_ Job security, wages issues —
for country’s rail workers

By GORDON FLOWERS

TORONTO — Within the next
few weeks the country’s 100,000
Tailway workers will decide by
Secret ballot to either ratify the
recommendations of their
Negotiating committee or take the
Toad to a Canada-wide strike.
Many railway workers’ locals

gan receiving their ballots last
week (March 26-April 1).

- The Associated Railway Union

(ARU), representing 17 railway
unions in negotiations with Cana-
dian National, Canadian Pacific
and 11 smaller railway companies
will propose a one year agreement
for a 6% wage increase that
Should conform to the so-called
“Anti-Inflation Board’? (AIB),
guidelines.

Priority of the railway unions
has been given to the issue of job
Security. Since 1975 more than
6,000 jobs have been lost through
layoffs because of the general
€conomic crisis and particular
Conditions in the railway indus-

The proposed agreement will
Make it possible for the union to
gtieve any contracting out of
union jobs by the railway com-
panies. This will be a positive step
away from the railway com-
panies’ past practice of turning
Over work to outside companies.
In many instances these com:
panies are non-union, employing
workers at the minimum wage.

New Policy Needed

The largest portion of the de-
cline in employment is caused by
the abandonment of services, the
rationalization of services, (such
as the change-over to the new Via
Rail scheduled to take effect in
April), and the ‘‘user-pay”’
Philosophy of federal Transport
Minister Otto Lang. These and
other problems will not be solved

ee

through the collective bargaining
process alone, but will require a
new transportation policy with
the integration of CP into one
publicly-owned transportation
utility at the heart of such a new
policy.

The major issue in the rati-
fication vote will be the proposed
6% wage increase, while the an-
nual inflation rate was 9% in Feb-
ruary and shows no sign of drop-
ping dramatically in the foresee-
able future. Combined with the
drop in value of the Canadian dol-
lar, the meagre wage increase will
make the proposed contract a bit-

ter pill to swallow. The impact of -

the devalued dollar hits hard at
railway and all other Canadian
workers since a large portion of
the goods and commodities they
consume must be imported into
Canada.

The railway companies had at-
tempted to negotiate a two-year
agreement offering a 6% wage in-
crease for the first, and a 5% in-
crease for the second year. In ad-
dition they proposed a dental plan
which would be funded on a 50-50
basis, between the unions and the
companies, and offered a restora-
tion of the Cost-of-Living Ad-
justment (COLA) clause at the
end of 1979. This offer was
unanimously rejected «by the
ARU in the expectation of being
free of the AIB guidelines in 1979.
The only union in the ARU to
recommend rejection of both
proposals to its members is the
International Association of
Machinists (IAM).

Hiding Top Salaries
It is interesting that while the
railway companies were working
so hard to keep railway wages
down to $11,000 a year, they were
equally busy trying to prevent the

GORDON FLOWERS

disclosure of their top directors’
salaries.

Recently in the U.S., the Sec-
urities and Exchange Commis-
sion demanded the salaries of the
CPR and the CNR be made pub-
lic. Canadian Pacific, while not
publishing individual salaries did
provide the information that its
three highest paid officers re-
ceived a total of $660,500 in 1976.

Rank and file militants in the
rail unions tell the Tribune that
like the vote on the last pact, they
expect the ratification vote to be a
close one. In the previous negoti-
ations railway workers voted
51.4% to reject the companies’ of-
fer. But under the ARU voting
procedure, all those not casting a
vote must be calculated in favor
of the agreement, which last time
overturned the vote from strike to
acceptance of the offer.

Gordon Flowers, federal
Communist Party candidate in
the Etobicoke North constituen-
cy, is an active member of the
Canadian Brotherhood of
Railway Transport and General

Workers (CBRT-GW).

itchener auto workers arrested

More arrests at Fleck

CENTRALIA — Three Kitch-
€ner auto workers didn’t expect,
that before they returned home
after offering their assistance
March 22, to strikers on the picket
line at Fleck Manufacturing Co.,
here near London, that they
Would be arrested by the Ontario

Vincial Police.

€y soon discovered how-
€ver, that when a boss is deter-
Mined ‘enough to deny his
employees the right to be rep-
Tesented by a union, and is in-
fluential enough to be able to draw
On the police force for the entire
Province of Ontario to back him
Up in this violation of human
Nights, that being arrested by the

is often the price paid for
demonstrating working class sol-
larity,

As they boarded their
Kitchener-bound bus after two

Ours of relatively peaceful pic-
Ketting with their fellow United

Uto Worker (UAW) members
Striking the Fleck Co., three
members of UAW Local 1451
(Buda Automotive) were arrested

Y the OPP. Two were charged
With mischief, and the other with
tructing police. Later that day
‘Wo of the Fleck strikers, mem-

TS of newly formed Local 1620

‘WY, Were charged with willful

: damage and mischief.

With another 30 or more police
held in reserve, some 70 OPP
were on the picket line to watch
over a group of about 80 strikers.
Doug Glynn, UAW public rela-
tions director called the arrests
‘irresponsible’? and said the
charges could have been dealt
with by summons rather than try-
ing to provoke the picketers. Not-
ing normal picket line encounters
with some people occasionally
trying to stop cars taking scabs
into the plant, he said, ‘‘things
quickly settled down and the situ-
ation became very jovial and
pleasant with picketters singing

‘union songs and talking to each

other.”

Glynn commented on the “‘ex-
traordinary’’ use of the OPP in
what should be a routine strike by
a small group of workers trying to
get the company to recognize
their union and sign a first con-
tract.

