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Frage ae RE a

By MIKE PHILLIPS
AWA — While a massive
ae program geared to

ting an NDP government
Somewhere in the future was the
Main outcome of the economic
eee held here March 1-2,
the Canadian Labor Con-
feck leadership, and if they were
€ning attentively, govern-
Ments at all levels, couldn’t miss
e 8towing restlessness in
r I's ranks for militant, con-
eee action to implement
rogram adopted a year-
Wan nalf ago by the CLC in
Innipeg.
ene cet sign of this was the
lusiastic response to calls on
ae bor movement to demon-
Its full support to the
ea teachers and the whole
ih T movement, there, locked
Oa hard fight with the Parti
becois government.
: Billed as ‘‘A People’s Re-
Se to the Planned Depres-
da , the two-day meeting was
Bis of the broadest gatherings
Chu Organized by the CLC.
; lurch leaders, farmers, con-
umers, teachers, the unemploy-
bP and many other groups were
Presented along with trade

But all the talk about the crisis
and its effects, and the bright
hopes pinned on the on-the-job
canvass, and regional economic
conferences that will follow this
conference didn’t totally satisfy
the more than 800 participants in
the two-day meeting.

Many participants, including
prominent leaders such as CLC
executive council member and
United Auto Workers Canadian
leader Bob White warned that
labor needs to mobilize its mem-
bers, in daily fightback actions
and into a political movement for
fundamental economic and social
change.

Challenge Corporate Priorities

‘We must confront the depth
of the current crisis and the inter-
national changes taking place and
frankly recognize that tinkering
cannot address the scope of the
problems we’re talking about’’,
White told the conference in one
of the panels. “‘Our policies will
have to challenge corporate
priorities and corporate power.”

In what seemed a warning to
the right within the labor move-
ment who see labor political ac-
tion as exclusively restricted to

GEORGE HEWISON

Union leaders to provide what
i president Dennis McDer-
—20tt_ promised would be ‘‘a
and sting Pad”, that before labor
“Te Its allies were finished, would
in a this country to the people
Wo Nom it properly belongs, the
Aa People of Canada.”’
fed ¢Dermott lashed out at the
vin Tal government and its pro-
cal counterparts for de-
Tately unleashing the current
oe by allowing interest
ar so the money supply
Ses Se slowed dow ay ens
& massive unemploy-
sia dampen wage demands;
Public Shing social benefits and
"Wealth works spending to shift
tae from workers to the cor-
Stage ake and by trying to set the
- cessi Or wage and benefits con-
Ons and rollbacks in the pri-
on © Sector with an all-out assault

Public sector wages and trade
Mion rights. ad

Starved of Purchasing Power

Six and five and all that jive is.

““Y Unjust and economically

8
ae because it deprives an al-
fae carved economy of bad-
the Cle, purchasing power’,

H leader charged. —

aaa for scrapping the ‘*6
a Program, development of
Policy €-in-Canada interest rate
Meare extension of unemploy-
i ‘surance benefits, a cut in
taxe Medium income personal
; Public and for massive social and
© investment by federal and
Cial governments in pro-
€ low-cost housing and
transit as part of labor’s
term economic recovery

~ Public
Short
Pro,

electing the New Democrats and
who shun day-to-day mass mobil-
ization of workers against con-
cessions, controls, unemploy-
ment and the economic crisis in
general, White said, ‘workers
who lose confidence in collective
action through their union — the
vehicle closest to them — will be
skeptical about broader political
commitments to a worker-sup-
ported party.”’

Jean-Marie Bedard, vice-
president of Region Two of the
International Woodworkers of
America, (IWA), captured the es-
sence of the economics and the
politics being debated in the con-
ference in a way that none of the
experts and panelists matched.

“This system has terminated
its historical role’, Bedard said.
“It was useful at one time, but
we're seeing through this crisis
that it’s standing in the way of
progress, and that’s why I say it’s
a reactionary system.

“Pm not opposed to reforms, I
think we have to fight for them
and I support the program we
adopted in Winnipeg, yet whether
we re-allocate here or there, or
create new money won't change
much. I think we should cut our
military spending, we should
nationalize the banks and our
energy resources as the basis for
economic recovery,” he said.

In Favor of Nationalizing

United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union treasurer George
Hewison ‘said the depth of the
crisis and its tragic effect on
workers’ lives demanded the .

labor movement get into action
now.

‘“‘We have to talk about ac-
tion’’, Hewison said. ‘“Those two
million unemployed in this coun-
try can either be won to labor’s
program to end the depression or
to the Liberal and Tory politi-
cians’ plan to put them in the
army and direct them against us.”’

He recalled that the CLC had
declared itself in Winnipeg in
favor of nationalizing the banks,
which, McDermott in his opening
remarks showed had their profits
rise from $608-million for the five
major chartered Canadian banks
in 1976, to $1.5-billion last year.

‘‘What we’re facing here is a
fundamental crisis that has to be
met with fundamental solutions’,
Hewison said.

The militarization of the jobless
against the labor movement was a
theme of Bishop Adolphe Proulx,
a signatory to the document by
the Canadian Conference of
Catholic Bishops.

_Capitalism is gripped in a deep
structural crisis, the bishop said
and he urged the labor movement
to unite with the unemployed and
all others concerned ‘‘to bring

about the structural change in the
economy that we talked about in
our message.”

Bishop Proulx also warned of
governments’ increasing attrac-
tion to military solutions to the
crisis and increasing reliance of
the army police and legal repres-
sion against social protest.

