Parity victory hailed

: E LIKE that money,” was
the comments of trade
unionists, when asked

how they liked wage parity be-

ing gained by the United Auto

Workers for 12,000 Canadian

Chrysler employees that elimi-

nates a 41 cents an hour differ-

ential in wages with their Ame-
rican counter parts.

The difference in Canadian
and U.S. pay rates for Chrysler
auto workers will be wiped out
through extra pay raises for
Canadians every six months
from June 1, 1968 to June l,
1970. One part of the UAW-
Chrysler pact is that the 1965
U.S--Canadian auto trade agree-
ment will be continued. It’s esti-
mated that Chrysler, Ford, Gen-
eral Motors, saved $50 million a
year on not having to pay tariffs,
as their products go freely across
the borders.

“Anyone who doesn’t like
money is out of his mind,” said
Ray Casey, UAW committee-
man for the United Auto Work-
ers Local 444 in the Chrysler
plant here. Casey told reporters
he was going out and buy a
$1000 TV color set.

There were some fears among
auto workers here that their
jobs would be in jeopardy be-
cause of the equalization of
rates. Ever since the Canadian-
U.S. auto pact the auto compa-
nies with plants in Canada have
been exploiting the lower wages
to shift production of cars there
and then bring them assembled
back to the States for sale. This
hasn't hurt the profits of Ford-
GM-Chrysler and others.

The executive vice-president
and manager of Automotive
Parts and Manufacturing Asso-
ciation (Canada) D. S. Woods,
is raising a hue and cry that the
UAW wage parity again will
shrink the parts industry in Can-
ada, bring about mergers of com-
panies, greater automation and
loss of jobs.

Jim Garrick, a repafrman at
Chrysler's, saw nothing but a
little better deal for him. “Let’s
everyone get it (parity). We

alf dewhurst

ETTER leadership in develop-

ing action programs to ad-
vance trade union goals is the
message that comes -through
loud and clear from recently-
held conventions of provincial
federations of labor.

The message came through in
the debates on the war in Viet-
nam, on bread and butter issue
such as raising legal minimum
wages, on organizing the unor-
ganized, on developing max-
imum unity in the labor move-
ment. But it was most strongly
voiced in debates on the use of
injunction in labor-management
disputes,

Wm. Mulders, president of the
Peterborough Labor Council
jailed for two months for the
part he played in the mass de-
fiance of an injunction during
the Tilco strike, typified the
mood of disatisfaction when he
told the OFL convention, “All
we do is present briefs protest-
ing injunctions. There is no plan
for action:”

Another delegate to the same
convention, Stanley Rouse, who
also served two months as a re-
sult of the Tilco injunction,

get more, of course the govern-
ment’s going to get more, every-
one is happy, except the busi-
nesmen, who are always unhap-
py when the worker gets a lit-
tle more money—they don‘t like
1

Whatever the outcome of the
parity breakthrough, said George
Burt, Canadian UAW regional
director, Canada and the rest of
the world might as well prepare
for more of the same-

“The corporations have be-
come worldwide and they are
still a way ahead of us,” he said.

Burt said the issue will now
be taken to Ford and revealed
that the Ford Motor Company in
the U.S. had indicated that if
parity was achieved with the
others (GM, Chrysler), they
would take another look.

“This agreement with Chrys-
ler places the other car compa-
nies in a very vulnerable posi-
tion. We are going to take a long
hard look at wage parity in fu-
ture negotiations with car com-
panies and the aerospace indus-
try,” said Burt.

Armed with the
agreement, the UAW is expect-
ed to bring renewed pressure on
General Motors for a similar
parity clause in the coming’ GM
negotiations. GM employees in
Canada are mainly concentrated
in Oshawa, Ont.

A drive to obtain wage parity
in the aerospace industry is next
on the UAW’s program, accord-
ing to Burt. He said there is no
valid reason why Canadian
workers should not receive the
same wage rate as their counter-
parts in the United States.

We asked Robert “Bobby”
Holmes, International vice-pre-
sident of the Brotherhood of
Teamsters, how the winning of
parity would effect negotiations
of Canadian Teamsters in 1968.
Holmes is responsible to the
Teamsters International Execu-
tive Board for working with
Teamsters locals in Canada.

