Conference slams steel industry TORONTO — In 1972 a study was released in the U.S. entitled the Lloyd-Redmond report. It was a study of 59,072 workers employed in basic steel facilities in Allegheny County, and it showed that a worker employed in acoke plant is twice as likely to die of lung cancer than someone who works in another part of the steel industry. It showed that a worker on the top of a coke battery has a seven- fold risk of dying of lung cancer, compared to someone working in another area of the plant, and that a person working topside for more than ten years has a ten-fold risk of -dying of lung cancer. Finally, coke oven workers have a seven-and-a-half fold risk of dying of kidney cancer, the re- port showed. On January 18, 1977, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in re- sponse to an appeal filed the day before by the American Iron and Steel Institute, and the American Coke and Coal Chemical Insti- tute, granted an interim order staying parts of a U.S. Occupa- tional Health and Safety Depart- ment coke oven emissions stan- dard which was to have taken ef- fect Jan. 20. The standard of living in most capitalist countries declined last year, says the World Bank, a capitalist world institution. The Royal Bank of Canada warns of a difficult year ahead, and claims that Canadians will have to tighten their belts in 1977. **Squeeze on incomes is pre- dicted for 1977’’ says one head- line in Toronto’s Globe and Mail, January 20. The big question that must be answered is, who is squeezing whom? Ask the worker who cuts trees for the Reed Paper Co. we have heard so much about lately. As members of the Lumber and. Sawmill Workers Union they have worked without contract since last October. Unable to get anywhere near acceptable terms for a new contract, they will take a strike vote this week and may be on strike before this is printed. This is the company our Ontario Tory government has handed some 20,000 square miles of timberland virtually free of charge, and the company that continues to pollute streams, riv- ers and lakes with poisonous chemicals without being called to proper account, in the public interest. Ask the employees of the British Columbia Workers’ Com- pensation Board, who may be forced to strike following that Board’s rejection of a proposed collective agreement recom- mended by the Board’s own negotiating committee. Ask working people of Montre- al, who use CP Rail commuter trains to go to and from work, what they think of an 11% hike in commuter fares on February 1, and the proposed reduction in the number of passenger cars in ser- vice by next Apnil 24. Layoffs and Cutbacks Ask the auto assembly plant Speaking to the Fourth Interna-- tional Coke Oven Conference in Toronto Jan 20-21, United Steel- workers president I.W. Abel cal- led the ‘‘calloused, indefensible position of the industry ... a throwback to the early days when the industry treated its machinery With more respect and compas- sion than its workers.”’ Hamilton Cancer Belt About 300 participants to the two-day conference heard reports by Dr. William Lloyd, the union’s epidemiologist and co-author of the Lloyd-Redmond Report, and Dr. Victor Cecilioni of Hamilton who presented a paper outlining what he and other doctors. have identified as a cancer belt through Hamilton, with higher than nor- mal cancer rates which they sus- pect are related to steel industry pollution. © The provisions of the coke emissions standards promulgated by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration that were stayed by the industry associa- tions representing nearly 20 U.S. Steel corporations deal with monitoring of emissions, air con- ditioned lunch rooms, respiratory protection, and protective clo- thing and equipment. The Steelworkers have been investigating the high risks faced by coke oven workers since 1960 and fighting in the U.S. for safety emission standards since 1971. At the conference Abel ‘esti- mated 240 coke oven workers in the U.S. and Canada are dying each year; which means that since the beginning of the fight for an effective standard in 1971, 1,200 coke oven workers will eventu- ally die from cancer and other oc- cupationally related diseases. This is approximately the same number of coke oven workers ‘presently working at three On- tario operations — two in Hamil- ton and Algoma Steel Corp. in Sault Ste. Marie which Joe Odor- cich, chairman of the union’s coke oven conference has: de- scribed as “‘the second worse”’ he has ever seen in 25 years. Cancer Agents Isolated Coke ovens are used in the steel making process to transform coal into coke, the fuel for blast fur- naces. In the coking process, coke oven emissions seep into the working environment. Study of the emissions have isolated a large number of known cancer- causing agents. Standards of living drop as profits soar workers, in both U.S. and Cana- da, who are affected by layoffs and cutbacks in production schedules. Ostensibly to cope with over large inventories of cars on hand, these layoffs and cut- backs can only aggravate a prob- lem which is caused by growing unemployment and rising prices. But these giant employers turn down any suggestion of a shorter workweek and more real wages, while continuing to raise prices of cars. Ask the unskilled. and semi- skilled immigrant workers in this country who do the dirtiest jobs under the most terrible conditions for the lowest pay. Now in a period of capitalist crisis con- ditions, new laws on immigration policy — such as the presently proposed Bill C-24 — threaten the rights of immigrants. Henceforth, immigrant labor — unskilled and semi-skilled — will be here as vis- itors and will not be allowed to become permanent citizens. While they will contribute to un- employment insurance, health in- surance, family allowances and other social security measures, they will not be allowed to benefit from their contributions. It was immigrant labor who built our railways, working like slaves for bare subsistence. The private buccaneers of those days made their fortunes on the backs of slave labor and free land, plus generous grants of cash from the public purse. They laid the foun- dation of today’s accumulation of monopoly capital in this