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Determination to win at Inco

Special to the Tribune

SUDBURY — Determination
by the 11,700 Inco strikers con-
tinues $o grow as the struggle by
Local 6500 United Steelworkers
enters its seventh month. The
miners and smelter workers hit
the bricks Sept. 15, 1978. -

In most recent developments
‘Local 6500 president Dave Pat-
terson, March 12, turned thumbs
down on a Labor Ministry offer to
appoint a disputes advisory
commission to recommend an
end to the strike.

Patterson said accepting Minis-
ter Robert Elgie’s March 12 prop-

From time to time we read
ut various projections by
e0iS et ite out
ts ut inflation and -un-
fore‘oyment to the minutest frac-
tion of one per cent. :
These forecasts go on and on
despite the fact that they have
mn proven wrong over and over

and over again. But they never -

m to give up. Now, if it were

possible under our adversary
capitalist profit-system to make
such precise economic forecasts
and criteria, how come that we
are now in a worse mess than ever
before? Why have not these ex-
perts been able to get the ear of
those in charge of our economic
affairs to greater success?

The Big Business magazine,
Fortune, has raised this question
in a very frank way about “‘the
fading away of past illusions
about the. abilities of economists
to manage the economy, fine-tune
it, and make it behave according
to their desires — or the desires of
the politicians they serve.”

There is an air of pessimism
taking a hold in ruling circles. For
example, experts of the Organiza-
tion for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD),
which combines 24 industrial
capitalist countries says:

«The year 1979 will see a drop
“in domestic demand in the
-member countries of the OECD.

Unemployment will rise, while
the rate of inflation will fall to an
average of 6.5%. A relatively high
level of utilization of production
facilities and unfavorable pros-
pects for the growth of export will
not lead to a boom for private cap-
ital investment. This is going to
affect all members of the OECD
as the next few months will see a
slump in the United States which

osal would make a mockery of the.
‘15-months of contract talks the

union has engaged in with Inco.
“Obviously we have more con-
fidence in the. collective bargain-
ing process and in Robert Elgie’s
own mediators than Robert El-
gie’’, the Inco strike leader said,
adding, “‘our members know it
was Elgie who told us to accept
the four-cent offer back in
September.”

’ Ontario’s Tory government
seems fond of these commissions,
having appointed them in the con-
tinuing Boise-Cascade strike in
Kenora and Fort Frances and the
epic battle at Fleck Manufactur-
ing at Centralia, Ontario. In both

_cases the commission’s influence

in the final outcome was nil. The

Fleck strikers and the massive .

public response behind them
forced the company to recognize
the union which was the main
strike issue.

The Lumber and Sawmill
Workers local at Boise-Cascade
overwhelmingly rejected the
commission’s recommendation
for binding arbitration. Former’
NDP Ontario leader Stephen
Lewis was one of the two-men

el to make the recommenda-

‘tion which the workers rejected.

Earlier in the week Patterson

will be followed by a slump in

West Germany and Japan in the

second half of the year.’’
Chronic Stagnation

All of which goes to show that
the capitalist world economy has
entered into a situation where the
actual state of affairs is chronic
instability at best, and chronic
stagnation at its worst.

But big capitalists and their
politicians are not about to change
their ways. The name of the game
is maximum profits at the expense
of the working class. For this pur-
pose big business and the
capitalist state work as a team re-
gardless of consequences for the
people and the best interests of
the country concerned. At the
same time each branch of the
economy pulls in various direc-
tions to advance its own particu-
lar interests.

The Canadian Construction
Association, for example, is out
to win more say in national policy
decisions coming out of Ottawa.
To make sure that the policy
makers at the federal level know
what the CCA wants, the as-
sociation has paired two of its
members to each Member of Par-
liament.

The message which.the associ-
ation wants captive politicians to
hear is for government to keep its
hands off monopolies in business
and industry, and to ward off any
pressure to put a curb on
monopoly and profiteering.

The CCA wants long term
economic planning the private
sector can depend on, but does
not want Canadians to put their
hopes on the creation of ‘‘one
great glorious plan’’ for an indust-
rial strategy that would deliver the
Cariadian economy to the prom-
ised land. Being in favor of gov-

Business aims to
Keep status quo

responded forcefully to com-
ments in Parliament by the prime
minister running down the Inco
strikers. Patterson blasted
Trudeau for his ‘‘arrogant stand’’
in saying the Local 6500 negotiat-

ing committee should bargain ©
with good sense. ‘‘If Trudeau had

used good sense in 1977 we might
not be faced with a strike right
now’, Patterson said. Referring
to the massive layoff in 1978, the
Inco strike leader said the
government at that time wasn’t
““too worried about bringing nic-
kel in from Japan . . . We will deal
with Mr. Trudeau this year at the
ballot box. Maybe Ill send him a
letter and request he come to
Sudbury and sit down and have a
talk about the strike.”’

Public hatred for Inco is so
Strong in the community, that
even Sudbury mayor Jim Gordon,
March 13, charged the multi-
national with ‘playing Russian
roulette with the community.’’

Calling on-Inco to make the
workers a decent offer they can
accept with dignity, Gordon said,
“the strike is driving an economic
stake through the heart of Sud-
bury and for what? A stockpile? A
few bucks here and there? An at-
tempt to teach the workers in this
community a lesson?’’ ~

emment restraint on spending,
the CCA does not ask for more
goverhment spending on con-
struction projects.

