Big boss lies
"about strikes

A Bec GEORGE HARRIS
shed ul Campaign has been un-
“Its tg ime ely and its govern-
rs indig It and even take away la-
6 busines “nsable right to strike. The
Aires drive for maximum profits
Pat Te mn ackled, docile labor move-
‘bidi asks this Selfish, sinister aim
* Public ed the cry of “defending
é ie Capitalism always
‘ey pepear as if its greedy
interests, re synonymous with

Ublic

Almos

Ntictiong en Case, based on severe
NVincjgy j.-POSed under federal and
Ce On} seettion, a strike takes
4 Often : fey oonths of frustrating
Fo! cous €Ss negotiations, and
Not Unustial y fruitless mediation. It
Deeds. collective agreements
ote e work Or two or more months
i 3 €rs are in a position to
eal Testriene right to strike.
yc oF On on the right to strike
lile ye, WOrk

being against
Public interest

extended labor’s right to organize and
bargain, but on the ‘other limited the
right to. strike almost to the point of its
being proscribed. This legislation set the
basic pattern for present-day labor leg-
islation, federal and provincial.

It is also a matter of record that dur-
ing the war against fascism, it was the
labor movement and the working peo-
ple which responded to the critical pro-
duction needs of fighting that war by
agreeing, despite low wages and hard
and difficult work conditions, not to
use the strike as a means of enforcing
settlement of disputes. It was the em-
ployers who threatened to sabotage
production unless guaranteed 5% mini-
mum profit, which later opened the
door to the cosy cost-plus profit system
which allowed the corporations to pyra-
mid growth and wealth to undreamed-
of heights. ;

Came the post-war, and the profit-
bloated corporations embarked on a
concerted campaign to destroy the
young industrial unions; to deny the
mass production workers the chance to
improve their living standards.

Drive to destroy

in h
1 ri :
ene aw to strike, even under

Na r
ri today jictions that exist in
hg Clase ee uate of the
Aye tl in - been reasonabl
ton, haye fending their ena
5 Offeer ct and won wage in-
big fitee a ace Price gouging of
Tine? the ne have to some extent
| B the > Bree of exploitation af-
tk. Working 8 class as a whole.

i ae ade they can, and
. :
tiggn St labor's ah oe
and a ne Period of lush war
the} a from workers to
Work ¢ ysmally low wages
n eons, the employ-
zl King heir demands to the
: ar yp Cabinet very early in
inet w, 2 Secret minutes of
Ommitt
led an ee, recentl
hive d transferred to the Pub
ane position taken
ulacturers Asso-
Bist of trutes disclose that:
atOlding a (CMA) objection is
Or coll & vote to determine
th €ctive bargaining. It
Votes do not repre-

OYe a Ws
The Of the ‘responsible’

wPany ‘og Ce-President of the
‘ pcanada, spoke on
Was creat Ross Mc-
Ye with : Poe to be present.
bs ‘ hen the frence to the good

Net m;

ny, Mi

; C Acqua Autes also record that
ale

Te was li
ere ittle trouble
eae Only a few hori-
€y created little

icy Vere Public record that

id enact legi
e gisla-
One hand somewhat

Masses of industrial workers took to
the picketlines to defeat the attempt to
smash their unions, and to win long-
delayed wage increases. On both counts
the industrial workers were successful,
consolidating their unions and opening
up a period of new trade union growth
and strength. :

Only the right to strike, and the use
of this right by the workers, made this.
possible.

Needless to say, every new advance
made by labor has been fiercely resisted
by the employers, and always the right
to strike has been the focal point of

ir attack.
pet ene anti-strike conspiracy
has never been so operative as in this
current period of new economic crisis,
as the capitalist class once again seeks
to make the working class shoulder the
burdens of the crisis. In conjunction
with the governments it controls, big
business keeps hammering the big lie,
namely, that constantly escalating
prices of commodities and services arise
from the wage demands of labor, and

or’s use of the strike weapon.
Maine the opposite is true. Labor
responds to monopoly price-fixing and
acts to defend its living standards.

