LABOR ™ BRIEF SASK. LABOR BACKS CUPE REGINA — The 60,000- member Saskatchewan Federation of Labor, April 25, announced it will provide financial support for Local 287 Canadian Union of Pub- lic Employees in their strike with the City of North Battleford. A province-wide strike appeal will be launched to all SFL affiliates, and labor councils will be informed of the dispute to ensure their full financial and picket line support. The SFL Strike Strategy Commit- tee condemned the 6% per year, two year wage offer as insulting during a period of 8% inflation. AUTONOMY VOTE AT BRAC MEET TORONTO — The Brother- hood of Railway and _ Airline Clerks (BRAC) will hold its quadrennial international conven- tion here May 14-17. Some 400 delegates will participate in the convention of one of North America’s largest unions, with 200,000 members in the U.S. and Canada. The convention is ex- pected to formally approve the constitutional recognition of a separate Canadian Division which has already been struc- tured to promote Canadian au- tonomy within the union. CUPE HEAD BACKS CUPW PETERBORO — Pat O’Keefe, Ontario director of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, took the opportunity as a guest of the United Electrical workers biennial conference to break the silence in top labor leadership circles, April 28. He denounced the legal harassment of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, its leaders and president Jean Claude Parrot who was convicted April 10 for violat- ing an act of Parliament. “Jean Claude Parrot and the postal workers’ plight cries out for justice and for equaily fine ringing declarations of a union’s right to strike to maintain a free society not the narrow judicial mouthings of Parliament's blunderderbuss, draconian legislation to get the postal workers. : 1005 GETS NEW PRESIDENT HAMILTON — Cec Taylor defeated incumbent president Walter Valchuk 2,298 to 2,051 for the top spot in the United Steel-: workers’ largest local, Local 1005 at Stelco, April 19. Taylor, a prominent advocate of militant trade unionism and Canadian autonomy within the international union, will be instal- led as president, May 9. His was the only voice in the 1975 union bargaining committee to refuse to sign the agreement because ‘there was nothing there for the workers.” THUNDER BAY SHUT DOWN THUNDER BAY — Garbage collection, public transit and other services halted April 23 when some 800 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, and 115 transit drivers refused to cross the City Hall picketline set up that morning by: some 80 striking members of Local 339 Inter- national Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. IBEW pickets were also set up outside the transit depot and public works building as well as other ser- vices because management refuses to talk a new pact and has started scabbing. PSAC CELEBRATES MAY DAY OTTAWA — The Ottawa- Hull area council of the Public Service Alliance of Canada ‘held a May Day rally under the theme of ‘‘Defend labor’s rights..’ The public meeting was organized, sponsors said, “not only to celeb- rate May 1! but also give Alliance members in the region an oppor- tunity to meet and discuss issues affecting them.” PLACER DRAGS STRIKE ON FRAKER LAKE, B.C. — Talks between the Canadian Association of Industrial, Mechanical and Al- lied Workers (CAIMAW) and Placer Development Ltd., owners of the strike-bound Endako mine have broken down over manage- ~ ment’s refusal to negotiate with the union. Some 500 CAIMAW mem- bers have been on strike since Feb. 14, for a 2'/2 year pact with a 29% wage and benefits increase. A labor rally was held in Prince George to support the strikers, fol- lowing the company’s action in br- inging security guards and non-union. truckers to carry scab ‘molybdenum mined by super- visors across the picket lines. TORONTO — Members of the Toronto local, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, demonstrated outside the Ontario Labor Ministry, May 1, de- manding all charges against the union and its leaders be dropped. They were also supporting the five fired Toronto members, who are fighting their dismissals for taking part in last fall’s countrywide strike, through arbitration hearings currently being held in the Labor Ministry offices. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 11, 1979—Page 8 UE conference decides: Time to harn PETERBORO — Some 200 de- legates to the 1979 United Electri- cal workers Biennial Conference are back in the shop working to harness and unite the working people’s growing anger at the big-business attacks on our living standards. They emerged from the three & day meeting April 29, determined 2: to arm their fellow workers with the understanding of things as they are in the economy and the country, and to convince them that united, they can push back the offensive of the corporations and governments against the people. The delegates debated a number of policy statements in- cluding: ‘‘the Economic Situation Facing Labor’’; ‘‘the.Problems of Quebec Labor’’; ‘‘Peace Detente and the Conversion of Arms Expenditures”’; ‘Development in - the Struggle for a Safe and Heal- thy Work Place’’; and the ‘‘Role of the Union In the Work Place’’. Speaking on the economic situ- ation facing labor, UE president C.S. Jackson said that ‘‘over 20,000 jobs have disappeared from Canadian electrical plants since 1974 alone. “This industry imports rather than produces in Canada almost 50% in dollar terms, of the total value of shipments of the industry’’. Jackson noted that 90% of these imports are from U.S. pa- rent plants to their subsidiaries, and branch plants