LABOR __

Everyone out on November 21

By MIKE PHILLIPS
TORONTO — Whitey Chmielewski,
Whose job it is to nail down travel
a@trangements for the thousands ex-
Pected to descend on parliament hill
Nov. 21, says that so far, some 12,000

_ Seats on chartered coaches alone have

been reserved by various union organ-
izations.
“Right. now I’m telling people that

they should be starting to look at organ-

izing car pools”, Chmielewski told the
Tribune Oct. 28. He points out that so far

_ these 12,000 seats account only for road

Coaches and represent practically every
Available commercial bus seat in On-
tario. ee

forms of transportation including rail and
air and expects that by next week he’ll
have a more complete picture of the situ-

_ ation regarding available transport for

the massive rally being planned ‘by or-
ganized labor and the growing coalition
Of its allies against soaring interest rates.

In line with the Canadian Labor Con-
gress (CLC) decision to launch the Nov.

1 demo as a means of opening a cam-
Paign to press the federal Liberal
government to bring down “‘loan shark
level’ interest rates, the Ontario Federa-

_ tion of Labor was recently able to bring
_ together the representatives of some 15

Organizations to lay the foundation for

the building of a provincial coalition.
Duncan Macdonald, the OFL’s co-

Ordinator for developing this coalition

Said the purpose of the provincial net-
Work being set up is to have a broader -

base of response and co-operation
throughout Ontario with the local labor
councils to mobilize the victims of the

_ BOVernment’s inept interest rate policy.

He noted that the coalition was a good
Opportunity for labor to renew and

Strengthen its links with many “‘natural

allies’ such as farmers, whom he singled

He is investigating the possibility of
_ Using school buses now, as well as other

out for the hard-hitting campaign they

have been directing against senior
governments and. Ottawa on the same
issue.

Represented at the OFL’s first coali-

tion meeting along with the OFA, were
the Ontario Federation of Students, who
say their Nov. 29 day of protest against

federal and provincial education budget:

cuts will be followed by an all out mobili-
zation of students in support of the Nov.
21 protest; the Federation of Metro (To-
ronto) Tenants, recently lobbying the
Ontario Tory government not to drop
rent controls, Women Against Rising
Prices, the National Farmers Union, the
Ontario Nurses Association, the
Teamsters _union,, Canadians ...Against

Soaring Interest Rates, the Congress of

Canadian Women, whose representative
also represented the National Action
Council on the Status of Women, Or-

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ganized Working Women, the Canadian.
Council of Retirees, the United Senior’ _
Citizens Council of Ontario, Gatfly, a so-"

cial action group associated with the

‘churches, and. the Metro Toronto

Labour Council Development Founda-

tion representing the co-operative hous-

ing movement.

As the Tribune went to press, the
160,000-member Metro Toronto Labor
Council was launching its own coalition
to campaign for bringing down interest
rates. Council president Wally Majesky

outlined Metro’s plans for organizing car .

pools, buses and other forms of transpor-

tation to Ottawa, as well as urging broad

participation from the community in the

coalition against soaring interest rates.

He said the Metro council will be
working to bring together all sectors of
the Canadian community being hurt by

“tion:

interest rates. ‘“Not only labor but also
the wide community will be telling the
federal Government whose hurting on
Nov. 21°’, he said, ‘‘and it’s not the
banks and mortgage companies.”

The Ontario Public SERVICE Em-
ployees Union, (OPSEU) is one organi-
zation that will be relying heavily on car
pools to get its members to Ottawa. The
union is linking the interest rate protest
to the coming contract negotiations by its
public service group, noting how gains at
the bargaining table can be wiped out by
uncontrolled interest rates.

- To encourage ‘car pools, OPSEU will
be paying gas mileage to members bring-
ing their cars and three other passengers.
Meal expenses for members’ spouses

will also be paid by the: union to en- .

courage.OPSEU members to make the
rally a family affair.

_ The union ts also working through the
local labor councils for seats.on buses. A
speakers tour has been set up with a

_ bureau of union spokespersons fanning

out to more than 15 locations, so far,
throughout Ontario preparing the
membership for the important mobiliza-

The current issue of OPSEU News,
the union’s monthly paper, will detail the
union's plans for the protest. Special
leaflets have been sent to various com-

‘ponents of the union finking the fight

against interest rates to their specific de-
mands.-OPSEU rally co-ordinator Peter
Slee’ said the union’s main focus at this
stage of the campaign is to work out the
massive logistics of getting the union to
Ottawa. He reported that the union has
rented the Woodruff campus parking lot
at Alongquin College and has arranged

_ Shuttle service with the Ottawa transit

authority to get members from the park-
ing lot to the demonstration. a
Posters, stickers and placards were all
expected to be ready for distribution to
OPSEU members after Oct. 29, he said.

| One side must win in CLC struggle ©

‘““YOU CAN HELP THIS MAN ... and thousands of
other innocent prisoners like him’’, reads the inscription
On the front page of a recent pamphlet co-authored and
distributed by Amnesty International and the Canadian

-Labor Congress.

