LABOR SCENE

by Bruce Magnuson

M. Bedard, International
Workers, Montreal, told
Ottawa Convention of the
: last month that the re-
5: Bae Quebec workers to
, ng of their leaders was
atural reaction of people
Bae been “frustrated, be-
a lied to.”
aa Stewart, Shipyard
tish Workers Federation of
ae Columbia, charged that
Ing class of both English
pen Canada were united
aes Intent to destroy the
Of all organized workers
across the country. He
€ same type of anti-labor
ve Waged against Quebec
ts is being carried out
sia construction and
workers in B.C. Mr.
“ €ffectively linked up
Peernment and the judi-
Fh i the bosses, all of
Perpet to keep the workers

A ‘ual slavery.
Ronctly questioned the
On that Onal Leader’s conten-
: the sentencing of Que-
_ © unionists to jail had
pais act on the part of
. polar judge, and _ said
.. om being a foolish act
4 lated tO”: it was “a cold
rt pl Move in which the
War ayed its role in the class

Nsj
ke

' — SLC Resolution

4 e *
Cle on olution adopted by the
: vention by a unanimous
ing vote in support of
pcorkers, emphasized
ei workers “through
Sens followed all
Wision ents and within
a Ns of the law, exer-
Sot to strike”; that
ds a Fement of Quebec
Meet €mned for its fail-
With re the spirit of its own
oe Spect to the concilia-
€ss”; and that “the
{ of Quebec exped-
empl ted. its. responsibil-
Oyer by using coer-
rorbitrary legislative
€press the legitimate
Its employees for a
and secure life for
d their families”;
fre has been an at-
€ Part of the Gov-
Bon ben ' Quebec to brand
/ te Pecause 5 @S criminals sim-
of oer atig they exercised their
the proue Bhts under the law
al ang eeace in pursuit of so-

Onomic justice.”

t the
Org

{ lon

Plot thickens

is w
8 ae ee recall these state-
“ by authoritative
ot ot at this time,
onti nly the Quebec
ir imposition
fines and
aders, but
°vernment stands
Beotting together
™front employers

to bre
ak the uni
emen. union of

a
e menple of months ago
f at St. Lawrence

r sete eee adopted a
§ ont which the
SS immediatel

c iy
Ce sense settle-

€* which was

800d deal for the
PSses_» Th. £004 deal for
Ail hea ay POronto Globe
x Faite Stated, “Big
x ‘a featherbedding
Quebec ports.”

What CLC really said

on the goals of labor

The Toronto Star asked editor-
ially: “Can this common-sense
settlement be extended to To-
ronto and Hamilton, giving the
entire Canadian seaway a new
edge of efficiency and zip?” The
agreement was hailed by the
capitalist press as a triumph for
the federal Labor Department’s
preventive mediation program
“which began working toward
(this) pact three years ago, im-
mediately after signing of the
contract that expired last Dec.
31,” under the leadership of the
federal department’s chief in
Quebec, Mr. Charles Poirier.

But the peace pact turned out
to be short-lived. “And now,
two months later, the 3,250
(stevedores) are out on strike.
Why?” asks the Globe and Mail
in an editorial on June 1. “In-
consistent, illogical, disastrous,”
writes the confounded editorial
scribe of this big business news-
paper. But the answer is not dif-
ficult to. find.

In return for a phoney new
job security and pensions plan,
the employers gained control of
job assignments and a complete-
ly free hand to practice speed-
up for more productivity and
more rofits for the employers at
the expense of the workers. The
wage increase provided. a pit-
tance of 50¢ over the entire
three years from now until De-
cember 31, 1974. In other words,
it was a complete sell-out, a
sweatheart agreement.

Only the Canadian Tribune
carried a realistic appraisal of
this disastrous sell-out contract
in its April 12, 1971 issue. Here
is what it said:

Proper warning

“What is the lesson and the
warning that emerges here for
all organized labor? Clearly a
pattern of government-employer
collusion is emerging here to
put the squeeze on labor, call it
“preventive mediation” or what-
ever else. It is government-boss
collaboration which seeks to in-
tegrate unions into the machin-
ery of monopoly capitalism,
making the workers pay for the
new technology and their own
retirement through speed-up,
lower wages, mass unemploy-
ment and inflation . . .”

“It is not labor that seeks
strikes. It it the employers’ fail-
ure to bargain in good faith that
forces strike situations. Great
mass struggles, such as strikes,
are inseparable from democracy
in action...

“To give up this weapon, un-
der any and all circumstances
or pretexts, means surrender to

increased exploitation under our
system of state monopoly capi-
talism.”

Incidentally, the same issue
of the Tribune carried the news
of the general strike of 210,000

public workers in Quebec, their .

ranks united and inspired by
the common front of three trade
union centres.

A misrepresentation —

In his report on labor on June
2, Wilfred List of the Globe and
Mail seeks to misrepresent the
goals of labor by inferring that
last month’s CLC Convention in
Ottawa “diluted the 1970 deci-
sion (on industrial democracy)
with a policy document that
was merely a restatement of
traditional union goals and prin-
ciples, including the right to
strike.” Who does Mr. List think
he is kidding, except perhaps
the upstart reformers who
swallow the bourgeois flattery
heaped upon them and who are
prepared to compromise prin-
ciples for a place in the sun?
What industrial democracy or
workers’ control can there be in
a system of private ownership
and control over capital? Co-
determination in such a system
means class partnership or class
collaboration.

The policy document on this
issue presented in Ottawa last
month at the CLC Convention,
after some more or less contra-
dictory generalizations, con-
tained 10 very concrete points
of principle. Here are some:

Point 5. “The right to strike
must be protected as the bed-
rock of worker rights.”

