| Ontario labor leaders press [VT

government for anti-scab laws

By MIKE PHILLIPS

_ TORONTO — As the Tribune went to press,
April 21, the leaders of the Ontario trade union
Movement were preparing to meet to hammer out
the details of a campaign to force the provincial
Tory government to bring down anti-strike-break-
Ing legislation.
The labor movement’s anger was aroused over
stepped-up activities of professional strike-
breaking agencies, which over the past decade
have mushroomed by 68.9%. Over that period,
€nsed private security personnel, according to a

Study prepared for the United Steelworkers and .

Presented to the government last August, have
Mcreased 92.1%.

e dimensions of the problem can be seen by.

fact that during the same period, public police
forces have grown by only 29.1%. The study noted
hat if unlicensed private security personel were
en into account, police would be outnumbered
by these private police forces by 50%.
_To put it more vividly, in 1980 there were 15,000
icensed security personnel and 19,879 police
Officers, compared to 7,895 and 15,400, respec-
tively in 1971.
“ A long list of outrages and assaults by these
“security”? agencies on workers’ trade union and
_ democratic rights culminated three weeks ago in
the death of Steelworker picketer Claude Doug-
een, who was run down by a truck crossing the
Picketline at Alcan Building Products Ltd., in To-
Tonto.

the line by Metro Police just as 15 non-striking
workers and 20 scabs were being ushered
through. Twenty-four charges have been laid, to
date, out of a workforce numbering about 110.

CPL workers have been arrested, finger
printed and jailed. One striker even turned
himself in to a local police station and was
transferred, in handcuffs, to another division for
fingerprinting.

The 12-person delegation that met with On-
tario Labor Minister Russel Ramsay included
Ontario Federation of Labor President Cliff
Pilkey, Steelworkers’ Ontario director Dave
Patterson, Canadian Paperworkers Union, reg-
ion three Vice-President Don Holder, Ontario
Public Service Employees Union President Sean
O’Flynn, Lucie Nicholson President of the
Canadian: Union of Public Employees Ontario
division and others.

_ Ramsay wouldn't commit the government to
bringing down anti-strike-breaking laws or to
investigate the proliferation of professional
strike-breaking agencies and private security
services.

Pilkey said organized labor is ‘tincensed”’ by
the refusal .of the Metro police to lay charges
against the individuals responsible for Doug-
deen’s death. The only inquiry into the matter is
slated to occur June 13 when a coroner’s jury will
review the incident.

Government Complicity

“We're not satisfied with a coroner's inquest’,

2-Bi NC

Notorious Securicor

That list includes the infiltration of a Steel-

Workers’ local at Automotive Hardware a couple

of years ago, where the agent, David Ivers was

€xposed working for Securicor Investigations and

urity Ltd. Ivers was caught out when he ad-

Vocated dynamiting the railway tracks leading into
Company property.

A partial list of other notorious instances of the

_ Use of strike breaking agencies in the recent period
include the Lime and Gypsum Workers strike at
Canada Cement Lafargue, the Graphic Arts Inter-

National Union strike in Bramalea at Rolph Clark -

Stone, the United Food and Commercial Workers
Strike at Bata, and the Steelworkers at Irwin Toy.

__ While the Alcan strike is raging, the Toronto
Steelworkers are also fighting scab agencies in
another strike at Central Precision Ltd. In this
Strike Securicor agents have been photographing
- the pickets and filing complaints with a justice of
the peace that have led, so far, to the arrest and
banning from the picket line of the local union
President, and the arrest and charging of Steelwor-
kers staff rep Fortunato (Lucky) Rao.

_ The role of the police and the justice of the peace
issuing the warrants for arrest, when he’s empo-
Wered also to issue summonses instead, has clearly
Shown their complicity in helping the automotive

Parts company try to smash the strike by herding

Scabs through the picket lines.

Strikers Jailed, Handcuffed
On April 6, union president Carol Anne
Scevior and four other pickets were arrested on

On AAT SERRA

Pilkey said. ‘‘It has to go beyond that, we have to
know what's behind the death and what prompted
the driver to drive through the line.”’

Pilkey said the government's complying role in

the whole incident is symbolized in the fact that the ©

union can’t even find out from the Crown attor-
ney’s office and the police, the names of the in-
dividuals involved.

Dave Patterson said the labor movement will
pursue anti-strike legislation till it succeeds. ‘*This
is 1983: we don’t want to get into a situation like
1976 where we had to produce a body count just to
get safety legislation.”

The steel union leader said labor ‘‘isn’t going to
put up with people getting run down, knocked
down or being abused by scabs on the picket line.”