The role of the OPP in the situa-
tion has been anything but ordi-
nary. The Ontario Federation of
Labor, March 8, charged them
with assuming ‘‘the role of com-
pany police’. Following a mas-
sive display of labor solidarity
March 14, when 400 Ford Talbot-
ville auto workers joined the
Fleck strikers’ picket line, the

ne

OPP raided the London Free
Press seizing photos, negatives
and reporters’ notes of a picket
line encounter between picketters
and scabs trying to cross the.line.
On March 20, the Global Televi-
sion Network refused to hand
over to the OPP any of the film
that wasn’t used in the news
broadcast of the March 14 event,
and the OPP declined Global’s in-
vitation to look for the materials
themselves.

Besides the company’s refusal
to recognize UAW Local 1620,
the other key issues in the strike
are safety, and filthy working
conditions inside the former air-
craft hanger converted to a fac-
tory in the early 70’s. Provincial
authorities recently inspected the
plant and ordered the company to
shut down five machines because
they were dangerous. Most of the
130 workers: are women.

James Fleck, deputy minister
of Industry and Tourism in On-

_tario, after whom the company

was named, has denied direct in-
volvement with the vermin-
infested plant, though he has ad-

Mitted that his wife and children

own 50% of the business. He’ is
also known to be a life-long, and
close personal friend of the com-
pany’s head, F.G. Berlet. |

CLASS STRUGGLE

IN IRON ORE

SEPT ISLES, Que. — Close to
10,000 iron ore workers in north-
ern Quebec and Labrador are
either on strike or locked out in a
major confrontation with three of
the region’s four iron producers
for new contracts replacing those
which expired Feb. 28.

Health and safety, wages, and
an end to company practices of
contracting out maintenance
work to private outside firms are
among the issues in the struggle.
The United Steelworkers are
locked in struggle with the Iron
Ore Co. of Canada, Quebec-
Cartier Mining Co., and Sidbec-
Normines Ltd.

STRIKE MANDATE
URGED BY CUPE

TORONTO — Some 10,000
metro civic workers will be asked
by their negotiating committees,
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees Locals 43 and 79, to give
the joint committee a strike man-
date April 9 to strengthen their
bargaining hand in negotiations
with the city and Metro. Manage-
ment has refused to agree to a
union proposal for improvements
in the dental plan, the vacation
schedule, weekend work pre-
miums and an up-dating of the cost
of living escalator clause. The cur-
rent agreement died Dec. 31, and
the unions will be in a legal strike
position by mid April.

AFL HITS
TORY WAGE CUTS

EDMONTON — Harry Kos-
tiuk, president of the Alberta
Federation of Labor, March 21, in
a letter to Alberta premier
Lougheed blasted the govern-
ment’s pledge to keep wage in-
creases for public employees at
6% as enforcing a 3% wage cut
because of the 9% annual cost of
living increase in the province.

Alberta fiscal and industrial pol-
icy was hit by the AFL which
noted recent layoffs and shut
downs at Firestone (Calgary),
Canadian sugar factories (Picture
Butte), Dressed Meats (Medicine
Hat), and Phillips Cable (Ed-
monton).

JOBLESS

DEMAND ACTION

BAY D’ESPOIR, Nfid. — A
meeting of about 700 residents in
this Maritimes community consi-
dered shutting a nearby New-
foundland hydro generating sta-
tion March 28, as a protest action if
the provincial government doesn’t
act on their demands for job
creation.

With 70% of the community’s
1,000 member labor force jobless,
the residents formed a committee
to present the government with job
proposals including fish farming
and boat building.

OFL WARNS

TORIES ON BILL
TORONTO — Suspecting a
big-business inspired gang up by
Ontario cabinet ministers to pres-
sure labor minister Bette
Stephenson to water down even
further the sterilized Occupa-
tional Health and Safety Bill, Bill
70, Ontario Federation of Labor
president Cliff Pilkey warmed
Stephenson March 29 not to
knuckle under to the pressure.

WORKERS STRIKE
HAWKER-SIDDELEY

TRENTON, N.S. — Protesting
the lack of a contract since Dec. 1,
1976, and a company speed up
drive, the members of Local 1231
United Steelworkers went on strike
against Hawker-Siddeley Canada
Ltd., March 28.

The plant was the sight in Feb-
ruary of mass suspensions when
the workers hit the bricks to sup-
port two welders who were sus-
pended for three days because they
wouldn’t keep up to the killing
pace of work the company was try-
ing to enforce.

B.C. LOBBY FOR
JOBS MARCH 30

VICTORIA — Some 40 buses
will bring protesters to the lawn of
the B.C. legislature, here March
30, to press the Socred govern-
ment to take action on the intoler-
able unemployment crisis in the
province. Organized by the B.C.
Federation of Labor, the de-
monstration, billed as a ‘‘Citi-
zens’ Lobby for Jobs”’ will meet
with MLAs in the afternoon

STRIKING FOR

THEIR LIVES

BAIE VERTE, Nfid. — Martin
Saunders, president of Local 7713
United Steelworkers was charged
March 27 with obstruction as he
tried to stop an asbestos
dust-covered dump truck from
leaving strike bound Advocate
Mines Ltd.

‘‘We’re frightened that if chil-
dren swallow the asbestos dust they
will contract lung cancer’’, he said.
Showers, lockers, a change of
clothes and car washes to help the
workers keep the killing asbestos
dust at work rather than bringing
it home with them are the issues in
the strike. The subsidiary of the
multi-national Johns-Mansville
Co., refuses to negotiate.

THE SAFETY RECORD OF THIS PLANT IS EXCELLENT...
a lee cote to
- KOs §
a, YS C7

CONSIDERING HoW DANGEROUS [T He
—_—_—__.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 7, 1978—Page 5