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Oshawa labor demands end to AIB

Special to the Tribune

OSH AWA — The Oshawa and
District Labor Council launched
its first meeting of 1977 with the
elections of a new executive and
agreement with a motion to send a
letter to Prime Minister Trudeau
calling for immediate disbanding
of the so-called ‘‘Anti-Inflation
Board”’ (AIB).

UAW delegate Bill Rutherford,
who moved the motion, said the
AIB was controlling wages only.
He said one reason the inflation
rate was kept at 6% was because
of the close ties of our economy
with that of the U.S., which has
an inflation rate of 5% and has had
a moderating effect on the Cana-
dian economy. Noting the effect
of lower food prices on the rate of
inflation, Rutherford said the
areas which saw the greatest rises
in inflation, food, and energy
were not controlled by the AIB.

Last October the Government
of Canada issued a working paper
it chose to call ‘‘The way ahead”’.
The philosophical framework of
this paper is an attempt to defend
our bankrupt social and economic
system, with its archaic market
economy under private monopoly
control, and maintained at the ex-
pense of the working class and all
working people. Within this
framework the government seeks
to spell out economic and social
policies for ‘the post-control
period’’ — policies which, how-
ever, in reality constitute a blue-
print for retrenchment in the in-
terest of monopoly capital.

From the very outset the gov-
ernment makes clear that it con-
siders inflation ‘*‘Canada’s
greatest problem’’. But the way
the government proposes to deal
with this problem is through a
“continued and reinforced re-
liance on the market economy”’,
the culprit that has brought about
the problem in the first place.

Concerning the responsibility
and role of government in the
post-control period the govern-
ment claims “‘that what is ulti-
mately required to meet the chal-
lenge of the future’’ is not the
introduction of new economic and
social policies, but, ‘‘a basic and
fundamental reassessment of the
role of government itself’. (our
emphasis). In other words, the
government is proposing to drop
even its false and hypocritical pre-
tence at controlling anything else
but working people’s incomes,
and it says so about its reassess-
ment of its own role:

‘*An essential theme emerging
from this reassessment. is the
necessity to increase both the re-
liance on and the effectiveness of
the market system ...’’ (read
monopoly control).

The government paper goes on
to speak about supportive policies
that must be developed and man-
aged in a way that allows govern-
ments to fulfill their ‘‘legitimate”’
responsibilities, **. .. but to do so
with less, rather than more, direct
intervention in the economic sys-
tem.’’ In other words, more sub-

sidies for the monopolies and a

Supporting the resolution,
Russ Rak (UAW), suggested. the
letter should include a call to the
AIB to roll back the recently an-
nounced General Motors prices
increases on new cars in Canada.
Rak called the average 5.3% price
boost inflationary and said unem-
ployment in the industry would
result because more and more
people would be unable to buy
new cars.

He pointed out that in the first
six months of 1976, the auto in-
dustry had realized an 800% profit
over the same period in 1975. He
blasted the AIB for immediately
giving its blessing to the $255 per
car price increase, while noting
that the Board had not yet.ruled
on the recently signed agreement
between the UAW and G.M.

Rak also urged the labor coun-
cil to send letters to city and reg-

greater squeeze on labor and all
the working people, including
small business and professionals.
(emphasis added)
Unemployment

Concerning unemployment the
paper acknowledges prolonged
joblessness as ‘‘a disaster for the
individual, eroding moral strength
and personal dignity’’ and admits
that ‘‘the most rapid erosion of
poverty and the most significant
narrowing of income disparities
occur in periods of high employ-
ment, and not through income
transfer policies. New employ-
ment policies, that increase pro-
ductive work and reduce all of the
appalling costs associated with
oe are clearly called
OL. :

‘Imaginative programs of di-
rect job creation, community em-
ployment schemes, and the de-
veloping experiments in the use of
unemployment insurance funds
to support job. creation’”’ (read
subsidies to low wage employers)
“‘will be indispensable elements
of the government’s commitment
to sustain a fuller employment
society consistent with fiscal re-

straints and an anti-inflation objec- -

tive”. It goes on to say: ““These
programs will be designed to en-
sure that the job opportunities
created will not be in competition
with the private sector.’’ (em-
phasis added) Need more be said?
Social Policies
Concerning social policies,
‘‘the rapid and continuing growth
of these programs . . . creates po-
tential conflicts with the need to
restrain government expenditures
to responsible levels. Excessive
demands upon government to
equalize opportunities and to pro-
tect the disadvantaged could
create formidable pressures to
depart from fiscal restraint.’’
Anticipating ‘‘important struc-
tural price change”’ in the decade
of the 1980’s, ‘‘government must
develop an enhanced ability to
provide adequate relief to those
Canadians affected most adverse-
ly by particular price changes and
to do this in a manner that does not
compromise the operation of the
market system by directly con-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 28, 1977 Page 8

A blueprint
for retrenchment

ional councils asking them to
pressure the provincial govern-
ment to stop jobs from leaving the
Oshawa area. He said municipal
councils were always talking
about ways and means of attract-
ing new business to the Durham

Region while existing industries *

were either closing down or mov-
ing some of their jobs out of the
region.

Former labor council president
Tom Simmons said industry in
the city ‘is being lost hand over
foot’.

