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Tribune Exclusive!

Moscow — An _ official
spokesman for the Soviet foreign
trade organization Raznoimport
has flatly rejected claims by Judy
Erola, Canada’s minister of state
for mines, that the USSR sells
nickel on the world markets at re-
duced prices. Raznoimport is the
Sole exporter of this commodity
from the USSR.

“Prices of nickel offered for
Sale correspond to prices on the
world market and fully depend on
demand and supply,” says a

_ Statement by Raznoimport, pre-

Pared at the request of Novosti
Press Agency.

Being a big nickel producer, the
Statement stresses, the Soviet
Union has been exporting it for 20
years now. Its bulk, however,

'B0€s to the socialist countries, on

the basis of long-term economic
Cooperation plans.

As for the volume of Soviet
nickel sold on the markets of
Capitalist countries, ‘‘It has been
Steady for years — being about
5% of world production. Nickel
from the Soviet Union is sold to
traditional consumers either di-
rectly or through big trade firms.”’

With reference to the drop of
nickel prices, the statement
points out that this fall has been
due to the economic recession
that hit most capitalist countries
in 1981-1982 and caused the

Soviet foreign trade organization,

‘as well as all the leading nickel
producers in the world, additional
marketing difficulties.

“In view of the extremely low
prices,’’ Raznoimport made prac-
tically no sales of nickel from June
to December 1982. ‘In anticipa-
tion of the fulfillment of optimistic
forecasts by Western experts on
the emergence of the Western
economy from crisis’’ and in ex-
pectation of higher nickel prices.

‘This position taken by Raz-
noimport has had no effect, how-
ever, on the consolidation of the
market,”’ the statement goes on,
‘‘and prices over this period have
plunged most severely. For
example, prices quoted at the
London Metals Exchange fell
from 2955 pounds sterling per

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Soviet nickel official’s facts
disprove Erola dumping charge

tonne in July to 2107 in November
1982, a fall of almost 29%.”’

Disclaiming the accusation that
the USSR sells nickel at reduced
prices and is thus indirectly re-
sponsible for unemployment at
Canadian nickel mines, the
statement continues:

“It is probably less well known
that Raznoimport is not only an
exporter, but also an importer ofa
number of commodities, includ-
ing lead and zinc ores and con-
centrates, copper and molyb-
denum concentrates, non-
ferrous metals, such as lead, zinc
and others. Purchases of, say,
molybdenum concentrate, of
which Canada is one of the main
producers, might have been ex-
pected to bolster the market. The
facts, however, show a different
picture: between March and De-

~ cember 1982, according to Metals

Week, molybdenum concentrate
prices went down by almost 50%
— from $5.17 (U.S.) a pound to
$2.67 (U.S.).”

In other words, although the
Soviet foreign trade organization
was buying steadily, this did not
stop prices from falling, pro-
duction from being curtailed and
unemployment from growing.
The conclusion the Raznoimport
spokesman has drawn from these
facts is that the ‘‘actual cause of
falling prices on the world market
should be sought in anything but
the actions of the Soviet foreign
trade organization.”

The fight for jobs

AIRLINE LOCKOUT
FOLLOWED BY LAYOFFS

GANDER — Trying to step up the pressure on
350 locked out maintenance, service and clerical
workers, management at Eastern Provincial
Airways, (EPA) Jan. 9, laid off 243 workers. At
the heart of the fight between Lodge 1763 Inter-
hational Association of Machinists (IAM), and
EPA is the demand for decent wages; and
EPA-proposed measures that would widen
existing wage disparity between groups of
workers, and attack already-negotiated be-
Nefits.

The lockout began Jan. 7 after the union had
voted a couple of days earlier by a 72% margin
to strike against the contract offer from EPA
which would widen the gap between mainte-
nance workers and clerical and office workers
who are mostly women. The men were offered
18% over two years while the clerks and office
workers were only offered 10% over the same
term.

IAM leaders say the office workers need to
get at least 20% in wages just to offset the rav-
ages of inflation on their living standards.

CANADA METALS
ON STRIKE

TORONTO — 144 members of the Energy and
Chemical Workers Union (ECW) struck
Canada Metals Ltd., Jan. 10 demanding a better
contract. ECW spokesman Ken Rogers said it’s
been three months since the strikers had a col-
lective agreement with the company, which has
frequently been under attack by residents in the

eastern Toronto neighborhood it occupies be-

cause of dangerous lead emissions coming from
the factory. In typical arrogant style, manage-
ment for the company say they don’t expect a
short strike.

UNION MILITANCY

ON THE a RISE: ia labor department

figures show a record-setting number of man-
days lost due to strike action in Saskatchewan
for 1982. 1982 recorded 416,000 man-days lost,
breaking the previous record of 330,000 in 1979,
the year of the strike by 14,000 provincial
government employees.

A lengthy construction industry strike,
brought on by the former New Democrat
government’s province-wide, single trade in-
dustry-wide bargaining legislation — Bill 88,
contributed to the higher strike figure than in
previous years.

Bill 88 made collective bargaining between
the employers and each of the five trades that
went on strike very difficult. The unions lost a

_ whole series of injunctions over the summer,

but managed to win at least a stalemate in terms
of wages.

