAW was scheduled to hold its conference at the Sheraton but cancelled out when the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union went on strike April 10. Bob White eee oo ae ee the union’s support for the strikers and said all of ould support the hotel workers who represent the worki i i for aga cas and working conditions. eines cae S the Tribune went to press, April 24, union and empl i i St Y TESS, : ployer representatives were in mediation talks with provincial labor ministry officials. Some ‘o Metro hotels are affected by the strike which was launched with the workers demanding a 30 per cent Paes ee three ae for those who don’t get tips, and 24 per cent hikes for who do. Non-tipping staff earn around $5.50 an hou i i ae pai cee r while those who collect tips ¢ employers, united in the Hotel Employers Group offered the first ) group of workers raises of 8, 7 and 5 percent over the three years and 5 per cent a year for the second group. “f Adding their voice to the labor chorus backing the strikers last week was the _ Toronto Union of Unemployed Workers which condemned Canada Employment for advertising the struck jobs in its manpower offices. UUW vice-chairperson Tim Maxwell called Manpower’s action a “disgraceful manipulation of desperate unemployed people”’ and a violation of the government’s much proclaimed but non-existent neutrality. Pickets battle cops at Certified Brake ; MALTON — Tempers flared and sirens blared on the Martin Grove Drive picket line at Certified Brake Ltd., April 6, as striking Steelworkers tried to stop the company, assisted by police, from moving products through the picket line out of one of the strike-bound plants. : More than 100 pickets were initially successful in stopping four company-hired trucks from crossing the line, when four police cruisers arrived to do their job for the of their collective bargaining and legislative conference to join the strikers on their TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS -neck. In all some 10 strikers were arrested by the cops. _ double majority in both countries. If McKee’s actions reveal any irregularity in the company. The strikers’ frustration at the repeated use of police during the strike to most people expected. help scabs and trucks through their picket line flared into angry resistance. and confrontation which eventually brought about 18 cruisers. ee In the struggle between strikers, and police that followed strikers charge the police acted brutally, knocking pickets around and grabbing women strikers by the hair and McKee won U.S. vote, will probe CDN results PITTSBURGH — Unofficial results leaked to the media show former Steel- workers union treasurer Frank McKee out-polled newly elected USWA president Lynn Williams by some 15,000 votes in the U.S. Williams’ overwhelming defeat of McKee in Canada, 79,548 to 6,732 was enough to put him at the head of the union — the first time a Canadian has held the post. The U.S. vote was 129,025 for McKee and 114,138 for Williams. The voter turnout was about half of the total cast in the last” leadership elections and represented about one-third of the total USWA member- ship. Official results will be released in June. McKee is appealing to the U.S. Justice Department for the right to impound and examine the Canadian ballots. The U.S. vote result denies Williams his sought-after Canadian results, the union could be in for another leadership campaign sooner than | — Eaton’s drive recipe for advance One of the most significant developments in the trade union movement for many years has got to be the break- through by the Retail, Wholesale Department Store Union, at twe Eaton’s stores in Ontario. The union is busy organizing in the whole chain in Ontario. The ex- tent of worker interest in thé organizing drive can be seen by the attendance of 3,000 Eaton’s workers at a meeting called by the union in Toronto. This is about 50 per cent of Eaton’s total work staff in the Metro area. A breakthrough in the Eaton’s chain could be the signal for opening up unionization of the retail-wholesale industry in Canada, whose 1.7 million workers, are presently only nine per cent organized. Organizers of the RWDSU are both a little surprised and pleased about the level of enthusiasm they have encountered ‘among Eaton’s workers. Recalling previ- ous efforts, some of them of major proportions, to or- ganize the big retail chain, they observe an entirely new attitude by the workforce who are just plain fed up with ‘the poor wages and working conditions and see unionization as the only way. to win a decent deal with the company. : It would be premature to read into the Eaton’s development more than it contains. However a similar trend has shown up in the United States, and some of the larger industrial unions have noted an unusually large number of inquiries about organization from small plants. History Repeating Itself In the United States and Canada in the midst of the depression of the 1930s when the American Federation of Labor had concluded it impossible to organize work- ers because of the crisis, the CIO was born. It may very well be that history is repeating itself, ina different way as always does. This time the low paid retail, wholesale and para-public workers, who are most painfully feeling the pinch of the crisis may well be the catalyst that can help © trigger a mass fightback by the trade unions and entire labor movement. Labor in action 4 William Stewart Certainly for very obvious reasons the question of organization of the unorganized is becoming a matter of survival for the trade union movement. Not mainly be- cause of loss of membership, which is an illness afflicting all but the public sector unions, but because, un- organized workers are more and more being used as a club to force the unions to forego wage increases, accept concessions, and in the case of building trades unions, cross over from the union to non-union sector of the industry. The long term failure to face up to the need to bring the 60 per cent of non-agricultural paid workers into the unions is now visiting the labor movement as a threat to its very existence. The only way to answer this threat is to organize the unorganized. Unavoidable Responsibility Beyond this consideration however is the unavoidable responsibility of the trade unions to provide trade union protection, security and wages to the grossly underpaid, heavily exploited, and brutually treated, in many in- stances, unorganized industries, stores, hotels, offices, banks and sweat shops in our country. The direction of Premier Bennett in B.C. is toward right to work, open shop, union smashing, scab wages, boss-imposed working conditions. In one way or another most provinces and the federal government are moving in the same direction. The direction of the Eaton’s work- ers is the opposite. It offers another clear alternative approach to labor. : What is needed now is a well co-ordinated centrally- directed plan in Canada for the organization of the un- _ another vital function. The majority in the unorganized -areas are women and immigrant workers who are the organized, with emphasis on the retail wholesale, para- — public, banks and financial institutions, and small sweat — shops. There is clearly a significant support for such an effort at this time. What is required is the perception by workers everywhere that the entire labor movement is prepared to pour its joint efforts into such a drive. This will require overcoming the narrow petty juris-" dictional attitudes which still prevail in union leaderships ~ and which made it impossible for the committee, set up by the CLC and chaired by John Fryer, to make any recommendations for bringing in hundreds and thousands of organized workers who remain unaffiliated. Time for Offensive The need to organize the unorganized transcends jurisdiction. It is no longer an optional but a mandatory requirement for organized labor if it is to unite the work- ing people into a force capable of resisting the offensive being carried on against them and to go over to the offensive for their needs. : _ The organization of the unorganized also will serve most highly exploited of all Canadian workers. Part of the struggle for women’s rights and against racism and — discrimination is the organization of the low wage ghettos. The workers at Eaton’s are acting in their own inter- | ests when they move to break years of Eaton’s paternal- — ism, low wages and inferior working conditions. But they are also acting in the interests of all Canadian work- ers inside and outside the trade union movement by helping labor to focus on‘a most critical and primary task, organizing the unorganized workers. _ This is indeed a fitting answer to the vicious attacks on workers’ wages and conditions. It is an apt reply to the - anti-union propaganda of the media. It is a reply to those 1984 replicas of the 1930s who say it can’t be done. Itis a recipe for advance. 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 25, 1984