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Strong as a rock in Oshawa

OSHAWA — Labor is as solid as a rock. It’s inscribed on the bottom of the pet rocks, the members of the
Southern Ontario Newspaper Guild (SONG), currently striking the Oshawa Times, are manufacturing for sale
among trade union members to raise cash for the strike. The support these rocky little creatures have already
won the 50 Guild members at the Thomson-owned Times may have produced victory for the editorial,
circulation and advertising workers who went out March 26 to back demands for a new contract. As the
Tribune went to press May 1, it was announced the strikers were voting on a tentative agreement between the
Times and SONG negotiators. Details of the offer were to be released following the vote. Key issues in the

strike included wages, hours of work anda company-paid dental
members at the Thomson-owned Sudbury Star last year.

A new myth is being promoted
in labor circles to the effect that
«*mass demonstrations’’ are one
shot affairs which could be
defined in Shakespearian terms as
**full of sound and fury, signifying
nothing.”

_ Whether or not this myth is
spread by those who. genuinely
believe it to be true, or others
whose motives are little different,
it requires exposure and argu-
ment by those who have both
knowledge of labor history and a
genuine concern about its future.

It would be most one-sided and
wrong to argue that there have not
been great changes in the labor
movement since the thirties.
These include: the changed
composition of the work force,
the new levels of organization and
technique, and in the case of the
‘trade unions, the existence of a
great many experienced cadre in
areas of bargaining grievances
etc., all open up new possibilities

make necessary new ap-
proaches to solving the many and
indeed growing problems of
workers in the plants, mines and
offices.

What hasn’t changed, and will
never change as long as the sys-
tem of capitalist exploitation re-
Mains intact, is the need for
workers to struggle against all
forms of oppression, and to learn
through that struggle.

Is this less important or valid

_ today thanit was in the days of the
birth of the UAW when the work-
ers had to take to the streets,
blockade the highways and sit-
down in the plants often for weeks
on end to win the very right to
form their unions?

Is it as valid as it was in the
thirties when unemployed work-
ers had to march to Ottawa, sit in
post offices, and hotels, picket
city hall and demonstrate in hun-

plan along the lines of the plan won by Guild

Mass action

not outdated

dreds of ways to win the right to
relief and place their plight before
the people, or as is suggest by op-
ponents of such actions today,
has the working class movement
outgrown such actions? Are they
counter-productive at worst or
non-productive at best? Do such
actions turn off the white collar
workers and alienate labor from
the broad democratic forces in
our country? Are they just
mediums for the left, which tend
to narrow down the influence of
labor on the entire Canadian
community?

Life, it seems, has_ itself
answered these questions with an
overwhelming NO, and it will
continue to support the rejection
of these arguments against mass
action.

Interestingly, it is precisely the
white collar workers who have
mounted the biggest and most ef-
fective mass actions over the past
decade. The teachers, health and
hospital workers, students and
even doctors have taken to the
Streets in defence of their in-
terests.

Mass action is an indespensa-
ble part of labor poltical action,
neither is effective without the
other. Workers can never secure
their gains, made through strikes
and other struggles without

- changing the balance of forces at a

political level, in their favor.
Neither can they secure their

influence at a political level with- .

out mass struggles at all levels
which give birth to the political

consciousness and confidence »

workers need to win such power.

Today youth is being assidi-
ously taught in public, high and
post-secondary levels that they
must, and can only, solve their
problems individually. There are

_ nocollective solutions! This is the

message of Hollywood, of soap

operas, of TV, of radio and of
most literature. This individuality
faces the trade unions today as
they seek to win the new work
force to understand and carry
forward the finest tradition of the
movement.

The answer of the labor move-
ment cannot be one of caving in to
such pressure. The needs of
workers in the shop is for shop
floor struggle against the growing
pressures of speed-up, and poor
safety conditions. They will have
to learn to take on and defeat the
many undemocratic structures in
the labor laws of our country
which are designed precisely to
prevent workers from ‘‘taking a
hand”’ in solving their problems.

They will have to take to the
streets in their thousands and
hundreds of thousands to press
and win their just demands.

The welcome actions of the
CLC leadership to conduct paral-
lel campaigns alongside the NDP
in the past two federal elections
will have to be added to by day-in
day-out activities by the CLC be-
tween the elections to press for
the same demands they put for-
ward at the time of the elections.

