How free is ‘free.

LABOR SCENE

by Bruce Magnuson

Monument to guerrillas in the village of Kortelisy, in the Volyn

i

district of Soviet Ukraine, which was reduced to ashes by the German
fascists and their Ukrainian nationalist lackeys in 1942. The nazis
massacred 2,996 civilians, burned down 324 houses, and drove 30
people to Germany for hard labor. Some of the perpetrators of these
deeds are here in Canada and repeated efforts by Soviet authorities
to get the war criminals returned to the Soviet Union for trial have
been ignored by the Canadian government.

By WILLIAM ALLAN

HAMTRAMCK — The Chrys-
ler Corporation has started a
new model car year and like all
years it’s pulling all kinds of
tricks to get more production
(speedup), cut costs, work with
less manpower to maintain
maximum profits. —

They’ve pulled a new one this
year. In a several thousand word
article in the Detroit Free Press,
in which it runs big ads period-
ically, Chrysler has opened a
new bag of tricks claiming the
workers “Get a Voice in Chrys-
ler Operations.”

Another eight column _head-
line says, “Chrysler Employees
Get Role in Running the Plants.”

This we have to see, so we
talked to Chrysler workers at
Dodge Main and Outer Drive
Stamping plants of the company
about what Chrysler terms Job
Enrichment Program. Chrysler
publicists fondly call it JEP.

The Chrysler public relations
hucksters even went to lengths
of claiming JEP had elements of
Dale Carnegie’s “How to Suc-
ceed in Business” — and Karl
Marx!

We remember the old days of
the suggestion boxes in the
shops, where workers would be
conned into presenting their
ideas and get a few dollars re-
ward, while the company would
patent the idea and make thou-
sands — sometimes millions —
of dollars on the worker’s idea.

JEP is a 1971 version of this
con game.

At the Outer Drive Stamping
plant we talked to workers.
“What about JEP?” we asked.
They thought we were asking
about some new soap or deo-
dorant, one asked for samples.
We gave them a synopsis.

Said one young black worker,
“Well, we got the floors swept
during the changeover to 1972
model pieces and_ inventory.
Men were taken*off the line and
made to do painting of the ma-
chines, while regular union
painters these days walk the
streets jobless.

—— Old ‘con’, new twist

“Production was_ increased
on my job by 10 pieces from
the 1970 model to the 1971
model. Some jobs it was jump-
ed from stamping out 260 piec-
es to 298 pieces each hour on
the last model. We will get a
similar rise in production on
the 1972—they thaven’t come
around yet, but we hear it’s be-
ing done in other departments,
all we’ll get is that production
will be raised and they’ll tell
us it’s the production in other
departments and we have to go
along. The JEP or job enrich-
ment program the paper is talk-
ing of is enrichment for Chrys-
ler—more production for us at
the same rates.”

Another stamping plant work-
er joined in, “We have now to
stack steel up at the end of my
line, we have to clear up — it
used to be done by maintenance
workers, now we have to do it,
Chrysler enriches itself by sav-
ing on cleanup costs.”

Said another worker, “Chrys-
ler, I notice, is. now hiring
stockhandlers for 20 cents an
hour less and then they put
them on the large stamping
presses, working for less than
we do. We wised them up, so
now Chrysler, if you beef, hands
you an adjustment notice so you
can get the 20 cents an hour
more coming.”

Said another worker, “Why
don’t that scribbler write about
Chrysler’s little trick of short
pay cheques. You know, you get
a pay cheque, you’ll be a dollar
short, or your overtime might
be miscalculated — you get it
or you don’t get it. With 20,000
of us working in several Chrys-
ler shops here, $1 a _ week,
comes to $20,000, and multiply
that by 52 weeks and man, they
got some bread that don’t be-
long to them.”

Another stamping plant work-
er said, “Write about the fore-
men writing us-up for not work-
ing faster and when we beef, he
tells us, ‘you’re the production
workers, you know how.’ Can
you imagine the crust, when all
he does is goose that rheostat (a
mechanism to increase the speed
of the line).” -

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1971—PAGE 6:

(First of three articles)

After many decades of grim
struggles for the rights of Cana-
dian working people, trade unions
were already becoming a force
to be reckoned with in Cana-
dian society following Confede-
ration. As capitalist industry de-
veloped, the struggle between
labor and capital grew more in-
tense. Unions in various trades
joined together in central labor
bodies to more effectively ad-
vance their common cause as a
class in society.

In 1872 the federal govern-
ment was finally compelled to

pass a Trade Union Act, there- -

by giving official recognition to
trade union organizations.

This act by the government
was not voluntary and benevol-
ent, but the result of a long
struggle for trade union rights.
For example, in Toronto, where
a Central Labor Council was
formed in 1871, printing and
building tradesmen on strike ap-
pealed for and won community
support. In the spring of 1872,
a public demonstration initiated
by striking printers brought
over 10,000 citizens to Queen’s
Park.

Role of the State

Some 30 years later, when in-
dustry and financial institutions
joined together into a corporate
structure and monopolies, gov-
ernments became a part of this
big business oligarchy. Far from
being a neutral force in the
class struggle, the state sought
to intervene and to conciliate
disputes, wherever blunder in-
struments of repression failed.

The Conciliation Act of 1900
signalized such state interven-
tion in labor-employer conflicts
and simultaneously established
a Federal Department of Labor.
Then in 1907 came the compul-
sory conciliation concept, bar-
ring strikes until after concilia-
tion procedures had been ex-
hausted.

