Cai a Ge:

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| Shorter hours with no wage cuts demanded

By CLAIRE DASYLVA

MONTREAL — Under the
theme of ‘‘work for all, time to
live’? some 400 union members
took part in a Quebec Federation
of Labor-sponsored conference,
May 5-7 on reducing hours of
work.

The conference reflected two
Opposing views on the question.
One view advanced by the QFL
leadership, and firmly rejected by
the majority of conference par-
ticipants, called for shorter hours
of work without 4 corresponding
compensation in pay.

Opponents of this view argued
that labor shouldn’t go into nego-
tiations for the shorter work week
already conceding on the ques-
tion of a full week’s pay. Doing
so, one delegate said, would make
unions “‘sitting ducks’’ for the
employers.

“‘This crisis isn’t our fault and
we shouldn’t have to pay for it’’,
another delegate pointed out in
the often stormy debate. ‘‘It’s the
trade union movement’s job to

_ force governments and the em-

ployers to act and create jobs’’.

Led by QFL General Secretary
Fernand Daoust, the federation
leadership tried unsuccessfully to
argue that fighting for shorter
hours with reduced pay would
free money to create jobs. But the
participants remained firm on this
point and rejected any proposal
that tied shorter hours to anything

In opening the conference,
QFL President Louis Laberge
stressed that unions aren’t just
discussing the number of hours
per week or day worked, with or
without. compensation, but the
increase in statutory holidays,
lengthening vacations, lowering
the retirement age and extension
of formal education.

He and others during the two-
day meet also stressed that cut-
ting work hours, but increasing
the pace of work wouldn’t create
any jobs.

Rank and File Speak

Rank and file workers spoke
eloquently of the need for re-
duced hours with no cut in pay.
Bell Canada telephone operator
Diane Furie spoke of the impact
of technological change on jobs,
health and-safety and workers’
rights on the job.

She said Bell workers are
increasingly coming under elec-
tronic surveillance and being spied
on by management. Employment
in Quebec and Ontario has drop-
ped from 13,000 operators in 1969
to 7,000 in 1983. During the same
period, however, the number of
calls daily handled by operators
jumped from 200 to 800.

Working hours are completely
irregular, she said, and the
operators become exhausted
from watching video display ter-
minals all day. She said operators
can ask for time off to rest and
recuperate from the tremendous

‘for income security at the same

without pay for the duration of the
time off.

Electrician Gerard Bedard
linked the demand for shorter
hours to the massive unemploy-
ment in the construction industry.
Just cutting out overtime over the
past year alone would have
helped create some 6,000 more
jobs today, he said. He spoke of
the recent suicide of a fellow-
worker who was totally deves-
tated by prolonged un-
employment.

“FIPOE,’’ (Quebec’s inde-
pendent break away from the
IBEW), he said, ‘‘is not only fight-
ing for shorter hours of work, but

time.”’

Working hours at Domtar’s
Dolbeau (Que.) plant were appall-
ing, Canadian Paperworkers
Union local President Camille
Lavoie: told the conference.
‘‘Management wouldn’t consider
reducing a single week, but was
pushing us for acompressed work
week. That would have meant
cutting the number of jobs and
lengthening the hours.

‘‘We’re driven by the machin-
ery ...’’ Lavoie said. ““Re-organ-
izing work schedules and shorten-
ing hours are a question of occu-
pational health and improving 9
family life.”’ 2

He told the conference that et

while the union succeeded in cut-
ting the work week from 42 to 37 =

— CLAIRE DASYLVA

Effects on Women

Garment worker Lorraine
Vaillancourt spoke of shorter
hours as a key demand for work-
ing women. In her industry where
most of the workers are women
with family responsibilities,
they’ ve been able to win a 35-hour
week with full compensation. She
showed how this helped piece-
rate workers, who would have
had to work even faster to make
their quotas within the reduced
time frame for working.

The QFL’s other demands re-
lated to the shorter work week,
including abolition of overtime,

lowering retirement age, demand-

ing more statutory holidays
extending vacation times, were
endorsed by the conference.
An action and informatio#
campaign on the question of pl
viding part-time workers witht
same rights and benefits as
timers was called for. be
Though not a decision-making

body, the conference left particr

pants with the hope the Q

leadership would get the message
from its rank and file members fot
the next fed. convention in Dé
cember — shorter hours, yes, but
no way for a cut in pay.

hours within an improved work @QFL General Secretary Fernand Daoust on the podium of the federa-
schedule, it failed to win full wage tion’s conference on shorter working hours —Jobs for all and time te)

less than the demand for full wage
compensation. -

strain, but few can afford to be

compensation with the reduction. live, the conference slogan reads.

