Corporate mergers demand —

coordinated bargaining

ghee reports presented to the
close to 400 delegates at
the Annual Canadian Pol-
icy Conference of the United
Steelworkers, held last week in
Toronto, listed many impressive
statistics. William Mahoney,
Canadian director of the union,
gave the estimate that the Steel-
workers bargain for 150,000
Canadian workers or, as one
speaker said, one in every 10 un-
ionized workers in Canada.

Perhaps the most interesting
and instructive statistics given
was the strike benefits paid in
Canada—$1,143,000 from March
1966 to Feb. 28, 1967, especially
when one compares this with
the figure of $321,815 for the
previous year. This turbulence
on the strike front which charac-
terized 1966 was a reflected in
some of the important gains won
by the union.

Speaking on this point, Maho-
ney said:

“In 1966 it was necessary for
labor to win back some of the
gains made by industry in which
we did not share because many

agreements were closed in 1964
and 1965.

“We scored some signal suc-
cesses. In the primary steel in-
dustry we saw wage rate parity
with U.S. steelworkers establish-
ed during the life of our agree-
ments. In Montreal we ended the
wage disparity between rates at
Dosco and Stelco operations.

“At our 1965 conference we
resolved to negotiate non-con-
tributory pension plans which,
together with government pen-
sions, would produce total re-
tirement income for a worker
of at least 75 per cent of his best
earnings after 30 years’ service.

“As a result of our latest con-
tracts with Inco, Stelco and Al-
goma we can proudly claim to
have achieved this pension goal
for over 30 percent of our Cana-
dian membership.

While noting the achieve-
ment of last year’s bargaining,
all the reports at the conference
dwelt on the continuing difficul-
ties which face the workers in
the industry. The debate on the
concrete policy resolutions was

sharp and pointed. However, the
union does not face major bar-
gaining this year, and ‘a good
deal of the conference dealt with
other policy matters affecting the
union.

The conference greeted the
the proposed merger with Mine
Mill. Al Skinner, international
president of the Mine Mill, re-
ceived a standing ovation from
the conference when he describ-
ed the spirit in which the merg-
er is working in the United
States. Skinner told of cruCial
bargaining now taking place in
the non-ferrous jndustry and the
violent attitude of the corpora-
tions against the merger. “Ame-
rican. Refining,” he said, ‘an-
nounced that they would not
sit in the same room with
Steel and Mine Mill and nego-
tiate.”. He added that when the
workers were made aware of
the bosses’ attitude, “it was all
we could do to keep the lid on.”

‘ Dealing with the question of
structural changes in the Cana-.
dian Labor Congress, Mahoney

noted that since the CLC came
into being in 1956 “the concen-
tration of industries has been
proceeding steadily and a num-
ber of unions which once did
business with different employ-
ers now find themselves, because
of corporate mergers, all dealing
with the same employer.”

“As the acquisition of sub-
sidiaries by corporations goes
on, this situation is proliferated,”
he said. “This is a situation to
which all unions must face up
if we are going to do the most
effective job for the workers
we represent.

“We suggest that the continu-
ation of collective bargaining
with these .mighty concentra-
tions of economic power by a

wide variety of uncoordinated

unions is not giving the em-
ployees, with their many com-

mon problems, the kind of uni- —

fied representation which would
produce the best results, and
that coordinated bargaining
would be a much more effective
method of procedure.”

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Masses missing at mass meetifl

By RAE MURPHY

URING his speech at a rally
in Toronto’s Massey Hall,
Ted Hammond, Liberal
provincial candidate in Hamil-
ton East, said that the labor
movement “must pull itself
from the abyss by its bootstraps
. . + march down the highroad
... and drive over anybody who
gets -in the way.” After that,
there seemed little else for the
40-odd people who crowded into
the hall to do.

The “mass rally” was spon-
sored by the Committee for
Canadian Union Autonomy, a
group which is made up of some
of the 19 steelworkers who have
been suspended by the steel
union for_a year, organizers of
the Confederation of National
Trade Unions, and with at least
strong “fraternal” ties with the
Liberal Party.