Get tough policy

i tive
Some time ago the top execu :
brass of a number of blue-ribbon me
trial empires, including Stelco, ih
Oil, Noranda, Dupont, and Kimber ve
Clark, made known their ek
of Parliamen
de aE let titled “Collective
ini A Time
Bargaining and the Economy. ;
to ate Facts.” The boss of the Noran
da group, Fred P “hah
the corporations, charging :
have grown too powerful and gerne
ing that unions “must be curbed by

tough new laws.”

atin

This is an ab
United Electrical, Radio a

munist Viewpoint by page Machine Workers

Not long afterwards, Prime Minister
Trudeau came out flat-footed and blam-
ed the union movement for encouraging
inflation by demanding wage increases
greater than the production of wealth.
It was at this point that he launched
his fiscal attack to slow down the econ-
omy, and to create large-scale unem-
ployment.

It remained, however, for another
business tycoon, king of the MacMillan
Bloedel lumber empire, J. V. Clyne, to
put the case for capitalism in about as
neat a nutshell as is possible:

“.. . High unemployment can be
traced to a case of corporate sulks
brought on by greedy unions, grasping
governments, welfare bums and stri-
dent nationalists. The remedies, then,
are to curb the right to strike, cut taxes,
restrain welfare payments and lay down
the welcome mat for foreign invest-
ment.” :

It is doubtful if a few lines of print
ever before summed up so concisely the
reactionary, anti-labor, anti-people and
anti-country essence of the ruling capi-
talist class.

Public interest myth

The aim of corporations is — tough
new laws to curb the right to strike.
To whip up what they hope will be a
public demand, they zero in on strikes
in the’so-called essential services and
public service industries, spending mil-
lions of advertising dollars to shed
crocodile tears over the plight of the
poor public who are “inconvenienced”
and “hurt” by these “irresponsible
strikes.” Business and its controlled
press pour out heartrending accounts
of stranded passengers at airports, mil-
lions of disappointed hockey fans at

their blank TV sets, and frustrated

housewives with a mountain of garbage
in their backyards.

Never, of course, do they define who
the public are. They picture the public
as being some mysterious mass separ-
ate and apart from the working people,
when in fact it is the workers, the wage
and salary earners and their families,
who constitute more than 90% of the

public.

Attack all strikes

To the employers the cry for elimin-
g strikes in essential services 1S

©

but the means to an end; for them all
strikes threaten an essential service—
that of the workers providing the ser-
vice of making profits for the owners.
To give any ground whatsoever on the
right of service workers to strike is to
give ground on all fronts. This also ap-
plies with equal force to the increasing
demand that the strike weapon be taken

away from the construction workers, a —

demand which pictures the construction
trades’ “high” hourly rates as “greed”

. at the expense of the community, but

which carefully says nothing of the fact
that unemployment is highest in con-
struction and that annual take-home
earnings of many workers are below
those of manufacturing and other in-
dustries.

As for the public service workers,
hundreds of thousands receive scandal-

ously low wages for their labor. This .

fact was recently highlighted in’ the
great united struggle of the govern-
ment workers in Quebec, where the
central union demand is for a minimum

Salary of $100 a week, a demand that.

is only equivalent to the level of unem-

ployment insurance benefits a. worker.
who makes the maximum contributions”

receives,

Soak the poor

Governments which grease the palms
of big business are the same govern-
ments which take punitive action
against the workers, to ‘“‘cool” the wage
demands. They are busy whipping up
an anti-labor froth behind which they
are ready to launch further legislative
attacks on the right to strike. The busi-
ness-controlled news media hammer
away at the “evil” of strikes, calling
for “other means” to settle industrial
disputes. The Toronto Star editorial
said: ‘‘All this and more seems bound
to go on happening, given the unfet-
tered right to strike in an industrial
society that grows ever more complex.
Strikes aren’t just old-fashioned; they’re
living fossils, as if sabre-toothed tigers

_ stalked among us.”

The real ‘“‘sabre-toothed tigers” which
stalk abroad in this society are the ex-
ploiters of labor, those who amass
wealth and power from the labor of
others. The “living fossils’ are not
strikes and the working class, but the
private corporations which limit the
economy to the profit they make, hold-
ing in check the productive forces
which could satisfy all human needs,
and causing mass unemployment and
poverty in the midst of plenty.

(Abridged from
Communist Viewpoint)

PACIFIC TRIBUNEFRIDAY, MAY 26, 1972—_PAGE 7