LABOR — Enough is enough! Time to organize! By MIKE PHILLIPS OTTAWA — Doc Savage looked ac- ross the huge round table at the golden boy of the Canadian corporate elite. **Mr. Prime Minister, when I was here in 1935 R.B. Bennett made us stand in front of him to be chastized like school boys. “*This time, at least you’ve given me a chair to sit on.” In fact during the three months since the Vancouver-based committee had asked for a meeting with the prime minis- ter, Mulroney hadn’t even bothered to answer the written requests. The trek- ~ kers learned of the meeting about ‘two hours before it took place. But for Bob, ‘“‘Doc”’ Savage, 74, and the 19 other members of the 1985 On- To-Ottawa Trek, meeting Brian Mul- roney in his centre block office, June 10, the polite, allegedly ‘‘sumpathetic’’ hear- ing was nothing but a smokescreen to hide the current Tory government’s cal- lous disregard for Canada’s two million jobless. : “Tron Heel’’ Bennett’s political heirs got the same message across to the unemployed of 1985 as that delivered by the Tory government of 1935 — every- thing for the corporations and the weal- thy, nothing for the jobless, working people, and the poor. ‘““Enough is enough’’, trek co- ordinator Terry Hanley of Vancouver told reporters after the meeting as she, Larry Jackson an unemployed elec- trician, and Judy Hamaliuk representing 8,000 jobless B.C. teachers assessed the meeting for the press. “‘We’re unemployed and it looks like we're going to stay unemployed for a \ Bae long time. Well what we’re going to do is we're going to organize ... we’re going to come back en masse. Soap and Anger ‘The purpose of this was to organize the unemployed in this country and we're going to do it, because this government has no program to put us to work and we’re not going to go wasted ... I haven’t got 10 years of my life to waste. I want to live now, and I want to work now, and we're just plain pissed _ off!’ The meeting with Mulroney was acon- trast between his soapy claims the Tory government’s Reaganite economic poli- cies were beginning to create jobs, and that given enough time, would create many more-— and the disciplined frank- ness and anger of the unemployed renee Judy Hamaliuk, Jack Geddes, Kim Zander and R.B. Bennett. Vancouver labor council secretary- treasurer Frank Kennedy laid out the trekkers’ demands calling for job cre- ation based on a much expanded public sector and the development of job-inten- sive secondary manufacturing to shift our economy away: from the massive sellout of our natural resources. Best of two generations The trekkers of 1985 represented two generations of the best the Cana- dian working class has to offer. The 20-member delegation which arrived from Vancouver, Regina, and Ontario June 8 included original vet- erans of the 1935 trek, the Regina Riot and the Ontario trek which was organ- ized after the Western protest was stopped. It also included trade union activists, and today’s unemployed. Among them were eight survivors of the original trek. Doc Savage, who had been in the meeting 50 years ago with R.B. Bennett; Bobby Jackson, who with his son Larry represented two generations of struggle against unem- - ployment; Jack Geddes, Ray Wain- wright, Matt Shaw, Fred Fraser, and Bill Gilbey. Jean Shiels, co-author of Work and Wages and the daughter of trek leader Arthur Evans, was also part of the delegation and was on hand to fill in Mulroney on the heroism of the original trekkers and the need for a Govern- ment apology to the trekkers and the people of Regina. Representing labor were Frank Kennedy, secretary treasurer of the Vancouver Labor Council, Roger Crowther, B.C. and Alberta vice president of the Canadian Association of Industrial Mechanical and Allied Workers; and Tom Hawken a member of the Independent Canadian Transit Union. The unemployed were represented by Kim Zander and Terry Hanley of the Vancouver Unemployed Action Centre who co-ordinated the protest; Judy Hamaliuk, chairperson of the B.C. Teachers Federation Unemployed Action Centre; Larry Jackson, an unemployed member of local 213, International Brotherhood of Electri- cal Workers; Ruth Shaeffer, an activist in the Regina-based Low Income Hous- 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 19, 1985 ing Tennants Association and Solo Mothers Action Group; unemployed coal miner Lorne Wagner from Bien- fait, near the legendary Estevan, Sask.; Mickey White, a laid-off IPSCO steel worker, and Paul Megaw of the Unem- ployment Committee of Regina. The trekkers were welcomed to Ot- tawa by Mayor Marion Dewar. She proclaimed June 9 in honour of the trekkers of 1935 and 1985. They fol- lowed a busy agenda which was ex- pertly organized by the Ottawa Labor Council’s Unemployment Action Centre. Jean Evans Shiels with Doc Savage. The delegation met with repre- sentatives of the social action commit- tee of the Canadian Conference of Catholic bishops, including Msgr. Adolph Proulx. The Bishops’ commit- tee promised to send a telegram to Mul- roney asking him to meet with the trek- kers, and agreed to circulate the trek- kers’ demands to its church members. They also agreed to see what could be done to link the existing Unemployment Action Centres throughout the country to the church-run