PRESSMEN REJECT GLOBE PACT | TORONTO Pressmen, akers and paper handlers at . the Globe and Mail May 30, re- py _ ected a tentative pact which man- , SeeMent claims would have pro- | duced a 25% increase in wages over | three years. The pressmen and paperhand- {ters voted 30-10 and the plate- | ‘Makers split 4-4 on the offer. "MORE TEACHERS FIRED HAMILTON — The Board of _ Education has decided to chop 68 teachers of the payroll this year. The board announced May 30 it l}_ was dropping one-year probatio- i .fary Contracts of 28 elementary, ¢ 26 secondary, and 14 special- , ¢ducation teachers. The move is in line with the current slaughter of teachers being waged across Ontario at the instigation of the Tory government in Queen’s k to make teachers, students 3 a the public pay for the omic crisis through massive - education cuts. a , LABORERS VOTE | TOSTRIKE | . TORONTO — About 1,200 ‘a members of Local 183 Laborers _ International Union voted 3-1 to | strike May 26, seeking $1.99 an hour over two years. The | workers, involved in the concrete _ forming of building superstruc- j tures on construction sites said no to the contractors’ cheap offer of _ 80 cents over two years. _ WORKERS WIN _ AT GASPE COPPER | MURDOCHVILLE — The 1,100 United Steelworkers at _ Gaspé Copper Mines Ltd., voted May 30 to end their seven month strike, but won’t return to work until a claim by 92 office and tech- nical workers is settled. The strike involved three Steelwork- ers locals. Two of the locals re- cently accepted an offer increas- ing their average wage by $2.37 an Bb , hour over three years. GAO : inh “ ON i ag BRANTFORD — Some 90 = Mamumiemn’ | Union Gas Ltd., workers, mem- bers of the Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers started’ rotating strikes May 31, at company instal- ing stalled contract talks. wages and a cost-of-living clause. Bee te \ ite: i. MURDOCHVILLE — No Itisn’t Inco. These are the mines and smelter belonging to Gaspé Copper Mines Ltd., which sat idle until parity with other workers employed by the Noranda Group. Noranda Like the epic Inco strike, the 1,200 miners and smelter workers were on May 30, because the company refused to negotiate an agreement to give the workers owns Gaspé Copper. the bricks since last October. Also, like their fellow United Steelworkers members in Sudbury, the Quebec strikers conducted a solid strike with lations at Brantford, Simcoe, the packing of the entire community. Plant workers, office workers, and security guards, who were ail on Dunnville and Tillsonburg protest- strike, belong to the Steelworkers Union.. Like the Inco strike, clothing and other help arrived, and a number of union committees set up to boost “Major issues in the talks are morale andrun the strike. A knitting committee busily made garments for the Murdochville strikers throughout their fight with Gaspé Copper. Independent action a must for labor OTTAWA — While the Cana- dian Labor Congress examined its disappointing performance in the wake of a Tory electoral vic- tory May 22, postal union leader Jean Claude Parrot called for im- mediate trade union action to deal _ with the urgent problems facing Canadians. “*Tf political activity was a must for the labor movement in 1979”’, Parrot said, referring to the CLC decision to put all independent labor action ‘‘on the back burner”’ 111,653 in AFL A photo cutline in the last issue of the Tribune incorrectly de- scribed the ‘‘new militant pro- gram of action’”’ recently adopted by the Alberta Federation of Labor convention as a new ‘‘mili- tary’’ action program. The story also incorrectly inflated the AFL’s size to 800,000 when in fact it is 111,653. Our apologies to the AFL. for. the duration of the federal election campaign, ‘‘trade union activity is a must at all times.” The leader of the 23,000- member Canadian Union - of Postal Workers (CUPW), in a May 24 statement noted, “regardless of which political party governs the country, the principal task of the labor move- ment today is to reorganize itself to counter the extremely well- organized and determined attacks by government-business coali- tions on the fundamental rights of workers and other citizens of this country.” Parrot called on the new. Tory minority government to appoint a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the administration of the Post Of- — fice, dealing particularly with poor service, poor financial administration and poor labor- management relations. The CUPW leader said if the new government wants to tackle the roots rather than the effects of the problems, ‘‘it could begin by appointing a Postmaster General with the willingness and mandate to resolve the problems and re- store the Post Office to its original role of a communications net- work, financially accessible to or- dinary Canadians and _ linking them in remote and urban centres from coast to coast.”’ © He charged that the problems stem from outmoded manage- ment attitudes and practices, poor financial administration and ‘‘a total lack of accountability . ..”’ ‘After 11 years of cover-ups and scapegoating under Mr. Trudeau the ball..is.now. in Mr. Clark’s court,’’ Parrot said. This same approach to tackling the roots of the problem also applies to the labor movement, Parrot said. CUPW, like the rest of the labor movement saw the need to become politically in- volved in the election, ‘‘because it was clear that governments are being used by private and public sector employers alike to deny workers their legal rights and un- fairly shore up the employers’ positions during labor-manage- - ment-disputes.”” ---— - But, the CUPW leader added, his union, ‘‘believed and still be- lieves that labor movement involvement in the political pro- _ cess is not a substitute for trade ..- union action.”” Contrasting this, CLC presi- dent Dennis McDermott claimed the labor movement had achieved its objéctives in the election cam- paign, but he _ régistered disappointment at the results in Ontario’s industrial heartland for the New Democratic Party. The CLC leader, however didn’t indicate ifhe expects to find dialogue with the new minority Tory government to be any more productivé for labor than was consultation with the Liberals. Noting the increase in par- liamentary seats and slight in- crease in the popular vote for the NDP, McDermott nevertheless admitted the CLC ‘‘did not suc- ceed in getting our message ac- ross to the workers of Ontario. “We are realists after all’’, the CLC leader said. ‘‘While the overall results are encouraging, the Ontario experience only proves that in the political game, there are no instant winners, and that more hard work will be needed in the future.”’ McDermott spoke of continu- ing where the election campaign left off as far as the CLC-NDP relationship was concerned. As for the new Tory government in Ottawa, McDermott said, the CLC ‘‘will follow (its) actions in- tently, and is prepared to talk with it wherever it is in the interests of the working people.”’ The CLC leader said nothing about the congress’ mandate from the °78 convention in Quebec City to lead the campaign for better conditions such as the shorter work week, or about mobilizing the CLC’s 2.3 million members in a concerted fightback against the - current big-business assault on working people and _ their economic, social, democratic and labor rights. Communist Party federal leader William Kashtan, sum- ming up the party’s assessment of the election results, May 23, cre- dited the CLC’s campaign with helping the NDP achieve the ba- Tance of power in the Commons. _ Kashtan, however cited the CLC campaign’s inadequacy and both the NDP’s failure to maintain a _ consistent anti-monopoly posi- tion, and a tendency to veer to the right; as. the root of that-party’s failure to realize its electoral po- tential in Ontario. Kashtan said the working class and democratic forces in Canada must get ready for the prospect of more frequent elections because of the political instability reflected in the May 22 outcome, and the deep social, political and economic problems that will con- tinue to face the country. He said the driving force for a much needed united fightback by the working class and democratic forces against the big business of- fensive must be the NDP and the Communist Party. “Cooperation between Com- munists and left NDpPers,”’’ Kashtan said, ‘‘can help unleash powerful mass movements on ali these fronts so as to protect the gains of the working people, ad- vance the struggle for democracy, and prevent monopoly from un- loading the costs of the crisis on their backs.”’ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 8, 1979—Page 5 ’ i a