Point 6. “The labor move-
ment must confront all the an-
tagonistic elements in the com-
munity that are determined to
place restrictions on collective
bargaining.”

Point 7. “Through collective
bargaining, Canadian workers
must gain the right to partici-
pate fully and effectively in all
decisions that affect their jobs,
wages and salaries, job secur-
ity, income security, safety and
other conditions of work.”

Point 8. “The labor movement
must increase its efforts to eli-
minate the concept of residual
management rights in industrial
decision-making.”

* Bo

These are valid points that
can be applied to the Quebec
longshoremen’s situation. It is
to be hoped that the labor move-
ment does not delay its support
to these workers as long as it
did in the case of Quebec’s pub-
lic workers.

| HEAR THE GOVERNMENT HAS |

we

(were

QUEBEC TODAY

A political strike?

By SAM WALSH

After the hard blow which the Bourassa government struck with
its Bill 19, obliging the public and para-public service workers to
abandon a legal strike, spokesmen of the government (aided by
high-placed right-wing trade unionists and by “‘leftists”) have been
doing everything to divide and weaken the Common Front.

Their principal tactic is to separate the rank-and-file members
from the main leaders, using as their main argument the efforts of
the latter to “politicize” the struggle.

Mr. Guy Saint-Pierre, minister of industry and commerce in the
Quebec government shed crocodile tears at a meeting of Liberals
in Montreal: “Among the full-time union leaders, no one is talking
about the real questions of salaries and working conditions.” And
after having compared the efforts of the leadership of the Common
Front during the general strike (legal, we repeat) to those of the
French Maoists who kidnapped the vice-president of the Renault
plant in March, he solemnly pronounced that it was the Liberal
Party which had to “give the power back to the rank-and-file!”

The same day that this story appeared in the English-language
daily The Gazette, Le Devoir on its front page quoted Mr. Jean-
Paul l’Allier, Liberal cabinet colleague of Mr. Saint-Pierre: “The
government will make no concessions on the (salary) fund,” which
means “No” to the demand for a $100 minimum weekly salary and
to salary increases of 7.1% as demanded by ‘the Common Front.
For the government the question of the salary fund is a political
question, an integral part of the governmental system, which it is

not prepared to negotiate.

So that, having declared that salaries are not negotiable because
they constitute a political question having to do with the budget
and with the whole system of government, the cabinet then attacked
the leadership of the Common Front for its affirmation that the

struggle is political.

It was Bourassa who made it political.

Coal miners get chance
for democracy in union

WHEELING, W. Va.—A dis-
abled West Virginia miner will
lead the fight for democracy in
the United Mine Workers in the
coming union election.

Arnold Miller, 49, a victim of
black lung—a respiratory ail-
ment common among miners—
was nominated for union pre-
sident on May 28 by a confer-
ence of Miners for Democracy,
a reform group battling the
union machine.

Miller headed a _nine-man
slate nominated by the MFD,
which he and others founded
after the Dec. 31, 1969, murders
of Joseph A. Yablonski, his wife
and daughter, who were shot to
death at their Clarksville, Pa.,
home.

The slayings occurred three
weeks after Yablonski, member
of the UMWA executive board,
lost a bitter election bid to un-
seat W. A. “Tony” Boyle as pre-
sident- of the 190,000-member
union. Five persons have con-
fessed or been convicted in the
killings and two UMW em-
ployees will go on trial on mur-
der charges in the fall.

1969 Election Voided

Boyle’s 1969 re-election was
voided earlier this month in
Washington, D.C., federal dis-
trict court and a new election

was ordered. The court’s deci- -

sion also overturned the re-elec-
tion of the two other top union
officers — vice-president George
Titler and secretary-treasurer
John Owens.

Titler, 77, has said he will not
run in a new election. Boyle,
67, and Owens, 81, have not an-
nounced whether they would
run.

Boyle is appealing a federal
court conviction of misusing
union funds for political pur-
poses. He faces a prison term if
the appeal is denied.

Nominated with Miller by the
MED at the closing session of a
two-day convention at Wheel-

ing College were MFD national

chairman Mike Tribovich, 51, of

Clarksville, Pa., for vice-presi-

dent, and Harry Patrick, 41,

Fairview, W. Va., for secretary-

treasurer.
MFD Platform

The MFD indicated its candi-
dates would campaign on a plat-
form to rid the union of cor-
ruption and fashion it into a de-
mocratic organization.

The group’s nominees said the
platform would call for:

Reduction in the salaries
and pension plans of top union
officials and members of the
headquarters staff.

Moving the UMWA head-
quarters from Washington,
D.C., to somewhere in the coun-
try’s coal fields.

Improved mine safety stan-
dards.

“ A six-hour work day of
four shifts to improve safety
maintenance.

Miller, who worked in the
coal mines 31 years before black
lung forced him to quit, led a
fight in West Virginia for im-
proved benefits for miners dis-
abled by black lung.

India CP gains

NEW DELHI—The Communist
Party of India reports that in the

Palghat district of Kerala, for-

merly a stronghold of the Maoist
“Communist Party (Marxist),”
1,000 of that group’s members,
mostly agricultural workers,
have resigned and joined the
Communist Party of India.

The exodus was led by two
prominent CPM leaders, P. R.
Chandran and P. R. Narayanan.

In Bhatinda district, in a simi-
lar move, 24 CPM members
switched to the CPI in protest
at the Maoists’ sordid role in the
Bangladesh liberation struggle.

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1972—PAGE 9