Lei | | Lt Me W. boi iy | By E. ROGERS THUNDER BAY — At the time of this writing there are strong indications that a settle- ment may be reached in the log- gers’ walkout at the Ontario- Minnesota Pulp and Paper Co.. Ltd.’s woods operations in the Fort Frances — Rainy River dis- trict of Northwestern Ontario. The walkout occurred when the company introduced piece- work contracting in direct viola- tion of the trade union agreement, an open provocation which forced the workers to take the ac- tion they did. The issue of piece-work and sub-contracting is an issue of long standing and has to be fought out at the collective bargaining level along with re- lated problems in this industry. . This. struggle with the Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper Co. Ltd. shows the mood of loggers and pulpwood cutters on the eve of contract: negotiations that are now opening up in the woodlands division of several companies. It has placed the members of the Lumber .and Sawmill Workers Union in the forefront of a sharp fightback against employers’ general anti- labor offensive, a fightback of great significance to the working class and its allies all over Ontario and beyond. If this particular company were to succeed it would open the door for other companies to do the same. That would undermine collective bar- gaining and the union, and would initiate a drive for super profits that would bring all woodlands operation under heightened monopoly exploitation. The situation emphasizes the imperative need for industry-wide bargaining (scuttled i in the 1950s by inept union leadership). Yet this is an imperative bargaining strategy in today’s conditions, un- iting all workers in solidarity Logging ceased for the Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper Co. in Northern Ontario when workers walked off the job over company attempts to introduce piece work and sub-contracting into the operations. — against a monopoly anti-labor of- fensive now threatening or- ganized labor and all working people. Companies now engaged in bargaining are: Great Lakes Pulp and Paper Co. in Thunder Bay The role of labor in the comin federal elections As CLC president Dennis McDermott emphasized in his Labor Day message September 4, 1978, the Canadian labor move- ment must become more involved in politics than it has ever been before. One of the first things will be to remind voters in the upcom- ing federal election — whether this year or next — what the Lib- erals and Tories stand for. The Liberals have given us wage controls despite promises given in the 1974 election not to do so. In other words, Trudeau double-crossed us after the elec- tion by introducing a Conserva- tive Party policy which proved unpopular with a majority of vot- ers. The Trudeau government’s policy has worsened. both infla- tion and unemployment. Wage. controls did not change the infla- tion picture one iota. As for un- employment, the best the gov- ernment can come up with is to blame the unemployed for their own problems and to impose a penalty by cutting unemployment benefits. The money thus saved to be given to job-creation — like the $67-million given to Ford to create 2,600 jobs, building a new plant in Windsor, etc. In the meantime more jobs are being lost than are being created. Witness Columbus-McKinnon in St. Catharines, Ont., a G.M. sub- sidiary, and Budd Automotive of Canada Ltd. plant in Kitchener, a Ford subsidiary. The Tories offer more of the same medicine, only Joe Clark is going to be even tougher by cut- ting 60,000 jobs in the public sec- tor, and Jim Gillies thinks Cana- . dians should remain hewers of wood and drawers of water. Obviously the Tories are no al- ternative to the Liberals at Otta- wa. “But”, as brother McDermott says in his Labor Day message, “things aren’t all bad. We can change the situation and the gov- ernment. That’s what we intend to do when Canadians take part in the federal election.’ McDermott promises that when the election comes, ‘‘labor leaders from across the country will be out on the hustings work- ing with and for the New Democ- ratic Party ...’’ If labor is to go all out to defeat the old capitalist par- ties and elect members of the NDP there is a hell-u-va lot of work to be done. Every member has to be in the campaign with both feet. The problem is that parliamen- tary elections, governments and government policies, are not iso- lated from day-to-day life and the everyday struggle of the average workingman or woman. The elec- toral process is only a small part of that struggle. The key problem is to develop a fuller understand- ing of the role of monopoly capital behind the policies of capitalist parties and capitalist govern- ments. : The ambivalent position of the NDP with respect to the mass Struggle against wage controls in 1976, indeed, the supporting legis- lation that was adopted by NDP governments in Manitoba, Sas- katchewan and British Columbia, did serious damage to the prestige of the NDP and hampered the ef- fort to unite the working class and democratic forces in the fightback. - In fact, Dennis McDermott’ criticized the-NDP at the time and asked if labor was to be expected to take the lumps and suffer bet- ween elections without doing anything about it. - The electoral strategy must go beyond a “‘balance of power" situation in which a minority gov- ernment leads to either Liberals or Tories calling the shots after the next election. Such a situation would only make the NDP a part- ner in a-coalition government, dominated by either one of the preferred parties of monopoly capital. Instead these old capitalist parties must be de- feated. And that is something