Intemational solidarity
theme of May Day 1978

TORONTO — Some 300 trade
unionists and supporters of the
labor and democratic movement
took part in May Day celebrations
here at the Labor Centre. Spon-
sored by the Labor Council of
Metro Toronto, the meeting’s
theme was “‘Solidarity with work-
ing people around the world’’.

* Chairman of the meeting was
council Political Education
Committee chairman Jim
Bentley. Enrique Tabak of the
Group for the Defence of Civil
Rights in Argentina (GDCRA),
Oswaldo Cortes, spokesman for
the Chilean Workers’ Central
Union in exile (CUT) in Canada
and Jean McGuire of Canadians
Concemed about Southern Africa
spoke on the struggles for trade
union freedom in Latin America
and Southern Africa, and the vital
importance of international labor
solidarity in helping the people in
countries repressed by right wing
and fascist governments to win
their freedom.

Ken Signoretti, vice-president
of the Labor Council opened the
meeting referring to the many
areas throughout the world where
trade union and human rights are
being denied.

The May Day program also in-
cluded cultural presentations by
the Victor Jara Ensemble (Chi-
lean singers and dancers), the
Black Theatre Canada Ensemble,
and Bread and Roses, a pro-
gressive song group.

Tabak noted the strength of the
labor movement in Argentina
with four million out of seven mil-
lion working people in the coun-
try organized into the labor
movement. Taking into account
the people who are related to
these workers through family and
other ties, he said, with a total:
population of 12 million in Argen-
tina, it is reasonable to estimate
about half of that population is in
some way related to the labor
movement.

“This is what the military
government in Argentina wants to
destroy,’’ Tabak said, referring to
the closeness of the labor move-
ment to the people. ‘‘So far it has
been unable to accomplish this,
and this is what we are all here on
May Day, to make sure it doesn’t
happen.”’

CUT spokesman Oswaldo
Cortes said fascism in Chile has
not, and will not be able to, sub-
due the working class or the popu-
lar movement and its political par-
ties. He noted the ever-growing
activity of the Chilean labor
movement particularly in the stiff

_ Tesistance the junta is facing in
trying to impose its reactionary
Labor Code.

More than one thousand objec-
tions to the Code have been
lodged with the Ministry of
Labor, Cortes said, and named
some of the peasant, trade union,
and other organizations which
have voiced their opposition to
date.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—May 12, 1978—Page 6

Cortes called on the Canadian
workers to exercise their ‘‘class
duty”’ to do everything possible to
help save the lives of the many
trade union leaders in Chile such
as Exequiel Ponce and Victor
Diaz to name two, who are among
the list of 2,500 people who are
missing without any indication of
where they are or their condition.

Cortes called on Canadian
labor to boycott and isolate the
fascist junta in Chile, demand the
repeal of Decree Law 198 which
forbids all labor organization, and
press the Pinochet regime to re-
lease information on the 2,500
missing patriots. ‘‘We call on all
the democratic forces in this
country to support our struggle’,
he said, “‘because once achieved
the Chilean peoples’ victory will
also be your victory.”’

Jean McGuire of Canadians
Concerned about Southern Africa
(CCSA), introduced repre-
sentatives of various. liberation
movements in southern Africa to
the meeting, including the African
National Congress in Canada and
SACTU (South African Congress
of Trade Unions), which she said
was ‘the “‘only non-racial trade
union central in South Africa.”’

Events in southern Africa re-

‘flect the need at this time to step

up efforts to aid the national liber-
ation forces in these countries to
free themselves from apartheid,
and neo-colonialism, she said.

She said in Canada this process
is best aided by labor and the
democratic forces increasing the
pressure on the Canadian
government to shore up its op-
position and isolation of the South
African Government. She urged
Canadians to sign and circulate
the CCSA petition calling for the
total political, and economic iso-
lation of South Africa.

On the recent. so-called settle-
ment of the conflict in Zimbabwe,
McGuire said, “‘it should be re-
jected. All it represents is an at-
tempt to impose white control
with Black faces.”’

She noted that the formula for
voting in the country under the
so-called settlement still meant
whites out-vote the majority
Black population by 10 votes to

one.

Chilean spokesman Oswaldo
Cortes (R.) noted the ever-growing
activity of Chilean labor in fighting
the reactionary Labor Code.

3

By SAMUEL WALSH

The “‘home run”’ Finance Min-
ister Chretien had to hit to launch
the electoral game has turned into
a “‘foul ball’’.

The Budget he presented,
which was adopted by parlia-
ment, is ‘‘a nothing Budget,” the
Central Executive Committee of
the Communist Party of Canada
declared. It said the Budget ‘‘does
nothing to put Canada back to
work. Indeed the day after the
Budget, Statistics Canada re-
ported a further rise in
unemployment. The Budget does
nothing to come to grips with reg-
ional disparities or the crisis of
Confederation. And it does no-
thing to overcome a branch plant
economy dominated by the USA
which aggravates the crisis.

“The two «to three per cent
sales tax reductions for a period of
six months is more - imaginary
than real,’”’ the Communist Party
notes “‘if one considers the fact
that inflation is rising at the rate of
8 to 9%.”’

With Claude Ryan’s election as
the Liberal leader in Quebec, and
his declaration that, while being a
convinced federalist, he does not
necessarily stand for the ‘‘con-
stitutional reform”’ anticipated by
the federal government, Mr.
Trudeau has been obliged to re-
think the usefulness of his plan of
constitutional faking on the eve
of the elections. ‘‘Foul ball’’
number 2.

