EDITORIAL

Time for labor unity

Charges by CUPW president Jean-
Claude Parrot that the government is
trying to act tough by refusing .to
negotiate with striking postal workers
are certainly being borne out.

What we're seeing is a conscious
government and big business gang-up
on labor. The strategy is to force cheap
settlements across the board as workers
react to steadily dro ping living stan-
dards and are demanding fair contracts.

The tough act by the Liberal govern-
ment and a similar posture by the pulp
and paper barons in British Columbia
indicate that maximum labor solidarity is
. needed today. The efforts by big busi-.
ness and government to force strikes,
enact back-to-work legislation, jail and
harass union people requires such unity.

The fact is that big business and its
people in high office are united in their

attack on working people’s livelihoods
and rights. This is true despite the To-
ries’ hypocritical use of the mail strike to
score debating points against Trudeau.

The government hopes to wait out this _

mail strike. It is counting on wearing
down CUPW — even trying to ae eee
Parliament for three months while the
country suffers. It wants to set a coun-
try-wide pattern for cheap . contract
settlements and is using CUPW as the
battering ram.

Trudeau, Johnston and Company
hope to rely on anti-labor backlash, and,
while refusing’a decent settlement with
its employees, they pilot through a
whopping 31% wage hike for them-
selves. That’s adding insult to injury. —

If there ever was time for unity in ac-
tion by labor, it’s now.

Jobs and rubber bullets

British Prime Minister Thatcher and
the dyed-in-the-wool hardliners who run
that country are reacting to the serious
disturbances throughout England (and
now in Scotland) with typical upper class
arrogance.

__ Despite all the evidence that the riot-

ing going on nightly is the desperate re-
moe of a forgotten generation on the

ole, unemployed, living in poverty and
subjected to racist attacks, Thatcher's
answer is concentration camps, kan-
garoo courts, rubber bullets, water can-
non and military might.

Three years of Thatcher’s monetarism
has brought England to its worst post-
war economic crisis. Unemployment is
record high. The figure stands at 2.5
eon and young people are hardest

it.

_ The people want jobs and security —
they’re offered sappy words about the
“fragility of democracy”. People com-
in about racist attacks on their neigh-
rhoods and police harassment. They

are told by Thatcher “to look upon the_

police as friends”. ‘

Even as she was whisked away from
tomato-throwing crowds in her bullet-
proof Jaguar this week, plans were bein
made to send police to Northern Irelan
for “crowd control” training.

And we have our shrill, right-wing voi-

ces here, too. Toronto’s Sun dragged out.

the views of racist British MP, Enoch
Powell to blame the disturbances on the
country’s immigration policies. It
warned that Canada has problems too
and asked: “Where is our Enoch Pow-
ell?” The paper recommends putting the
jobless youth in the army to teach them
“trades, discipline, patriotism”. _

The plain truth is that its Thatcher’s
economic policies that are to blame for
the disturbances and no amount of state
repression can wipe that away. -

Other western capitalist states (includ-
ing Canada) could well ponder what is
going on throughout Britain as we watch
inflation rise and unemployment rise
along with it. Hundreds of thousands of
people wandering about without jobs
won't sit still forever.

Canada isn’t immune from a similar
reaction with our 1.5 million jobless,
galloping inflation, rampant profiteer-

ing, racism and a government which

simply won’t budge. Our cities’ streets
are not sacrosanct under a system where
one-half the national income is grabbed
by the top 10%.
The fact is that people will respond
and react to such crass injustice — and no

amount of rubber bullets will stop them. ~

wd

SSSSSSSSSSSSS

Flashbacks

25 years ago... 50 years ago... 1

‘LATIN AMERICA
NO LONGER ‘SAFE’

The Panama Conference of

the presidents of Latin Ameri-.

can states was called by the pres-
ident ostensibly to mark the
130th anniversary of Simon
Bolivar’s unsuccessful bid to de-
velop hemispheric unity.

The truth is that this confer-
ence represents a renewed ef-
fort by Washington to
strengthen U.S. influence over
the Americas in this election
year.

cal unrest in Latin America con-

tinues threatening U.S. control

of the strategic resources of the
hemisphere and the needs of the
people are forcing far-reaching
changes that run exactly oppo-
site to the plans of Wall Street.

‘Tribune,

July 30, 1956 |

Deep-going social and politi- -

GERMAN CRISIS
SHAKES EUROPE

After four or five hectic days

.in which the fate of Germany

tottered in the balance, an
ominous calm settled over the
whole of central Europe as the —
leading imperialist wolves pre-
pared to meet in conference in_
London to decide on the politi-
cal price to be extracted. in~
return for loans sufficient to —
tide the country over the pre- —
sent crisis. ; .

_ With runs on all banks, there
isa possibility that complete

financial chaos would engulf the
country. Panic has. spread to

neighboring states with bank _

runs taking place in Poland, ©
Roumania and Hungary.

The Worker,
July 18, 1931

Profiteer of the week. :

This week’s profiteer honors must go to Canadian federal Members of
Parliament who jacked up their own wages (and pensions and tax-free
allowances) by a whopping 31% average. Trudeau now pockets $2,010.
per week; Clarke $1,643 and Broadbent $1,408. Mere MPs now get
$1,050. All this while sticking it to postal workers. Votes 4

People’s peace coalition

Delegates to the recent NDP federal
convention made a significant decision
when they adopted a resolution on
Peace, Security and Justice last week.

Included in the document, and now
NDP policy, is support for Canada’s
withdrawal from NATO and NORAD,
for Canada to become a nuclear-free
zone, withdrawal from the Defence Pro-
duction Sharing Agreement, for a refer-
endum on disarmament, for the SALT
process and for this country to work to-
ward a multi-national arms . control

ment.
Such a policy is to be welcomed as an

important part of the needed developing

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 24, 1981— Page 4

movement to safeguard world peace in

‘times when the assault on détente is so

heavy. a2

What is now needed is the imple-
mentation of this constructive peace pol-
icy. It should not remain simply a resolu-
tion of goodwill if it is to have the effect
the convention wants.

The noble ideas, now NDP policy,
should become part of a broad people’s
movement for peace in this country — a
movement in which the NDP becomes
one of the key forces — that is, the estab-
lishment of a mass people’s coalition for

peace.

sm

PACIFIC

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON :
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR |

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