Striking CCM workers take
their case to community

TORONTO — Striking CCM
workers, last week, took their
message directly to their
neighbours in Metro Toronto’s
Borough of York, where the
strike-bound bicycle plant is
located.

The occasion was the
borough’s July 1 Canada Day
celebration where several CCM
strikers, members of United Auto
Workers (UAW) Local 28, distri-
buted some 700 leaflets to resi-
dents attending the festivities.

Accusing CCM management of
being a ‘‘bad’’ neighbor, the lea-
flet outlined the company’s de-
mands, which “‘easily make a
30% cut’’ in workers’ wages.

“But bad as it is for us’’, the
leaflet continued, ‘‘we believe it’s
also bad for you (borough resi-
dents) and the Borough of York
itself.

““Many of our strikers at CCM
are also residents of York
borough ... our members pay
taxes in the borough of York, and

borough. But if our wages drop by
30% how will we pay taxes or do
much shopping? If we can’t,
that’s no good for the borough,
the business community, or jobs
of workers in that business com-
munity.

“In effect, when CCM de-
mands concessions from its
workers, it’s also demanding
concessions from the entire
community. Which is why we
think CCM isn’t being very
neighborly — to us, or to you.”’

Response to the leaflet was
very positive. A number of resi-
dents agreed to do as the leaflet
urged — phone CCM manage-
ment (241-9121) and tell it to get
back to serious negotiations with
its workers.

In other developments, the
UAW’s ‘‘No concessions’’ emer-
gency fund, set up by the Cana-
dian UAW Council at its most re-
cent meeting, last month, is al-
ready beginning to attract support
from UAW locals.

Local 636 in Woodstock not
only endorsed the council’s
recommendation for a 50 cents
per member per month levy from
all UAW members in Canada to
fuel the emergency fund, but they
also added another levy of $1 per
member per month to help out the
members of the local’s Gardner-
Denver unit which is also cur-
rently on strike in Woodstock
against concessions demanded by
the employer.

The Canadian council pledged
to launch the No Concessions
fund with a $10,000 donation. The
union estimates that with all-out
support by the entire Canadian
UAW membership the fund could
generate up to $50,000 a week to
help local unions fighting against
concessions. One of the latest
contributions to the fund has been
from the union’s Independent
Parts and Suppliers Council
which has kicked in $2,000.

The 200 striking CCM workers,
members of Local 28, have been
out since May 18.

they shop at stores in the

Inco must be nationalized

Put Sudbury back to work

Special to the Tribune

SUDBURY — Last week, 10,000 Inco workers
joined the 13,000 already unemployed workers in
the region to bring the total unemployment rate in
this mining community to 30%.

The long lines outside the Unemployment In-
surance Commission, (UIC) offices resulted from
the announced Inco layoffs and following an 80%
vote by the membership of striking Local 6500
United Steelworkers to reluctantly accept a new
contract with the company.

“It is a lousy contract’’, one worker told the
Tribune following the vote which saw less than half
the Local 6500 membership turn out to cast their
_ ballot. ““There was really nothing new in it’’, the
worker said. ‘Our demand for a rolled-in COLA
was rejected by the company. The 25 cents an hour
increase is dependent on Inco selling 494 million

pounds of nickel this year, and probably that won't
n.
_ “There was damned little improvement in the
pensions over the contract we rejected one month
ago”’, he said. :
_ “It stinks, but there is very little you can do
against the company by continuing the strike at this
_ time. Inco had already announced the layoffs and

the membership felt it impossible to continue the
strike in this round.”

The benefits from UIC that the Inco workers will
now receive makes UIC the largest employer in the
area.

Prior to the contract ratification, UIC paid out
$2.6-million in benefits each week to the jobless in
the Sudbury region. Now the figure will be close to
$5-million weekly.

Commenting on both the ratification and the en-
employment crisis gripping Sudbury, Rich Orlan-
dini, North Eastern Ontario organizer for the
Communist Party of Canada said: ‘‘Inco cannot be
allowed to continue to hold the communities in the
region as hostages.

‘The company has been incompetent and the

working people are being forced to pay the ransom .

for this corporate incompentence. Now more than
ever, the need is for nationalization of Inco, to put
the company under public ownership and dem-
ocratic control.

‘That must be the next level of struggle against
Inco’, Orlandini said, ‘‘and immediate actions
must be taken by all levels of government to put
Sudbury back to work.”

Study says gov'ts |
-Shirking health
responsibilities

By KERRY McCUAIG

OTTAWA — The federal and provincial governments are not
living up to their promise to provide a comprehensive, prepaid,
universal health system, charges a recently released report from
the National Council of Welfare.