‘*Military programs pose a real
danger to the labor movement,
they are a false solution and a
moral sin’’, he said. Later in an
interview he said that transferring
money from the military budget to
social services and other publicly
useful budgets was consistent
with the reforms advanced by the
bishops.

implement Policy

The National Action Caucus,
the left coalition of unions and in-
dividual union members formed
at the recent CLC convention is-
sued a statement to the confer-
ence calling for mobilization of
workers and the unemployed to
implement the CLC economic re-
covery program adopted in Win-
nipeg.

~ Planned depression challenges labor

“The mobilization of the labor
movement and its allies cannot be
aimed solely at electoral
strategies, but must have as its
goal a profound restructuring of
the Canadian economy’’, the
caucus leaflet said.

The CLC and the provincial
federations were called on ‘‘to
mobilize instantaneous and un-
qualified support for any part of
the labor movement locked in the
front line of the struggle to resist
concessions and controls, such as

_concretely supporting the strug-

gle of the Quebec teachers.”

Labor must show the same
courage as the bishops, the
caucus said, by fighting for
fundamental structural economic
change. The'CLC and the federa-
tions should provide money and
staff to labor councils ‘‘so that the
unemployed in each city can be
organized, not simply to assist in
electoral campaigns, but as a
political force that with our mem-
bers and progressive elements in
each community fights for jobs
and for a new economic direction
for this country.”

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

Sask. Tories encounter
growing mass fightback

By K. CARIOU
REGINA — As the Saskatchewan Legisla-
ture resumed sitting Feb. 22, the Tory govern-
ment was met with a growing fightback from
working, people. sme
Returning MLAs were greeted by 30 pickets,

members and supporters of the Unemployment

Committee of Regina (UCR). Extensive media
coverage resulted from this first public demon-
stration of the unemployed in Regina in recent
years. Z

The UCR is demanding action on unem-
ployment from the provincial Tories and from
other levels of government, including a mas-
sive plan of public works and expanded social
services to create long-term jobs and assis-
tance for the province’s 41,000 jobless work-
ers.

The group has also called for radical changes
in the provincial NEED program (New
Employment Expansion and Development)
funded by Ottawa, which is now providing
fewer than 1,000 temporary jobs for workers
whose Unemployment Insurance has run out
or who are on welfare. Union members should
not be laid off now or later by municipalities
seeking to save money by hiring unemployed
workers, says the group.

The federally-funded minimum wage of
$4.25 an hour should be topped up by local and
provincial governments, says the UCR, to pro-
vide a living wage and a higher level of UI when
the programs run out. Canadian Union of Pub-
lic Employees (CUPE) members in Saskatoon
fought to get the NEED wages increased, and
forced the city council there to add $1.17 to the
minimum.

Organize and Fight

The demonstrators also demanded an end to
the provincial government’s layoffs and hiring
freeze, expansion of UI benefits, and ‘‘jobs be-
fore profits’’. Speaking to the media, UCR lead-
ers stressed that workers need to organize and
fight, just as they did in the 30s, for jobs, UI,
welfare and other gains. The group is planning a
larger demonstration together with unions, stu-
dents, and others, in the near future. After pic-
keting for half an hour, they took seats in the
visitors’ gallery and were introduced by a New
Democratic Party MLA, who attacked Premier
Devine’s inaction on the issue of jobs.

While the unemployed marched at the legis-
lature, 200 trade unionists were meeting in
Moose Jaw to discuss labor’s demands con-
tained in briefs to the Tory cabinet. A Sask-
atchewan Federation of Labor delegation met
with seven cabinet ministers the following day. —
The SFL condemned demands from business
groups for changes in the Trade Union Act.
‘Interference with our ability to represent the
interests of our members, any jimmying open of
the door to usher in depression-style, sweat-
shop, low-wage and deep South modelled work-
ing conditions cannot be allowed to return to
this land,’’ warned the SFL.

Summarizing the proposals of the Chamber of
Commerce and other business forces, the SFL
pointed out: ‘‘They want the definition of em-

_ ployees changed to disallow bargaining rights to

thousands of Saskatchewan residents; to curtail
and remove our right to strike and picket, to
make it impossible to negotiate union security
and maintenance of membership clauses; they
propose a government-imposed uniform, uni-
versal strike ballot with provision for non-
members to vote for strike yet not have to par-
ticipate in such action; limits are to be removed
on the length of agreements, imposed mandiat-
ory votes in certification applications and allow-
ing employers so-called free speech amend-
ments ... Unions would become legal entities
and subject to harassment in the courts, intro-
ducing compulsory arbitration into labor dis-
putes.’’ The SFL called instead for improve-
ments in the Act, to allow workers to meet
contemporary industrial developments.

In its regular annual submission, the Federa-
tion outlined the deepening economic crisis
affecting the province during 1982, such as the
jump from 26,000 jobless to 41,000; a 72% rise in
bankruptcies; and a drop of one-third in net farm
income.

“The creation of jobs is the most pressing
concern of the provincial government’’, stated
the SFL, as it called for a series of capital works
projects. _

Contrary to long-established practice the SFL
executive did not supply the cabinet with ad-
vance copies of the briefs, allowing the minis-
ters to delay answering the concerns of labor.
Labor Minister McLaren said there was ‘‘no-
thing new’’ in the presentation, but indicated
a ae would meet again soon with SFL of-

cials.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 11, 1983—Page 7