And so at the time of writing;
the electoral game Trudeau. was
to begin on June 12 has been sus-
pended because of ... political
bad weather.

As is known, Parizeau rejected
the Chretien formula of lowering
the provincial sales tax rate by 3%
for six months, of which the fed-
eral government would pay two-
thirds of the cost. Playing poker
line an old fox at the economic
card table against a bragging
neophyte, Parizeau announced
the elimination of the sales tax
(8%) on clothes, textiles, shoes
and furniture for a year, and a few
days after the leadership conven-
tion of the provincial Liberal par-
ty, on hotel accommodation,
while demanding the entire
amount promised by Chretien as
compensation for the general
lowering of the sales tax.

This clever coup had the merit
of coming to the rescue of

Quebec’s ailing industries, while .

increasing the purchasing power
of the Quebec population a little
(after all, how much does a work-
ing family buy in clothes and
shoes and much does it pay in a
Quebec hotel in a year?).

Take note and remember: the
first Parizeau budget eliminated
the complete exemption from
sales tax on children’s clothes and
shoes in operation since then. It is
to be hoped that at the end of the
fiscal year, he will not impose the
sales tax on these items again.

-Furthermore, Parizeau has
(partially) indexed the basic pro-

Samuel Walsh is president of
the Parti Communiste du Quebec,
and a member of the Central
Executive Committee of the
Communist Party of Canada.
Quebec Scene appears in the
French language paper, Combat.

“For the bosses the score is 1-0
for Parizeau, but for the workers
it’s 0-0”, says Sam Walsh.

|

vincial tax exemption and, after a
year, will grant a credit of up to
$400 for municipal taxes.
Without going into other,
rather minor, concessions it can
be said right away that between
the federal Liberals on the eve of
an election and the Péquistes who

‘are drawing up a Budget so that

the principal benefits to the voters
will not be felt until the eve of the
referendum on ‘‘sovereignty-
association’, the score is 1-0 for
Parizeau.

But why does the Employers’
Council do nothing but praise this
Péquiste Budget which noone pre-
tends to call “social democrat’’?

Parizeau did ‘not ‘beat’ around’:

the bush to announce his policy of
“‘belt tightening’’ for the public
services. He is going to cut the
budget for hospitals some more.

e It does not matter that this
has already made an alarming
number of beds for patients dis-
appear and consequently the jobs
of the poorest payed employees in
the public service.

e It does not matter that, by
cutting university construction
some more, the number of jobs
for construction workers,
teachers and non-professional
workers are cut.

a

e It does not matter that the
percentage of young people who
will have access to higher educa- ~
tion will be reduced because of
the lack of physical space as well
as the lack of financial means to
pay for the ever increasing educa-
tion costs.

e It does not matter that the
Budget foresees that salary in-
creases for the employees in the —
public and para-public sectors
will not exceed the increases
granted in the private sector, li-
mited as they are at a level below
the rate of inflation.

e It does not matter that Mr-
Parizeau does not foresee a re-
duction in the rate of unem-
ployment and inflation.

e It does not matter that allthis _
is hidden behind social-dem-
ocratic language.

The entirety warms the heart of
the bankers, thé industrialist and
the employers. The PQ is proving
to be a ‘‘good government”’
which knows how to manage the
capitalist economy better than the
Bourassa team and even the
Trudeau team, better, that is, in
favor of the capitalists while scat-
tering seductive crumbs to the
starved mobs.

Yes, for the bosses the score is
1-0 for Parizeau, but for the work- —
ers it is 0-0.

If we want to change the ba-
lance in favor of the working
people, the unemployed, it will
not «be... by... depending ..on.. the:

Péquist government but:on unit- «> |
ing more strongly than ever ina ~

common front by supporting the
workers of the public and para-
public sector, by supporting the
persecuted strikers of Common-
wealth Plywood in Ste. Thérése,
for example, by uniting our ranks
in the May 1st demonstrations, by
building our own mass federated
party of the working people of

. Quebec, by electing a progressive -

majority including Communists in
the next federal elections which
will occupy itself with the crea-
tion of one million new jobs and to _
curb the monopolies.

ISRAELI DEMONSTRATORS DEMAND ‘PEACE NOW’

JERUSALEM — Thousands of placard-carrying Israeli de-
monstrators demanding ‘‘Peace Now’’, formed a 20-kilometre (12
mile) human chain along the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway, April 26, to
protest against the intransigent policies of the Begin government which
are blocking peace efforts in the Middle East.

The peace movement initiated by 300 reserve army officers and war
veterans has now been joined by a committee of 350 intellectuals and

professors. In addition about 300 membe

of the Orthodox religious

community, including many prominent rabbis, have signed a petition in

support of the movement.

CORVALAN HITS JUNTA ‘AMNESTY’ AS WHITEWASH
BRUSSELS—Anti-fascist Chileans demounced the latest manoeuv-
re of the Chilean fascist military junta in statements last week. Luis
Corvalan, general secretary of the Communist Party of Chile (CPC),
speaking at a press conference here, said the ‘ ‘amnesty”’ proclaimed by

_the junta “‘is very limited so far. We demand that all our comrades who

are now in emigration should be able immediately to return to Chile . . .
We demand release of the many thousands of political prisoners and
the 2,500 patriots who are said to be ‘missing.’ ”’

In Mexico City, the parties of the Popular Unity coalition con-
demned the ‘‘amnesty”’ as an ‘‘attempt to whitewash the dirty facade
of the fascist regime . . . There will be no real peace and freedom in our
country as long as the fascists, no matter how they try to disguise

themselves, remain in power.”