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_ General strike planned against

Special to the Tribune

MONTREAL — The legislated wage cut imposed on
Quebec’s 300,000 public sector workers is being met by
organized labor with plans to stage a general strike.

More than 90% of Quebec's public sector workers,
united in the 220,000-member Common Front of unions
from the three main labor centrals in the province re-
jected the Levesque government’s passage, Dec. 12 of
Bill 105, the most vicious attack on the labor movement
since the dark days of former premier Maurice Duples-
sis.
A period of mourning was declared by the Common
Front unions, in the wake of Bill 105 to lament the loss of

collective bargaining rights and to protest the open threat

hagsece a

it poses to the existence of the labor movement itself.
Bill 105, passed during the weekend, imposes new

_ three-year contracts on more than 300,000 public sector

workers in 109 separate agreements. It takes more than
$400-million out of the workers’ pockets through a 20%
wage rollback for more than half the workers under the
legislation, during the first three months of 1983.

Some 145,000 workers who earn more than $22,373 a
year will suffer a direct wage cut in the first three months
of the enforced pact of 19.45%. Others will experience
cuts in the same range, or have their wages frozen for the
first three months.

The bill also cancels a 1.5% wage increase the
government had previously agreed to provide in the
current agreement. After the cuts, wages will drop 5%

~ lower than current levels. On April 1 public sector wages

will be pushed back to June 1982 levels.

In vivid contrast, the members of Quebec’s National
Assembly (the provincial legislature), just recently
voted themselves a wage hike that brings them up to

-— Quebec public sector wage cut

$42,000 a year. The MNAs, unlike virtually all other
public sector employees, don’t come under the govern-
ment’s draconian legislation.

The leaders of the Common Front, representing the
Quebec Federation of Labor, (QFL) the Confederation
of National Trade Unions (CNTU) and the Quebec
Teachers’ Central (CEQ) responded angrily to the pas-
sage of the bill.

Fight All the Way

QFL president Louis Laberge called it ‘‘a dark day”’ in
Quebec history and warned his members to rest up over
the Christmas break because they may have to spend
Easter in jail for disobeying the PQ government’s anti-
union law.

News of the terms of the new law spread throughout
the labor movement like wildfire, and the Common
Front leaders didn’t have long to wait before their mem-
bers renewed their leaders’ mandate to fight the wage
cuts all the way.

Backed by the members’ massive rejection of the bill
and the tremendous renewed confidence vote in the
Common Front’s determination to oppose the new law,
about 125 delegates from various unions in the front met
Dec. 12 and decided to set Jan. 9 as the date for a meeting
of the front’s 750-member co-ordinating committee.

This committee will be charged with the task of work-
ing out the details of a general strike to defeat the legisla-
tion. The strike could be launched as early as Jan. 24,
sources indicate.

“Rejected by Nurses

The Parti Quebecois (PQ) government of Premier
Rene Levesque is threatening the trade union movement

in the public sector with decertification and the abolition —

of the Rand Formula, if Bill 105 is defied.

The anger and resentment of public sector workers —

over these threats and the reactionary legislation ara
universal. Non-participants in the common front, such
as senior civil servants and Quebec’s 30-40,000 nurseg

who both come under the legislation have over.
whelmingly rejected the government measures and —
could be drawn into support for the general strike next —

month. ae
Laberge has said that the public sector workers ‘‘wil}

fight like hell’’ to defeat Bill 105. The CNTU, Quebec’s
second largest trade union central after the QFL, pic.
keted the National Assembly last week, and called fon

the resignation of the PQ government. There is already ©

growing speculation that this looming confrontation with
labor could spell the defeat of the PQ government.
Bill 105 is the eighth piece of so-called ‘‘special legisla.
tion” brought down by the Levesque government
against the labor movement since being swept to powen
in Nov. 1976.
Servant of Banks

The protestors last week demonstrated their anger by.
burning copies of the obnoxious bill and the provincia}

flag, beside the government's Christmas tree outside tha

‘National Assembly. :

The teachers’ central, the CEQ is planning a specia)
convention shortly, to set up a solidarity fund to help
finance their strike.

Labor is gearing up to make an unprecedented chal,
lenge of the government's plan to slash public secton
wages to non-union levels that exist in the private sector,
The PQ government is increasingly exposing itself as a
grovelling servant of the banks and multinational corp,
orations, particularly those owned in the USS.

All-in labor unity inside Quebec and with the rest of
the labor movement across Canada is becoming mora
and more indispensable as the need for labor to form its
own independent mass federated political party is be,
coming more widely recognized.

A government based on such an alliance could break —

the power of the banks and the corporations by national,
izing their Quebec interests, opening the door to a way
out of the current capitalist crisis.

Canadian Labor Congress President Dennis McDermott

Chrysler win must be repeated in Quebec

What conclusions can workers draw from the Cana-
dian Chrysler settlement arrived at last week after a five
week strike?

