¢* Courtroom

hg AP9#la Davis talking to an East Ger

ii:

man correspondent outside

aS
i @ ylOSE—Angela Davis has
Pought Court here how she
Theat, pans and bullets and
Motectig ave 4 bodyguard for
n against threats on her
aly Ite racists,
is ad Inher own defence,
tatement Said in an opening
eth that the prosecution’s
ideq ..** She plotted and pro-
S for the shooting was
' MMaginative _ specula-
The”
Crsity *Year-old former uni-
@ te oP Y lecturer said
Bains jer eet =u” charges
Ato €f were the logical out-
= Campaign of harass-
Ronala California Governor
WBity oe (°88an and the Univer-
ismig - ifornia Regents, who
e her in 1969 because
a Communist.
18, charged with mur-
ing and conspiracy,
peat om perience with guns
ff “The ...~Y childhood.
Reighborhood in which
livs -U¢ where my parents
ama), Oday (in Birmingham,
lh Wee Called Dynamite
PMlenog . ©, Of constant acts of
"To 4 rich took place there.
ry in the ak Person who grew
) the time > Uth, particularly at
Was a child, guns

mij.

a
Saj Normal ; ”
* She liked cect, Of life.” She

d shooting as a sport

oft
= €ngaged in target
)

Igg :
Buns in envis Said she bought
pele Poms to defend her-
bhotsan es St “hundreds and
1 Thi 8’ Of racist threats.
tng, - became

Ss
articularl
Rents When the Univ é

University Re-
nt Co, fire me because I
| wpublic Munist. This made me
eae as ae against my own
‘stent » SUbjected me to har-

peau:
ec ad Of the threats, Miss
| 8ccomp. She never travelled
| we panied, Jonathan Jack-
Rotge y<8t-old brother. of
the Bon and a key figure
the People Shooting, was. one
/ 6 Durch Who protected her.
ted for eeeeed weapons not
otion bir Own personal pro-
wets wi for the protection of
i oo Whom I lived and
Miss Davis sai
& to avis said.

ator Ale the court that prose-
BY sa Harris had deliber-
| Not i,,..° Prove that she
na the ¢ terested in politics
Hs but Waditions of all prison-
allege as only motivated by

tate i: Be for Jackson.
et that Ing advantage of the
, sash a am a woman,” she
wePoseq ce, that women were
en? With i, to act in accor-
y € dictates of soci-

\ der .
“tions, their passions and

tha, US w
Mauvinis as an example of male
; ™,” Miss Davis said.

Angela exposes frame-up

Speaking in a calm voice, Miss
Davis told the nine women and
three men of the all-white jury
that she had started working for
the release of the Soledad bro-
thers long before she met
George Jackson. :

“The evidence will show I am
totally innocent of all the
charges against me,” she said:

She said the defence did not
dispute the fact that a shoot-
out took place at the Marin
Country courthouse in which
four people lost their lives.

“The issue is whether I had
anything to do with the occur-
rence of these deaths,” Miss
Davis. said.

She said the prosecution, to
make its case against her, would
have to prove three points —
that a plan existed which pre-
dated the events at Marin
County courthouse, that she had
foreknowledge of the plan and
that she took steps to deliber-
ately promote the execution of
the plan.

“But he will not be able to
prove. these three things.

“He will not be able to prove
them because they are not true
and the evidence will so show,”
Miss Davis said.

on the

ELECTION
FRONT

By setting the dates of two
by-elections for October Prime
Minister Trudeau has started
another guessing game as to the

_ date of the federal elections.

There was the widespread
view that an election was in the
offing for late June. Now the
by-elections and his remarks in
connection with them could be
interpreted to mean that an elec-
tion is more likely to be held in
October.

However, a careful reading of
his remarks leads one to the
conclusion that an election in
June is not to be excluded. He
made two qualifications about
when it might be called. The
first was when he stated he had
no intention “at this time” of
announcing an_ election for
June. The second was his re-
mark that he “hoped there will
be no need for an election in
June.”

The question of the necessity
of an election in June could
only arise if the government
thought it could win at that
time, or that some important
issue or issues were shaping up
which required a mandate from
the Canadian people.

President Nixon will be. visit-
ing Ottawa: in mid-April. It is

Quebec labor learns big lessons

By ALAIN PATRIE

There are about 600,000 organ-
ized workers in Quebec out of
a total of some two million
working men and women.

This union labor is the frui-
tion of many long years of ardu-
ous struggle against the com-
bined conspiracy, brutality and
deceit of business and govern-
ment. It is a testimony to all
those unsung martyrs who were
persecuted, some even mur-
dered.

That struggle was a fight to
improve economic conditions,
to obtain elementary rights, to
alleviate bestial working condi-
tions, ghastly exploitation or
simply to prevent an assault on
one’s health, as was partly the
case with the asbestos workers
of Quebec. (Asbestosis is a
dreaded lung disease, pneumo-
niosis, caused by inhaling par-
ticles of asbestos.)

Nascent union groups had
neither the strength nor the
vision to look beyond this first
stage of struggle. The priorities
were to establish and secure
labor organization and hammer
out contracts which would per-
mit workers to obtain, in the
words of some union leaders, “a
larger share of the pie”.

During the past three decades,
Quebec labor has undergone a
considerable evolution, greatly
accelerated during the past two
years. ~

After 1967 ‘the hope for
cyclical boom was over and the
slump came. Quebec had be-
come a casualty of capitalist
insanity expressed by rapidly
growing masses of poverty
stricken people, even as afflu-
ence flowered in smaller and
smaller areas. Unemployment
reached epidemic proportions.

In its determination not to
lose any. of its profit rates,
monopoly launched an offensive
against the working people.
Wages, conditions and_ social
gains became prime targets. .