In Canada, only British Columbia and Quebec
have legislation addressing strike-breaking. In
B.C., it’s against the law for strike-breaking agen-
cies to operate in the province, while in Quebec,
legislation bans the use of scabs. Amendments to
this law are before the National Assembly that
would force a strike-bound company to cease all
production during the period under dispute.

In its presentation to the government last Au-

_ gust, the Steelworkers called for legislation that

would parallel Quebec’s existing and proposed
legislation and further outlaw: individuals offering
their services as scabs; anti-union spying: advertis-
ing for, recruiting, furnishing, and transporting
scabs; inciting illegal acts on the picket line; pro-
voking strikes and offering to eliminate unions and
blacklisting. ‘

ED

In his visit to Niagara Falls, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Tru-
deau had time to sip Inniskillen wine, and take a boat nde under
the falls, but no time at all for the area’s jobless.

That didn’t stop Niagara Falls’ Unemployed Workers Coalition
from mobilizing vocal demonstrations, April 15 to let him know
they don’t like his government's big-business-favoring economic
policies.

Shouting: ‘‘Unemployment is no enjoyment’’; and, ‘‘Who’s
going to pay for our dinner?’’; 50 unemployed workers marched
outside the posh hotel where Trudeau was plugging the disas-
trous ‘6 and 5’’ program and offering other pearls of wisdom to
the local Liberal Party faithful.

Another 150 jobless, joined by Niagara Falls Mayor Wayne
Thomson, awaited the prime minister on the grounds of a shut-
down amusement park to confront Trudeau with demands for
government action to deal with the third highest unemployment
rate in Ontario. The amusement park, Pyramid Place, was re-
cently felled by the current depression and massive unemploy-
ment in the Niagara Peninsula in general.

The unemployed were particularly disgusted with local Liberal
MP Al MacBain for trying to head off the demo by promising the
Unemployed Coalition a meeting with the PM that was never
scheduled. Trudeau’s staff said there wasn’t time in the PM's
agenda to meet the unemployed, yet he did find enough flexibility
in his schedule for three unplanned stops in his visit, including a
boat ride to the base of the falls.

Meanwhile, behind closed doors, Trudeau told the hand-
picked audience of the *‘successes”* of the *°6 and 5” policy,
which has been demonstrated by record breaking unemployment
throughout Canada — more than two million at last count.

According to reports, he even rambled on about the fate of
dissidents in the Soviet Union, where unemployment has been
abolished for more than 50 years, and talked about Canada’s
relations with Central America, where his government’s ‘*me
too’’ endorsation of U.S. efforts to crush democratic Nicaragua
is only matched by its support for the fascist junta in El Salvador.

Climbing into his Toronto-bound limousine, Trudeau pocketed
the envelope handed to him by Mayor Thomson. It contained
unemployment statistics for the area, an appeal for government
aid to the region to help the municipality tackle the jobs problem
and help the unemployed, as well as economic reform proposals
of his own.

Thomson, who came under fire by MacBain for siding with the
people and not hiding behind his office, said he took part in the
demo because he wanted to show the impossibility of municipali-
ties dealing with such a massive problem on their cwn.

* * * 4

Unemployment lines: A sign of the times in Amherstberg, a little
village near Windsor, Ontario, was the massive response re-
cently by some 4,000 people to a call for 22 jobs at a new chemical
plant. Company officials at BCM Technologies report that job
applications came from across Canada at the rate of “hundreds”
a day following a routine ad campaign. The company has put one
office worker on the job of just answering all of the applica-
tions ... Saskatchewan building trades workers are planning a
jobs rally in Regina, (date to be announced) to protest the Tory
government’s policy of awarding construction contracts for
provincial work to non-union contractors .. . Winnipeg's got an
Unemployed Organizing Committee that’s appealing to the more
than 50,000 unemployed Manitobans to fight back against
unemployment. ‘It’s time to organize in Winnipeg’, the commit-
tee says in a new leaflet. ‘‘ Facing a long period of unemployment
alone is frustrating and demoralizing but organized and together
we can at least protect ourselves: and start working to make
governments change their indifferent attitudes and come up with
some long-term job creation plans,” the leaflet says. Interested
Winnipegers are urged to contact Mike Roberts, 895-7491, or Jim
Siddle 589-5446 ... The final word has to go to Mrs. Bud Mac-
Dougald, wife of the corporate tycoon who built Argus Cor-
poration. Following an interview with the CBC when it was
filming its series on Canada’s moneybags — The Canadian Estab-
lishment —— Mrs. MacDougald is reported to have confessed over
tea with the CBC crew “‘Bud’s” appreciation for economic
depressions. Said the tycoon’s wife: **My husband always loved
depressions. He always did so well in them.’’ — Mike Phillips

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1983—Page 9