Special to the Tribune
EDMONTON — “This is just the
start of the fight, the gloves are off!’’ Phil
Oakes, president of the Steelworkers
‘local at Grande Cache mines, summed
up the anger and determination of more
than 250 trade unionists and demo-
cratic-minded citizens, May 14 at the Al-
berta Federation of Labor-sponsored
“Real Public Hearings on Bill 44.”’
Under the slogan: ‘‘Join the War on
44°’, the AFL convened the special con-
ference to mobilize opposition to the
provincial Tory government’s decision
A radically undermine Alberta’s labor
ws.
re Bill 44, the legislation in question, will
Se take away all hospital workers’ right to
strike; impose wage controls on the
majority of public sector workers; in-
crease government-interference in un-
ions’ internal affairs; open the door to
union-busting; and make many other
anti-labor changes in the Alberta Labor
Act.

Conference delegates from AFL-af-
filiated and non-affiliated unions, and
public organizations unanimously pas-
sed a resolution demanding the govern-
ment withdraw Bill 44.

AFL president Dave Werlin said the
struggle against Bill 44 would have two
stages. ‘‘ The first stage is do everything
possible to stop Bill 44 from being passed
into law’’, he said.

“*The Tories have no mandate for Bill
44, they didn’t discuss it during the
November elections.”

Relentless Opposition

Werlin said stage two will be “‘a relent-
less, on-going campaign against the bill’
and he pledged the AFL will ‘‘rally to the

or persecuted under the terms of Bill
44.”

Some 12 of the 30 organizations re-
jected by the provincial Tories from pre-
senting briefs to the legislature commit-
tee studying Bill 44, presented briefs to
the AFL. They included the Human
Rights and Civil Liberties Association;
the Edmonton Committee of the Un-
employed; the Catholic Social Justice

“Commission of Edmonton; and the

Communist Party.

The government’s decision to limit
public input into the hearings on Bill 44
was hammered by almost all of the par-
ticipants. Alberta Communist Party or-
ganizer Dave Wallis said, ‘‘the Tory
government has shown its determination
to stifle democratic input that would
clearly point out the one-sided, anti-
labor bias of Bill 44.”

Human rights organization spokesman ~

Bill Broad condemned the government,
saying ‘‘it must be the democratic right of
every person to withhold their labor by
the use of a strike.”

Spéaking for the Catholic archdiocese
of Edmonton, Fr. Macdonell noted ‘‘in
Canada human rights can be very fragile.

‘Ina world where human rights are under

attack the rights of labor are the first to
disappear.”’
Spelled T-U-R-K-E-Y

Reg Baskin, vice-president of the
Energy and Chemical workers said ‘‘we
have 75 hawks in the legislature, spelled
t-u-r-k-e-y. They want blood from the
labor movement because they think we
are down, and they can kick the hell out
of us. They are going to kick us until we
fight, and kick us for fighting.”’

It was the Communist Party brief

AFL calls Albertans to join ‘war on 44’

policies of the Western Canada Concept
last Nov. 2, but now, only six months
later we are getting them anyway.

“The Communist Party urges the
government to reject policies of the far
right and demonstrate this by withdraw-
ing Bill 44 in its entirety.”

New Democrat MLA Ray Martin
made a similar point. ‘‘What this
government has done is move to the
right. Why would you need the WCC
when you have the far right in the legisla-
ture?’’ he asked.

Gunter Bruckner, Local 883 Amalga-
mated Transit Union, said Bill 44 was
not only an attack on the labor move-
ment but on democracy itself. “The
solution is not just to fight Bill 44 but to
become involved politically’, he said.
“Unless we go home and tell our
brothers and sisters to become involved
politically, there will be Bill 45, Bill 46,
etc

Broad Coalition Urged

The participants unanimously passed
a resolution calling on the AFL to ‘‘de-
velop a broad coalition of Albertans from
every walk of life including affiliated and
non-affiliated unions, church groups,
academics, legal and civil liberties
groups and other organizations or indi-
viduals interested in supporting the ‘Join
the War on 44’ campaign.

Alberta nurses’ union president Mar-
garet Ethier thanked the AFL leadership
for taking up the fight for affiliated and.
non-affiliated unions, and said that the
United Nurses of Alberta executive is
recommending the union support the
principle of a joint ‘‘war chest’’ with the
AFL to fight Bill 44.

Eugene Mitchell of the Alberta Hospi-

‘ union movement alone cannot will this
fight. This resolution calling for a broat
ly-based coalition is very important.

In a message to the conference? i
nis McDermott, president of the C
dian Labor Congress, pledged ee ci ‘
support to the AFL in its c

against the Bill. If Bill 44 is cn E
. McDermott said, the CLC would lodg® i
" formal complaint with the Internatio

Labor Organization.

The conference also voted to set UP
war chest to defeat the bill and defend?
who are victimized by the legislatiol™
opposing it.