country. But any time their employers felt a squeeze on their profits they pressed capitalist politicians and governments to again come to their aid at the expense of the pub- lic at large and the services to the Canadian people. Paid for by Public Having dismantled tens of thousands of miles of railway PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 4, 1977—Page 8 tracks and services to thousands of scattered communities, not to speak of tens of thousands of jobs lost, the stage is now. set to dis- mantle the CNR as a Crown cor- poration. It’s assets, paid for sev- eral times over by the public purse, are fo be evaluated as to profitability and non-profitability. Those services that are profitable are to be turned over to private monopoly control. The unprofit- able ones are to be discontinued or kept at public expense. This policy is advocated by Transport Minister Otto Lang, and is part of a policy of turning as much as possible of services, now pro- vided by government, over to the private monopoly sector. This is going in the opposite di- rection to where we need to go to come seriously to grips with the current inflation and unemploy- ment crisis, and its consequent decline in social and economic standards. But there is a democratic alter-. native, as the Communist Party pointed out in its unity appeal to the New Democratic Party, last October.. : “In the face of the present drive to the political right the working people and democratic. forces cannot afford to. be disunited. If the people are to stop this reactio- nary drive to the right they need to unite their forces -around a com- mon program of action. This,”’ states the Communist Party, ‘‘is a key to checking the drive to the right and for creating conditions for democratic economic and so- cial policies.” It is the private profit system that will no longer work. It is the profiteering monopolies that — stand in the way of progress. They must be curbed to strengthen the public sector under democratic control and thus open the way to the socialist perspec- tive in Canada. PILKEY, LABERGE MEET IN QUEBEC TORONTO — The Ontario Federation of Labor announced Jan. 25 that president Cliff Pilkey met for two days with Quebec Fed- eration of Labor’s Louis Laberge, discussing the economic situation, particularly growing unemploy- ment and how to pressure the fed- eral government.to dismantle the AIB. This was the first time both Federations had held a meeting at this level. The talks also explored ways in which the ‘wo federations could coopera’ ‘in achieving greater economic independence from the USA. Pilkey invited Laberge to at- tend the next OFL executive coun- cil in March. : FRENCH LABOR OPPOSES FREEZE PARIS — A 24-hour strike by three unions disrupted service on French railways Jan. 26. The rail strike was the first in a list of walkouts by employees of the Government and of nationalized industries that are expected this week. The unions are protesting against the Government’s auster- ity plan to freeze wage increases. ONT. JUDGE DENIES UNION RIGHTS BRAMPTON — In a decision which is a landmark of judicial ar- rogance and contempt for trade union democracy, a provincial judge here, ordered Luigi Paul DeSantis, vice-president of UAW Local 252 not to hold any union office for a three month period, fined him $250:, and told him to write a 1,000 word essay on the “rights and duties of pickets.’’ De- Santis was convicted Jan. 24 of “obstructing” a policeman on a picket line during the recent strike at Freuhoff Trailer Co. of Canada. The UAW is expected to appeal the anti-labor ruling. CARR SLAMS MACDONALD PLAN OTTAWA — “Finance Minis- ter Donald Macdonald is trying to divide Canadians among them- selves by driving a wedge be- tween public employees and workers in the private sector of the economy,’’ Shirley Carr, executive vice-president of the Members of the national Union of Tanganyika Workets and the Tanu Canadian Labour Congress said Jan. 25. | Carr made the charge following — a meeting between officials of the Congress and officers of Canada’s three largest public employee un- ions CUPE, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, and the Na tional Union of Provincial Gov- ernment Employees. One of the — main topics at the Ottawa meeting — was a recent statement by the federal finance minister that gov- ernments must set an example tO all Canadians by restraining growth of the public service and the salaries paid to public employees after the wage con- trols are lifted. ‘“‘The answer is not for gov ermmments to victimize and main- tain the second-class-citizeD status of their employees. The answer is for them to learn how t0 make effective use of the negotiat ‘ing table and make the collectivé bargaining process work.”* BROOKS’ FUNERAL CLOSES CHRYSLER WINDSOR — More than 2,000 people attended the funeral service © Jan. 20, for Charles Brooks, 61, president of Local 444 of the Un- ited Auto Workers. Chrysler Canada closed its three vehicle assembly plants and engine assembly operations here becausé about a third of its day shift employees did not report for work. Union officials had said they ex" pected many workers off the job because of the funeral. REPORT REJECTS INDEXING RAIL PENSIONS OTTAWA — After 214 years of study, Dr. Noel Hall, a commis~ sioner of inquiry into railway pen- sion plans said in his final report Jan. 20 that he was “‘reluctant to make a recommendation”’ on in- dexing pensions to the cost of liv- ing. ‘*How Dr. Hall can deny to oul pensioners the benefits of index- ing of pensions now being re ceived by the federal Govern- ment’s public service employees - when rail workers are employees” of the two largest companies in the federal field is beyond our un- derstanding,’ W.C.Y. McGregor chairman of the 100,000-member Canadian Railway Labor Associ- ation said. | gerd k Youth League, led by Aron Pemba (center, white shirt), chairman of the South African Congress of Trade Unions, demonstrate against apat- theid in South Africa in Dar Es Salaam on Saturday. The action was part of a world-wide one week boycott of South Africa organized by interna: tional and national labor organizations. The AFL-CIO in the U.S. was asked to join the sponsors but refused.