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Editorial

_ Thedouble standard

Progressive workers have noticed for some time, that when it comes to
labour’s rights, when it comes to trade unionism, the capitalist class and its
media suffer from severe schizophrenia. They have a split personality, selective
memories, dual vision.

One day, when reporting on labour actions, strikes, sitdowns in the Ukraine
or Siberia, or demonstrations in Poland, their love and admiration is boundless.
When George Bush shares a platform with Solidarnosc, he’s more radical than
an old Wobbly.

The media reacts the same way, churning out editorials filled with Lincol-
nesque descriptions of ““democracy,” “ideals,” and a stout defence of the right
of working people to defend their jobs and living standards and, yes, even
change their government.

But closer to home, muteness takes over. And after muteness, we hear a
growly, churlish tone. Suddenly the English language goes into metamorphosis:
“determined workers” become “angry mobs.” “Union leaders” become
“labour bosses.” There are “essential services” in Canada, but they seem not to
exist in Poland or the USSR.

Police bashing strikers with clubs, yellow buses loaded with scabs crashing
through pickets, court injunctions, heavy fines, contempt charges, back-to-
work laws, mass arrests and a hostile anti-union press are here presented as the
pillars of law and good government.

The anti-labour drama being enacted in Quebec by Premier Robert Bourassa
brings all this to mind. Hundreds of thousands of poorly-paid public sector
workers who had the temerity to ask for a decent wage and pay equity are
feeling the capitalist lash. Under law they are being fined; they are losing years of
seniority, and their leaders charged with contempt of court.

Bourassa, the retread of Quebec politics, is threatening mass reprisals and
even more severe legislation unless the unions surrender. These workers are
obviously French-Canadian, not Polish or Soviet.

In Alberta, where courts seem have their own special logic, Zeidler workers
are given two choices: scab or be fired. There’s not much Lincolnesque about
that.

As the Tories, together with their corporate and media friends, continue to
ram through their neo-conservative, free trade agenda, which involves declaring
open warfare against organized labour in Canada, confrontations will escalate.
Canadian workers and their unions will see more vicious legislation, more use of
police and a sharp rise in media-inspired anti-union psychology.

And, from the very same people, as workers in the socialist world become
more active in reshaping their lives, we’ll hear the flip side of the record played

soft and sweetly.

teem JO
S\TUATION

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»

FIRIBON.

~ EDITOR

Sean Griffin

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk
GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

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s evidenced by the recent pronounce-

ments of Premier Bill Vander Zalm
and the appearance at the Walk for the
Environment of Secred MLA and Legisla-
ture Speaker John Reynolds — appropriate-
lyattiredinnylon jogging suite — environ-
mental issues have provided the latest flag
for right wing politicians to wrap them-
selves in. But inside that flag, the body is
the same; and the heart, assuming there is
one, continues to beat to the rhythm of
“free market”’ policies. 3

An example of how governments and
the corporate sector are seeking to hitch
environmental issues to the continuing
quest for higher profits is seen in some of
the latest proposals put forward by the
federal government (both here and in the
U.S., we might add).

Finance Minister Michael Wilson, at a
speech before the United Nations Associa-
tion in New York last month put the
government’s approach straight up. “I
don’t believe that we can rely entirely on
regulatory or legal approaches ...,” he
said. “Rather we need to look for more
creative, market-based solutions to envir-
onmental problems.”

Those, undoubtedly, are the same kind

of market-based solutions that brought us
de-indexing of family allowances and cuts
to the unemployment insurance programs
and threaten to bring us the Goods and
Services Tax. And they’ll probably do
about as nruch in solving environmental
problems as the other government mea-
sures have done for working peoples’
incomes.

in mind when you consider the various
proposals that government officials are
working on, such as tax incentives to com-
panies to reduce emissions and new taxes

It’s worth bearing Wilson’s track record -

People and Issues

on such polluting substances as gasoline
and disposable diapers, supposedly to
reduce consumption.

The proposals get even more ominous
from such groups as Environment Probe,
whose executive director Larry Solomon
said in an article in the Financial Post
Sept. 25 that he wanted to see forests pri-
vatized to put the sale of timber on a
market basis. Under the current system of
Crown ownership and stumpage fees, he
contends, forest companies have no incen-
tive to log efficiently.

What is missing is the approach taken
by forest unions and others which have
called for a revamping of the timber roy-
alty system to ensure proper, sustainable
logging, coupled with new regulations on
reforestation and silviculture. Privatizing
the forests would alienate them complete
from public control and, if past corporate
practice is any indication, render them
completely vulnerable to environmental
destruction. After all, who would ensure
that logging companies are cutting prop-
erly?

What has become apparent, even to
right wing governments and the corporate
sector, is that the environment is becoming
the paramount issues in the public mind.
With that awareness is going a new
demand for tougher measures to compel
corporate polluters to clean up their
act — to remove the dioxins from pulp
mill effluent, to cut sulfur dioxide emis-
sions, to stop the clear-cut-and-get-out
policies that have prevailed in the forest
industry.

Pressure is clearly growing for stepped-

up government action to reduce pollution .

and curb wasteful practices. But rather
than accept that new role, governments
and business are endeavouring to find
“market-based” solutions that would
offset many of the costs and, at the same
time, reduce government intervention.
They want tax breaks and incentives to
clean up and they want governments off
their backs. What better way to accomp-
lish those objectives but “market-based”
policies?

The Financial Post is blunt about it,
urging in an editorial in the same issue the
formation of a “green market.” It calls for
the elimination of subsidies on such pro-
jects as offshore oil development and their
replacement by incentives and new taxes
to cover environmental costs.

The inescapable fact, however, is that
corporations have repeatedly been the
worst abusers of the environment but did
nothing to curb their excesses — until an
increasingly effective environmental move-
ment and a newly-aware public began to

_ demand that action be taken to clean up

the mess. Now those came corporations
want someone else to pay and want to
push aside the environmental movement
and replace it with “the market.” But it
won’t work and Canadians shouldn’t let
them get away with it.

One of the proposals being advocated
in the U.S. — by no less than President
George Bush — is an example of just how
ludicrous and ultimately useless the

“market solution” would be.

Bush has suggested a system of “trada-
ble” air pollution permits under which
companies which can reduce their emis-
sions to below allowable limits would be
alowed to sell their excess quotas to other
plants which can then exceed the limits. In
effect, companies would buy the right to
keep pollution levels high.

*  O* *

Geile his attitude to his trade
union constituents, it’s with some glee
that we follow the travails of Tourism Min-
ister Bill Reid, the Socred cabinet minister
who was bounced from his position for
allegedly arranging for government deals
for his former campaign manager. The
progress of events has been charted nightly
on the television news and the former Sur-
rey car dealer (what else?) seems to be
coming a bit unglued in the face of the
media.

But we couldn’t help noting that he was
in Hungary at the time of his departure

_ from cabinet and in fact, phoned the pre-

mier from that country. We wonder why,
given the political heat that he will
undoubtedly have to face here, he didn’t
avail himself of the opportunity then
available to join the exodus across the
frontier into West Germany. That way he
could have stayed away for the Socred
debacle in the Cariboo byelection and
avoided the uncertain future that he is
likely to encounter if he tries to run again..

Once in West Germany, he could have
set himself up in business with the free car
that the government is giving to people
coming into the country. And considering
the legendary longevity of German cars,
he wouldn’t even have to turn the odome-~
ter back. -

4 Pacific Tribune, October 2, 1989