that ‘the NDP or the trade union movement, either taken singly or * together, can not accomplish without allies. The achievement of labor’s goals means a resolute struggle, both in the parliamentary and non-parliamentary arena, to win greater influence and power for the working class and democratic forces at the expense of corporate economic and political influence and power. The goal, therefore, must be unity in action of the working class and all democratic anti- monopoly forces, creating an al- liance powerful enough to effect a fundamental re-structuring of our society which will open the door to a new parliamentary majority. That is why the Communist Party appeals for support in the coming election to elect a prog- ressive majority including com- munists to parliament in order to win new policies and ensure real change. That is the kind of united electoral front needed to win political power for the working class and democratic forces in Canada. It is a direction that will put Canada on the road to a new era of peace, democracy, jobs for all and a new prosperity, and, in- cluding a new constitution that will unite our two founding na- tions on the basis of equality in a new Confederal pact. ‘The consumer society w= PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 22, 1978—Page 4 where 1,300 members have al- ready requested conciliation; Abitibi Paper Co., where bargain- ing got off to a very rough start, breaking off after only two days of talks; the notorious Reed Paper Co. of Dryden; Ontario Paper in Manitouwadge; Domtar Pulp and Paper Co. at Red Rock; Spruce Falls Power and Paper Co. at Kapuskasing; Ontario-Minnesota Pulp and Paper, Fort Francis and - Kenora; Kimberley-Clarke of * Canada Ltd., in Terrace Bay; and American Can of Canada Ltd., at Marathon, Ontario. The growth of monopoly and its attack on the trade union movement, the general crisis of the capitalist system, and the shifting of the cost of the economic crisis of the system onto the backs of the working people, compels solidarity. The growth of a unity of pur- pose to advance the working class interests and aspirations is a new qualitative change that must be encouraged and strengthened. It will help to overcome narrow sec- tional and selfish attitudes and prejudices in the working-class movement, and help to weld to- gether a common front of labor and its natural allies into a strong force directed against monopoly domination. : Today every trade union strug- gle, every fightback action under- taken by working people and their allies, must be imbued with this concept, if the monopoly drive to lower living standards and: ex- tended poverty is to be beaten. This is now indispensable in face of the intrigues, scheming and’ harassment used against the working class, as witnessed in the unprecedented punitive action undertaken by the Ontario-Min- nesota Pulp and Paper Co. against workers at Fort Frances, Ontario. (One must view it as a pity that the trade union movement did not react more strongly to the unpre- cedented: move of scizurc of — workers private bank accounts — . as one example of completely un- acceptable procedures in a sup- posedly free and so-called dem- ocratic country.) Public service C-28 campaign -OTTAWA — The Public Ser- vice Alliance of Canada’s (PSAC), intensive pressure cam- paign on federal MPs to defeat Bill C-28 is beginning to pay off. The 180,000-member union re- cently showed its members the first results of a poll of every fed- eral MP on where they stand on the proposed amendments to the Public Service Staff Relations Act (PSSRA), Bill C-28. Among the effects of the bill if enacted, the union says, would be to make the average level of negotiated wage increases and other benefits in the private sector the maximum compensation for public service employees and _ limit " the maximum salary which a member of a bargaining unit‘can earn. — PSAC president Andy Stewart has already said the union. will. campaign during the next federal election for the defeat of every MP supporting Bill C-28, to en- sure it never becomes law. The union released the primary results of its poll to PSAC mem- bers in a statement Sept. 6 which announced results would be pub- lished monthly in the union’s newspaper Argus Journal. Stewart launched the poll in a July 17 letter to MPs asking them to indicate their position on Bill- C-28. Each federal member was asked to reply yes or no to the question: ‘‘Do you support the paying off withdrawal and/or defeat of Bill C-28?”’ The effectiveness of the PSAC campaign to defeat this anti-labor legislation was demonstrated, as early results of the poll showed 38 of the 83 MPs who have replied to date, indicating they support the bill’s defeat, with 25 supporting the bill and 20 undecided. Current federal government studies, now in progress, such as the creation of a Postal Crown Corporation, and the Inquiry Commission to study wider- based bargaining, are put forward by the union as more proof for why the bill should be dumped. ‘It is extremely premature’’, and presumptuous of the Cabinet’’, Stewart said Sept. 6, ‘“‘to even consider amending the PSSRA until such time as the findings and recommendations of those bodies are made known.”’ The PSAC is calling for the total defeat and scrapping of Bill C-28, and opposes proposals from some MPs who would like to see the Bill amended or debated in committee. ‘“‘The employee- employer relationship cannot be legislated,’’ Stewart said. ‘‘For this reason we call upon govern-. ment, along with all political par- ties to set aside amendments to the statute at this time and to delay new legislation until after the next federal election.”