“LABOR

By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORONTO — You can’t
negotiate a contract with a club
hanging over your head, and
that’s how City of York care-
takers’ strike leader Don Paton
felt last Monday when
Management at the Board of
Education gave the union a
one-hour deadline to consider
its take-it-or-leave-it offer.

Paton and the 229 caretakers
and ‘‘matrons’’ he represents
as president of Local 994
Canadian Union of Public
Employees have been on strike
since Feb. 11. ‘‘ Fairness — not
a lot to ask’’, is the strike slo-
gan. It decorates the badges
worn by the pickets outside the
36 public schools affected. —

Decked out in picket signs
and heavy winter parkas to
ward off the icy temperatures,
the strikers have no trouble
spelling out the issues. that
have them pounding the pave-
ment for the first time in the
local’s 20-year history, and re-
flect their slogan.

A $1.30 an hour across-the-
board wage hike, the elimina-
tion of a $2,500 gap in wages
between the caretakers and
seven women designated as
“‘matrons’’ by the board, and
rejection of management de-
mands for concessions that

will undermine the workers’
\ seniority rights for_ promotions

and transfers — are the top is-
sues in the dispute.

On top of that, the board has
asked the union to accept a
capping of OHIP premiums,
and for the workers to pay fu-
ture premium rate increases
out of their own pockets.

CUPE is also asking for the
extention to the caretakers of
an early retirement scheme
which the Board already
makes available to manage-
ment people. It’s a scheme
where the board maintains a
retired employees’ health and
pension premium contribu-
tion in return for token part-
time work until the worker
reaches age 65.

Paton told the Tribune that
the union has heard nothing
from the Board since Feb.. 18,
when the bargaining commit-
tee was called down to the
Ministry of Labor and insulted
with the one-hour ultimatum.

‘‘We’re ready to negotiate
with the Board, we’re just
waiting for them to call’’,
Paton said, but added that
there will have to be a serious
response to the union’s de-
mands and a more mature atti-
tude to negotiations.

None of the workers wants a
percentage increase as pro-
posed by the board because it
will just widen the difference
between what most of the care-

York school caretakers
Strike for ‘faimess’

takers make and what the
maintenance trades people get.
That differential in some cases,
is now more than $10,000 a
year.

“That’s a lot of money’’,
Paton said ‘‘and this is the time
to stop that gap from expand-
ing any more.”

He added that he was proud
of his local for standing firm
behind the bargaining commit-
tee and in the face of the
Board’s moves to undermine
the strike. In an obvious move
to split the clerical workers
from the caretakers, the Board
made the former an offer that
was accepted just hours before
CUPE Local 1749 was slated
to join Local 994 on the picket
line, Feb. 18.

Adding insult to injury, the
Board’s Feb. 18 ultimatum to
Local 994 contained a wage in-
crease that was less than what
it negotiated with Local 1749.

Many of the strikers were
disappointed Local 1749
signed the memorandum, be-
cause they believed their com-
bined strength could have seen

everyone achieve their bar-_

gaining goals that much
quicker.

However, this development
had little if any impact on the
strikers’ morale, particularly
when word of the Board’s ul-

timatum. hit. the picket lines.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

se

through the strike bulletin.
This arrogance has been
compounded by the Board’s
efforts to convince the strikers
that things are running smooth-

ly without them. Management

types are making a big produc-
tion of driving through some
picket lines with mail and
packages to show they’re per-
forming jobs normally done by
the strikers.

The pickets, however, are
getting quite a chuckle over re-
ports that principals are push-
ing brooms inside the schools
and have been reduced to try-
ing to recruit little children to
do work that belongs to adults.

Reports of upper level
management at the Board
cleaning out toilets for the
duration of the strike brought
out a fair amount of laughter
from the pickets, as well.as un-

PRS TORR ee = Rio
Pickets have been set up outside all of York’s 36 schools.

printable commentary.

The caretakers have found
they’re not alone in their bat-
tle. The York district of the
high school teachers’ union,
(OSSTF), has called on its
members not to scab on the
stfikers, and has set up a soli-
darity fund on their behalf.’

On Feb. 26, CUPE National
President Jeff Rose will ad-
dress a mass rally in support of
Local 994 outside Board head-
quarters at 2 Trethewey Drive
(Keele and Eglinton).

The strikers say they’re pre-
pared to hang tough until they
get what they want. ‘‘As far as
Im concerned’’, one
coveralls-and parka-clad pic-
ket outside 2 Trethewey said,
‘if that’s what it will take, Pll
still be standing out here when
the time comes to wear tee-
shirts and cutoffs.”’

Yellow press wages war against miners

TORONTO — Striking British miner
lan Ferguson told a solidarity meeting
Organized by the Canadian Union of
Educational Workers, Feb. 19, that con-
trary to distortions in the capitalist press,
90 per cent of the National Union of
Mineworkers membership who went out
a strike last March, are still holding

Ferguson, an executive member of the
Yorkshire area of Britain’s National
Union of Mineworkers, was paying his
Second visit to Canada, following his
triumphant welcome last fall at the
British Columbia Federation of Labor
Convention.

