" ‘Open for business’ Tory policy

_ fuels layoffs, closures in Sask.

By KIMBALCARIOU
REGINA — Interprovincial Steel and Pipe Co.,
(PSCO) will shut down its plant here for at least
three months, March 18, adding 635 more steel-

_ Workers to Saskatchewan’s jobless totals, and

Making a mockery of Premier Grant Devines’ re-
Cent predictions that the province will be the “‘eco-
nomic engine of North America.”

_ A rising flood of layoffs is battering working
People here, and the Conference Board of Canada
Predicts that the province will have the lowest
Sfowth rate in Canada this year — 0.4%.

In January, there were 41,000 jobless in the pro-
vince, nearly double last year’s figure. The Feb-
Mary total of UIC claimants and Saskatchewan
pouance plan beneficiaries (not including depen-

ents) now numbers nearly 80,000. When depen-
dents are included, mainly children, about one per-
Son in seven in the province today relies on assis-

€ to live, not including senior citizens.

dary industry, as at IPSCO, which blames the drop
M oil drilling, declining markets for small-diameter
Pipes, and a slow market for agricultural imple-
ments, for the virtually complete spring shutdown.
year ago, IPSCO’s four operaitons in western
anada employed 2,218 workers; by March 18,

_ Only 852 will be at work in the plants.

But, the Tory government has worsened matters

Y reducing the number of provincial employees,
20 of the 1,600 Saskatchewan Government Insur-
ance employees, largely members of the Office and
fessional Employees (OPEU), were given the

| axe Feb, 28.

Reducing Public Sector
government-owned Saskatchewan Power
Corp. has announced a combination of attrition
and “voluntary retirement”’ plans to cut 10% ofits
3,500-strong workforce by 1984. Twenty-four em-

Ployees of SaskMedia, which produces and distri- .

butes educational films, will be left jobless when
- the crown corporation is dissolved March 31. After
Using promises to expand Prince Albert Pulp to win
Votes in the recent Prince Albert-Duck Lake by-
election, the Tories have reversed themselves; the
Management of the pulp mill has announced that
320IWA members at the plant will be laid off for 10
Weeks in two five-week periods starting in April
and June, and another 29 jobs will be lost in-
finitely. :

Layoffs continue to strike at primary and secon- —

The measures are part of a full-scale drive by the
Tories to reduce the role of the province’s public
sector. Devine is to announce details of a re-
organization of government departments and the
crown corporations by April 1, to make the public
sector ‘‘as efficient as possible’.

Instead of expanding the services to meet the
needs of the unemployed, the Tories have brazenly
cut back spending. In the November budget
adjustment, daycare funding was cut by $132,000;
the Family Income Plan by $1.8-million; the Sas-
katchewan Income Plan for senior citizens by
$400,000; grants to community services by
$264,000; grants for home care by over $3.5-mil-
lion; and funds for the Department of Northern
Saskatchewan (which is being dismantled) com-
munity programs by $1-million. Social Services
Minister Pat Smith has bluntly refused to consider
reversing the cuts, and social agencies fear worse

‘jn the upcoming provincial budget.

Open for Business

One result could be widespread shutdowns of
daycares. Child care subsidies to unemployed pa-
rents are now available for only two months, not
six, forcing many parents to withdraw their chil-
dren. This declining enrolment, plus long delays by
the province in payment of the subsidies to the
centres, is severely straining their finances. Five of
the 13 centres in Saskatoon have announced they
may be forced to close very soon.

In a different example, a federal-provincial dis-
pute over financing for off-reserve education of
treaty Indians could force the closure of 30 schools
in the Northern Lights school district by April 1.
The federal government has cut off funding for
treaty Indian students in schools off reserves, and
provincial Attorney-General Gary Lane says it
would not be ‘‘wise or advisable’’ for the province
to fill the gap. In both cases — and there are many
more — children will be among the first victims of
cutbacks. : é

The callousness of the Tory cabinet to such prob-
lems is the flip side of their eagerness to make
Saskatchewan ‘‘Open for Business’’. Premier De-

- yine and other government figures have repeatedly

announced programs and plans to aid the private
sector, from tax breaks for the oil industry to freez-
ing the minimum wage.

™ Quebec teachers still solid

defending

quality education

ing conditions and benefits, and

broad co-ordinating committee including the three labor centrals

Bi 3 sheesh ae ath é é day,’ ls ean ee

1 Special to the Tribune
T rho EREAL Asi, the
abo une went to press March 10,
3 ut 72,000 Quebec teachers
Pek getting ready to vote
ether to call off a planned
Saven March 14 or give the
vernment another two weeks to
Me to its senses and negotiate a
nt contract settlement.

cE Quebec Teachers’ Central
SEQ), representing striking pri-
teac and secondary school
-—ofN, Ts, and the Confederation
“rep tonal Trade Unions (CSN),
Presenting some 8,000 junior

Pin Week truce last month in the
that hoe wide teachers’ strike
Mat began in January. -

. Most Repressive
_By €xercising what was univer-
de Y Condemned by workers and
Ri pate throughout Quebec
the the rest of Canada as some of
Soe repressive anti-union
5 On ever seen in this coun-
Ouei labor history, the Parti
is (PQ), government of
as Levesque was able to force
Bone One but the teachers back to
» last month.
“he teachers, who see job se-

_ folllege teachers launched a -

curity and the quality of education
for all of the people in Quebec as
the top issues in the negotiations
remained solid in the face 0
brutal penalties, and legislation
which strips them individually of
their human rights under the fed-
eral Human Rights Charter and its
equivalent in Quebec.