From 1907, when the Indus-
trial Disputes Investigation Act
was adopted, there was little
or nothing done in this field

CKPR blasted

for silence
on testimony

THUNDER BAY—In a letter
to local television station

CKPR-TV, the Thunder Bay~

Peace Council protested the
suppression of factual news
about ‘the torture of Vietnamese
by American troops. A program
referred to was an American
Vietnam war veteran’s testi-
mony before the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee carried
over CKPR on Aug. 3.

Over a year before the Peace
Council had sent CKPR a state-
ment of U.S. army Lieutenant
Francis T. Reitemeyer attesting
to the same crimes. The state-
ment was in the form of a prof-
fer, thereby giving legal validity
to the testimony. At that time
the station did nothing.

On behalf of the Council, sec-
retary C. E. Lenton expressed
the “strongest possible protest”
to the station for its arbitrary
suppression of news of crimes
committed against the Vietna-
mese people.

collective bargaining:

from a legislative point of view
until the time of the Winnipeg
General Strike of 1918, when
the Arthur Meighen government
passed the infamous Section 98
of the Criminal Code, later used
to outlaw the Communist Party
in 1931. Section 98 became so
unpopular that Mackenzie King
won the 1935 election largely on
the premise to repeal this Act.

During World War II, when
organized labor declared a truce
on the economic battlefront at
home to unite all democratic
forces in a joint effort to defeat
fascism, the Wartime Labor Re-
lations Regulations (also known
as P.C. 1003) was passed. It
brought collective bargaining as
such within a legal framework,

‘ provided certain rights for or-

ganization of trade unions and
established a labor relations
board to deal with matters
such as union recognition and
contract negotiations.
Enlarge scope
In 1948 the Industrial Dis-
putes Investigation Act was
amended and enlarged in scope
to ‘become the Industrial Rela-
tions and Disputes Investiga-
tion Act. While embodying
much of wartime labor policy,
this new Act provided for
legal certification of bargaining
agents and tightened the legal
framework, making collective
bargaining within that frame-
work conform to specific com-
pulsory legal procedures. Con-
tracts entered into within that
framework became legally bind-
ing. A framework for arbitra-
tion of disputes arising out of
contract interpretations was es-
tablished. Strikes remained pro-
hibited except in the course of
negotiation of new contracts;
and then only after conciliation
procedures being exhausted
and having failed to resolve the
issue in terms of a new agree-
ment.

That is where federal laws
with respect to labor-employer
relations have remained by and
large for more than 20 years.
But in the course of that time
the corporate structure and
monopolies have tightened their
grip on economic and social life.
Governments, as coordinators
of this vast conglomerate or-
ganism, have become bureau-
cratic machines in. the service
of the monopolies at every
level. Provinces have copied the
federal legal “framework for
labor relations. But inasmuch as
privately-owned industry comes
under provincial jurisdiction,

provincial labor laws govern the

main fields of labor-employer
confrontation. Consequently this
is the area where the sharpest
struggles have taken place and
where the most repressive form
of anti-labor laws have ap-
peared.

Serving Monopoly

Along with the process of in-
creased concentration and cen-
tralization of capital the mono-
polies have assumed increased
importance in the economic life
of all developed capitalist coun-
tries, as well as underdeveloped
nations. Competition on the
world market has_ intensified.
To combat this and to realize
profits the drive for higher
levels of equipment and techno-
logy, alongside physical speed-
up of the workers, has taken on
gigantic proportions.

In all this rationalization of

production, capitalist govern-,

ments play an increas th
part, often supplying '
of the vast amount oe
needed for reseach and

ment, and for the o
the best possible socia
litical climate for the
ternational corprations
rate in, Obviously, ti!
the most favorable the
labor relations and in
sion of a skilled and m

force.

In the course of thes?
es, the work force ‘
changed. The number
sionals, technicians Pe
white collar and ser
nel has increased phe? .
Trade union organiZ® ip
grown and has come ©
many new sections ° ii
It is, therefore, quill ey
that laws governiné ret
tions are taking
portance than ever.

For the past dec@
volumes have t
about how to mee fl
lenge. Since th
man_ investigation f
gical changes 0M that
resulting in a rePO
mended labor-employ.
tions on matte
working condiue =! 17
ing the life of 4 regal,
contract, the g0V
‘been under pressur ios
federal industrial 1

A Task Force 0” a
tions brought ov a
report, followed by
from employers an 3
for nearly three Y° seq
ernment has bee? “ed i
consultations pe th
provinces. Tobe SY
been pressures 5 ext!
for government ts inh
lective bargaining pn te gh
civil service, throY jatio™
lic Service Sta Re

Set the p4 98 josh

Finally, on JUDE ces
before the summer kas,
Minister Bryce Ma An “af
duced Bill cae
amend the Ca! rst
which was given a 0
before the Housé

adjourned. ap?!
Federal labor 1 “yt

aoe

S05

Canada. It ©? fs {0
530,000 employe? nil
force of some und?

cupations inclue™ int
ral jurisdiction au al fa

and pipeline ted
shipping and Hie
air transportal onal
cial and_ inter ones |
nication by teleP” ag if
or cable; radi? ‘ af
broadcasting;
cial institution™. 5 of
The impor ae
labor law, noweV' be
measured by the cect
ple it affects 4 the ’
importance }§ as? g
seis for the count
for the provine of 4
jurisdiction mor lov

force is ot ae
oy
pemornn 4
A democracy #8 io :
A senator’s 2 elects ni
A millionaire © nd °

And elects him” et
War, pollution, PS” vi

It's democracy *