‘BOR SCENE 'y Bruce Magnuson Hon, Jean-Luc Pepin, our Of trade and industry ) has publicly chal- € United Automobile : Pe Matter. en's GM Council in in 8 already in motion % © of Mr. Pepin’s chal- H at Sent. 23, the Council abl Shawa, even before 4° Challenge, to: put Ve-point program to 4 the layoffs. The de- ova by the Trudeau tins Of the 12% excise ‘a on overtime in all Ime hn a Tetirement at full % 30 years service 4nd 25 years for wo- ce Teduction by GM to ites More competitive ie Hy , ction by GM in Can- IY be euibped-down small Mpetitive with im- Ruebec u ny? SAM. WaLsH i is %in, % translation of the p a’ f Py ty, QFL Faced with a ; aly appearing in the di Ere, Of Combat.) rT Peg Tal Council of the 4 fration of Labor has heyt! On the federa- Congress. two a “ 3 up” to remove or- Maint, of the New bition Tey from the QFL 1 Vi @ "8 that the QFL have included ett, S Laberge, QFL Mieeiggeessed . that the 4 ase “is not a dis- 1 Natio that, in view of With ©Xisting today in eye, 1S Tapid and com- i thement of political for is no longer any aff; aintaining this par- ‘sy ohaes The decision 4 ft a it possible for i leq Pport whatever toy eally or provincially il tety Its adaptability to Gene ment. by tecige, Council, further- Laliberte to invite Ray- Npp< President of the Ss will address it. The of th, hear the presi- © other trade union Je “38 Minister of “Ournoyer, and Laliberte, thus put- ( ws Oyj £0 “the old tradi- al] an’ a host of digni- onh Pate. at af Surmise the ele- , “Ntered into these I} , that forces of conser- to Ve never wanted Indepe, ndorse a political Event of the bour- The Played their part Xf the 4 are today’s ver- Mnfegee mer president of Unions: tion of National ting’ eg Marchand, ed S presidenc nal ed Such mapper is 1 moriently, for him Rade, tity of a trade Consists in selling - Port ¢ A P Clause in_ its onic ts Auto workers DO have a plan “There has been a company policy to push overtime work over many years. In spite of extra pay for overtime work it has been found cheaper for the company to work overtime than to hire more workers. That is the reason overtime has become - compulsory over the years and the union has so far failed to gain recognition in their collec- tive agreement that overtime must be voluntary. Mr. A. G. Stapleton, G.M.’s director of industrial relations is quoted in the press as having said, “There has been no over- time worked on assembly lines in either Oshawa or Ste. Thé- rése. If this is what they have in mind we will do everything to avoid overtime if it has any impact on job retention.” However, he goes on to say that overtime may be neces- sary on a sporadic basis in some feeder plants to keep assembly lines going. Such overtime may be needed to keep U.S. plants operating when the Canadian trim plant is shut down on Canadian Thanksgiving. This is typical of the doubletalk en- gaged in by this big corpora- tion on all matters of company policy. It is evident that if overtime is to be banned, the union will have to be prepared for strug- gle. It cannot pussyfoot with appeals which merely encourage workers to decline overtime. It will have to be firm in its stand, and consistent in enforce- ment of its decisions. The company spokesmen when announcing the layoffs, which will wipe out from 4 to 7 years seniority, stated that laid off workers would be receiving 90% of net pay for up to a year or more. This is simply not true, because many workers now the victims of the layoff will be short the required time for qualification to receive sup- plementary unemployment be- nefits. As an example, the plant chairman at Ste. Thérése, Que., has said that only 216 of the 610 to be laid off there would be eligible for the SUB payments. Again it is company doubletalk and outright lies, where the workers’ interests are involved. * cd x Right up until the layoffs were announced we were read- ing about the growing sales and markets along with expanding profits. Then, all of a sudden there is an announcement which nions at political turn oneself (and the working class at the same time) to a political party of the ruling class, in his case the Liberal party. He fol- lowed in the footsteps of hun- dreds of lieutenants of the bour- geoisie in the working class, while since his departure many more of his type have found their “payment for services rendered” to the bosses in Que- bec and Ottawa. ; To these “conservatives” in the QFL must be added those elements that formerly support- ed the NDP, even running under its banner, but who now are terribly deceived and even re- volted by the refusal of the NDP’s last federal congress to recognize the right to national self-determination for Quebec. It is not without significance, consequently, that Raymond Laliberté, as the principal spokesman for the right to self- determination at the NDP con- gress, has been. invited to ad- dress the QFL congress. — A possible third factor 1S the hope of some to see born and even to assist at the birth of a kind of “Quebec bloc” on the federal scale. This bloc would not be at all based on a class policy. Instead, it would group all those in Quebec who are Op- posed to Pierre Elliott Trudeau — in order -to demonstrate in the next federal elections that such a very considerable Oppo- sition does exist but cannot find expression, because — the na- tional policy of established poli- tical parties is SO weak or non- istent. Salads Ryan, one of the brains behind this idea, already thinks it stillborn. In a desra ing editorial in Le Devoir he calls for the election of NDP deputies in Montreal alone (not elsewhere in Quebec, for exam- ple, so as to avoid splitting the vote with Créditistes Or oo servatives and thus possibly al lowing a Liberal to slip in — such is his class position!) pro- vided that their social position is not too radical! It is conceivable that Louis Laberge counts himself among this group in the leadership of the QFL, and that precisely here lies the significance of his desire to free the QFL from “organic support” so that it can give its packing to whatever party shows it is adapted to “the rapid and complex develop- ment of political factors.” He did not, it must be noted, speak of being free to support a party that would know how to defend the interests of the Quebec class as well as the right to self-determination of the French- Canadian nation. From. all accounts the combi- nation of forces seeking for one or another reason to disaffiliate the QFL from the NDP will be sufficiently powerful to win the majority at the congress. If, however, the congress. de- cides not to reiterate its deter- mination, expressed very strong- ly at the congress before