The biggest threat to the medicare system, the government
advisory body report says, lies in extra-billing of patients by
doctors and hospitals. It also notes that the range of insured
health services is neither comprehensive nor uniform throughout
the country.

With Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon charg-
ing health care premiums and every province charging various
costs for hospital services, regional disparities in health care are
developing.

The opting out of the health care program by specialists is
Squeezing low income patients out of specialized care, parti-
cularly in urban areas. In some Ontario cities 80% of specialists
extra-billed, where in Toronto as many as 98% of anesthetists did
not participate in the provincial health care program.

To deal with the extra-billing problem the report endorses the
“Quebec option’’. Only 49 of Quebec’s 9,846 doctors operate
outside the medicare plan, largely because doctors who wish to
charge extra must leave the plan altogether and their patients
must pay the full amount themselves, without reimbursement.

Echoing last year’s Hall Report, the study also calls for the
phasing out of premiums and hospital user charges and expanding
the scope of the medicare program. It notes that originally the
intention was to expand the medicare program to include dental
care for children, pregnant women and welfare recipients; pre-
scription drugs; home care services; prosthetic devices and men-
tal health serivces.

Allocate Funds Properly
Where it says provinces such as Quebec, Manitoba and Sas-
Katchewan have expanded their health care considerably, -
budgetary constraints are leading others to cutback in some
programs. Quebec for example which according to the report has
the most highly developed medicare plans in Canada has reduced
services provided under its children’s dental program.

Claiming that there is sufficient government revenue to provide
such comprehensive medical coverage ‘‘if it were allocated pro-
perly’’ the report was in sharp contrast to a task force study being
sponsored by Canadian Medical Association which is looking
into a rationing system for medical services.

Under such a plan according to CMA president Leon Richard,
key business executives, politicians, the young, those returning
to the workforce and those with family responsibilities would be
among those who might get preference for operating time and
treatment. =

Prohibiting certain costly procedures for the elderly is another
option being pursued by the task force.

Although some politicians, including Ontario health minister
Larry Grossman, have called the proposals ‘‘totally uncalled
for’’, the CMA is continuing with its study expected to be ready
in the fall.

Pa

Common front formed to fight controls

e

OTTAWA — A common front of
unions representing workers in the pub-
lic service was formed July 7 to co-
ordinate a fightback against the Trudeau
government's public sector wage con-
trols.

The unions include the 175,000-mem-
ber Public Service Alliance of Canada,
(PSAC), the 23,000-member Canadian
Union of Postal Workers, (CUPW), the
22,000-member Letter Carriers Union of
Canada, (LCUC), and the International
Association of Machinists, (IAM).

More unions are expected to join the
common front, which will be mapping
out a campaign strategy with the top
leadership of the two-million member
Canadian Labor Congress at the next
CLC executive council meeting, July 15.

A joint statement issued by the com-
mon front, July 6 warned that ‘‘public

service workers cannot passively wit-
ness the destruction of their rights and
drastic reduction of their living stan-
dards. We will resist the imposition of
this punitive bill with every means at our
disposal — there shall be no com-
promise.”

CUPW president Jean Claude Parrot,
who also sits on the CLC executive
council as a vice-president, pledged July
5 that his union would defy the federal
wage controls. He said the union will
challenge the controls which limit wage
increases to a 6% maximum in the first
year and 5% in the second of the two-
year program, before the current collec-
tive agreement with Canada Post expires.

The legislation as it applies to CUPW
makes any strike before Jan. 1, 1985 il-
legal, and throughout the next two years,
all workers governed by the wage control

law do not have the right to collective
bargaining or to strike.

Noting that the CLC executive council
meeting will reveal the labor movement’s

overall strategy to fight the controls, Par--

rot criticized the big-business media for
trying to stampede the labor movement
leadership into calling an immediate gen-
eral strike.

While the CUPW leader expects to see
a general strike to happen, eventually he
said that the timing and actions leading to
such a protest are up to the labor move-
ment to decide, on its terms not those of
the government.

The Winnipeg CLC convention gave
the leadership a mandate to organize op-
position to controls up to and including a
general strike in consultation with the
affiliates.

The CUPW leader stressed that public
service unions will have to lead their own
fight against controls in the same way as
private sector organizations like the Uni-
ted Auto Workers are fighting con-
cessions. In the same way that public

~ sector workers are committed to backing

up private sector workers in their opposi-
tion to concessions, so will the private
sector unions support the public sector
workers in the battle to kill wage con-
trols, Parrot said.

The CUPW leader said that eventually
the two fights will have to be put together
in order to force the government off its
wage controls, tight money and high in-
terest rate programs, and that this is why
he expects to see workers exercising
their ultimate power — withdrawing

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 16, 1882—Page 4

their work.
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