~ And who is the man whose picture appears on the
front page? His name is Lev Volokhonsky and he is one
of ‘‘eight founders of the Free Inter Trade Association of
Workers (SMOT) set up in the Soviet Union.

Volokhonsky was arrested, tried under Soviet law and
sentenced to two years in a corrective labor camp in the
Soviet Union.

SMOT’s founder has been adopted by Amnesty In-
ternational who are campaigning around the world for his
release. a

The persistent, efforts of Amnesty International to
lump together victims of fascist governments and
imperialism around the world with enemies of socialism

_and law breakers in socialist countries, is well known. It

provides an attractive cover for those bourgeoise liberals
who like to agonize over the fate of victims of imperialist
brutality, but are afraid in the process of being identified
With the class struggle and world socialism. —_.
Therefore it is not surprising to find such victims of
Somalia, relegated to small back page coverage while
Lev Volokhonsky gets pride of place in this brochure.
One is inclined to ask, however, what the CLC is up to

lending itself to sucha patent attempt to use the sympathy

and support accorded to victims of imperialist brutality

around the world, to set its sights on the Soviet Union.

Attaching their signatures to this document are Grace
ance CUPE, Gerard Docquier of the Steel-
workers, Robert White of the Auto Workers and Jack

- Munroe of the International Woodworkers Union. _.

A little coupon attached to the leaflet asks readers to

fascism from Chile, Guatemala, Singapore, Pakistan, _

Labor in action
William Stewart

clip and mail to Eunice Harker, Canadian Section (En-
glish Speaking) at Ottawa, if you would like to get
aboard.

For those unaware, Eunice Harker is the wife of John
Harker who is the International Affairs head for the
Canadian Labor Congress. He is also an ex-Canadian

External Affairs employee and a member of the infam-
‘ous Tri-Lateral Commission. There is a more than cozy

relation existing between the CLC International Affairs
Department and the Canadian External Affairs Depart-

ment, which has in fact some of its employees on loan to

the CLC Int. Affairs Department. —

In the same vein Shirley Carr, vice president of the
CLC, has been more than active recently beating the
anti-Soviet drums at trade union and public functions

~ across Canada. At‘a recent Steelworkers’ conference in

Vancouver she leveled her sights on ‘‘the appalling lack
of civil rights in the Soviet Union,”’ as well as stirring up
the pot on Poland. '

A week later in a meeting in Welland, Ontario she
turned again to the Soviet Union and piously proclaimed
that the CLC would have nothing to do with the Soviet
trade union movement until it established civil rights for
its citizens and in particular for trade unions. This, Carr

assured the meeting, was established CLC policy. .

This raises a rather interesting question. Who makes
CLC policy? For two conventions in a row the member-
ship through convention resolutions have instructed the

CLC to establish relations of exchange and cordiality
with the world socialist countries.

What has been the CLC Executive Councils reaction?

They quote a resolution passed by the Executive
Council in Sept. 1981 which reads as follows.

‘* The executive Council of the Canadian Labor Coun-
cil, noting the fundamental differences in approach to
human and trade union rights between the CLC and the
Soviet All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions
(AUCCTU), as exemplified by the recent anti-dissident
trials in the Soviet Union, and the harassment of the Free
Trade Union Association of Workers in the Soviet
Union is forced to suspend indefinitely the exchange
program with the AUCCTU.

‘** Therefore the Executive Council firmly. discourages ;

affiliates of the Congress from accepting, or extending,
until such time as the human and trade union rights
situation makes it possible for them to enjoy frank and
positive exchanges with their Soviet counterparts, any
invitation from or to the Soviet Union.”’

Despite the decision of the last convention of the CLC
to the contrary, this continues to be the official position
of the CLC. Peculiar, to say the least that an Executive
Council takes it upon itself to lecture the Soviet trade
unions on democracy and at the same time so willfully
ignores the instructions of its own convention and pro-
ceeds on its own way.» :

It is clear that the CLC is caught up in an internal
struggle in which, on the one side it is trying to stay clear
of the cold war and unite its forces for the fightback
against monopoly, while on the other it is pursuing a cold
war line in its relations in the world trade union move-
ment.

This is an impossible task and one side or the other will
win out in this struggle.

(to be continued next week)

2

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOV. 6, 1981—Page 9