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Workers need legal protection
in job closures, CP declares

TORONTO — The cheating of CCM workers in
the wake of the company’s bankruptcy, has once
again highlighted the need for vastly improved
Severance-pay and private pension legislation the
Ontario committee of the Communist Party said

it week.

The statement set forth a wide-ranging set of
demands for legislation at both federal and pro-
vincial government levels to reform our out-dated
and unfair pension and severance pay regulations.

_ Topping the party’s list of demands was legisla-
On banning plant closures and layoffs without
Prior consultation and agreements with the unions.

Mvolved; and where necessary, governments |

Should nationalize and operate facilities private
Owners refuse to keep going.
Other legislative reforms demanded by the
Ommunists include:
e Immediate passage in the House of Commons
of Bill C-42, a bill, which the party says has been
Suishing in parliament for the past four years.
~42 would provide an employer-funded financial
Pool to cover severance pay for workers of a bank-
Tupted Company. :
e The removal in Ontario of all restrictions on
S¢verance pay regulations to provide full sever-
Pay to every worker for each year worked.
Under Ontario law, severance pay is guaranteed up
4 Maximum of 26 weeks with five year’s service.

~ This is calculated on the basis of one week’s pay

‘0? every year of service up to 26 years’ seniority.)
Owever, as the party points out, in the case of
Ptcy federal legislation prevails, putting
Workers at the bottom of the creditors’ list and the
Workers usually end up receiving nothing.

_ © Pension monies including employer contribu-
Hons, must be recognized in law as deferred wages
and workers should also be guaranteed a full say in
Pensions,

e Mandatory employer-employee committees
Must be set up for the trusteeship of pension plans
and their administration, on request of workers and

If unions.

e When a pension plan is wound up not fully
funded, and a collective agreement has been in
effect, full pension to all workers must be guaran-
teed in line with current collective agreement pro-
visions when these provisions exceed Ontario’s
minimum standards.

e When a pension plan is wound up over-
funded, the surplus must be guaranteed to the
workers to improve their pensions, as the money
represents deferred wages, rightfully belonging to
the workers.

e Broader pension laws have to be enacted pro-
viding for full vesting of pension rights from the
start of employment; eliminating all minimum
years of service or age limits; guaranteeing full
portability of all pension coverage, and providing
for pension transfers to widows and widowers.

The statement points out that the Ontario Pen-
sion Benefits Guarantee Fund, which exists to
augment unfunded pension plans to meet a guaran-
teed level of benefits, presently supercedes any
contract provisions, even if those provisions are
better than the provincial law.

The provincial law, first provides funding to
meet pensioners already retired, with second prior-
ity going to workers with 10 or more years service
who are 45 years old. The latter part applies only in
respect of services after Jan. 1, 1965.

Whatever is left of the bankrupted company’s
assets after pensioners and the older workers get
paid, are distributed according to the terms of the
given pension plan negotiated by the workers.

This means that workers under 45 who may have
10 and more years seniority get nothing, regardless
of what provisions may be contained in their col-
lective agreements. ; 3

CCM workers, stand to lose an average $8,500 in
severance pay and up to $150 a month in lost pen-
sion benefits as a result of the bankruptcy. In a
recent similar example, Fotomat workers lost up to
three weeks’ wages after the company went ban-

krupt. They. couldn’t make a claim on the com-»

pany’s assets until everyone else had been paid off.
They got what was left.

Academic freedom fight grows:

TORONTO — Members and { -
Prominent voices within the
=n academic community

Supporting the defense of

b €mic freedom being waged
4 ig Canadian Union of Ed-

orkers (CUEW) on

behalf of sociology instructor
fanne McGuire at Ryerson Poly-

Cal Institute.

the wry to recent claims by
. Institute’s vice-president

aa Grier, that the flood of pro-

Maca reaching his desk on
Work of, °, Cchalf is the handi-
im of her “‘friends’’, Ryerson’s
._88¢ in the academic community

idea of academic freedom. “‘If
academic freedom does not refer
to the right to have differing orien-
tations what can it mean’, the
union asks?

a defense of academic freedom
that is truly impressive, marshal-
ling several important figures in

_ of Canada recipient and re-
nowned urban planner Hans
Blumenfeld has threatened to
publicly renounce the Ryerson
Fellowship bestowed upon him in
- 1979 if the institute refuses to re-
verse its decision. ‘“‘Freedom of
academic orientation is the very

The McGuire case has sparked -

the intellectual community. Order,

UNE!

‘‘We in organized labor have the organizational skills the re-
sources and the social commitment tc make it work. We ... have
a unique opportunity to provide the foundation for the organi-
zation of the unemployed.”

* * oa

With these words, the Kitchener-Waterloo labor council set
out two weeks ago to organize the Waterloo Region Organization
of Unemployed Workers. Recognizing the importance of the
Ontario Federation of Labor’s and the Canadian Labor Con-
gress’ economic recovery alternative campaigns, and the on-
going lobbying in support of the jobless by organized labor, the
council nevertheless decided something more was needed. —

It concluded the jobless, ‘‘must form their own organization,
which with a current potential membership of 1'4-million Cana-

‘dians, would become the number one priority of governments;
that corporations be forced to consider the impact on labor before
making business decisions; and that labor unions continue to fight
for reduced work time, early retirement and improved working
conditions, as a means of creating employment.”

The purposes of the committee begin with bringing “‘the un-
employed out of hiding and giving them an identity and a force to
fight with’’; co-ordinate activities with other community pro-
grams centred on the jobless; help the unemployed with their
daily problems; and lobby governments and business on full
employment programs and programs to help the unemployed.

