| In
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Special to the Tribune
. TORONTO — Injured
_ Workers, trade unionists, and
legal aid workers met June 8 to
__ probe weaknesses in Ontario's
Workmen s Compensation
Act and to express their oppos-
ition to the inadequate study of
the Act being proposed by the
Queen’s Park tory govern-

The forum, organized by the
Committee on the Weiler study
is strongly opposed to the fact
that Professor Paul Weiler will
hold closed hearings on work-
ers’ compensation problems
and they object to the extreme-
ly narrow mandate the Ontario
Ministry of Labor gave him in
conducting his investigation.

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|

Last February, Labor
Minister Robert Elgie appoint-
ed Weiler to study all aspects
of workers’ compensation in

- Ontario. Weiler, a Harvard
University professor and
former chairman of the British
Columbia Labor Relations
Board, recently announced he
would not hold public hearings
and that he will only spend two
months on the study before re-
turning to Harvard in Sep-
tember.

Labor; and activists in the
fight. for Workmen's Com-
pensation Board (WCB) re-
form, charge that such a pri-
vate and individual study will

deny injured workers, . the
labor movement and other in-
terested organizations the
chance of putting forward in-
jured workers’ many griey-
ances and recommendations to
improve and strengthen the ex-
isting laws.

As _ presently planned, the
Weiler study will give employ-
er groups and the WCB top
brass the chance to push their
arguments through for more
cutbacks and regressive

CLC moves on Boise

OTTAWA — fhe 2.3-million
member Canadian Labor Con-

ss has taken steps to force the
union-busting Boise Cascade
company to negotiate a settle-
ment of the two-year strike it has
fought with Local 2693 Lumber
and Sawmill Workers Union.

CLC president Dennis
McDermott announced at last
week’s international United Auto
Workers convention in Anaheim,
California that the congress had
met with the leaders of six unions
representing the workers
employed by the U.S.-owned
multi-national, and had won
agreement that the five unions
presently negotiating new agrec-
ments with the company would
delay the signing of new contracts
until the LSWU strike is settled
and the loggers get the justice

DENNIS McDERMOTT ay ce

nounces new unio :
paign for strikes. eee

: fairs.

they?ve been fighting for over the...

last two years.

McDermott told the UAW
convention he had met with the
U.S. leaders of the international
unions involved in contract talks
as well as with the local union
leaders at Boise Cascade in Otta-
wa.

The unions involved in the
CLC operation include the Cana-
dian Paperworkers Union,
(CPU), the International Associa-
tion of Machinists, (IAM), the
International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers (IBEW), the
Office and Professional
Employees International Union,
(OPEIU) and the International
Woodworkers of America,
(IWA).

McDermott told the conven-
tion he had commitments from
the unions not to sign any agree-
ment until Boise signed with the
loggers. He also pledged financial
and other support on behalf of the
CLC if the unions are forced into
a strike position by Boise.

The only union of any size that
will not be taking part in the un-
ited campaign to beat Boise is the
United Paperworkers Inter-
national Union, the rump organt-
zation left over from the separa-
tion of the Canadian workers
from the U.S. international sev-
eral years ago. The Canadian sec-
tion, in an amicable separation
formed the CPU, to establish its
autonomy and control over its af-

The UPIU local last pent
signed a three-year pact with the
OHTA which was ratified by
only one vote. The union was
brought under charges before a
CLC disciplinary heanng for its
actions during the sae! stages of
the Boise strike when union
members crossed the LSWU pic-

ket lines in Fort Frances.

‘ured workers term

study ‘inadequate’

changes in the workers’ com-
pensation legislation.

Phil Biggin, president of the
Union of Injured Workers, told
the forum that about 90% of all
WCB pensions issued in On-
tario are grossly underrated by
the board and how none of the
pensions have automatic
cost-of-living adjustments in
the face of rampant inflation.
The UIW leader cited these
facts to answer claims by
employers trying to justify cut-
backs that WCB recipients are
living ‘‘lavishly’’ from their
meagre pension benefits.

Biggin explained the need
for better collective agree-
ments and _ progressive
government legislation such as
exists in Britain and _ Italy
which guarantee job security
for injured workers.

Charlie Neilson, of the
Canadian Chemical Workers
Union, representing workers
at the Johns-Manville plant in
Scarborough, blamed working
conditions for the 43 asbestosis
deaths in the plant since 1943
and charged WCB doctors had

One of the regressive policies
adopted by the Canadian Labor
Congress leadership following the
1978 Quebec Convention was to
put the lid on trade union delega-
tions and exchanges with socialist
countries.

A resolution submitted to that
convention by the Nova Scotia
Federation of Labor was folded
into the International Affairs Re-
port, which really did not deal
directly with the matter at all.

