CNTU facing
up to tasks-
before it

By HERVE FUYET

QUEBEC — The situation in Quebec has wor-
Sened since the Confederation of Naticnal Trade
Unions, (CNTU-CSN) finished the first part of its
Convention last spring.

A strike at that time by some 450 CSN staff
Workers forced postponement of the 50th conven-
tion’s discussion of the executive report until later
this month.

COMMENT

Delegates to the re-convened CSN convention
Slated for the end of November should be looking
for the means to react to the ever-worsening
€conomic situation, heightened by prime minister
Pierre Trudeau's efforts to unilaterally repatriate
the constitution. They will also be preparing them-
Selves for next spring’s Quebec elections.

The CSN executive’s proposals aiming to de-
Velop greater labor unity, (in the form of CSN —
Teachers’ Central — Quebec Federation of Labor
Committees in defence of purchasing power, on the
right to organize, and on the fight against injunc-
tions) are interesting, as are the elaboration by the

SN of a permanent platform of demands which
will become an instrument of mobilization, and the
launching of a co-ordinating committee for CSN
negotiations. tee

The launching of inter-professional unions on a
territorial basis should open the way for the
Organization of the unemployed or help in those
situations where it isn’t possible yet to win formal
Tecognition.

Joint Demonstrations

Hopefully, the CSN, and the rest of the
working-class movement will react to the constitu-
tional crisis by resisting Trudeau’s assault. This
calls for initiative such as: joint demonstrations in
Ottawa with other democratic forces in English-
speaking Canada to tell Trudeau — ‘‘no,’’ on
Tepatriation of the BNA Act; calling for the forma-
tion of a constituent assembly of the democratic
forces of Quebec and English-speaking Canada to
draft a constitution that would recognize Quebec's
Tight to national self-determination and equal rights
with the rest of Canada. It would also enshrine the
rights of Native Indians and the Inuit to self-deter-
mination and self-government over their lands in-
cluding those which must be returned.

Regarding the forthcoming Quebec elections,
everything must be done to stop Claude Ryan and
the right from coming to power, while pressure
must be brought to bear on the Parti Québécois to
Project an electoral program which will be openly
anti-monopolist and concretely express their sup-
Posed *‘bias toward the workers.”’

Front Against Monopoly

It is also necessary that progressives more

nkly recognize the existence in Quebec of a real
workers’ party, the Parti Communist du Québec
(PCQ), which is an important factor for progress in
Quebec even if, as yet, it doesn’t have a mass
character.

_ Finally, the CSN along with the rest of the work-
ing-class movement including the PCQ, must con-

Cretize the formation of a common, labor-political ~

front against monopoly capital and the multi-
Nationals of the type expressed ina mass federated
labor party.

The adoption of such positions will allow the left
within the CSN including communists, PQ mem-

Ts and left trade unionists to unite and thus keep
the CSN united and firm around class struggle
Policies. Such unity would also contribute to 1so-
lating both right-wing ideas and the pseudo-leftist
Interference of Maoists and Trotskyists which are
Completely foreign to the best interests of the work-
Ing class. ;

All of this is of key importance at the precise time
when monopoly capital with its Chambers of
Commerce and their spokesmen have launched a
wide-ranging attack to force the Quebec Govern-
Ment to withdraw the right to strike from the public
Sector — a move, if accomplished, that would re-
turn the labor movement and people of Quebec to
the darkness recalling the Duplessis era.

TRIBUNE PHOTOS — MIKE PHILLIPS

SHUTDOWN: Chrysler Windsor, Houdaille, Wagner Brake
and Lighting, just begins the list of runaway plants. Below
text of petition card to Davis distributed by OFL.

Dear Premier Davis:

Ontario can work! But only if your
government gets to work. To make full
employment its number one priority. To
guard our communities from unjustified
plant closings. To give workers greater
protection when layoffs occur. And to
end cutbacks and contracting out of
government services.

I'm signing this card because I’m
concerned about this province’s future.
Let’s get Ontario working again!

Phase Il of ‘Ontario
Can Work’ in full swing

TORONTO — With nearly one million protest
cards in the hands of workers throughout Ontario, the
second phase of labor’s campaign to stop plant clo-
sures, layoffs and government cutbacks is going
ahead at full speed. ‘

Ontario Federation of Labor political education di-
rector Paul Forder told the Tribune last week the feds
expects ‘‘a very good harvest’’ of signed protest cards
when the OFL opens its 24th annual convention,
Nov. 24-27.