food banks and cloth- ing depots in order to establish the net- work needed to spur the development - of a country-wide unemployed move- ment. TRIBUNE PHOTOS — MIKE PHILLIPS As in the original On-to-Ottawa trek. 50 years ago, Communists played a,, leading role in helping organize the 1985 commemoration of that historic working-class event. In a statement by its Central Execu- tive Committee, signed by General Secretary William Kashtan, the Com- munist Party greeted today’s trek on Ottawa as ‘‘a time to emulate the mili- tancy and courage of the marchers of the 1930s ... It is a time to build a powerful people’s movement for a people’s budget, for full employment A time for militancy — CP and rising living standards. It is a time to build a People’s Majority outside parliament to check and defeat the Tory majority inside parliament.”’ The statement, which was presented to the trekkers by Ontario party leader Gordon Massie on behalf of the CEC, went on to call on the Canadian Labor Congress to take the first step toward the development of such an extra- parliamentary movement by imple- menting the last convention’s decision to organize a country-wide March for Jobs. The trekkers’ demands for immediate action included a massive program of ex- tensive capital works, such as refores- tation, salmon enhancement and hous- ing, the building of a Canadian merchant fleet and the legislated shorter work week with no loss in take home pay. Other demands included cutting the massive arms budget, and calling in the more than $30-billion in deferred cor- porate taxes to eliminate the federal de- ficit and stimulate job creation on so- cially useful projects, increased welfare, pension and unemployment benefits and cancellation of planned UI cutbacks. Vancouver Unemployed Action Cen- tre co-ordinator Kim Zander challenged Mulroney’s glib use of statistics alleging increased job creation in the past months, and condemned his government for treating the unemployed like lazy cheats by unleashing several hundred in- vestigators to scrutinize UI recipients. think the Conservative government is se- riously investigating getting out of this depression by creating jobs through re- armament. We’re strongly opposed to any initiative with the U.S. Star Wars program. _ ‘*We want work and wages, but by peaceful reconstruction of our cities and towns, by’ environmental rehabilitation and other useful programs”’, he said. Mulroney also heard from unem- ployed single parent and Regina tenants’ activist Ruth Shaeffer, and laid off Steelworker Mickey White from the Inter Provincial Steel Co., who spoke of the hardship of welfare recipients and women earning $4.25 an hour on federal make-work projects. “They’re Coming” The Prime Minister was also pressed by the delegation for his government to issue a formal apology to the original trekkers and the people of Regina for the ~ Zander attacked the Wilson budget pointing out that it slashed every major | department in the government except the military budget, and suggested the government stats merely shuffle unem- ployed onto welfare records. “It looks good in the statistics but it’s very bad on the economy and very bad on the unemployed. That is the reality. To tell people that unemployment is de- creasing is a very incorrect way to deal with it and I don’t think it’s very honest , of your government’’,. she said. Unemployed teacher Judy Hamaliuk, pinned Mulroney down on his projection ~ that 400,000 jobs could be created if each small business in the country benefitting from the current budget were to create half a job. ““You throw these numbers at us, then you start celebrating on the fact of those numbers; I wonder how many people you’re going to speak to and see if they are being fulfilled’’, she said. Roger Crowther, B.C. and Alberta re- gional vice-president of CAIMAW told the prime minister the unemployed don’t want jobs that are tied to Canadian participation in the U.S. Star Wars pro- gram. “‘The last great depression was ended by the Second World War and we As public pressure built, Mulroney was compelled to meet the trekkers. RCMP riot in 1935. Responding to re- quests from Bill Gilbey of Saskat- chewan, who said the evidence of the Bennett government’s guilt in the brutal attack was undeniable, and trekker Jack Geddes who told him that many of the young unemployed of the 30s carried criminal records because of their fight for _ jobs and wages, the prime minister said he would take the matter up in cabinet and give the committee ‘‘an appro- priate’’ response. Recalling the Riot, Mulroney told the — trekkers he had ‘‘always felt the conduct — of the authorities was brutal and in- — excusable.’’ However just prior to the — meeting he had deflected a questio? from the New Democratic Party in the — house, asking for just such an apology a$ — ““scurrilous’’. The trekkers left Mulroney with Frank — Kennedy’s promise echoing from the paneled walls, that the government coul take all the time it liked trying to creat — jobs, the unemployed will be organizing: As Doc Savage told a reporter in an eal” — lier press conference, when asked where the thousands of unemployed protesters __ were today: ‘‘I shouldn’t worry too | much about that if I were you — they f° — coming.”