. Local

Parrot at Edmonton rally

A militant union movement needed

By K. CARIOU
EDMONTON — “We have
been called anarchists, Commun-
ists, Marxist-Leninists. But
there is one thing I am very proud
of. We have never been called
Liberals or Conservatives.”’

With these words, Postal
Workers president Jean Claude
Parrot, addressing a Fair Deal
Rally, called for a more militant
trade union movement in Canada,
to better aid any group of striking
workers, whether financially or
on the picket line.

Solidarity with the strikers at
Inco and the Canadian Union of
Postal Workers were the themes
of the first Labor Council spon-
sored May Day since 1969 in Ed-
monton, held May 12.

Bill Danyk, Edmonton Labor
Council president, welcomed 300
people to an evening benefit for
Steelworkers Local 6500 in Sud-
bury. After outlining the history
of May Day, Danyk noted that the
event is celebrated in the socialist

countries, Western Europe, Latin
America and other areas, but not
in many parts of North America.
The city’s trade union movement,
he said, hopes to help change that
by marking May Day annually.

The proposal was received g¢n-
thusiastically by the crowd,
which raised over $2,000 for the
Inco strikers. In addition to
CUPW president Jean Claude
Parrot, who was given a standing
ovation, speakers included Public
Service Alliance of Canada leader
Andy Stewart; the University of
Alberta poet-in-residence Tom
Wayman; representatives of
Local 6500, the British Journalists
Union; and the Central Union of
Workers of Chile (CUT). Music
was provided by Edmonton’s Fat
Chants band, famous for its
‘Yeft-wing swing’’.

Long-time labor militant Bill
Berezowski, a veteran of the
Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers
Union and the United Steelwor-
kers, hosted the benefit.

Earlier in the day, 200 trade

unionists and supporters attended
the ‘Fair Deal Rally’’ in defence
of CUPW and other public ser-
vice unions, where Jean Claude
Parrot, made his first major public
appearance since his sentencing
and night in jail. It was here, while
commenting on the federal elec-
tion that he made the reference to
the two old parties.

Other speakers included CLC
vice-president Shirley Carr, Al-
berta Union of Provincial
Employees president John
Booth, Alberta Federation of
Labor president Harry Kostiuk,
and Public Service Alliance of
Canada president Andy Stewart.
They all hit hard at the anti-labor
policies of the federal Liberal and

‘ provincial Tory governments.

On May First itself, the annual
celebration sponsored by the
Edmonton May Day Committee
featured the film, Controlling In-
terest. This documents the effects
multi-national corporations have
on workers in South and North
America.

Ontario CUPE backs Parrot
plans cutbacks protest demo

LONDON — The Gites di-
vision of the Canadian Union of
Public Employees will stage a
demonstration at Queen’s Park to
protes: health, social service and
other cutbacks implemented by
the Tory provincial government,
before the current legislature

_closes.

The decision came at the May
11-13 annual Ontario divison
convention in a resolution which
also called on CUPE Ontario di-
vision’s executive board to peti-
tion the Ontario Government to

“‘re-examine their spending
priorities so that proper funding
can be granted to all-important
social programs for the citizens of
Ontario.”’

Support from all Ontario work-
ers through the Ontario Federa-
tion of Labor was also requested.

The resolution noted Queen’s

Park’s implementation of the

reactionary Henderson Commis-
sion Report which has already led
to cutbacks in homes for the aged,
daycare centres, nursing homes
and hospitals. Working condi-
tions for the employees in those
services, the resolution pointed
out, will be undermined by cut-
backs as contracts are gutted,
workloads are excessively in-
creased, job security is de-
stroyed, and the practice of con-
tracting our flourishes.

Support For CUPW

The convention also adopted a
resolution submitted by CUPE
1023 delegate Kate
McNamara that Canadian Union
of Postal Workers president Jean
Claude Parrot be sent a telegram
from the convention showing that
CUPE ‘‘supports him and his
union in their struggle for justice,
which is CUPE’s struggle too.”’

CUPE national president
Grace Hartman, im her speech to
the convention, focussed on the
persecution of Parrot as part of
the general attack against public
sector unions launched by big-
business governments. She called

- Parrot’s recent jail,sentence ‘‘the

“Sick decision, by a sick leader
of a sick government...” — Grace
Hartman.

end result of a sick decision by a
sick leader of a sick government
using a court system no longer
capable of defining what is prop-
erly a matter of law and what is a
matter of justice. ...

‘‘When Jean Claude Parrot was
brought from the court in hand-
cuffs,’’ she said, ‘‘I thought that
we had endured the final humilia-
tion — a humiliation brought
about not by the ego of Brother
Parrot, as Justice Evens
suggested — but by the ego of
Pierre Trudeau.

Hartman noted that the judge
and the Crown repeatedly stres-

sed that no one is above the law,

yet recalled the fate of former
solicitor-general Francis Fox who
forged another persons’ signature
during a hospital admission, —

nothing.
Two Laws?