in Canada. It is estimated that more than 250,000 jobs a year are lost to Canadians because of imports into Canada by companies like these. Jackson said the trend was for multi-national corporations to '“‘de-industrialize Canada’s man- ufacturing sector’’ by removing key production items from Cana- dian plants and reducing their op- erations to mere assembly and the distribution and sales of foreign made goods. - The UE document called for a halt to foreign take-overs, with foreign investment in Canada re- stricted to loan capital. And the union demanded the federal government enact strict rules governing the operation of U.S. multi-nationals in Canada based on clear-cut Canadian interest guidelines and strict laws to pre- vent plant closures and exporting thousands of Canadian jobs to the U.S. or other off-shore countries. The policy paper also stressed the need to involve the union membership in their communities to unite working people and give: - them the kind of understanding that will encourage them ‘‘to begin to push back the offensive of the corporations and govern- ments against the people. “Being hit on all sides’’, the document notes, ‘‘and with new doses every day in one form or another, the resentment and anger is there. “The task is to harness that anger.and to show that by uniting in our anger, at the attacks on our living standards, we can wield a lot of pressure on governments.” Beginning at the community level, through the labor councils, the UE document said, will start the process of bringing the top leadership of the labor movement * UE president C.S. Jackson, (centre lighting up), led delegates from th? ess anger 1979 biennial policy conference to walk the picket line with UE Local aul on strike at Sargent’s Hardware in Peterboro. ' out of the swamp of collaboration and into the struggle. The same theme was presented by Canadian Union of Postal Workers president Jean Claude Parrot, a guest speaker, who said the current big-business offensive against labor has resulted from the employers assessing their own power and realizing that ‘‘while they have orgartized, and while they have grown stronger, the labor movement has not built and consolidated its strength ona national basis. ‘This is the situation that con- fronts the labor movement,’’ Par- rot said, ‘‘and it is our ability to deal with this new class warfare as preached by the employers which will determine the fate of workers for the generations to come.” He asked the UE conference to think of the kind of support to the Inco strikers one tenth of the re- sources presently devoted to the Canadian Labor Congress’ elec- tion campaign would have been at the beginning of the strike, not five months later. *“‘Imagine what the impact on all employers would be if labor would devote the same resources to strike support that it now is devoting to the election cam- paign,”’ he asked. : Parrot called for a new # finition and practice of solidaril) which would ‘‘embrace and dire’ the collective might and power? the working class.” A memorial tribute was paid }) the conference to the late Geol Harris who died followitl the last. UE conventiol Frank Krause representing th Westinghouse workers, and B¥é lyn Armstrong for the Canadial General Electric workers expre sed their sense of loss and that ® their fellow workers for this ov! standing labor leader, teaché! and leading member of the Co munist Party of Canada. ; Ivy Harris was presented with! scroll recognizing the large ©0? tribution she has made to the both as a member and as Geol Harris’ wife. Under the murals painted © Westinghouse retiree Murt@) Thomson portraying Jean Pat who also died last year, an Harris, former director of orga! zation Ross Russel spoke of He ris as his teacher. ‘‘George help® to build the UE in a special way He helped to build us up a people,”’ Russel said. “If he was 10 feet tall M brought us up to meet th height.” Layoffs at Chrysler 4 called ‘same old story’ WINDSOR — Margaret Longmoore, the Communist Party candidate in Windsor- Walkerville, condemned the an- nounced cutback at Chrysler en- gine plant, which would cost Windsor 550 jobs. “This is the same old story once again,”’ she states, ‘‘the bos- ses in Highland Park and New York City make decisions which undermine the economic health of our community. The govern- ments in Ottawa and Ontario, wring their hands, but do nothing because they don’t want to in- fringe on the rights of the indi- vidual corporations. **What about the rights of the unincorporated factory worker to a decent job, and to health and education? How about Canadian control over multinational corpo- rations in the interests of the Canadian people?’’ Longmoore added. The cutback at the Chrysler engine plant means that 550 workers will be laid off inde- finitely. This follows the removd last year of the six-cylinder pr! duction line to the United State® and the closing of the Chrysle! * Plant 1 truck plant last year. _ The president of Local 444 ® quoted as saying: ‘‘The engilé plant layoffs are going to be onl the first in a series that will hit thé Canadian company in the fut unless the government intel venes. He added that there wou! ~ be further cutback in Novemb#! at the engine plant, to 1,200 blocks a day. - The indefinite layoffs will pu! renewed pressure on the SUB fund (supplementary unemploy’ ment benefits) which is sufferine from a series of layoffs occur in all Chrysler Windsor plants Those fortunate enough to remal working also face fewer oppo! tunities for job advancement, # the displaced Plant 2 workef with up to nine years seniority are forced to bump into the oth¢ -Chrysler plants. -