CEQ President Yvon Char-
bonneau welcomed the creation,
March 8 of a three-person
conciliation commission name
by provincial Education Minister

Camille Laurin to help resolve the
dispute.
Laurin has mandated the

commission to come up with pro- .

posals for a settlement within two

weeks.
For its part, the CEQ has come

along way in trying to resolve the

strike, and its concessions to the .

hard line on cutbacks advanced
by the government have been
substantial. coe
It has moved from the original
position of no, to the three-mon
wage rollback that took as much

wage. The union, from day one of

the strike, has been fighting just to
maintain the status quo on work-

for a wage freeze in the first year

of the three year pack imposed on.
f them by the PQ government

through bill 105.

Conceding the wage rollback,
the CEQ however still refuses to
let the government lower the qual-

ity of education throughout.

Quebec by slashing some 10,000
jobs next September and intro-
ducing measures that will in-
crease the teachers’ workloads,
increase class sizes, and erode the
prospects for individual attention.
For Job Security

The CEQ has been successful
in rallying the public to a certain
extent around its demands for job
security to preserve the quality of
education. te ;

The PQ government has spent

‘millions in advertising, trying to

depict the’ labor movement as

greedy and irresponsible while
painting its own monetarist, =

made-in-USA economic policies

th as the soul of reason.

Some of the government ads
plumbed new depths, for the PQ
which, when it was convenient,
used to present itself as a social
democratic party of sorts.

Thousands are expected to fill the streets of Montreal May 28 in
a massive protest gathering momentum from every corer of
Quebec. Its demand is for government action at both provincial

and federal levels to tackle Canada’s number one social crisis.
* * *

‘“‘I_a Grande Marche’’ — the Great March, is the project of a

in Quebec, theQuebec Federation of Labor, the Confederation
of National Trade Unions, the Quebec Teachers Central, the
organization of young Catholic workers, the association of wel-
fare recipients and the Quebec Coalition of the Unemployed.

In addition to these bodies some 40 other organizations
throughout the province are supporting the co-ordinating com-
mittee. They represent various church organizations including
the Quebec Council of Catholic Bishops, social workers, farm-
ers, Native organizations, women’s groups, students, consum-
ers, civil liberties activists as well as ethnic and immigrant work-
ers’ organizations.

Each of the 22 regional committees being set up will be plan- .
ning its own activities to mobilize for the Montreal event as well
as for protest actions of its own. For example, the Saguenay-Lac
St. Jean regional committee is planning a bicycle tour around the
lake to draw the government's attention to the plight of the
unemployed. i

bd * * :

Posters, buttons, organizing kits are being distributed through-
out Quebec in preparation for the jobs campaign. The national
co-ordinating committee is sponsoring a theatre group, Called
Parminou, (loosely translated, it means among ourselves), totour -
the province to publicize the campaign, and entertain the jobless.

The campaign will focus on a number of issues such as the
demand for government-initiated job creation based on the
following criteria: job permanence; the processing of natural
resources and the development of human resources; stimulating
economic development in all regions of Quebec; and develop-
ment that will guarantee more economic independence.

Other demands will touch on: measures to limit and control
plant closures and mass layoffs, including a government commis-
sion to which closures and layoffs must be justified, with the
power to launch inquiries into such corporate decisions; legis-
lation making the employers assume the social costs of introduc-

ing technological innovation, and introducing democratic control

over the introduction of new technology into the workplace;
legislation compelling businesses and employers to ‘‘open their
books’’ to public and union scrutiny so workers can get an idea of
the size and nature of investment, and government assistance;
legislation banning overtime work; maintenance of public sector
jobs and legislation reducing work time without any loss of rights;
and, tax reform aimed at shifting the present burden off the
workers’ shoulders to where it belongs — on the corporations
and the moneybags.
* * a

The QFL has called on the Canadian Labor Congress to urge
its provincial federations to consider organizing parallel activities
in solidarity with the Montreal demo, May 28. The next two
months will see a lot of activity in Quebec, the impact of that
campaign can only be intensified with similar actions in every
provincial capital — the message won't be missed there, or in
Ottawa.

*° * *

Unemployment lines: Another unemployed committee was
set up in Toronto by the United Electrical workers, March 8.
It is a companion to another Toronto committee set up in Feb-
ruary ... the Metro Toronto Labor Council is in the process of
applying for government funding to set up three help centres in
the city, and at the recent council meeting March 3, voted to
establish an Action Committee to Fight Unemployment, uniting
public and private sector unions to develop what the executive
calls “a strategy for political action on the issue of unemploy-
ment.”? Demonstrations and other forms of protest and pressure
on politicians and governments are forseen ... Westinghouse
workers in London, Ontario, have formed an unemployed com-
mittee which already has been on the street, like many other

committees of the jobless, protesting the scabby activities of Job
Mart. — Mike Phillips

CEQ president Yvon Charbonneau, |
Laberge addressing common front raily, Jan. 28.

eft and QFL leader Louis

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 18, 1983—Page 7 oS