Right wing NDP elements op-
pose mass actions because they
are fearful of the working class in
action; because they realize their
right wing policies cannot stand

_ the heat of mass movements; be-

cause they are opposed to united
working class political action
since it weakens their claim as
“the only party’ of the working
class (which they are not now nor
ever will be).

Such elements must be pushed
aside for the trade unions and the
entire labor movement needs now
like never before, to take up the
cry of ‘united labor political ac-
tion’, the path to economic and
political victories.

By RUSSELL RAK

Prior to 1918, R.S. McLaugh-
lin, Canada’s best known auto
magnate, owned the McLaughlin
Buick and the Chevrolet Motor
Company of Canada. In 1918 the
two companies were sold to the
General Motors Corporation of
the USA. The two companies
were then reorganized as General
Motors of Canada but were now

> owned and controlled in the Un-

ited States. At that time, Cana-

- dian tariffs on imported cars
p forced GM to produce in Canada

if-they wanted this country’s

2 market. Another inducement was

’ that cars produced here could be
sold directly in other British Em-
pire countries. No doubt Ford
and Chrysler established plants in
Canada for basically the same
reasons.

This brought about rapid
growth of the auto industry in
Canada during the 1920s. In 1929,
the auto industry in Canada pro-
duced 263,000 vehicles of which
102,000 were exported. In fact at
that time, Canada out-produced
such nations as the United King-
dom, France and Germany.

By 1960 because of the lack of
government legislation requiring
the U.S.-owned and controlled
auto industry to produce cars in
Canada, the Canadian auto indus-
try started to decline. That year,
we produced only 396,000 vehi-
cles and exported a mere 20,000.
However in the same _ year,
Canada imported 180,000 cars,
mostly from European countries.

By 1965, layoffs in the auto
industry as a result of imports,
compelled auto unions in Canada
to demand the production of a
Canadian car. To appease this
demand, the Liberal government
negotiated and signed the
Canada-U.S. Auto Pact which
was supposed to guarantee
Canada a fair share of auto pro-
duction and jobs. This has not
been the case. Over the 15 years
of the Auto Pact’s existence,
Canada has experienced an over-
all trade deficit, in vehicles and
auto parts, with the U.S. of over

'$10-billion. This represents
100,000 lost Canadian jobs says
Patrick Lavelle, president of the
Automotive Parts Manufacturing
Association.

Scrap Auto Pact
This year, despite continued

Auto crisis
task for CLC

high sales of motor vehicles in
Canada, the unemployment crisis
in the auto industry is becoming
desperate. Auto industry plants
are closing permanently and the
production is being transferred to
the U.S. or elsewhere. Over
20,000 auto workers are presently
on indefinite layoff and thousands
more are faced with layoffs later
this year. All this is the result of
government policies and legis-
lation, such as the Auto Pact,
which are designed to maintain
high profits for the U.S.-owned
and controlled auto monopolies in
Canada.

The auto industry crisis should
be a major issue on the agenda of

the 1980 Canadian Labor Con-
gress Convention. UAW dele-

gates at this convention should.

call on the CLC to mobilize the
entire union movement to unite

with the United Auto Workers to-

pressure the federal government
to scrap the Canada-U.S. Auto
Pact. The UAW and the CLC
should insist on being equal
partners with the government in
developing a new auto industry
policy to replace the obsolete
Auto Pact.

To prepare proposals to the
government for a new auto indus-
try policy, the CLC and the VAW
need to set up a committee to
make a thorough appraisal of the
auto industry and market poten-
tial in Canada including a study of
the following:

(a) the feasibility of building an
all-Canadian car for the domestic
market and export;

(b) legislation in other coun-
tries such as Sweden, Spain,
Mexico, etc., who use much more
muscle than Canada to govern
auto production;

(c) legislation and the roll
played by unions in controlling
plant shutdowns and protecting
workers’ job rights in Germany,
France and socialist countries.

The results of such a study will
produce many practical ideas for
drafting a new industrial policy to
establish a viable auto industry in
Canada. However, any com-
prehensive industrial strategy for
Canada must include the long
term objective of public owner-
ship and democratic control of the
auto industry in Canada.

“Is this a legitimate proposal, Mr. Hotrod, or
do | have to call my shop steward?”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 9, 1980—Page 5

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