Shortly after the Convention
Dennis McDermott announced
the ban on such exchanges in re-
sponse to pressure ‘generated by
the Carter ‘‘human rights’? cam-
paign and Soviet ‘‘dissidents’’.

Since that time there have been
no Official exchanges between the
CLC and socialist country trade
union centres.

At the recent Convention of the
CLC however, two resolutions
were passed which change this
Situation and open the door to
such exchanges. One is a resolu-
tion submitted by the B.C.
Federation of Labor calling on the
Congress to abide by the 1978
Convention decisions on ex-
changes of foreign trade union
delegations. This resolution
seems to make the assumption
that the actual decision of the 1978
convention was to support such
exchanges with socialist coun-
tries, and that the Congress
leadership reversed the decision.

The other resolution passed by
the convention leaves no room for
interpretation. It was submitted,
once again by the Nova Scotia
Federation of Labor and reads:
“this convention continue to en-
courage visits of trade unionists
with the socialist and third world
countries, having in mind the de-
velopment of peace and mutual
understanding among all peo-
ples.”’ This resolution was re-

commended for adoption in the -

denied just compensation for
the victims.

‘‘The board doctors say that
you smoke too much, or that
you eat too much, when you
get sick and blame everything
else but asbestos’’, Neilson
said.

The well-attended meeting
showed how these and other
legitimate concerns couldn't
possibly be dealt with by the
proposed rushed and closed
Weiler study. The participants
expressed their determination
to continue the pressure so that

SAFETY

BEFORE
PROFITS

VARS-10-78-NO

injured workers and _ their
representatives will get a fair
hearing.

Some organizations, such as
the United Electrical workers
(UE), have urged their mem-
bers to flood labor minister
Elgie with letters to let him
know that organized labor ex-
pects more than a two-month
study on the complicated prob-

‘lems involved in workers’
compensation legislation and
that they strongly protest plans
to keep the Weiler probe a sec-
ret affair behind closed doors.

Mutual exchange

for understanding

report of the International Affairs
Committee, which was adopted
by the convention.

Thus, at a time when the Cana-
dian Government seems intent on
putting relations between Canada
and the Soviet Union in the deep-
freeze, as illustrated by their
shameful boycott of the Olym-
pics, hockey and other sports and
cultural exchanges, the Canadian
trade union centre has opted for
mutual exchanges as a positive
contribution to understanding,
peace and detente.

This approach was further em-.
phasized by CLC President
Dennis McDermott at the UAW
convention in Anaheim, Calif.,
when he cut through the protec-
tionist arguments being pressed by
U.S. auto leaders, and spoke of the
need for close cooperation and
unity between auto workers the
world over to meet the divisionist
brutalpolicies being pursuedby the
giant auto monopolies.

Speaking recently at a meeting
of world political party
representatives on the subject
‘dialogue on peace and détente”’
the éditor of Pravda said the fol-
lowing: ‘‘ There are objective laws
of economic development which
govern the world. The capitalist
world cannot exist without trad-
ing and selling their products. The
Soviet Union and the socialist
countries are a huge reliable mar-
ket. With the terrible competition
in the western world, whether
they like it or not they will be
compelled to trade with us.”

Further, he said, ‘It is no
longer possible to separate people
with an iron curtain. Interchange
of economic, social and cultural
relations is an objective process
which no country can alter.

‘“‘Détente is alive in the minds
and hearts and wishes of people”’,
he said, ““who can and will pre-

vent a new world war.”

These words express both the
economic needs and the needs of
our country for a peaceful and
secure future. The economic
mess our country is in today can-
not be met by walling ourselves
off from one of the largest and
most profitable markets in the
world, the world socialist com-
munity.

The cold war threatens Cana-
dians on three fronts. First with
extinction by a world nuclear
holocaust. Second with vast
waste of precious capital on arms
manufacture at a time when such
capital is necessary to produce
meaningful jobs and maintain and
extend social services. Third with
cold-war barriers which will dep-
rive us of vast potential markets
available without the economic
structures usually native to trade
with such imperialist countries as
U.S., Japan, Germany, etc.

The welcome policies of the
Canadian Labor Congress for ex-
changes with socialist countries,
taken together with the positions
of peace, détente and disarma-
ment the convention adopted,
offer a clear alternative to the
policies of the governments of
big-business.

The real needs of the people of
Canada are thus reflected by the
decisions of the parliament of
labor, not the parliament of big
business.

The song of Bob Dylan, **The
answer my friend is blowing in the
wind,’ are brought to mind by
this comparison.

Indeed in the period of deepen-
ing crisis of state monopoly
capitalism and world imperialism,
labor more and more will come
into the forefront as the real pat-
riots of the country. It is the only
force with an answer to unem-
ployment, inflation, cutbacks, and
coldwar.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 20, 1980—Page 9

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