Preserve Status Quo

“We are not pushing the gov-
ernment for new projects.and we
haven’t been for some time. We
prefer tax incentives to encourage
risk-taking in private industry,”’
says Ian MacInnes, newe CCA
chairman.

The position is one of mainte-
nance of the status quo. No
change in social policy. - This
means a free hand for monopoly
Capital to do as it pleases, when it
pleases and how it pleases. It
Means a taboo on even the
slightest effort to put a curb on
land speculators, real property
price gouging and loan sharking.
It means ever rising rents, interest
and taxes for ordinary working
people. It means tax. loopholes
and tax deferrals and exemptions
for the wealthy. It means less and
less housing available for ordi-
nary working people that they can
afford. It means continued and
growing unemployment for con-
struction labor. ;

- This is a time to unite the forces

of labor and fight back. As the.

1976 Labor Manifesto of the
Canadian Labor Congress stated:

‘Labor: must not willingly
enter any+ arrangement where
only one-half of the income equa-
tion, i.e. wages, is determined. To
enter into a tripartite agreement
under such adverse cir-
cumstances would ‘indeed be
using the union organization as an
arm of both business and gov-
ernment to restrain the workers.”

It is well to remember and, take
steps to reverse course before it is
too late.

HAMILTON — Six weeks of frustration on the picket lines

gel
at Kent Stee!

Products led to a fight with police, March 12 after a management em-
ployee drove through the line knocking several strikers down with his
car. When the cops tried to arrest two of the strikers knocked down by

the car, the fights erupted.

SCOTTISH MINERS

REJECT OFFER
GLASGOW — The Scottish
executive of the National Union of
Mineworkers, representing 23,000
miners, unanimously rejected the
latest national pay offer from the
National Coal Board of Britain;
March 5. Mick McGahey, presi-
dent of the Scottish union and na-
tional vice-president, estimated the
offer, accepted by the national
executive by 15 votes to 10, to- be
worth only 6 on basic rates, com-
pared with the union’s original
demand for about 33%.s for their

SIDBEC WORKERS
HIT THE BRICKS

producer, went on strike March 5,
after voting by more than 70% to
feject Sidbec contract offers.

PROTECT OHIP

OFL DEMANDS
TORONTO — The executive
board of the Ontario Federation
of Labor called on the Tory On-
tario government March 14, to
force doctors who have dropped
out of the Ontario Health Insur-
ance Plan (OHIP) to get back in.

‘OFL president Cliff Pilkey said

the federation plans to ask the
health minister for a meeting on
the issue and warned the principal
of universal accessibility to health
care, and OHIP’s very existence

MONTREAL — Some 3,500 Could be destroyed by the large
workers at Sidbec-Dosco, the "Umber of doctors leaving the
‘Quebec Government-owned stee] Plan.

Ottawa pulls out rug
from shipbuilding

- OTTAWA — The secretary of
the 2.3-million-member Canadian
Labor Congress has charged the
federal government with a ‘‘calcu-
lated policy”’ . .. to send the ship-
building industry down the
drain.” : ’
Donald .Montgomery, a

spokesman for the CLC’s

Maritime Committee, was com-

menting March 2 on Ottawa’s re- -

sponse to a bi-partite, manage-
ment labor task force studying the
Canadian Shipbuilding and Re-
pair Industry. His charge that the

: federal government was abandon--

ing the industry was supported,

he said, by Ottawa’s rejection of
repeated requests by shipbuilding

industries and maritime . unions

for the creation of a Canadian-flag

deep-sea fleet.

_ The CLC attacked Ottawa’s

current assistance program to the

industry as “‘completely ineffec-

tual’ and useless in stopping the

loss of jobs in the shipbuilding in-

dustry. The congress also slam-

med the federal government’s

stalling on the decision to limit

coastal trade to Canadian-

registered vessels.

* All vessels intended for explo-

ration and ‘transportation of
natural resources in the Arctic

should be built in Canada, -the

Task Force Report recom-

mended. “‘It is absolutely crimi-

nal that the government has re-

fused to accept the recommenda-

tion that Canadian shipyards.

build ships for the Arctic,’’ the
report declared.

It charged the federal Liberals
with preferring empty rhetoric
about ‘*Canadian participation in
northern development”’ to action
“which could mean jobs in ship-
building and on-site development
and exploration. Thus foreign
shipyards will benefit from this
trade’’, the CLC predicted.

“Canada is unique, among na-
tions with shipbuilding capacity in
its failure to provide substantial
assistance and protection to this
industry,’’ he said. In the U.S. all
intercoastal trade must be carried
in U.S. ships.”

He noted that in other countries
construction subsidies ranged
from 30-50%, while Canada plans
this year to end its 20% construc-
tion subsidy.

The CLC argued that restoring
the merchant fleet would give the
shipbuilding industry a shot in the
arm and reverse the current
layoffs trend. By refusing to do
this, and by failing to take positive
action in the Arctic, Canada could
be losing “‘billions of dollars to the
economy in terms of foreign ex-
change and tax revenue,’’
Montgomery pointed out.

“Yet, as too often before’, the
CLC leader said, ‘‘the govern-
ment seems determined to pursue
short-sighted goals, destructive to
Canadian ‘sovereignty and the
economy as-a whole.”’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 23, 1979—Page 9