The reason for the sparse at-
tendence was given by a couple
of the participants as a fear of
retaliation from the _ Interna-
tionals. Others mentioned the
date of the meeting — Friday
evening of the first long week-
end of the season. One speaker
even emphasized the small turn-
out proves that the Liberals
couldn’t have been behind the
meeting “they wouldn’t be con-
nected with such a botched job.”

Be that as it may, and all the
reasons given may have been a
factor, such reasons cannot be
the whole answer, because there
was literally nobody at the
meeting.

Just subtract from a crowd of
a half a hundred, the commmit-
tee and their wives, reporters
and photographers, a few Trot-
skyists who came to give out

leaflets and stayed for the meet-
ing, a few members of the Pro-
gressive Workers Movement,
and figure it out. Unless the in-
timidation was so great that
other unionists came disguised
as empty chairs.

In a sense it was a pity that
the attendance was so small, be-
cause more people who are con-
cerned with this serious prob-
lem of the trade union move-
ment should have heard and wit-
nessed the utter bankruptcy of
this “‘Liberal-Labor” group.

At one point in the meeting
somebody asked Hammond about
the Liberal Party’s attitude to
compulsory arbitration and re-
strictive labor legislation. The
last railway strike was a case
in point. Hammond answered

that, “irrespective of what his-
tory may show, Liberals don’t
support compulsory arbitration.”
He didn’t dissociate himself
from the activities of the Liberal
government on the _ railway
strike.

Earlier, as he dealt with gene-
ral problems of Canadian Ameri-
can relations, Hammond indicat-
ed that the role of workers in
these affairs was limited to the
trade unions. ‘Other Canadians
can look after other spheres,”
he said. He referred on a few
ocassions to the coming findings
of the Rand Commission for the
solutions. to problems of inner
union democracy, and to the
Americanization of the Canadian
labor movement.

An indication was given that

his group is looking for more
labor legislation, which would
give government boards more
power to scrutinize union con-
stitutions and to pass judgment
on them.

Even Hammond’s explanation
of his persecution within the
United Steelworkers seemed a
little ambivalent. The charges
against him were laid not by the
International but by the area
representative of Steel in Ham-
ilton, who is said to be 150 per-
cent Canadian. His original trial
was Conducted in Canada by
Canadians, and he was suspend-
ed for four years. The local
union overruled: this first trial,
and the area representative ap-
pealed again, this time to the
International, who organized fur-

Labor tells Ottawa:

Break ties with Greece .

HE Canadian Labor Congress
has called on the federal
government to support a

move to have the Greek govern-
ment’s relations with the Com-
mon Market, the Council of
Europe and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and De-
velopment suspended “until de-
mocratic rights are restored in
the country and all political pri-
soners freed.”

The move was instituted by
the International Confederation
of Free Trade Unions which has
asked the European Economic
Community, the OECD and the
Council to suspend all relations
with the government which has

imposed a military dictatorship
on Greece. Greece is a member
of the OECD and of the Council
of Europe and an associate mem-
ber of the EEC.

Claude Jodoin, president of
the 1,350,000-member Congress,
in a letter to Prime Minister
Pearson, has asked the federal
government to support: the
ICFTU complaint against Greece
submitted May 1] to thé govern-
ing body of the 96-country Inter-
national Labor Organization.

“Having seized power by a
military coup, the Greek govern-
ment has used a state of emer-
gency to ban a great number of
organizations, including trade

unions, and to arrest more than
6,000 persons”, Jodoin wrote.
“Strikes have been banned.

“We urge the federal govern-
ment to support the ICFTU com-
plaint to the ILO, and its efforts
to have the Greek government’s
relations with the OECD, the
Council of Europe and the EEC
suspended until democratic
rights are restored in_ the
country.

“It is unacceptable for organ-
izations whose declared aims are

to form communities of demo-_

cratic nations to tolerate in their
midst a military dictatorship
that denies the fundamental
rights to its citizens.”

June 2, 1 967—PACIFIC

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