‘*How should we feel about two
cabinet ministers improperly con-
tacting judges?’’ Hartman asked.
“Do we mention this? Do we
keep quiet about it? Or do we in-
sist that they be handcuffed?

“How are we to react when we
learn about the nation’s police
force burglarizing offices — de-
stroying personal property — vio-
lating federal laws by opening

mail?

‘Do we jail them?”’ she asked.

“Do we bring them before a
court to answer for criminal con-
duct? Do we insist, as responsible
citizens, that they be taken to
courthouses in handcuffs?

She contrasted Parrot’s treat-
ment to Prime Minister Trudeau’s
recent remarks there was no
reason to get excited about
‘*some policeman opening a letter
somewhere’’.

The implication of this is that
policemen are above the law,
Hartman pointed out, and she
recalled Trudeau’ s suggestion that
if the RCMP was breaking the
law, the law should be changed.
Joe Clark, she observed would
give the police permission to
break the law.

Public Sector Scapegoats

Tying together anti-public ser-
vice worker legislation across the
country such as B.C.’s Essential
Services Act, Alberta’s Bill 41
and the:federal government's Bill
C-22 — all wiping out collective
bargaining rights for civil ser-
vants, she charged public service
workers are being used as scape-
goats for government incompe-
tence in handling the economic
crisis.

She called on public sector
workers to fight back against the
politicians and to change public
attitudes created about public
service workers by the media and
big business politicians.

‘People must be made to
realize the we are the people who
make this country work’’, she
said. ‘‘We clean the schools and
take care of the elderly. We clear
snow-clogged street and make the
hospital beds. We collect the gar- 6
bage and beautify the parks. And
we take pride in what we do — we
care about the public services we
provide — and with good reason.

“Far from being the villains’,
Hartman said, ‘‘it must surely be
evident that the employees in the
public service are the very found-
ation of the communities where
they live and work.”

The keynote speaker, Alberta
Communist Party secretary Bill
Tuomi, discussed the successes
of the international working-class
movement over the past year, and
called for greater efforts than ever
to support labor struggles at home
and abroad. The 125 people pre-
sent also heard greetings from the
local branch of the Chilean CUT
and from the peace movement. A
collection was taken for the
Inco strikers.

Parrot ... “! am proud that we
have never been called Liberals or
Conservatives.”

QUEBEC WORKERS
GIVE MANDATE

AYLMER, Que. — Northern
Telecom workers, members of the
Communications Workers of
Canada have voted 83% to give
their negotiating committee a
strike mandate. The 401 workers
were recently locked out by the
company in a contract fight which
sees the workers demanding a
13.4% annual wage hike. They
have been without a contract since
March 1, and in a so-called ‘‘legal’’
position to strike since April 15.

CUPW PRESIDENT
ACQUITTED
VANCOUVER — Local

Canadian Union of Postal
Workers -president Frank Wal-
den was acquitted May 15. of
charges against him arising from
the country- -wide postal strike
last fall.

The judge instructed the jury
to acquit Walden on the grounds
that he was in Ottawa when
the back to work law was passed
in Parliament.

ALBERTA’S SHAME
TWO YEARS OLD

EDMONTON — It’s been more
than two years on the picket line
for the members of CUPE Local
41, to win recognition of their
union and a first contract from
Parkland Nursing Homes. The
strike has been named ‘‘the pro-
vincial shame”’, with the Tory
government refusing to force
management to negotiate, and
denying the strikers any social as-
sistance. The provincial labor

:

minister has called the union
unreasonable for refusing Park-
land’s offer to settle based on
CUPE accepting a blacklist of
some of the strikers. The Parkland
workers are asking for union rec-
ognition and parity with other
unionized Parkland workers, to
bring their wages up to $4.00 an
hour.

STRIKE LOOMS
AT BELL CANADA

MONTREAL — The 13,500
Bell Canada technicians will be in
a strike position seven days after
federal conciliation commissioner
Pierre Dufresne submits his. writ-
ten report to the Labor Depart-
ment on talks between Bell and
the Communication Workers of
Canada. Conciliation talks bet-
ween the parties broke off May
16.

“TWO KINDS OF
JUSTICE”: HUNT

REGINA — Nadine Hunt, pres-
ident of the 60,000-member Sas-
katchewan Federation of Labor
May 8, called the jail sentence of
postal union leader Jean Claude
Parrot “another example of the
crass and vindictive attitude of the
federal Liberal government to-
wards working people of this coun-
try, and an attempt to scapegoat
postal workers in particular as an
example to all public sector work-
ers of what kind of harsh treatment
they can expect should they try and
exercise their legal rights in the col-
lective bargaining process.’’ Hunt
cited the sentence as a demonstra-
tion of ‘‘two kinds of justice being

administered in this coun

TORONTO — Some 700 delegates to the international convention of
the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Cierks (BRAC) formally ap-
proved a separate constitution for the BRAC Canadian division May 14.
Canadian members elect their own officers, control union dues and set
union policy in Canada. BRAC international president F.J. Kroll (above)
Oipised ne Canadian oe: 8 CORRES to the international. union.

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