Canada

By MARC YOUNG

TORONTO—A kinder, gentler
North America, to be realized more by
a revitalized trade union movement
than a thousand points of light, seems
to be the aim of the United ~
Steelworkers of America. They met in
their 25th constitutional convention
here August 27-31.

Delegates from the United States,
Quebec and the rest of Canada
received reports from their
international leadership emphasizing
the importance of re-winning gains lost
during the early years of the decade,
advancing a clean environment policy
that doesn’t make North Americans
choose between jobs and clean-up, and
initiating a political agenda to counter
the anti-worker program of Bush and
Brian Mulroney. For American
members, winning a universal health
plan modelled on the Canadian system
is at the top of the agenda.

And significantly, to complement
the environmental emphasis inside the
Metro Toronto convention centre, there
was the continuing strike by workers at
Uniroyal Chemical in Elmira, Ont.,
who are demanding that employees not
suffer wage loss when companies are
ordered to clean up operations.

USWA district 6 (Ontario) director
Leo Gerard, slamming the government
of David Peterson, and praising the ©
workers’ efforts, told reporters that
employees ought to have
“whistle-blowing” rights — that is, the
power to refuse work that threatens to
damage the environment. He noted that
this could be a component of legislated
environmental policy, and/or health
and safety legislation, agreeing that in
Ontario it might be an appropriate part
of an improved Bill 208.

“We want to make every worker an
environmentalist,” he said.

While several veterans of
Steelworker conventions told the
Tribune that this gathering was among
the best for policy content, and -
president Lynn Williams impressed
with a powerful introductory address,
the gathering left several questions
unanswered.

This was particularly true regarding
issues that confront the U.S. side.
While documents emphasized the need
for full employment, workplace
democratization, equality for women
and Blacks, an end to poverty, the
political vehicles to help realize such
gains appear to be lacking. For U.S.
steelworkers, political action remains,
essentially, the promotion of
Democratic Party candidates and the
attempt to outlobby powerful business
interests.

Even for one of the more
progressive U.S. unions, the matter of
creating a political vehicle independent
of big business remains, if not out of
thought, at least out of writings offered
for membership consideration.

Another area where contradiction
between the U.S. section’s fighting
words and practice might occur is in
collective bargaining strategy. The
officers’ report was glowing in its
discussion of profit sharing plans.
Settlements at Bethlehem Steel and
Inland Steel were touted, as they
include settlements that essentially

: Steelworkers *“meet
emphasizes new role
In environment action

LEO GERARD ... ‘We want to make
every worker an envrionmentalist.’

restore the pre-1986 situation, and
promise some increases by 1992. But
future incomes will also ride in large
part on the ability to partake in high
profit levels. This bargaining strategy is
in contrast to one of consistently
aiming for percentage increases. The
Canadian Autoworkers, for example,
are supporters of the latter approach.

The Canadian steel industry is proof
that profits, while huge in periods of
expansion, are fickle. Steel in this
country recovered in the latter 1980s
and margins climbed sharply. But now
a combination of a slowing automobile
industry and federal government policy
that strangles exports is producing
losses once again.

(On this score, interestingly, Gerard
noted that he agrees with Stelco
management when they say times are
tough, and places blame not so much
on the company but on high interest
rates and the strong dollar.)

_ South of the border, employee
concessions and protection for the
domestic industry implemented in
1984 by the Reagan administration and
extended last year by George Bush (in
the form of import quotas for 29
countries, not including Canada)
helped profits boom. But there’s no
reason to think that a downward spiral
in the U.S. economy won’t return soon
to plague steel.

Between 1984 and 1989, thanks to
protection, the U.S. market share of
imported steel declined from 30 to 17
per cent, according to a study by the
American Iron and Steel Institute.

Import quotas will end around the
beginning of 1992, and chances are
good the U.S. industry will then feel
the heat from its many competitors
eager to get into the American market.
And the U.S. government will hear
from domestic steel buyers eager to
purchase at the best global prices.

6 + Pacific Tribune, September 10, 1990

CP debate preview
of Oct. convention

Leading Communist Party members
from across Canada got a preview of their
upcoming convention in October, when they
met in Toronto Aug. 25-26.

The 65-member central committee was
in receipt of a 12-tabloid page report com-
pleted earlier in the month outlining the
findings of the party’s review commission.
The three-person body, commissioned by
the committee last January, spent two
months on the road gathering the opinions
of party members and other left activists on
how to transform the Communist Party for
the 1990s.

