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eacOR —

_ Heated debate sends
economic paper packing

MONTREAL — Any hopes
the Canadian Labor Congress
leadership may have had for a
low-key, conservative mood at
_ the 15th CLC convention, were
dashed in the first explosive day
of Canada’s labor parliament.

le Overwhelming vote by the
more than 2,300 delegates to refer
the executive's economic policy
Paper — United toward a working
Tecovery — reflected a wide guif
between the delegates who came
to Montreal looking for leadership
and answers to the crisis, and the
leadership who seemed to be hop-
ing to ride out the current eco-
nomic storm without mobilizing a
co-ordinated fightback.
€ referral came after a
stormy debate and a motion by
ishermen’s union treasurer
George Hewison. Delegate after
delegate, particularly from the Ac-
oe Caucus, hit the microphones
0 criticize the paper for failing to
tise above a competent descrip-
tion of the current economic
CMISIS, and the brutal war
monopoly and its governments
have unleashed against the Cana-
dian Working people over the past
couple of years.

Instructions to the committee
to which the resolution was re-
ferred demanded the policy paper
be returned to the convention
with an action program including
a CO-Ordinated campaign by the
congress with its affiliates for the
shorter Work week, and the
implementation of the CLC ac-

tion program that was contained -

in the 1982 convention economic
policy statement. It commits the
congress to mobilize working
people from one end of Canada to

mittees at the community, prov-
ince and country-wide levels.

Ottawa Labor Council delegate
Mike Hurly expressed the
thoughts of many delegates when
he told the convention that, ‘‘the
future for the labor movement is
bleak unless we come up at this
convention with an action pro-
gram and this document
doesn’t give it to us.”’

Comparing the mood of the
convention set by the policy
paper and CLC president Dennis
McDermott’s opening address
with the excitement of the senate,
Hurly stirred the convention with
the declaration that, ‘‘as a move-
ment we can’t let ourselves be
wiped out. As a movement our
backs are to the wall. The com-
mittee should take this policy
paper back and produce a fight-
back program.

Joy Thorkelson, of the United
Fishermen and president of the
Prince Rupert Labor Council,
said the paper wouldn’t answer
the needs of the people in her
community where unemployment
is running at 35 per cent, British
Columbia, or any other province
or territory in Canada.

Unemployment, she said, is the
largest issue facing today’s trade
union movement. The fightback,
she said is the congress’ responsi-
bility to inspire and co-ordinate.
“This is an issue we can’t ignore
while we wait for a government to
be elected that will make full
employment a top priority.”

This rejection of the idea that
the only solution or way out of the
crisis for labor is to wait for an
election was also picked up by
postal union vice-president Bill

‘movement, in this year’s paper,

Calling for the inclusion in the
policy statement of the 1982 plan
to mobilize a grass roots fightback

Cheddore told the convention,
“People are looking for some-
thing right now, they’re not in-
terested in looking for something
three years down the road.”

He added that it was important
that both an action program and
the commitment to fight for the
shorter work week be in the con-
vention policy statement in order
to send aclear message to the em-
ployers and governments of the
labor movement’s determination
not to be conquered by its
enemies. .

In her impassioned plea for ac-
tion and mobilization by the
leadership, United Electrical
workers delegate Evelyn Arm-
strong won a standing ovation
from the delegates. ‘‘The two mil-
lion unemployed in this country
don’t need to have their problems
described to them — they want to
be told what they can do to solve
them’’, she said.

She spoke of the systematic
pull-out from Canada by her em-
ployer, Canadian General Elec-
tric and of how jobs have dwin-
dled in her Toronto plant from
more than 1,800 when she began
working to some 300 today.

“‘When I go back to work Mon-
day I’m not sure how much longer
it will be before the company an-
nounces it will close the plant
down altogether’, Armstrong
said. ‘‘That’s 38 years of my life in
that place, and they’re going to
throw me out? Not without a
fight, brothers and sisters!’

The delegates’ determination

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

ship discriptions.

scored when McDermott tried to
refuse Hewison’s referral be-
cause it came from a ‘‘pro”’
microphone. The convention hall
immediately filled with the clatter
of delegates pounding the tables
in protest of McDermott’s move.

The motion was accepted and
overwhelmingly passed after
Hewison went over to the nearest
“‘con’’ mike and moved *‘referral,
with the same instructions as
those proposed by the previous
brother on the ‘‘pro’’ mike.”’

The convention’s militant spirit
was reaffirmed later in the day
when the delegates adopted a
statement rededicating the con-
gress and the trade union move-

UE delegate Evelyn Armstrong. . . unemployed want solutions not hard-

United Auto Workers Cana-
dian director Bob White endorsed
this statement saying that it is im-
portant for the CLC and its
affiliates to send a message to the
employers and governments.
“‘The message we have to get out
is that we’ve been through con-
cessions, now’s the time to make
progress’, White said, citing
shorter work time, higher wages
and improved pensions and other
benefits as the key targets where
progress has to be made.

