By RAE MURPHY
HE second conference on
labor-management relations
organized by the Economic
Council Of Canada which was
held in Ottawa last week, at-
tracted about 200 big wheels
from industry, government, the
labor movement and academia.

The central problem with the
conference, however, was that
the wheels were turning in dif-
ferent directions. Thus this vehi-
cle of labor-management cooper-
ation not only didn’t get off the
ground, but the stresses and
strains constantly threatened to
spring the whole machine apart.
Yet liberal doses of platitudes,
cliches and protestations of mu-
tual interest papered things over
and no doubt the gilded walls of
the ballroom of the Chateau
Laurier will some day in the
future ring with voices of a third
conference.

The conference centred around
two specific issues: (1) manpow-
er adjustments to technological
and other change, and (2) ways
and means to improve commu-
nications within and between
labor and management. The
Economic Council had prepared
and released documents on both
these subjects (see Tribune
March 6) and these formed the
basis of the discussions.

The participants also had sev-
eral background papers on labor-
management relations and gov-
ernment policies in the area of
technical training and re-train-
ing and printed contributions
from the Minister of Labor and
the Minister of Manpower. A
25,000-word paper titled, Man-
power Adjustment to Technolo-
gical and Other Change and
Labor Relations in Canada, by
Jean-Real Cardin, an industrial
relations expert from Laval Uni-
versity, was also presented.

So there was no shortage of
reading material, in fact the
president of Domtar was moved
to mention during his remarks
that, while he didn’t have time
to read all the material, as a
president of. one of Canada’s
foremost producers of paper he
‘was glad to see so much of it
around.

* Ke ok

It was not the issues before
the conference that gave the
discussion a certain surrealist
quality, because these are the
gut questions of the economic
and social fibre of Canada. Rath-
er it was the approach to these
problems that defied reality. Any
concrete progress was confined

onference
on labor-
management

relations

to peripheral questions while the
lynch-pin of the impending crisis
—just how private is private-
enterprise going to be in the
wake of technological change—
remained firmly in the realm of
the cliche.

The question was put early
in the discussion by William
Dodge, vice-president of the
Canadian Labor Congress, when
he said that he didn’t subscribe
to the “old buddy theory of la-
bor-management relations.”
Dodge was referring to a posi-
tion of the Economic Council
which mentioned a “natural con-
flict of interests between labor
and management” but glossed
this over by stating: “At the
same time, however, the two
parties have common interests,
including the state of the econ-
omy as a whole and the contin-
uing welfare of the enterprise
from which they both earn their
living.”

Dodge described the conflict
of interests as fundamental to
our society, and nobody serious-
ly challenged him during the
conference, yet the “old buddy”
theory seemed to remain sacro-
sanct, even though nobody ex-
cept perhaps a few “labor-rela-
tions experts” really took it
seriously.

Dodge also challenged the
productivity index fetish of the
council. He said that complete
data was not available to ac-
curately determine productivity,
and that the relative bargaining
strength of the parties was the
key factor in wage increases.

Larry Sefton, director of Dis-
trict 6 of the United Steelwork-
ers, took off after the council’s
position of “voluntary approach-
es’ to dealing with the impact
of technological change.

The voluntary approach flows
from the basic premise of the
council that labor and manage-
ment are all buddies in their
common interests. Management
has never accepted its responsi-
bilities to. the workers and the
community, declared Sefton.

“There must be some type of
obligation and responsibility im-
posed on industry,” he said, and
the government must _ have
enough backbone to exercise
leadership in that direction.

“Very little progress on such
an important problem has been
made on a voluntary basis in any
country and I have seen nothing
to indicate that we are about
to embark on a new era in socio-
economic relations.”

Sefton proposed an industrial

ALL THINGS CHANG
ND EVERYTHING
REMAINS THE SAME

training tax to be levied on all
employers. Employers who car-
ry out retraining programs would
be given full rebates of the cost
of training.

The only way a manpower
program will be successful is
when the ‘government realizes its
responsibility for specific legis-
lation and makes industry accept
its share of the responsibility
for the adjustments as a result
of technological change, he said.

* apd *

The ghost of royal commis-
sions past, namely the Freedman
Commission, also haunted the
halls until it was shot down in
flames during an after dinner
speech by Manpower Minister
Jean Marchand. Marchand did
imply that the government was
thinking of legislation _which
would enable an arbitrator to
determine if the company had
made enough changes in plant
operations to make a collective
bargaining agreement _ invalid.
This legislation would presum-
ably enable a union to strike
over changes in conditions of
work. However, Marchand added
that he was “just thinking out
loud on the issue.”

One crucial element was com-
pletely missing from the discus-

sions—the problem of American
control of our industry. It is one
thing to develop communications
between the worker and man-
agement, even if the problem of
whether the worker will just be
informed by management of
what is going on or will actually
have a say is left aside for the
moment. But what happens when
the decision making processess
do not reside in Canadian of-
fices?

This question did not enter
the discussions although it is
certainly a key factor in the
Canadian economy.

* * *

The proponents of labor-man-
agement get-togethers generally
make the point that such meet-
ings inevitably serve to “clear
the air’ and provide a basis for
the mutual discussions of com-
mon problems: How. question-
able this supposition is was
illustrated during one of the
discussions when George Burt,
of the United Automobile Work-
ers, presented the union’s case
for wage parity. Later in the
same discussion A. G. Stapleton,
director of personnel for General
Motors in Oshawa, answered
him by saying that the industry

A load of waste rock is dumped from a 50-ton diesel truck into the primary crusher
Sulphur's Kidd Creek mine for a test run. Ore from the mine, near Timmins, Ontario,
the crushing plant as four-inch pieces ready for shipping to the company’s concentrator

miles away. The $60,000,000 project is nearing completion.

April 7, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUN

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