mae longest and most hard-fought
= ‘© of non-operating railway work-
26 : Canada’s history began on July
ane nine long months of ‘fruitless
a lation, conciliation and media-
tailwat was a strike provoked by the
ee, cOmpanies who counted on the
Dressy. of the state being used to sup-
ighii the strike. It was a strike that

Ighted the anti-labor, anti-social

Tetrogressive features of state.

Monopoly,

WORKERS REPLY WITH
SELECTIVE STRIKES

pose ating the lessons of two previous
oi hl Strikes suppressed by the
time th of the capitalist state, this
tic of e workers employed a new tac-
Strikes oaV" Tegional strikes. These
With ¢ maintained their momentum
Month xemplary discipline for nearly a
Sible f, Such strikes were made pos-
ieee of earlier organizational
from Nce gained by union members
0 eae to coast during two years
Siong “ Struggle for improved pen-
Sion a Is powerful rank-and-file pen-
More Ecment gained the support of
zed th an 40,000 workers who organ-
ciation ees into local pension as-

a At the same time Railway
tary liais Councils grew up as volun-
Tailwa SOn bodies between the various
leye, ” Workers’ unions at the local

T
aise’ Pelective strikes made it more
Claim for the government to pro-
Renoy © Customary ‘national emer-
as the excuse for convening
ay Ao to order-the striking rail-
88 the €rs back to their job. Much
Country wigeamies tried to provoke a
ative aeade walkout, using provo-
lockoy Yoffs almost to the point of a

dlsciptt” the workers’ maintained their

Dar]j
as

left — Here and there some ultra-
to Bbciase efforts were made

8 the selective strike tactic,
NO avail,

but to

ral Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada

Eventually, however, in late August
the unions considered it necessary to

_ declare a general walkout of non-ops

when the companies pressed layoffs to
the point of lockout in some areas and
countered union efforts to keep grain
moving.

PARLIAMENT CONVENED
TO BREAK STRIKE

The calling of parliament to order
the resumption of work and to pro-
vide for compulsory arbitration, saw
the greatest demonstration ever of
angry railway workers on Parliament
Hill in Ottawa. In addition to the non-
ops, there were some shopcraft work-
ers as well. The legislation to be
passed by parliament would apply to

‘all railway workers.

Turning parliament into a strike-
breaking agency oncé again was bad
enough. But the comic-opera perform-
ance in the House of Commons debate
irked railway workers from coast to
coast. Every party (Liberal, Tory and
New Democrat) sought to score a
point at the others’ expense on trivial
questions. But the basic right to strike
against substandard wages and the
just case of the railway workers were
never stated during the course of the
debate by either of these parties, in-
cluding the NDP.

FUNDAMENTAL DEMOCRATIC
RIGHT CHALLENGED

The Liberal Trudeau Government,
which sponsored the legislation to
break the railway strike, was chal-
lenging a fundamental democratic
right. The right to strike is not nego-
tiable. Any compromise on that issue

means to surrender the only weapon
of defense in the hands of the work-
ing class against the attack on its
rights and living standards. This right
to strike is more important than ever
in our day and age, when the attack
on the workers is not confined to in-
dividual employers, but is mounted by
huge corporate monopolies integrated
in every respect with the bourgeois
state.

The Tory leader, Mr. Stanfield, at-
tacked strikes as an unacceptable
weapon by workers in essential ser-
vices. Engaging in political double-
talk, Stanfield said that strikes and
lockouts must be replaced, but that
simple compulsory’ arbitration is not
the answer. Mr. Stanfield evidently
sought to achieve the same thing in a
more complicated and round-about
form. He proposed the establishment
of a ‘Public Interest Disputes Com-
mission’ to do the job of dictating set-
tlements for workers in essential ser-
vices. “This Commission would advise
which particular services are essen-
tial,” stated the Tory leader.

NDP EVADES REAL ISSUE

NDP leader, David Lewis, sought
political credit for the “best” of shame-
less and unprincipled bargainings by re-
ducing’ the issue to one of a few more
cents per hour to the grossly under-
paid and exploited railway workers.
For a few more cents per hour he
would have voted for the bill.

But this was evasion of the real
issue which ought to have been a chief
concern of NDP spokesmen in. the
parliamentary debate, namely, to pre-
sent the just case for the striking rail-
way workers, their needs and their

fundamental democratic right to strike

which was being abrogated by parlia-
ment.

DEMAGOGIC RHETORIC

The government picked Jean Mar-
chand to pilot the strike-breaking bill
through the House of Commons, A for-
mer labor leader and now the Liberal
Minister of Transport, Marchand did
not miss the opportunity to take ad-
vantage of Mr. Lewis’ opportunism to
engage in a bit of opportunistic poli-
tical rhetoric himself. He challenged
Lewis on his claim that he wants more
for the striking workers but will not
go all the way and deny the need for
back-to-work legislation.

A joint statement issued by the -

union negotiators stated: “All our 60
officers of the non-ops, including all
the members of our joint negotiating
committee, will refuse to order our
members back to work on the basis of
the legislation as it has been intro-
duced.

“To do so would be to betray the
56,000 workers ‘whose interests we
were elected to protect. We will not
send them back for the meagre wage
increase proposed in the bill.

“We are still hoping that the bill
will be improved sufficiently before
being enacted that we can accept it as
a fair basis for settlement. But as it
now reads we cannot and will not com-
ply with the directive to us to break
our own strike.

“It is an iniquitous piece of legisla-
tion. We are being ordered to betray
our members and break their strike,
under threats of fines and jail terms.
We rely on the conscience and sense
of justice of the majority of MP’s to
improve the bill sufficiently to enable
us to accept and act on it.”

A DISGRACEFUL
CAPITULATION

This statement fell short of chal-
lenging ‘the basic principle of using
parliament as a strike-breaking agen-
cy. The last sentence of the joint state-
ment gives the show away. For the

ridiculous price of another four cents

per hour retroactive pay this year, and
a smaller raise next year, all members
of the joint negotiating committee ca-
pitulated at the last minute. There was

e Continued on Page 6

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 1973 — PAGE 5

hai i ill cuiliaasic