A Steelworkers’ delegate from
the Pedlar People Co., whose
plant has recently been taken
over by new owners, said the
work force had dropped from 160
in 1975 to 60 workers because of
jobs shipped out to the company’s
Scarborough plant location.

Council agreed to send copies

trolling prices.’’ (emphasis
added) ;

In addition to the above, the
government paper seems to indi-
cate some movement in the direc-
tion of what is called ‘the inte-
gration of income transfers with
the tax system’’, in other words
some form of negative income tax
system. :

On labor-management rela-
tions, the hope to minimize social
and economic strains seems to
emphasize a harder line towards
strikes, particularly in public ser-
vices, and towards more coopera-
tive and less adversarial labor-
employer relations in both the
private and public sectors. There
is even a hint about the possibility
of the ‘private sector providing
goods and services that are now
provided through government
enterprises and programs. But
this orientation on more class col-
laboration, and more reliance up-
on, rather than a firm curb on the
power of the capitalist mono-
polies, will never bring about ba-
lanced economic growth without
inflation. These are not new di-
rections, but more of the same old
policies which bring about one
crisis after another, all at the ex-
pense of the living standards and
job security of labor.

The direction indicated in the
government’s “‘working paper’’
“The Way Forward”’ points to-
ward a sharper attack on the
working class, and increasing dif-
ficulties ahead. for all working
Canadians.

The Canadian Labor Congress,
in its meeting with the govern-
ment on January 31, must give a
firm answer through a program
fora democratic alternative to the
suicidal path the government
seems embarked upon. It must
firmly refuse to bear the responsi-
bility for the anti-national and un-
patriotic economic and social
policies of the capitalist mono-
polies and their kept politicians.
In doing so it will have the firm
support of. all Canadians who
work for wages and salaries. And

that is the real majority in this

country.

da.

of the various letters to Ontario
Labor Minister Bette
Stephenson.

On a motion by Lynn Rak,
UAW Auxiliary Local 27, the
council agreed to send a letter to
Environment Minister regarding
the Reed Paper Co. in Dryden
Ont.

Lynn Rak noted that despite
receiving an order from the pro-
vincial government to install pol-
lution control devices and being
given five years to do so, Reed
Paper not only ignored the order,

but allowed the amount of pollu-

tion from the plant to increase
during the five-year period.
‘‘Not only were the charges
dropped’’, she said, ‘‘but dead-
line to meet the order was ex-
tended to 1979.’ Rak called the
actions of the government and the
company criminal, and pointed
out the Native People living in the
area were being poisoned. She
said the letter must strongly pro-
test the government’s actions and
demand that Reed Paper be pro-
secuted and immediately forced

UAW member, Russ Rak called on the Oshawa Labor Council to
demand the AIB roll back the 5.3% price increase on new cars in Cana- —

to implement anti-pollution —

devices.
In the executive elections Bill

Fairservice, business agent for
Local 597, Laborers’ Interna-—

tional Union defeated Terry
O’Connor, president of Local
1764 CUPE for the presidency of
the labor council.

Incumbent president Tom

Simmons (UAW) stepped down
from the post due to his recent

‘election to the Durham Region —

Separate School Board.
Other executive positions were

filled by Joe McCullough (Rubber —

Workers), Mel Anderson
(CUPE), and Joe Grills (Steel-

workers), for the first and second”

vice-presidencies, and treasurer's

positions respectively.
Acclaimed to the executive

board at large were Tom Sim-

mons, Ed Gauchi (International 4

Chemical workers), Lyn

(UAW) Auxiliary), and Terry

O’Conner, (CUPE).

Elections to standing commit- 4
tees will take place at the coun- —

cil’s next meeting, in February

oo

CPC first to call

eae careful study.

for new constitution

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada will
meet beginning at 7:30 p.m., Friday Jan. 28 and continue through
the weekend of Jan. 29-30. The Committee will have before it as
its main topic the crisis of confederation.

This issue is before Canada in an urgent new way. The Com-
munist Party has consistently over the years insisted that the
crisis of confederation could only be tackled based on full equal-
ity for our two nations. The Program of the Communist Party of
Canada, adopted in 1971 says: .

‘For many years now the Communist Party has put forward
the proposal of a freely-negotiated new confederal pact between
the two nations, a new Canadian Constitution, based on the
voluntary, equal partnership of the two nations in a bi-national,
sovereign and democratic state ...”’ :

In its submission to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and
Biculturalism in June, 1954, the Communist Party argued iis
case in a 28-page document.

The 16th Convention of the Communist Party, in adopting the
Communist Party Program in July 1960 said: “... there is an
urgent need to replace the British North America Act with a
Constitution made in Canada and butressed by a Bill of Rights

The 17th Convention of the Communist Party in Jan. 1962
again made this point: **The CPC supports the demand for a new
Canadian Constitution; for the negotiating, ona completely equa!
footing, of a new confederal pact between French and English
Canada, safeguarding the equality of rights and the interests of
each, and containing explicit guarantees of the right of national
self-determination for French Canada ...””

In an earlier version of its program, the Communist -Party
recognized this growing crisis by devoting, in 1952, a full section
to the subject headed: ‘‘The Right of Self-Determination for
French Canada’’. .

In countless meetings, articles, books and documents, the
Communist Party has for many years patiently and persistently
placed its position before Canadians. The growing realization by
more and more people of the seriousness of the crisis of ccnfed-
eration indicate that the Communist proposals deserve and re-

“

eo 4