In his opening address, party leader
George Hewison noted the commission re-
ported a growing consensus developing in
the pre-convention debate around the need
to renew the party.

“There is a growing area of agreement on
the road ahead. This is quite remarkable
given the objective need for such a sharp
break in our thinking.”

In the hour-long*report Hewison deli-
vered on behalf of the executive, he flagged
the issues needing more study before the
convention. “We need to concentrate on
those areas which can, if not addressed,
cause great harm to the party.”

Acknowledging that the views did not
reflect the unanimous opinion of the CEC,
the party leader highlighted four areas: the
ramifications of the upheavals in Eastern
Europe and their impact on the CP; how left
unity is relevant; how the party practically
and theoretically sees the role of the working
Class; and the type of structure required to
guarantee inner-party democracy.

He warned the committee not to “trivial-
ize” circumstances which led the CP to sup-
port the invasion of Czechoslovakia. “It is
simply not credible for any of us to slough
Over or minimize these events given our
long-standing belief in and support for prac-
tices which are now revealed as wrong, or in
some cases, criminal,” he said.

“In 1968-69, most of us believed that the
issue simply was one of revisionism. It was
a simple choice between imperialism and
socialism, split irrevocably into two oppos-
ing camps. That made decisions easy. As we
can see, the choice was too easy.”

Quoting from the commission report,
Hewison said a consensus had been reached
around the problems facing the party:

“According to the vast majority of our
membership, our main problems relate to
the present structures in the party, our style
of work with others on the left and in mass
movements, our links with the Soviet Union
and other socialist countries, and our low
ideological level.”

He offered that the key issue around
which the others can be solved is the party’s
relationship to the Left and social move-
ments.

“Ts our structure geared to rooting our
party amongst our closest allies and the mass
movements, especially the working class; or
is it incidental, irrelevant, accidental or even
counter-productive to this central task?” he
asked rhetorically.

He argued that the party’s reliance on the
Soviet Union for theory distorted its own
theoretical development and isolated the CP
from the rest of the left and people’s move-
ments.

Another major area of disagreement, he
said, involves the party’s approach to the
working class and the trade unions.

“Kither the party places emphasis on the
organized working class or, it doesn’t,”
Hewison stressed. “Either we see the poten-
tial of uniting and moving the trade unions
of Canada to the centre of the people’s strug-
gles or we don’t. There are convincing argu-
ments why this should be axiomatic for the

_ party of socialism.”

‘The main danger
for the party is
from not
recognizing the
Crisis that it faces,
from refusing to
face up to the need
for far-reaching
change.’

The party leader warned members the
party could not stand pat in the new cir-
cumstances. “The main danger for the party
lies in not recognizing the crisis it faces,
refusing to face up to the need for far-reach-
ing change, meeting the big challenges we
face, and substituting dogma and habit for
creative Marxism; a paralysis which stems
from trying to go backwards, or stand pat
and trying to renew at the same time.”

The debate ensuing around the opening
remarks was heated, at times acrimonious.
Strong disagreement was expressed over
whether there were “two opposing paths”
battling in the party. Some members argued
rather that while there is strong agreement
for renewal, there remain many differences
over the content and pace of needed chan-
ges.

Some also took issue with arguments that
there was “window of opportunity” for the
CP in opening dialogue with the rest of the
left, Instead, they said, this was a long-term
process and the party should be prepared for
“a lean-and-mean period ahead.”

After some procedural wrangling over
how to dispense with the CEC’s report, the
document was endorsed by a narrow margin
of 23-20.

There was more consensus over struc-
tural changes designed to “democratize,
and, turn the party outward to the working
class and peoples’ movements.”

The principle is to guarantee that the
membership remains the highest authority in
the organization. It is proposed that clubs be
given the right to initiate and develop policy
and approve budgets. Referendums will be
taken on major issues between conventions.
Elections to conventions will come directly
from the clubs.

A proposal to reduce the central commit-
tee by half received approval along with the
direct election of officers by convention
delegates. Under current practice, the
central committee has elected the party
leader, and executive. Other proposals in-
clude “Canadianizing” the names given to
party posts, including dropping the term
“general secretary.”

The CP will also be examining a new
relationship with the Communist Party of
Quebec after the latter brings in its proposals
after its convention scheduled for next May.

The party also received a sobering inter-
im financial statement leading the meeting
to instruct the executive to cut costs in all its
operations pending a budget being finalized
at the convention.

The CP convention opens in Toronto,
Oct. 5.