last, to take the initiative in forming a mass political party of the workers that would at the same time defend the right to self- determination of the nation, the decision to disaffiliate from the NDP will be not a step forward. The formation of amass labor political party, independent of and opposed to the bourgeois and petty-bouregols parties, 1s certainly on the order of the day in Quebec. Even many who not long ago thought lightly of this Marxist-Leninist idea, based on the developing reali- ties of Quebec, and who favor instead the terroristic gestur- ings of an élite organized in small, secret cells, are now de- claring themselves for such a arty and against the continu- ance of terrorism. Yes, the coe of oom a litical party is istorically on days agenda in Quebec. The test of the maturity and the class consciousness of the QFL Jeaders will lie in their decision to place ‘it positively on the agenda of the QFL congress. says that foreign competition makes it necessary to cut back on production of cars. But no- thing is done to deal with that competition by: means of im- proved quality of cars that people can afford at lower prices, while profits in the in- dustry make more than ample room for such a development. Again, there is another credibil- ity gap between what the com- pany says and what it does. _It would be most naive to separate the GM action from the Nixon program of economic and trade warfare which threat- ens to plunge the capitalist world into a nightmare of a depression. President Nixon, on behalf of such mammoth corporations as the GM, has imposed a sur- charge to penalize and restrict imports into the USA. At the same time he seeks removal of restrictions on imports of U.S. goods into other countries. A new system of exchange rates is asked for, but it must con- form to U.S. demands. a * * So far as Canada is concern- ed, it is quite clear that Prime Minister Trudeau came close to the truth when he stated the U.S. government neither knows nor cares what is happening to Canada as a result of its new economic program. Speculating about hypothetical actions by Canada to meet the challenge from the U.S., the prime min- ister said we had many choices all the way from “integration with the United States to total war against the United States and everything in between.” He made clear that if the U.S. was making a permanent change in its position to “beggar its neigh- bors”, Canada will have to have fundamental reassessment of its whole economy. Undoubtedly we have now traversed the whole road—from the Abbott Plan of 1947 calling for “integration” with the U.S., through the Auto Pact of 1964, to the present phasing out of the auto industry from Canada during the 1970’s, except for feeder operations. President Nixon’s speech to- the Economic Club of Detroit on Sept. 23 has made clear his intentions to continue the wage freeze permanently under cover of a so-called “incomes policy” that includes a token gesture towards price control. The em- ployers who pay the wages will see to it that they are control- led, backed up by government legislation and state authority. There will be no machinery to The freeze Jerry Hartford, publicity dir- ector of the Canadian Region UAW, has a letter in the Toron- to Globe and Mail that makes a very pertinent argument on the auto workers’ case. Stating that the paper appears ‘“‘to be having difficulty understanding the position of UAW members at Douglas Aircraft of Canada in rejecting a U.S.-imposed wage freeze,” and keeps “relating it to the union’s stand on wage parity,” he writes: “Douglas Canada _ workers won parity in 1968. Their efforts to gain a wage increase now, while their counterparts in the United States are frozen, does not represent a desire to have the best of two worlds. Parity PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1971—PAGE5 - grips effectively control monopoly prices. As for profits, Nixon said, “I am for profits because I believe more profits mean more jobs.” But Mr. Nixon did not give an answer as to where and how profits to expand business were going tobe invested. That decision rests with companies like G.M. * % * In the meantime, what is the Trudeau government prepared to do? It is not enough to make statements. They have to be backed up by meaningful action. Will the federal government act now on the UAW proposal to remove the 12% excise tax on cars? Will it resist the pres- sures for a wage freeze and in- comes policies of that sort, here in Canada? Will it act to raise buying power of the working people by cutting out taxes on low incomes and by providing for jobs or adequate incomes? Will it act to roll back prices, rebuild our cities and provide for adequate housing as a pub- lic utility? Will it defend the workers’ right to strike? Above all, will this govern- ment, which hitherto has shown nothing but anti-labor bias, be prepared to strengthen Canada’s independence by undertaking balanced industrialization based on our abundant ‘natural and human resources under public ownership and control? Will it move Canada from one-sided dependence on the U.S. by means of recasting our trading structure, with increas- ed reliance on the _ socialist world and the underdeveloped countries? : And, finally, will this govern- ment demand that wars of ag- gression be neded; that the U.S. leaves Indochina to let the suf- fering people there put order in their own house without outside interference, and that Canada will not supply means of war for use in Indochina. % * * The UAW-GM Council in Canada is to be congratulated . for its timely action to bring forward proposals to cope with the crisis facing auto workers today in Canada. This program needs the support of all organized labor and it needs to be extended through- out the economy to the point where both the federal and pro- vincial governments are forced to act to reverse -their present disastrous economic policies. United action by labor and all democratic forces against monopoly can compel govern- ment action. and parity is still their goal; however, they see no reason why a U.S. presi- ’ dential directive should apply to them. Their intention is to press for the wage increase to which they figure they are entitled. As soon as the freeze ends in the States they would expect Doug- las to restore parity. “These workers see very clearly that knuckling under to the U.S. freeze only leaves the money in the company’s pocket. President Richard Nixon may see some good in that; the Douglas Canada workers don’t. And by the way, Douglas is not pleading poverty. Its ‘inability to pay’ is stricly a result of U.S. government fiat. And that isn’t good enough.”