Labour

Jobs and solidarity
priorities for CSN

The last 10 days

We’re down to the last 10 days and with $63,800 in, we’ve
still got just over $18,000 to go before the Victory banquet on
June 25. That’s still a bit of a hurdle but in past years, press
clubs have shown what they can do in the last week. Some
are already over their targets. If the others do the same, we
can over-subscribe that $82,000 — and send a clear message
to Victoria.

ennett

Richmond Prince Rupert

_Seamen- Sunshine Coast 600

va oN Trail 700. 640
Van. Fishermen: : AND _
West Side 4,800 _—s 3,466 coe bi secnins
Ses t Pe on qq Comox Valley 1,400 1,096
ne kee ace M8 Namaime= = = 9800-2 9 770
Langley ==: 600 A80 Victoria. = G0 4,808
Maple Ridge 2,200 2184 =] fe
Surrey 2,200 2,496 Miscellaneous _ 2,500 6,071
White Rock —*'1,000 1,120 TOTAL 65,700 63,816

$18,000 yettogo

Saturday, June 25 ; |
Maritime Labour Centre i
1880 Triumph Street
Wancouver

Refreshments 6 p.m.

Dinner 7 p.m.
$12/$10/12 and under free

Full course roast beef dinner

Entertainment

Awards presentation

Call Tribune for reservations
at 251-1186.

12 « Pacific Tribune, June 15, 1988

‘a strike supporter

QUEBEC — The 225,000-member Con-
federation of National Trade Unions (CSN)
opened its 54th congress June 6 under the
banner of fighting for “a future on our own
terms.”

In what some described as an “optimis-
tic” keynote, CSN president Gerald Larose
summed up the union central’s battles dur-
ing the past two years since the last con-
gress, tallying its victories and disappoint-
ments.

The former included a net growth of
nearly 17,000 members, despite the loss last
year of some 6,500 community college
teachers and nurses.

Looming over the
proceedings was the
epic Manoir Riche-
lieu struggle, which
began with a fight to
stop what Larose
called the “the theft”
of 306 jobs and
escalated into a
deadly conflict, with

killed on the picket
line and the expo-
sure of a police agent in the union’s ranks.

The CSN has spent more than $1 million
in direct support of the workers who were
locked out by owner Raymond Malenfant
after he bought the resort from the provin-
cial Liberal government more than two
years ago.

Yet another million dollars has been
raised from CSN locals through a 25 cent
per member campaign.

In an emotional solidarity parade closing
the June 7 session of the six-day convention,
Manoir Richelieu local president Louiselle
Pilote thanked her brothers and sisters for
their solidarity, including the 25-cent cam-
paign. :

“If we’re still able to stay there on the
Manor Richelieu picket line, its thanks to
all of you here,” Pilote told the more than
1,300 delegates.

“We'll be on that picket however long it
takes because we know there’s always
someone who is supporting us.”

Larose poured out the union’s anger on
the RCMP and the Canadian Security and
Intelligence Service (CSIS), and the “‘incred-
ible aggression” directed against the CSN.

Referring to the 15-year undercover sur-
veillance of the confederation by former
CSN staffer Marc Boivin, he declared: ““We
will never stop proclaiming our indignation
over this aggression. The secret police has
no business infiltrating democratic organi-
zations in Canada, especially to conduct
provocative operations,” he said. He
thanked the “many democrats” for their
support to the CSN during this period.

In mapping out the confederation’s
action program for the next two years, Larose
focussed on four goals: the fight for full
employment; the extension of democracy;
broadening collective control over social

LAROSE

development; and promoting peace and
international solidarity. :

Saying full employment is achievable,
Larose noted how, “eventually (it) would
permit the freeing of the necessary resources —
to reduce work time, not only from the
perspective of sharing available work, but
from the perspective of a collective
improvement of the quality of life.’

Democracy has to be extended from the
political to the economic spheres, he sal
citing the Mulroney-Reagan trade deal as @
prime example of economic policy forma-
tion that completely denied the people any
direct control.

The issue of extending economic demo-
cracy found expression in the protest organ-
ized June 8 outside the National Assembly
against the Bourassa government’s welfare
reform legislation which the central sees aS
an attack on the poor and the trade union
movement.

In promoting solidarity and peace, Larose
said the confederation embraces a concept
solidarity that encompasses joint action
and support for people battling within the
ranks of the trade union movement and in
society up to the development of stronger
fraternal international relations.

“Promoting international solidarity also
means working for peace ... it means
becoming a power for disarmament, peace
and justice. It means allowing workers t0
provide their families with a living while
working in peace and not for the destruc-
tion of humanity.”

But if Larose painted a picture that some
delegates thought might tend toward
underestimating the reality confronting the
union central, there were others calling for
new approaches to building unity in the face
of the broad government-corporate offen-
sive against labour. a

Quebec Regional Council president
Nicole Madore spoke of the lack of unity
within the central in being able to identify
the key issues confronting labour, and that
not only the CSN but the trade union
movement at large have been weakened by
a lack of common strategy in the fightback.

While free trade was mentioned in the
convention documents and keynote, it
didn’t figure as the possible critical turning
point for Canada that other labour bodies
in the country, particularly the Canadian
Labour Congress, have projected.

The CSN, however, was to participate, aS
the final act of the congress, in the June 12
national day of action against the deal by
joining the Quebec Coalition Against Free
Trade, of which it is a member along with
the Quebec Federation of Labour, the
teachers central (CEQ) and the farmers
union (UPA), in a demonstration at the
National Assembly.

A resolution which at press time was to
come before the convention would put the
CSN on record against the trade deal, but
fails to concretize plans for mass mobiliza-
tion of the central’s membership.

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