ee erent ow" [ee pee | ee er Sip ee leew rae TFA | PP P| 1 J ——————————— ee _— — —— moa ac a —— —— ---—-- “= Snes a Ett Tale of two young workers _ out looking in vain for jobs BRAMPTON — Jim French and Marc Roberts, both in their early 20s are Canada’s future. They are unemployed. Bill Cumpsty, 56, a former so- cial worker, remembers the dirty days of the 1930s depression. He’s also unemployed. The fatal sickness of the big- business, capitalist system, as €xperienced by its victims, the Working people, in soaring in- flation and permanent mass un- employment, has brought Bill Cumpsty, Marc Roberts, and Jim French together in a growing movement of labor and the unem- ployed to end the unemployment Crisis and put Canada back to work. The Brampton Full Employ- Ment Committee with Cumpsty as chairman, was launched last June With a $20,000 grant from the Brampton and District Labor Council because in the words of Council president Terry Gorman “no one was doing anything about the growing numbers of job- less. We felt the labor movement, in line with CLC and OFL initia- tives, should be at the forefront of this fight, making an attempt to help the unemployed help them- Selves, and to put on the pressure for action to solve the crisis where It belongs, on provincial and fed- eral governments.’’ Backed by the labor council; and using the Offices of United Auto Workers Local 1285, the Full Employment Committee, staffed with unem- ployed volunteers handles prob- lems arising from UIC, man- Power, workmen’s compensa- tion, pensions, conducts research on the jobless crisis in the area, and puts out a newsletter. Want Secure Futures _ French and Roberts have both just entered the labor force, and are looking, so farin vain , forjobs that will provide them with the necessary skills to ensure a secure future for them and the families they will want to raise. French, with a background in electrical work couldn’t afford to Tisk any more money in the com- Munity college program he was pursuing, on the shrinking job - Prospects in the photographic field he was preparing himself to €nter. Now he’s looking for an apprenticeship in the electrical trade. For this to happen, he has to find an employer in the industry demanding apprentices. He told the Tribune he’s applied for such a job, has been told by the company’s personnel Officer that he’s qualified and the job is still vacant, but after three Weeks of waiting for the company to call and tell him if he’s been accepted, Jim French is still Waiting. Marc Roberts’ job experiences So far has been a series of sea- Sonal construction labor, and Other jobs, but he too would like to learn a trade. He said there Were few jobs available through Manpower, and they were mostly . Short term and seasonal. ‘‘Sure they’ve got jobs, like three days Cutting down dead trees. But that’s no kind of steady work, and besides -if you take it, you dis- qualify yourself from the UIC be- Cause its considered employ- ment. UIC’s. Leading Questions Both say they’re reluctant to Move from the Brampton area to Search for jobs because as Jim ‘ “S : : : Ss ‘ . Ore * & heer \ oT ‘ oy Marc Roberts (left) and Jim French talking to Bill Cumpsty. French told the Tribune: “There are plenty of industries in Brampton; if I can’t find work here, I doubt if I can find work outside of the area. The job situa- tions is just as bad everywhere else.” When the jobless, like French and Roberts come to the Full Em- ployment Committee Bill Cumpsty gives them this advice: register with Manpower, then go to the Unemployment Insurance Commission (UIC), but watch out for tricks. Though UIC denies it, he said, their interviewers pose leading questions to the applicants to . produce answers they can use as evidence for disqualification from receiving benefits. People who express preference for work they are trained to do are disqualified because they are re- corded as refusing other types of work. The same goes for people who express the preference for working in the communities they live in. — Cumpsty told-the Tribune of a pattern of harassment which has ‘emerged where applicants get two or three weeks of benefits without: any problems then are called in for interviews about job searches. ‘That starts working into dis- qualifications’’, he said. ‘‘Then if you say ‘I’m going to the (UIC) Board of Referees’ and’ should happen to win this, you start to see the pattern of them leaving the applicants alone and taking on the new batch. “It’s as if it’s deliberately plan- ned where they say: ‘Now we’ve given them six cheques, and it’s time to cut them off,’ he said. ‘“‘T’m firmly convinced it’s policy to reduce the amount paid out in. benefits by whatever the percen- _ tage is of people who don’t know how to fight for their rights.”’ Cumpsty noted the important role played by the labor move- ment in encouraging the development of such committees, both from the perspective of the initiative of the Brampton Labor Council, and on the provincial and country-wide level. He said the type of regional forums planned by the OFL were good ‘‘they’ll bring awareness to the government about the particu- lar problem. But from my point of view it’s not enough. This kind of committee has to become active. Local. labor councils have ‘to set up committees.”’ He added, this would be the ‘Message the Brampton full em- ployment committee would be bringing in a brief to the two-day unemployment conference in To- ronto Oct. 21-22. They Want Jobs On the mood of people contact- ing the committee, ‘‘in the first place,. they’re angry’’, Cumpsty said, ‘‘but secondly they’re con- cerned not only about them- selves, they’re now concerned about the whole situation. They speak in terms of ‘I’m having trouble, so there must be lots of a 2 others having trouble’. ‘Relocation of 4,000 A government manoeuvre OTTAWA — Andy Stewart, president of the Public Service Al- liance of Canada, condemned the announcement Oct. 3 of the in- tended relocation of 4,000 more public service employees as ‘tanother example of the govern- ment’s callous disregard and lack of concern for its own staff.’’ . It has become obvious, Stewart said, ‘‘the government is effec- tively destroying the public ser- vice of this country through de- centralization and its increasing - use of contracting out.”’ The Public Service Alliance of Canada represents most of the employees to be affected by the move to more than 15 different locations across the country. Stewart added that the an- nouncement ‘‘only heightened the morale problem that is already at a boiling point because of con- tracting out and the continuation of wage controls. ‘The government is using de- centralization as a political man- oeuvre. Obviously it doesn’t much care about the costs in- volved,”’ he said. a ‘*The expense to the Canadian taxpayer of the moves to date is already estimated at close to $250-million. But with increasing costs, the total figure will proba- bly be much closer to $500-million. “To undertake decentraliza tion when the government is preaching austerity is utterly ludicrous. : ““We are now looking at a total of more than 10,000 people in- volved in the moves and taking their immediate families into ac- count, the government is playing with the lives of some 40,000 = people.” pes labor leaders. The move ends 69 auf)! years of non-recognition of the om a great victory for international E working class solidarity and de- 3 USSR UNIONISTS WELCOMED IN U.S. CHICAGO — An historic breakthrough for the U.S. labor movement occured Sept. 23 when four Soviet trade unionists were Officially admitted by the U.S. 2 State Department into that coun- try, and were warmly greeted by a group of U.S. trade unionists and USSR trade union movement by the State Department and is seen as tente. Guests of the National Trade Unionists for democracy and ac- tion, the Soviet delegation includes a coal miner, a teacher, a steel worker, and an auto worker. ACQUITTAL UPHELD MONTREAL — The Quebec Court of Appeal upheld an jury acquittal of a charge against André Choquette, strike director of the United Aircraft strike. Choquette, was one of 34 em- ployees charged in the. alleged May, 1975 occupation of the United Aircraft plant. The UAW and the Quebec Federation of Labor will petition the Parti Québecois government to have the charges against the other 33 employees withdrawn in view of Choquette’s acquittal. POSTAL WORKERS PROTEST FIRINGS TORONTO — A senior Ontario Official of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers has forecast .a major blow-up over the dismissal of term employees at the post office _ in Toronto. The Front Street terminal was the scene of demonstrations to pro- test the release of employees hired for specified terms while new cas- ual employees are being given jobs and overtime is piling up. - The union has been opposed to the use of the term and casual em- ployees, but is defending the work- ers dismissed. PSAC rally demands extension of pensions TORONTO — More than 600 public service workers packed “the Ontario’ Federation of Labor auditorium here Oct. 4 to take part ina rally in defence of their indexed pensions, and to demand the extension of pension indexing for all workers in Canada. Sponsored by the Toronto Area Council of the Public Ser- vice Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the rally heard a panel composed of Alliance vice-president Wil- liam Doherty, OFL president Cliff Pilkey, and others and so- called National ‘‘Citizen’s’’ Coal- ition (NCC) founder Colin Brown debate working people’s right to, in Doherty’s words, ‘‘a pension that would allow them to live in decency and comfort.” Doherty urged PSAC members to write to their MPs demanding they not surrender to the power- ful anti-indexing lobby in Ottawa, which has been spearheaded by the NCC and its country-wide media campaign demanding legis- lation to end public servic pen- sions indexed to the cost of living. Brown, a big shot in the life insurance business, was booed DEXED PENSIONS «ALL CANADIANS. - Platform speakers at 600-strong PSAC meeting. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 14, 1977—Page 5 and heckled by the audience as he tried to convince the workers the _Canadian economy couldn’t af- ford to provide them with adequate pensions when they re- tired. : Claude Beckerton, a CNR re- tiree and pension expert with the Canadian Brotherhood of Rail- way and General Workers, told the rally how railway workers have. been cheated by CN- be- cause their pensions were not in- dexed to the rising cost of living. “Twenty-seven years ago rail- way workers had to pioneer for the labor movement by staging a strike to win the 40 hour work week’’, he said quoting an article from his union’s newspaper. “‘Next year we may have to stage another strike to pioneer indexed pensions in the private sector,” he said. OFL president Pilkey echoed the demand for universal indexed pensions noting the inadequacy of most existing pensions. ‘IIf in- dexed pensions are good enough for MPs to have, then damn it, its good enough for the workers to have.”’ —_