Some 650,000 cards and pieces of campaign mate-
rial have been distributed to union representatives
throughout the province, while another 300,000 has
been sent out to local labor councils. The affiliated
unions are taking the cards into the plants for their
members to sign. Labor councils are taking them to
shopping centres and malls to give the general public
the opportunity to let Queen’s Park know they sup-
port labor’s campaign for action to stop the de-indus-
trialization of Ontario.

Forder said the OFL has conducted some 40 train-
ing sessions throughout the province where local
union leaders, such as executive members and shop
stewards are filled in with more background to the
federation’s jobs campaign and discuss the best ways
of mobilizing their members in support of the card
blitz.

The deadline for the return of the cards is the OFL
convention. While the campaign organizers want the
biggest possible response by the convention, federa-
tion spokespersons say cards will be accepted right up
to the Dec. 15 date the OFL has with Tory premier
William Davis and his candidate.

It is at this meeting that Ontario’s Tory government
will be presented with the petition cards.

Even in areas such as Sault Ste. Marie which ha-
ven't yet been hit with shutdowns and closures on the
same scale as southern Ontario, Forder said, workers
are picking up on the other demands set forward in the
OFL campaign.

The petition cards call on the Davis government to ©
make full employment the government's top priority,
initiate legislation to protect communities and work-
ers from plant closures, and to end cutbacks and
contracting out of government services.

‘‘In the final analysis more and more of our mem-
bers will realize that if we can’t get the legislators to
react to the problems facing working people in this
province then the time has to come to change the
legislators,’ Forder said.

‘‘Collective bargaining will still remain the impor-
tant role of the labor movement, but workers will also
have to come to realize the need for collective ballot-
ing to help them change the things they can’t win at
the bargaining table.”’

Labor councils are being co-ordinated by André

' point entirely or adopting resolutions which in weaker

FEXPORTRE
sR

rl
i a.

Foucault, the federation’s political action organizer.
The work done by the labor councils in lobbying the
municipal councils in the early stages of the cam-
paign, leading to the massive protest, Oct. 18 which
saw more than 12,000 workers on the legislature steps
has already paid off, Foucault noted. :
““By and large the. municipal councils have re-
sponded quite well either coming around to our view

language express aspects of what we are demanding.”

Of the councils which have adopted labor’s posi-
tions on jobs, protective legislation and no cutbacks,
Foucault said, a preliminary list includes St. Catha-
rines, Oshawa, Thunder Bay, where the OFL bnef to
the provincial cabinet last spring was adopted,
Windsor, Stratford, London and Hamilton.

The impact of the OFL program is being seen in
various ways. Reports are coming in of local unions,
in industries which haven't yet been directly affected
by shutdowns and layoffs, gearing up for next year’s
negotiations with severance pay and notice of ter-
mination up front in their proposed demands.

Also the example of the Tung Sol and Houdaille
workers in taking over their plants when dumped on
the streets by their employers with little or nothing in
the way of justification, severance pay or pension and
other benefits’ protection, is said to be the topic of
much admiration and discussion among workers in
plants throughout Ontario.

Affiliated unions are taking up the card campaign in
different ways. Some like the United Electrical work-
ers (UE) are producing supplementary materials in
additiontothe OFL leafletto buildup for all-out support
of the campaign. «4 Sa

UE is aiming to sign each of its estimated 20,000
members. Following distribution of the OFL leaflet,
the union issued its own pamphlet one week later
proposing sharp tax cuts lower interest rates, price
controls, substantial increases in social benefits and a
crash program of public works and housing construc-
tion.

The union also calls for a halt to the de-indus-
trialization of Canada and demands all closures be
submitted to a public tribunal which would have the
power to nationalize plants which close down without
valid justification.

The UE urges its members to ‘‘help save your
job ... sign the petition card!’ It calls on workers to
express their anger in a positive way. ‘‘We can’t sign
the card for you’’, the leaflet says, ‘‘We can only
ensure that the cards receive wide circulation and that
each worker has the opportunity of signing on the
dotted line.

‘*Cynicism, despair and grumbling over the present
layoff crisis won't help get things changes ... Don’t
delay! Sign today!”’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 21, 1980—Page 5