“The time for concessions is
behind us’’, he declared, ‘‘This is
1984, the time for progress is now
and we have to get the message
through to management across
this country that we’re

the other into fightback com-

Cheddore.

for an action plan was under-

ment to opposing concessions.

going to
march together.”’ ;

Tripartism in full bloom at CFL meet —

By MIKE PHILLIPS

The recent Canadian Federation of Labor convention
was the total opposite of what a labor gathering ought to

_during these times of unprecedented attack on
untonism in Canada and the terrible economic and jobs
crises,

___ Where there should have been a militant call to fight
the employers and their governments’ concerted drive to
weaken labor and force it to shoulder the full weight of
the System’s crisis, CFL leaders spoke of the need to

mend fences’ with business and governments.

Where appeals for all-in labor unity and solidarity
between the union movement and the many commu-
nities under assault by all levels of government were
called for, the CFL leadership gave labor’s bitterest
enemies its convention platform to preach the sacred
gospel of ‘‘improving productivity’’, and tripartism — in
short, class collaboration and the total rejection of any
Concept of class struggle.

The bulk of resolutions adopted dealt with constitu-
tional amendments to smooth out and fine tune the
tightly controlled autocratic structure. This was set up
by the Canadian leaders of the AFL-CIO building trades
Organizations who came together in Ottawa two years
ago to set up the alternative labor body to the two-million
member Canadian Labor Congress.

The 200 or so delegates were bombarded with a bar-
rage of corporatist propaganda from the top dogs of
the big-business world and both provincial and federal
governments. R

Thomas d’ Aquino, president of the Business Council

on National Issues, a right-wing lobby made up of 150 -

chief executive officers of some of the biggest cor-
- porations operating in Canada, like virtually every other

business and government speaker pointed to the recently
formed Canadian Labor Market and Productivity Centre
as the path labor must follow to solve Canada’s economic
mess.

The council’s founding committee was co-chaired by

d’Aquino and Canadian Labor Congress vice-president
Shirley Carr and includes representation from the CLC,
the CFL, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the
Canadian Manufacturer’s Association, the Canadian
Federation of Independent Business and the Business
Council on National Issues.

As d’ Aquino noted, the centre is *‘generously funded
by the federal government’ to the tune of $7-million
annually for the next five years. And it’s through such a
structure that d’Aquino in his address titled ‘‘Sink or
Swim Together’, hoped labor and business could set out
the goals for a ‘‘common agenda’.

In addition to empty rhetoric about declaring war on
unemployment ‘‘with an agreed set of policies’’, and
gobbledygook about ‘‘enlightened management struc-
tures ... improving competitiveness and productivity
by striving to be number one’, d’ Aquino got to the real
heart and soul of why business and governments are
pushing the likes of the Canadian Labor Market and
Productivity Centre. -

Labor and business, he urged, need to “fight extre-
mism’”’ which he had defined as those ‘who would have
us believe that conspiracy and class struggle underscore
labor’s relationship with business and government”’. He
called for ‘‘minimizing”’ the influence of these forces and
for banishing “from our collective ranks those who have
Fe interest whatsoever in building a workable relation-
ship.

But the centre's main role is to bridge what d’ Aquino
called *‘the ideological gap between business and labor

with inspired leadership and through concrete initiatives
on the educational front.”’

The sad thing was that this collaborationist tone was
set in McCambly’s opening address to the convention.

He spoke of resolving the current problems facing
Canadians ‘‘through a policy of co-operation with other
sections of society ...”’, of seeking ‘‘arrangements in
which economic pains and eventually gains are mutually
understood and shared.”

Paragraph followed paragraph, itemizing the money
the federal labor ministry is pumping into various CFL
programs and listing every minister, deputy minister and
employer organization the CFL leadership has met with.

The CFL, McCambly claimed, are among the first ‘‘to
be consulted by government because they know our
positions aren’t a matter of partisan politics.

**We’re tough on bad policy’’, he said, ‘‘but we also
give credit where credit is due. The bottom line is not
only the welfare of our members but the welfare of the
entire Canadian entire economy.

The CFL head said he didn’t want to place all blame
and responsibility on business and government, be-
cause, “‘labor deserves its share of criticism and should
share the responsibilities of turning things around.”’

One is tempted to add, that it’s precisely because of
such collaborationist leadership that the building trades
have been decimated in the U.S. and that Canadian
members of those same unions face the same tragic fate
unless they link with those healthy forces throughout
Canada who are determined to fight their way out of the
crisis, defending their rights and living standards and

- making monopoly pay the shot for the chaos that is of its

own making.

William Stewart’s Labor in Action returns next week.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 6, 1984 e 7