(1) It is possible to win wage increases in spite of the
moaning and groaning of big business about hard times.

(2) The role of leadership is decisive.

(3) The trade union movement as a whole is prepared
to unite behind any of its member unions in the front
ranks of struggle.

(4) Canadian workers in U.S. branch plants are not
— to wages and working conditions made in the

A.

(5) It is a lot easier to give concessions away than it is
to win them back again.

The Chrysler strike and settlement is somewhat of a
tonic to the Canadian trade union movement. It pitted
workers against one of the major symbols of the current
crisis, the automobile industry, which is leading the de-
mand that working people must take less and less and
produce more and more if ‘‘we’’ are going to pull out of
the present crisis.

Chrysler had argued publicly that it did not have the
money to pay the demands of the workers. UAW Presi-
dent Doug Frazer, who accepted a seat on the Chrysler
Board of Directors, had agreed with this company
estimation.

In spite of this, however, the company was forced to
sign an agreement which it is estimated will cost them
$10 million a week in Canada and the United States.

When asked where the money was to come from,
Chrysler President Lee Iacocca said, ‘‘We'll have to find
ae
In a sense this sums it up. If Chrysler workers, or any
other workers, don’t have enough money to pay their bill
there is no way they can “‘find it’’. The only way for them
to find it is the way Chrysler workers did, at the bargain-
ing table and through political actions to force prices
down.

What the Chrysler settlement shows is that the issue is
not whether money _is available to make the wheel go
around, but where it is going to come from. Is it going to
come from the hoarded profits of the multi-nationals and
giant monopolies, or is it going to come out of the living
standards of working people?

Labor in action
William Stewart

It is to be hoped that those timid souls in the Canadian
trade union leadership who have tended to retreat in the
face of the monopoly offensive, will learn a lesson from
the Chrysler victory. All the determination and militancy
of the membership will be of little avail in the short run
without leadership that encourages such militancy and
leads the workers into battle. One must credit the UAW
Canadian leadership on this score. They have set an
example for all Canadian labor.

At the same time, one could feel the movement of
support building up in the Canadian trade union move-
ment for the Chrysler workers. If their strike had drag-
ged on into 1983 the same kind of movement that grew
around the strike of Inco workers in Sudbury would have
undoubtedly developed, but even on a more massive
basis. This represents the desire for Canadian workers to
find the spots where they can successfully challenge
monopoly and turn the present struggle in Canada
around in their favour. The. will and capacity to fight is
obviously there.

The importance of the Chrysler settlement for Cana-
dian trade union autonomy is clear. Unity of Canadian
and U.S. workers in the struggle against the same multi-
nationals is indispensable. At the same time, this unity
can only be achieved on the basis of the complete equal-
ity of the workers of both countries. As long as Canadian
workers were the tail of the bargaining dog, no matter
how good the agreements may or may not have been,
such equality could not and did not exist. This victory, in
which the Canadian workers were able to play the major
role (not because of the inability or refusal of the U.S.
workers to fight but because of the refusal of their leaders
to lead) sets the stage for a further strengthening of
Canadian autonomy, not just in auto, but in all Canadian
unions which are part of U.S.-based internationals.

reflected this process when he emphasized the need for
complete autonomy and independence for Canadian
trade unions in his speech to the Ontario Federation of
Labor Convention in November. :

Lastly, one could not help observing in the reaction of
Chrysler workers who were interviewed following the
ratification, a view that this was a qualified victory. The
task remains, in so far as they are concerned, to com-
pletely close the gap between their wages and those of
their brothers and sisters in Ford and General Motors
plants.

This is a view which will serve not only their own
interests but those of the GM and Ford workers and ofall
working people in Canada. It also serves to remind
workers that it is a lot easier to make concessions, than
to win them back, whether it be in the areas of wages,
paid holidays or anything else. The best way to win back
concessions is not to make them in the first place.

* * *

The focus of the labor and trade union movement now
switches to Quebec where a major confrontation exists
between the trade union movement and the government.
The government has passed legislation rolling back the
wages of public sector workers and in the words of Louis
Laberge, president of the Quebec Federation of Labor,
workers better be prepared to spend Easter in jail.

A common front of all three trade union centres in
Quebec has been formed to fight the legislation. Already a
one-day general strike of public sector workers has taken
place and this is said to be just the curtain raiser in labor’s
struggle against the arrogant action of the Quebec
Government.

Dennis McDermott should quickly and without reser-
vations, place the full support of the entire CLC behind
the Quebec workers, and unions across Canada should
immediately rush to ensure their support to the trade
union centres in Quebec.

1982 was a year of preparations for struggle. It closes _

on a note of victory in the Chrysler settlement. The
slogan of labor should be Victory in 83. The place to

begin to make that slogan a reality is the battle of the

workers of Quebec.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 7, 1983—Page 4

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