The structure is simple and begins with a steering committee
of trade union representatives that will organize support for the
unemployed, the hiring of two full-time organizers from the un-
employed to organize the unemployed, and the eventual setting
up of an unemployed workers’ executive board, elected by the
jabless workers who become members of the organization.

The K-W and Cambridge Labor Councils will provide the
initial funding for the unemployed workers’ organization, and the
councils are calling on their 72 affiliated unions to kick in at least
$100 per local to get the campaign to collect $10,000 for the
committee launched. Other fund raising activities are being plan-
wer * * * ;

The April 9 unemployed march on the B.C. Legislature will
dramatize the unemployed crisis and present the Social Credit
government in Victoria with a jobs program it will be called to act
on.

Vancouver Island labor councils at Port Alberni, Campbell
River, Nanaimo and Victoria, with the B.C. Coalition of the
Unemployed are organizing the action on that date to let trade
unionists join in the protest. The march and rally have the back-
ing of the B.C. Federation of Labor.

A march from Nanaimo to Victoria beginning April 4 is also
part of the Vancouver Island protest. Throughout B.C., labor
councils are being urged to stage protests on April 9. The Van-
couver council is planning a rally on the same site as the monster
rally in 1938 which followed the police eviction of the un-
employed who had occupied the post office to dramatize their
plight.

: Os * *

Unemployment Lines: Jake Friesz of Niagara Falls writes: ‘‘the
unemployed of Niagara Falls have held a meeting in the Union
Centre to help organize the jobless so they can get a square deal
from governments for work or wages.’’ He goes on to say the
initiative was encouraged and helped by representatives of the St.
Catharines unemployed organization and that a founding meeting
for the new organization in Niagara Falls was planned for March
15... UE News, the bi-weekly newspaper of the United Electrical
workers reports the union now has unemployed organizations
established in several Ontario centres, lobbying local councils for
emergency job-creation programs, and helping the unemployed
with UIC problems, welfare, OHIP, and other difficulties. The
Hamilton UE committee is very active, meeting twice a week to

| divid

i Just

tion we asingly coming into ques-
oe a barrage of criticism
ment € Institute’s unjust treat-
nt of the sociology instructor.
cute dismisses Grier’s
y cae, as ‘‘absolutely in-
to t and absolutely insulting”’
© Organizations and in-
Protest Who have written to
refusal yerson administration’s
held to re-hire her to the job she
the Prior to a two-year stint as
rote erson of the Metro To-
Tegional committee of the
et Party of Canada.
ten Y of those who have writ-
dae. behalf I’ve never met
“It’s n't know’’, McGuire said.
Who’y, y an insult to those
Plies the Written, because ‘it im-
: pe a for the case is
: Nn it denigrates
their academic honesty.

Senne

liven the soe f

th Position of many 0:
| the People and their standing in
_* ®&ademic community, Grier’s

JEANNE McGUIRE

statement is absurd.”’

McGuire was rejected for lack-
ing a Master of Arts degree and
the right ‘‘academic orientation
for the department. McGuire, in
fighting the decision, points out
that an M.A. wasn’t previously
required for the job, there are pre-
sently two tenured faculty in the
Arts Division without M.A.s, and
last year 68 non-tennured faculty
were hired without having M.A.s.

CUEW is taking the matter to
arbitration, May 16-17. Not to

t the decision, a union eine

s, would mean allowing a pre-
id to be set that would de-
stroy what little i security its

mbers currently enjoy. :
“CUEW notes that ‘‘academic
orientation’® has never been
defined by the institute or the
department, and even if it were,
the concept doesn’t jive with the

essence of academic freedom’’,
he wrote, ‘‘an institution which
denies it ceases to be an academic

institution.”

Other voices which have joined
the union’s protest include that of
York University mathematician
professor Lee Lorch, noted athe-
lete and scholar Bruce Kidd; Dr.
James Folks, past president of the
Canadian Association of Uni-
versity Teachers, (CAUT), and a
professor of pharmacology at the
University of British Columbia;
sociologist John Warnock, author
of Partner of Behemoth and Profit
Hungry; and on behalf of the en-
tire Social Sciences Department
of Atkinson College, York Uni-
versity, chairperson Gerry Hun-
nius.

Also listed among the organi-
zations and individuals support-
ing the CUEW fightback are the
Ryerson Staff Association, repre-

senting the non-faculty staff at the
institute, a number of students
from universities across the coun-
try, the University of Winnipeg
Students’ Association, the Cana-
dian Federation of Students —
Ontario, (Ontario Federation of
Students) and others.

demnation and censure of the

help the jobless . . . in London the labor council is getting into the’
act. It has sent out a circular to local unions urging them to form
unemployed fightback committees, and letting affiliates know
they have a co-ordinator available to help in setting such com-
mittees up .. . The Grande Marche was officially launched Feb.
15 at a press conference in Montreal. Quebec Federation of Labor
president Louis Laberge pledged his organization’s total support
for the Quebec protest and called for government action to tackle
the unemployment crisis. With the resources at this country’s
disposal, Laberge said, there is absolutely no reason for mass
unemployment and no excuse for the government not to take
action in this regard. He said he expects as many as 50,000
protesters in Montreal on May 28, the day of the mass rally.

— Mike Phillips

Canadian Sociology and An-
thropology Association unless the
violations of academic freedom
aren’t corrected, Association.
president Jim Richardson
warmed. ‘‘While the victims of
political discrimination suffer, it
should be recognized that so do
those who perpetrate it’’, he
wrote.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 25, 1983—Page 7

The institute faces the con-