Said Holmes, “I can appre-
ciate the importance of this step
forward, the winning of wage
parity for Chrysler workers in

Chrysler

Canada. My sincere congratula-
tions goes to the UAW negotiat-
ing team and President Walter
Reuther, IEB member Doug Fra-
ser, UAW Chrysler director. We:
all wish they carry it onto Gen-
eral Motors and Ford. This was
a decisive matter for the UAW
who stood to lose jobs unless
this parity was won. The em-
ployers were using lesser labor
costs in Canada to swell their
coffers, producing cars for the
U-S. and Canadian market, in-
creasing the car prices, the out-
put, but not- the wages of those
who produce. They promised to
establish parity when they saved
$50 million a year, due to the
Canadian-U.S. trade agreement.
They streamlined their produc-
tion, built new plants, but didn’t
streamline their wage policy as
they promised. It took organized
labor, the union, to straighten
them out,

“The International Brother-
hood of Teamsters sees the ad-
vantage of UAW winning par-
ity, because it sets a target for
all unions in Canada, and that
includes ours, to shoot at. We
are going into negotiations with
the trucking industry in 1968
and we have the matter of at
least a dollar an hour difference
between U.S. and Canadian
rates, that’s our parity situation.

“I hope the rank and file of
our union will make this parity
of ours an issue in the trucking
negotiations and insist like the
UAW members did that we get
full wage stature.

“We must also place along-
side winning parity, how to de-
fend it, once you have it. There
are many thousands of unorgan-
ized workers in Canada, work-
ing for sub-standard wages. The
employers will seek to maintain
that base to underline parity,
union wages. Therefore all Can-
adian labor has to conduct a
twin struggle, win parity and
win the unorganized workers
into unions to likewise enjoy
parity. The Teamsters Union
stands ready to join in that ef-
fort with all sections of organ-
ized labor,” declared Holmes.

A Toronto plant making au-
tomobile pistons is _ being
closed and its operations”
being transferred to St.
“Thomas because, of the eco-

nomic demands of the Cana-
dian-U.S. auto trade agree-

- ment, G. D. Mitchell, pros
i dent of the Hayes:Dard Ltd.

The plant, owned by Perfect
Circle Co. Ltd. will shut on
Friday. Its operations will be
merged with those of Victor
Manufacturing Co. Ltd. a
company producing engine
gaskets. Perfect Circle and
Victor are wholly owned sub-
sidiaries of Hayes-Dana, which
bought the companies less
than a year ago.

“Both have to compete
under the auto agreement and
both’ are pretty small by
manufacturing

By WILLIAM ALLAN
DETROIT
ENERAL Motors United Au-
to Workers local unions
aren’t waiting for negotia-
tions to open between their top
bargaining team and GM, they
are walking out on spot strikes,
from four hours to 24 hours, re-
fusing to work overtime and de-
manding settlement of grievance
and over 25,000 plant demands.

At Pontiac, Mich., three GM
locals walked their members out
for 24 hours; at Cincinnatti and
Norwood, Ohio, walkouts. took
place, with the main point refu-
sal to work overtime and thus
prevent the company increasing
its half a million unsold 1968
car stockpile, that GM obviously
intends to use against the union
in any strike on contract re-
newal, :

GM through numerous spokes-
men has said that they will
“go on the street with the UAW
before they will grant a full day
(8 hours) for union committee-
men, or grant 12 additional
minutes for relief time for as-
sembly workers” (F. Sullivan,
labor relations man at GM’s
plant in Los Angeles).

oronto piston plant to shut

studies to sce what we should
do with the companies and
the answer seemed to be to
move Perfect Circle to Victor

and Japan in October. Ship-
ments to the two countries
this year have totalled about in aN
Pak adil ushels.

NEXT TARGET FORE
AUTO UNION IS Gil

-one year “ruins an ‘" l z

ta

and combine themll
gine parts division sl
He said the shill ‘9
a number © fy
Hayes-Dana 1S maki
prove its compe
in the North
mobile Ms ce
> company. also A

its *warehousig 1
parts. The ware “a
located in Toro!