Working hand in glove with

big business, the government
launched its own assault against
the working people of Quebec.
The provincial government is
the largest employer in Quebec:
directly or indirectly it engages
and pays some 250,000 people.

Invoking . financial hardship,
the premier outlined a budget
which not only precluded rises
in pay for all the public and
para public employees but in
fact was a reduction in view
of the increase in the cost of
living.

Using the shoddiest of ruses,
it came up with “reclassifica-
tion,” with longer working
hours, a demand for more pro-
ductivity, which is really a
mask for speed-up, arbitrary
splitting up of unions so as to
be able to negotiate from
strength (sectorial bargaining),
incredible contempt and proc-
rastination when bargaining for
a new contract; these and
many more artifices that reveal
the real face of the government
as an employer.

This came as a_ traumatic
shock to union leaders and
many rank and file. The hoped
for acconimodations were shat-
tered by bludgeons and anti-
labor legislation.

Thousands found themselves
swept into a maelstorm of un-
employment or welfare. Whole
towns watched as pivotal indus-
tries closed their doors with
shocking indifference. The Que-
bec government played a similar
tactic of collusion, closing
various plants and mills which
it owned.

The initial response by organ-
ized labor was unity.

The three central trade union
councils, the QFL, the CNTU
and the CEQ, formed the now
well known, “front commun”
(Common Front). 2

The working class fought
back with heroic encounters
which will be inscribed in the
annals of history.

Alongside these confronta-

tions arose a new phenomenon
for the masses of organized
labor: Politicization.

The call for a mass party of -

labor in Quebec: was voiced at
the recent QFL convention. It
was carried from there into
various branches, such as the
Alliance des Professeurs, who
characterized the government
as no more or less than a bour-
geois exploiter. The CNTU is-
sued an ideological tract calling
for Quebec labor to “rely on its
own resources.” And finally the
Common Frost organized mons-
ter rallies in Montreal and Que-
bec City which clearly express-
ed a need for a new political
party.

The militancy and vigor of
the struggle created a chain
reaction. Several weeks ago over
200,000 government employees
faced up to an _ intransigent
patron and voted overwhelming-
ly in favor of a strike if they

‘could not obtain their just

demands.

These were teachers, hospital
workers, civil servants, profes-
sionals, liquor commission em-
ployees, maintenance and hydro
electric workers.

The negotiating policy involv-
ed four critical items: a mini-
mum .of $100 per week for all
public employees; equal pay for
equal work; a minimum increase
of 8% per year for salaries to
follow the rise in the cost of
living and production; job se-
curity.

The government responded
with a 4.8% across the board
salary increase and refused to
consider minimum salaries. As
for the teachers, negotiations
have been a monstrous parody-
like dialogue between lord and
serf. Every demand for improv-
ed conditions is greeted with an
unrelieved blanket of denial.

For the first time in the his-
tory of French Canada, Quebec
labor answered by a one-day
general strike. The struggle con-
tinues.

History is being made.

Why Nixon is coming to Ottawa

By WILLIAM KASHTAN, leader Communist Party

ee ee

a “= a. =
well known that the “special

relationship” between Canada
and the USA has been replaced
by a “crisis relationship,” by
stepped-up pressure by U.S. im-
perialism to impose a one-sided
agreement on Canada.

Nixon’s new economic poli-
cies, the monetary crisis, the
trade negotiations, all these
spelled out the changing rela-
tionship of forces in the capital-
ist world and the “crisis rela-
tionship” with Canada, the im-
passe in trade negotiations, and
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury
Connally’s threat to use “suit-
able means” to compel agree-
ment by Canada to terms U.S.

imperialism’ wants to impose,
illustrate the more brutal forms
of pressure being exerted by the
U.S. government on our country.

It is rumored that President
Nixon’s visit is for purposes of
signing a non-pollution ’ agree-
ment between the two coun-
tries. This may be so. It may

also be that President Nixon’s .

visit will ‘be used to discuss
trade and other matters, and to
exert pressure on Canada. Per-
haps the end result may be
highly unfavorable to Canada’s
real interests and occasion an
election. :

After all, an election was
held in 1911 around the issue of
reciprocity—an issue which is
very much to the fore at the
present time when the whole in-
tent of the trade negotiations on
the ‘part of U.S. government is
to impose a one-sided agree-
ment on Canada to the benefit
of U.S. imperialism and_ the
multi-national corporations, at
the expense of industrial devel-
opment for Canada and employ-
ment for Canadian working
people.

Whether these or related is-
sues will be discussed when
President Nixon comes to Otta-
wa. is still, to. be seen. In any

case they remain, as President

Nixon himself admitted, “very
basic disagreements.” The “an-
tagonistic partnership” is show-
ing more antagonism: and fess
partnership these days. Under
the veneer of friendship in which
Nixon comes to Canada is the
hard face of U.S. imperialism.

Prime Minister Trudeau, for
political purposes, tries to create
the impression of a benevolent
U.S. imperialism, and a benevo-
lent. Nixon, out to reinforce
Canadian independence. He sug-
gests the Connally is the “bad
man” and Nixon the “good
man.” All this balderdash - is
directed to persuade those cor-
porate forces in Canada tied in
with U.S. imperialism by a
thousand strings that his govern-
ment can get on well with the
Nixon Administration. All this
window dressing can’t hide the
sharpening relationships be-
tween Canada and the USA,
which may be one of the reasons
for the qualifications by Prime
Minister Trudeau about an elec-
tion this June.

In any ‘case, whether the
elections are held in June or
October, there is no reason to
slow down preparations for
them. ~~ Seek

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 7,1972—PAGE 7