' 2 ‘ == = Vy eS Ses BA TATA eR A ES EE Re aa WANTED: © Ajobtraining _ program for young auto workers “' There is a general problem of a shortage of ekilled work- ers in Canadian mdustry. In most large corporations, which draw heavily on skilled trades, training programs are either non-existent or inadequate. Most outfits find it cheaper to im- port skilled workers from abroad. sae Recently the Canadian Manufacturers Association attack- ed a plan by the provincial government to institute a system of certification of apprentices in industry. While paying lip service to the need to increase apprenticeship opportunities, Canadian industry opposes any concrete steps taken to en- courage such job training. The fight to establish job training programs is also a big issue in the United States. Below is an article on this problem prepared for the Tribune by a Ford worker in Dearborn, Michi- gan. By CHRISTOPHER | (A Ford worker) : SHORTAGE of skilled tradesmen in General Mo- tors, Ford and Chrysler has caused the Big Three to adopt desperate measures to get _more of them. _ Not long. ago, it is reported, Chrysler bought a job shop here where several hundred tool and die makers worked. They didn’t need the shop; they needed its workers, to whom they gave Chrysler seniority and pension rights. : : Ford Motor has its agents in Europe seeking to recruit skilled workers in Britain and Western Germany. Last summer it sent seven such agents into Canada.- seek- ing skilled help for their new plant in Woodhaveh, Michigan. Approaches: are also being made to some workers ‘who have relatives in socialist coun- tries, like Czechoslovakia and Poland, to “convince” their re- latives who might be skilled werkers to come to the United States.’ . All roads are being cleared by’ the companies with the U.S. im- migration department, so that the skilled men won’t have to wait a year or more for an Am- erican visa. Some possible “reasons” for all this are that for seven years at Ford’s the training program for apprentices was completely wiped out. From 1956 to 1963 not a single youngster or older worker went through the train- ing course. During this time a number of MOVE OVER ! 1 GOT ‘THE SeENORITY/ skilled workers died, many re- tired. The company speeded up those remaining, scheduling lots of overtime (7 days a week, 10-12 hours a day) until the workers revolted from sheer ex- haustion. ; Today apprentices are again being trained. Those apprentices who started in 1963 could be graduating now, but a new fac- tor has ‘arisen — the war in Vietnam. The apprentices don’t want to graduate, because then they are: eligible for being drafted for Vietnam. As long as they re- main in the apprentice training program they get exemption (many sons of the foremen and company .top personnel are in apprentice training in order to get exemptions). ‘ Even when the apprentices are drafted they work in ‘ma- chine-shops in Vietnam. The training program for ap-— prentices has a shocking discri- minatory aspect to it: the com- plete absence of young Negroes in the training program for. the skilled. Companies tell union men that “lack of schooling” among the Negro youth is the “reason” they can’t pass the ex- aminations. However, nothing is done to help Negro youth pass these exams. : The United Auto Workers union, through its president Walter Reuther, proclaimed more than a year ago that aid was to be given the Negro youth in helping them pass_ these exams. But so far as can be seen in the shops it’s produced: little or nothing in the way of additional Negro apprentices. The War On Poverty was also. supposed to bring in money here to help in this education pro- gram for Negro youth to enter the skilled trades, also white youth who needed help. The word is that the program has “run out of funds,’’ mean- jng that the funds are being siphoned off for the war in Viet- nam. Skilled workers, members of the UAW, are incensed at this runaround being given youth who need the chance to learn a trade. The elimination of Negro youth from the skilled trades- must be halted and our union has to make a start. The talk in the shop about re- ‘cruiting skilled workers from abroad is roundly scored as un- necessary, because companies could start now, upgrading work- ers, Negro and white, from their own shops to take care of the shortages and give them aceéle- rated training right on the job, at no lesser wages. \liate of the Confederation of National Trade Unions, la “MERCIFULLY we are not buyers of napalm. But we can am will henceforth reftise to buy Saran Wrap, Handi Wrap or any other products you manufacture,” read part of a letter sent to the Do Chemical Company by the ladies auxiliaries affiliated to the Colum: bia District Council of the International Longshoremen’s and Wal@ — housemen’s Union. * * * SOME 800 WORKERS of the Quebec Natural Gas Corp Montreal went on strike this week for increased wages. The! — union, the Canadian Federation of Public Service Workers, an affi- . is asking fot skilled cent $2.59 an 88-cent increase for laborers and a $1.17 increase for tradesmen. The company has offered 18 cents now and 10 effective next May 1. Basic wage rates range from $1.84 to an hour. * * * THE RECENT “bugging” of a Vancouver hotel room of offici of Pulp and Paper Workers of Canada was termed “a shocking lation of civil and trade union rights and.a vicious attack on dem cratic freedom” by 160 delegates to the national council meeting the United Electrical Workers union. Meeting in Hamilton, the del gates adopted a special resolution condemning “the action of 1” RCMP in collusion with Pat O’Neal, western regional organizer for International, Pulp, Sulphite and Paper Mill in arranging for planting of electronic listening devices.” “This action directed against Canadian workers, who, in brea ing their ties with an American-controlled union, are building ® independent Canadian union clearly establishes the servile role RCMP as acting on behalf of a foreign agency and against the bé interests of Canada and the Canadian working people,” the resol tion declared. pe ‘ * aX, * - PROOF that wages in United States and Canada have not ké up with the productivity of labor is provided in figures releas' last week by the U.S. labor department. The study reveals that vu labor costs in both countries have remained almost unchanged the past nine years. It shows also that while wages almost double in the United States since 1950, they tripled or more in W® Germany, France, Japan; the Netherlands, Italy and Sweden. The report comments: “From the standpoint of labor cost per | unit of output American manufacturers in the mid1960’s hav’ achieved a better competitive position relative.to foreign producé than they held in the late 1950’s.”- : * * x VANCOUVER labor council delegates unanimously condem™ the Pearson government for the construction of the west-east 8' ‘pipeline through the United States. A resolution supported the sta? of the New Democratic Party in Parliament against the pipeline. * * * C, S. JACKSON, president of the United Electrical Worké union, speaking to the Canadian Industrial Management Assoc! tion in Hamilton on Noy, 9, called on its members to begin to giv recognition to the technological revolution and its effects on b0 management and labor. He challenged management to accept 2 demonstrate its social responsibilities by taking the initiativ bringing the unions into advance dscussion and planning on ante pated automation and other technological developments. He warné that failure on their part to move voluntarily in this direction W inevitably result in social upheaval. Labor, he said, will not sta idly by while management continues to ignore its responsibilities. * ee sverquols pas? (Brussels “I-keep hearing noises from this room: ‘tick-tock’, ‘tick: tock.’ It's driving me_ out of my mind. What in blazes is caus ing it?” : December 2, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Pag