He said the com git
to expand the ‘ a
erations. “We Ms
the division UP

ie a

GM trotted out the My
gument that a gual®
weeks of work io” watt
pay 95 cents of his : npg
incentive to Wwoll
Seaton, labor relation?
GM, Detroit). ge! i
GM will fight any Wrap
for its Canadian pe ;
which number 30, of,
in the next three yor mi
parity for Chryslers \ ogi
ployees will cost * out
about 314 cents af and
three years for
adian workers. The © if
be substantially high 000 oe
which has about iat th
members in its Can® ig
The UAW's agreemen ot
in Canada expire al
has been extende i
day basis, With Fo sD
expit 3 we
re

the agreement
while Chrysler ©

Walter Reuther,
dent, in answer to 4 7,
this reporter about (Cy,
ity in Canada set its of
Ford, replied, “I th rer
say there’s a chive fut
and General M0
Canada.”

{
:

{
(

Ahi

Message is loud and cledl

November.24, 1967—PACIFIC:TRIBUNE—Page 6

urged that the trade union move-
ment develop a program of ac-
tion to break the use of injunc-
tions.

Many delegates speaking at
the federation conventions point-
ed out that labor’s opposition to
the use of injunctions to break
strikes hag been made abundan-
tly clear in many good policy re-
solutions. Their beef is that these
good policy resolutions need to
be backed-up by meaningful
action programs. They hold
federation leadership responsible
for the lack of such action.

This mood of dissatisfaction
with the quality of leadership
provided was most forcibly ex-
pressed at the BCFL convention
in the elections for secretary and
one vice-president position. In
these two contests a switch of a
mere 20 votes would have result-
ed in a changeover. The mood of
dissatisfaction did not assume
such forcible expression in other
federation conventions. How-
ever it would be a serious mis-
take to conclude from this that
this mood exists only in B.C.

It would be equally wrong to
conclude that because resolu-

tions calling for civil disobedi-
ence in the fight against injunc-
tions were not endorsed by fede-
ration conventions that this set-
tles for the time being the de-
mand for more effective action
programs. For it is quite appar-
ent that what most trade union-
ists want is an improvement in
mobilizing mass actions in line
with decisions already taken in
respect to the presentation of
briefs, lobbies, conferences and
publicly campaigns,

Many good arguments can
be mounted as to the best meth-
od to use to break an injunction,
or, to secure the repeal of an in-
just labor law. But what cannot
be argued against is that what-
ever the line of action undertak-
en, it should not be undertaken
in a half-hearted manner. Half-
hearted measures only court
defeat.

As to the development of a
program of action against the in-
junction, the resolutions adopted
at a recent conventions provide
sufficient scope for this. For in-
stance, the presentation of a
brief does not have to be a rou-
tine, stodgy, cap-in-hand affair.

Perhaps some straight-from-the-
shoulder testimony backing-up
the brief given first-hand by
trade unionists who have suf-
fered imprisonment for fighting
an injunction would be in order,
And delegations _ presenting
briefs could be usefully aug-
mented by workers off the job
or strikers.

Conferences called on the in-
junction fight do not have to be
only occasions for the re-stating
of well-known positions. They
can be hard-working planning
sessions which come up with
meaningful action programs to
involve masses of trade union-
ists in active pursuit of the goals
set.

Publicity aimed at informing
the public on trade union aims
and seeking public support for
these aims does not need to be
confined only to an up-to-date
advertising campaign. It also can
be so designed as to involve
masses of trade unionists as
well.

Lobbies do not have to be limi-
ted to a delegate basis. If the
farm organizations can bring
thousands of farmers to demon-

unions and ¢ nam fe
ing the war 1 oe igh
The call is io ine go
action to implé jutio™® i?
convention rend on
are not enous’, well
by their deeds re nor
words. The sor
organizations:

il
strate in novel and
shion at our vee tHe
Legislative Buildin ing pi
trade unions C4 ful
thousands in colo |
bies. eo
And, if in the coral y
gles, strikers ees in o
cumstances to ©;

a court injuncy nt
leadership can ee
of mass ace and
court-persecu y
hanaisel strikers: al iol \

This js the men
leadership of Pot im
DY

i t came ©" «ons:
federation conve
in respect tO ne Teo
but also 1
statements for ,elattp
agreed upon
urgent issueS “oun