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The manufacturer of a popular brand of
window blinds with a recent history of
attempted union-busting and goon tactics
may think it’s escaping negotiations by
leaving British Columbia — but that’s not
so, arally outside the plant in Burnaby was
told June 26.

“Tf they think they’re shutting it down
peacefully, we’ve got a message for them:
they’ve not going to get away with it,”
B.C. Federation of Labour president Ken
Georgetti declared.

“What Canadian Window Coverings
has just done is put themselves in the
sights of the entire labour movement, and
not just in British Columbia, but in Can-
ada,” he told trade unionists from atop a
flatbed truck parked across the street from
Canadian Window Coverings, which
manufactures Levolor window blinds.

Earlier, local [WA-Canada official Joe
Leclair had to tell a representative group
of the plant’s 120 mainly women workers

Canadian fis
— page 8

India’s left parties are
mounting a campaign against
separatism in Kashmir and

The United Fishermen and
Allied Workers Union
launches its Pro-Canada
Fleet campaige to protect the
ing industry.

other regions.
— page 3

that the union had just been informed the
company was shutting the plant down.

“T’m absolutely devastated, I’m absol-
utely angry,” Leclair said in relating that
mediator Allan Hope had passed on the
message that the company wanted to dis-
cuss a severance package the following
morning.

Some workers assumed the company
was bluffing, but in an interview June 28,
Leclair said the announced move still
Stands.

For the Levolor workers, some 80 per
cent of whom are women, many from
ethnic minorities, the announced move
was the latest in a series of outrages that
have included court injunctions limiting
picketing and goon tactics.

“As the strike has progressed I’ve
come to realize that they can always go
lower than the lowest we thought they’d
sink,” plant chairperson Michael Collins
said at the rally.

- IWA-Canada local leader Joe Leclair vows union will force Levelor window blinds to pay heavily on a severance package.
Firm, after three weeks of strike and goon tactics, announced closure of Burnaby plant last Tuesday.

The workers certified with IWA-
Canada Local 1-357 last February in an
effort to end arbitrary wage structuring
and a history of verbal and physical in-
timidation by company officials, Collins
said.

The plant workers make between $6-
$11 per hour on a piece-work basis, pick-
eters said in an interview. In an effort to
achieve wage hikes of $1 per hour, they
went on strike for a first contract June 4.

The company officials obtained an in-
junction limiting pickets to one entrance
and have engaged in “goon activity at a
time when they knew the picket line
would be at its weakest,” Leclair, Local
1-357 vice-president, said.

Six uniformed men including the plant
manager and “a skinhead” armed with
sticks shoved six women picketers shortly
after a shift change at approximately 7:15

a.m. on Saturday, June 16, and sub-
see COMPANY page 8

July 2, 1990
50 cents
Volume 53, No. 24

<€a3-

By GEORGE HEWISON

The death of the Meech Lake Accord
marks the end of one chapter in Canadian
history and the beginning of another.

The Communist Party said from the out- —
set that Meech Lake was “unprincipled and
unworkable.” We called it the “companion
piece to the Free Trade Agreement.” Both
serve the interests of the transnational cor-
porations.

The passage of the accord would have
frozen the injustices throughout the country
for a long time, including the unequal union
of Quebec with the rest of Canada. It would
have maintained the alienation of Quebec
while fragmenting English-speaking Can-
ada. Meech Lake would have constitution-
ally enshrined the racism of a society which
denies its first nations an equal place at the
bargaining table. Meech Lake would have
been regressive for democracy, both in con-
tent and in process.

The real alternative to Meech Lake, like
the real alternative to free trade, never sur-
faced in the constitutional debate. The only
choice, other than Meech, was the increas-
ingly unprincipled and unworkable status
quo. The status quo federalism continues to
deny Quebec’s right to self-determination,
thus placing the arguments for and against
Meech Lake in the framework of trying to
expand or reduce provincial rights.

The negotiating process around Meech
Lake was also rigged. The fate of the country
became the special preserve of 11 men meet-
ing behind closed doors. The people were
excluded.

In the dying days of the accord, when
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney set up the
Charest Commission, the Canadian Labour
Congress and the National Action Commit-
tee on the Status of Women, the two largest
popular organizations in the country, were
excluded from the hearings. The Com-
munist Party, the only all-Canada party
which has long recognized the national

see FRAMING page 4

As the Tribune drive wound up
June 23, supporters had turned in a
total of $79,658 — an incredible ach-
ievement but still short of the $82,000
we Set as the minimum we needed.

With this issue, we make one last
appeal to our readers to give us a hand
to put us over the top. And our many
thanks to all those who contributed so
generously to the drive. (Drive details,
page 2.)