This time, Ferguson was in Canada at
the invitation of the Alberta Federation
of Labor, where he addressed their an-
nual conventtion two weeks ago, and by
CUEW Local 3, teaching assistants and
Staff at York University.

Sharing the platform with Ferguson
Was Ontario Federation of Labor presi-
dent Cliff Pilkey, who applauded the
Militant battle being waged by British
Coal miners for the survival of their
communities and future jobs for their
children.

Pilkey linked the British coal strike to
the fight being waged by 1,500 members
Of the Retail Wholesale and Department
Store Union here for their first contract

_ at Eaton’s.

Conspiracy to Silence

He detailed the big business con-
Spiracy to silence a series of radio ads the
OFL was trying to have broadcast, and
he exposed the corporate connections

hind certain media conglomerates with
financial links to the T. Eaton Co. that
Pressured radio stations to ban the ads.

He recalled the unprecedented
$23,000 that was collected on behalf of
the NUM on the floor of the last OFL

convention after striker Brian Dakin had
addressed the gathering, and proudly re-
counted how the federation lived up to its
commitment to match that collection.

One of the best ways of supporting the
miners’ strike, in addition to the gen-
erous financial and moral aid Canadians
have generated, Pilkey said, was to rally
behind the Eaton’s strikers and ensure
all-out support for the strike and the boy-
cott against the giant retailer.

Ferguson traced the historic back-
ground of the miners’ struggle to the Na-
tional Coal Board’s 1974 Plan for Coal. In
this document, the managers of the
state-run coal industry laid out the Tory
government’s plans to cripple Britain’s
coal fields and privatize whatever pro-
fitable elements were left over after mas-
sive closures of supposedly uneco-
nomical pits.

The ultimate target of this process,
aside from turning a plentiful and preci-
ous natural resource over to big busi-
ness, was the NUM itself, Ferguson
charged. He described the trail of job
destruction that followed in the wake of
coal board chairman Ian MacGregor’s
previous assaults on the mining, steel
and auto industries in the U.S. and Bri-
tain.

Psychological Warfare

Ferguson spoke of the intense
psychological war being waged against
the miners by the media as it presents the
NUM aas latter-day Luddites bent on
stopping progress by trying to keep so-
called ‘‘uneconomic’’ pits open.

The NUM, he said, has never stood
opposed to the introduction of new tech-
nology in the mining industry or to
modernization, but in the current situa-
tion, the union and Britain’s 140,000
striking coal miners are dealing with a
fundamental issue and a fundamental
right — the right to a job and a secure

& one
lan Ferguson, executive member of the

Yorkshire area NUM, says miners are
fighting for their future.

future for their communities and their
children.

That media war of nerves as gone so
far, Ferguson said, as to totally distort
and misrepresent the number of miners
returning to the pits. In fact, the union
has even discovered that some of the
buses dramatically wheeling scabs
through the picket lines were augmenting
the puny numbers of scab miners inside,
with department store dummies dressed
to look like miners.

The media abuse has been accom-
panied by equally brutal treatment of the
miners at the hands of what amounts toa
national police force especially created
to do battle with the NUM and its sup-
porters in the trade union movement.

Ferguson detailed the toll of suffering
the authorities have brought down on
miners fighting for their democratic

rights and the most basic of human
rights. More than 9,000 miners so far
have been fined or jailed for defending
their rights, and five miners have died as
a consequence of the strike.

Magnificent Women

But despite the oppression, Britons
have rallied in support of the strikers,
particularly the women. Women’s strike
support committees have mushroomed
everywhere throughout the country,
even in areas where there aren’t any coal
miners.

The NUM spokesperson said the
women’s support has been a significant
force in the strike struggle.

Incontrast, while the last Trades Union
Congress convention adopted an impor-
tant and necessary resolution declaring
full suppootrt to the NUM and its fight,
Ferguson expressed regret that the TUC
hasn’t lived up to its commitment of sup-
port in the full sense of the word. How-
ever the solidarity shown by the National
Union of Railwaymen, the Seamen’s
Union and the dockers, he said, was
exemplary and has been a key factor
supporting the NUM.

They’ ve all been steadfast in refusing
to handle scab coal being brought into the
country.

Ferguson also expressed the miners’
appreciation for the international trade
union support that has reached Britain -
from all over the world, including both
socialist and capitalist countries, and
insisted that a victory for the NUM will
be a victory for the working class the
world over.

CUEW Local 3 had the meeting and
subsequent question period video-
taped, and will make it available to locals
interested in showing it. Locals wishing
to get copies of the tape for educational
or solidarity purposes should contact
CUEW Local 3 at York University.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 27, 1985 e 7