Other contributors to the strike picture were
the 16-day hospital workers’ strike in March,
the cancer clinic workers’ strike in August and
the two-year-old strike at Moose Jaw Sash and
Door Co., which wound up in May, ending the
longest strike in Saskatchewan history.

Both the hospital workers and the cancer

’ clinic employees were ordered back to work by

the former NDP provincial government.

AMC MUM ON
PLANT CLOSURE

BRAMPTON — Terry Gorman, president of
the American Motors Corp. (AMC) Local 1285,
United Auto Workers and the rest of the AMC
workforce are frustrated and angry over the
corporation’s refusal to let the union know of its
plans in the wake of the shutdown of its opera-
tion here Jan. 7 which saw 177 AMC. workers
given the gate, while the remaining 1,250 will be
laid off indefinitely April 12.

Gorman, said Jan. 11 he had been unsuccess-
fully trying to get a meeting with AMC officials
to discuss the corporation’s plans for the future
of the plant and how long the workers will be laid
off. AMC as of Jan. 11 hadn’t bothered to say
anything to the workers.

, protests.

. Tiot squad with their siren blasts again and again endeavored to

Struggle brings results

This week we look at an important breakthrough for jobless
steelworkers in Pittsburgh, organizing the unemployed in Hamilton
and Toronto, and recollections from the militant unemployed strug-
gles of the 30s.

Three-and-a-half months of protests by unemployed groups in
Pittsburgh against foreclosures and evictions paid off Jan. 6 when
a local judge ordered an immediate halt to bank foreclosures on
homes where families couldn’t keep up with mortgages because
of economic hardship.

Dogging sheriff's monthly foreclosure sales, the unemployed
were able to have four homes pulled from the auction block
through mass protests and succeeded in forcing the sheriff to
remove another 42 homes from the block before the judge’s
decision. x ok ok

Hamilton’s Wage Restraints and Unemployed Co-ordinating
Committee (WRUCC), convinced the city council, Jan. 11 to pay
the rent for. six months on a downtown store front office to serve
the growing army of unemployed workers from the steel, elec-
trical and other industries.

WRUCC, a creature of the local labor council in co-operation
with non-affiliates such as the Teamsters, the secondary school
teachers’ federation, Hamilton-Brantford building trades
council, Local 707 United Auto Workers (Oakville), and the
Simcoe and Brantford Labor-Councils, according to chairperson
Tom Davidson, speaks for some 120,000 workers in the Hamil-
ton-Brantford region.

The committee deliberately focusses on both organizing the
unemployed and co-ordinating labor’s fightback against conces-
sions and controls, Davidson says, because the fight for res-
toration of free collective bargaining, and new economic policies
to put Canada back to work are part of the same battle requiring
maximum unity of labor and the unemployed to succeed.

Jan. 31 will see WRUCC hold its first public meeting at the
Teamsters Hall, 7:30 p.m., to spell out the committee’s objec-
tives and launch its cabieeten to isn gorge the unemployed.

Fresh from tackling Bell
Canada’s so-called ‘‘Credit
Screening Process”’ and a pro-
posal to slam the poor and
unemployed with a monthly
deposit of as much as $100 a
month for the ‘‘privilege’’ of
having a phone, Toronto’s
Union of Unemployed Work-
ers (UUW), has set its sights on
the expanding flock of ‘‘bloody
vultures’’ feeding on the job-
less as ‘‘fee for service’’ job
placement agencies.

UUW chairperson Dick
Nellis says the union,
with a core of about 30 ac-
tivists, so far, and some 1,800
contacts, was able, through a |[\ /\
demonstrations outside Bell
offices and through petitioning the CRTC, to mount an peftebeiee:
widely-supported campaign, to demand the CRTC refuse Bell's
request and begin a public inquiry into the proposal.

On Jan. 19, UUW plans to picket the downtown Toronto
offices of Job Mart, one of the biggest rip-off agencies. If it
fails to get these operations closed down entirely, (UUW
research finds these ‘“‘businesses’’ to be quite legal), the union
will press politicians at all levels to at least place them under
stringent control to minimize their ability to fleece the jobless.

With the-nunmber of the bigger outfits being researched by the
union, Nellis hints that ‘‘it now appears we’ll find the hook that
could prove quite embarassing to a large number of important
people’. x ok ok

On Feb. 25, 1931 thousands of unemployed Canadians poured
onto the streets, from Vancouver B.C. to Vaudreuille Que.,
demanding: unemployment insurance; a guaranteed, seven-hour
day, five-day work-week; a minimum weekly wage of $25; and,
relief for farmers from mortgage and bank foreclosures and debt.

It was a national day of protest against unemployment or-
ganized by the Communist Party and the Workers’ and Farmers’
unity leagues.

The Worker, a forerunner of the Tribune, reported that literally
thousands of unemployed workers poured into the streets of
many major towns and villages between Montreal and Van-
couver, often clashing with police who were out to stop the

12,000 flooded the intersection of Spadina Avenue and Dundas
Street in Toronto, stopping to hear speakers at every street corner
on the route to city hall and fighting mounted police, ‘‘their clubs
and knives”’ flying as they repeatedly attacked the crowds.

As the Workers saw it: ‘‘The masses were cheering the speak-
ers, jeering the police and in the struggle that took place bricks
began to fly, two policemen meeting the bricks as targets . . . The

stop meetings that were breaking out at every corner.”

_— Mike Phillips

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 21, 1583—Page 7

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