Summing up the conference, wel
called for trade union unity and ° “unity!
our forces with other democratic fo
to roll back Bill 44. i

“We won't. stop until we. win! aa
said. “It’s just the beginning. we't wd
going to unite and we’re damn
going to fight.”’

i

defence of any union, union member or
union representative that is prosecuted

which pointed out that
Alberta rejected the far-right, anti-labor

“the people of

tal Workers Union added, ‘if we have to
defy Bill 44, we will do so...

DAVE WERLIN

. the trade

In the competition between world socialism and
world imperialism the socialist system is daily chalk-

counting its victories in hollow rhetoric and outright
distortions of fact.

Soviet Union and the countries of socialism continue
to put forward programs and policies for peace, de-
tente and disarmament. These policies, by and large,
coincide with the demands of the peace loving forces
of the world. They call for and offer programs for
nuclear disarmament providing for parity of strength.
They call for general disarmament and through their
proposals in Salt 1-2-3, make concrete and workable
proposals for nuclear and general disarmament and
verification, allowing for the mutual defence of either
side in the process.

These demands are made in full conscience be-
cause both in an economic and social sense peace,
detente and disarmament coincide with the real needs
and interests of socialism.

Imperialism and the giant armaments industry,
which is a major power factor in its composition, has
always and still today, relies on war and preparations
for war for super profits. It also brandishes its military
might to bully its competitors into line, as well as to
threaten the world socialist system with annihilation if
it does not abandon its policies of socialism at home

tion abroad.
U.S. Fuels Arms race

Even those elements in the peace movement who
begin with charging equal responsibility for the pre-
sent arms build-up, to the ‘‘two super powers of the
USA and the Soviet Union — find themselves forced
to concentrate their attacks on the USA, because this
is where the arms build-up begins. It is this reality
which calls forth letters by our prime minister asking
for equal time for condemnation of the Soviet Union.

Example: on the economic front in those socialist
countnes which are developing on the basis of the
laws of scientific socialism, we are witnessing steady
increases in productivity, wages, (real wages — not
wage increases robbed through inflation) all social

ing up more and more points while imperialism is |

‘Example: In the crucial fight for world peace, the

and assistance to the movements for national libera-’.

services, education and a steady growth in the quality
and quantity of cultural life.

Rather than unemployment there continues to be a
shortage of labor. In the place of insecurity, hyper-
tension and near social anarchy, there is economic
and social security, confidence and collective as well
as self-induced social order.

Discussions between the Communist Party, state
bodies, the trade-unions, and other political parties ©
which exist in most of the socialist countries, objec-

tives for such planned and ensured economic and
social targets are worked out, then fulfilled by com-
mon effort and responsibility. Human intelligence,
human needs, human effort and socialist planning
replace the market place as the manager of the public
need and good.

17 Million U.S. Jobless

Is there any wonder in these circumstances that
imperialism and state monopoly capitalism are taking
such elaborate and far-reaching steps to prevent
people from viewing what is taking place in the real
socialist world?

Michael Parenti, in an article in Political Affairs
(USA) presents the following statistics taken from
authoritative U.S. journals. Unemployed in the U.S.,
Dec. 1982, 12-million (now estimated at 17 million);
31.5 million living below the poverty level; two mil-
lion homeless; 4.5 million suffering from malnutrition.

Twenty-seven million Americans a year commit
suicide, 10 million are alcoholics, 25 million a year
seek mental sickness help, 28 million women a year
are physically assaulted. Twenty-three thousand are
murdered, 13 million are victims of crimes, 900,000
are engaged in child labor, some as young as seven,
150,000 children are reported missing each year, one-
third of whom vanish.

The overwhelming number of people thus victim-
ized are not acondemnation of the people of the USA.
They are victims of brutal U.S. imperialism which
reduces all mankind to plus or minus entries in 4
ledger.

People in Canada, as in the United States, are more
and more questioning the priorities of a system which
produces mass unemployment and misery at home as
well as abroad and raises war and preparations for
nuclear war as a way out of the dilemma in which they
have gotten the world.

Cold War Rooted in Anti-Communism

In these circumstances one of the main concerns of
monopoly is to make sure that demoralized as people
may be; they are not able to come to agreement on an
alternative way out of the crisis. This is the role of
anti-Communism and anti-Sovietism. :

The struggle to root it out and overcome its nega-
tive effects on our own future, is not just the task of

Role of anti-Sovietism against workers

_ Communists, it is the task of all Canadian democrats

who want to objectively seek and find a way out of the
crisis.

We must never let it be forgotten that it was anti-
Communism and anti-Sovietism, using the same slo-

gans as today, which ushered in the cold war in the :

fifties and sixties.

This cold war tried to rewrite the history of World
War Two and the mighty unity which was forged by
the working people and democratic forces around the
world, in the struggle against fascism. It was a unity
which embraced Socialism and in which the people of

the U.S. and Canada got their first view of the great--—

ness of world socialism and its people.
The monopoly-controlled media; the complete ser-

“vant of imperialism and state monopoly capitalism,

cannot and will not allow today for such an un-
obstructed view of world developments.

The task of the working class and all democratic
forces is to create the possibilities for such an un-
obstructed view in spite of the media and govern-
ments. A big task indeed, but one which can be ac-
complished given the will and unity of the people.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 27, 1983—Page 6

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