Upcoming bargaining criti

At year’s end many of the wage control bills in
Canada and its provinces will expire. Unless they are
renewed, as at least one Canadian cabinet minister
has suggested, the major public service unions will
find themselves in negotiations, having fallen still
further behind the continuing rising living costs.

At the same time, many industrial workers will be
facing big monopoly corporations across the bargain-
ing table. Beginning in the middle of this year, big
steel will open contract talks. The lumber industry in
B.C. is now in negotiations.

These negotiations are critical to the outcome of
the struggle between workers and big business on
whether ‘“‘recovery’’ in Canada is going to be “‘re-
covery’’ for the big corporations at the expense of the
working people, or recovery for the working people,
at the expense of the big corporations. There is indeed
no third way.

In anticipation of the end of wage controls and the
entry of major unions into negotiations, the corpora-
tions and the big-business media are stepping up the
propaganda barrage. Their message is loud and clear.
Recovery is on the way, it is being induced by big
government hand-outs in the form of direct grants and
further tax concessions to monopoly on one side, and
depressed wages and social conditions on the other.
Inflation is being wrestled to the ground, (we are told),
and all that remains is for workers to work harder and
not ask for more. Unfortunately unemployment is to
remain at its present levels, at least for years to come.

No Easy Task for Labor

There is no alternative to this depressing scenario,
we are led to believe. If you like Canada, its lakes and
streams, its mountains and forests, its prairies and
space, maple syrup, to say nothing of Labatts beer,
you have no other alternative than to support the
system which has given us all these things. Inflation,
mass unemployment, poverty, insecurity, racism,
genocide and the despair that accompany all these
things are a small. price to pay for supporting the
givers of all our blessings. So goes the open and
hidden message of mass ideological brainwashing to
condition workers against uniting their ranks to de-

3 «| Labor in action
William Stewart

mand what this country can and should be offering
them at this time.

It is no easy task for the labor movement to face into
this relentless barrage; to win its members for the kind
of struggle needed to unite their own ranks and win
broad public support for their cause. But they do have
something going for them — the truth.

What workers want, need and deserve is not only
good for them, it is good for all Canada. What the
corporations want is certainly good for them but hos-
tile to the. needs of the overwhelming majority of
Canadians: It is indeed cause for comfort that such
forces as the church are joining the labor movement in
public and active agreement with the concept that
what is good for the people is good for the country and
corporations must be made to swallow this bitter pill.

Leadership, Co-ordination Needed _

. The church, together with the labor movement,

constitute the great majority of the Canadian people.
But in these conclusions they are joined by farmers,
many professionals and small businessmen and others
who recognize that it is impossible for our country to
be run in the interests of its people while under the
domination and control of huge multi-national
corporations.

It is essential for the entire labor movement to place
its full support behind the upcoming struggle of the
organized trade union movement against concessions
and any further erosion of the purchasing power of
workers. This will require co-ordination and leader-
ship from the CLC and the provincial federations
along with labor councils. ©

cal for labor

The request by the Vancouver Labor Council for
the B.C. Federation of Labor to call a one day special
conference of all affiliates to “‘examine the possibility
of a united labor strategy for union bargaining in
1983”’, is the kind of action needed.

83-84 Talks Must Be Turning Point

No one wishes to minimize the difficulties faced by
the CLC in trying to overcome the petty jealousies .

and sectionalism they will face in trying to developa

co-ordinated bargaining strategy for Canadian labor.

However, there can be no worse charge than that
they failed to even try. The time is long since past
when the trade union movement in Canada can go off

in different directions at the same time.

The role of the CLC will have to be upgraded in all
areas, not least of all in economic actions. This theme
was struck in the 1982 CLC convention and gripped
the entire membership, around the twin demands of
no concessions, no to wage controls.

On the concessions front, it is to the credit of the
entire movement that it has, generally speaking, re-
sisted the main brunt of the concessions demand. On
the wage control front a different result, and quite
harmful to the movement, has obtained.

Now is the time for the CLC, and its federations
and labor councils to pick up the battle in an or-
ganized, collective spirit. If the follow through on the
March economic conference in Ottawa is to show any _
meaningful results, surely first of all, they must have
laid the ground for a clarion call to ‘the trade union —
movement.

Let us make the negotiations coming up in 1983 and -
1984 the turning point for a new direction for Canada.

Due to a typographical error in last week’s
column, a statistic indicating the annual U.S.
suicide rate at 27,000 was described instead as
27 million. The Tribune regrets any incon-

~ venience the error may have caused.

—

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 3, 1983—Page 6 -

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