Peterborough fights for
200 jobs at CGE plant

PETERBOROUGH An en-
tire community is gearing up to
stop a corporate move that would
end 200 jobs at the Canadian Gen-
eral Electric plant here.

Led by Local 524 United Elec-
trical workers (UE), a delegation
including Mayor Cam Wasson
and other local politicians met
with federal officials June 3 to
demand Ottawa stop CGE’s plan
to phase out its power cable and
building wire operations in Peter-
borough after buying out a mag-
net wire pjant in Guelph, owned
by another U.S. owned multi-
national, Pirrelli Cables Ltd.

The union delegation led by UE
vice-president Bill Woodbeck
and Local 524 business agent Pete
Howe met with officials of the
Industry Trade and Commerce
ministry and the Foreign Invest-
ment Review Agency (FIRA),
which is considering approval of
the CGE purchase of Pirelli’s
Guelph plant.

The delegation including
Peterborough mayor Wasson also
included County Warden Charlie
Jenkins, provincial MPP John
Turner, and federal MP Bill
Domm, as well as representatives
‘of Local 524. The Peterborough
delegation also met with the op-
position parties in the Commons.

Domm introduced a. private
member's bill in the House urging
the federal government to de-
mand that Industry Trade and
Commerce intercede to save the
200 jobs in the Peterborough area,
and that the government advise
CGE that those 200 jobs must be
safeguarded. The motion failed to
get unanimous consent.

**Save the Jobs”’

The delegation told FIRA and
the other federal officials the
Pirelli sale should be stopped and
the CGE jobs saved. The transac-
tion would be of no benefit to the
Canadian economy and would be
disastrous to the’ community of
Peterborough. The federal of-
ficials said they wanted more in-
formation on how much of the
CGE wire produced in Peter-
borough is used there compared
to what is shipped elsewhere.

Commenting on the sugges-
tions that CGE may build another
wire plant in the Peterborough
area, Woodbeck pointed out,
“that doesn’t really solve any
problems for us. The workers
who would be hired in such a
plant would be starting at low pay
rates, low seniority and would
have no job protection until they
got organized into a union.”

Responding to FIRA spokes-
men who suggested that the com-
panies acted in the way they did
because they couldn’t do other-

wise and continue making high
enough profits, the UE pan
said, ‘‘well maybe it’s time you
people started to nationalize
them.

‘They shouldn’t be allowed to
throw people with 30 years in a
job out on the street,’’ Woodbeck
said.

Unique Jobs

The CGE workforce that will
be affected by the company’s
plans are long service workers
with an average of 15 years ex-
perience with the company. Their
work is highly specialized,
Woodbeck said. They have to
learn to operate machinery that is
unique to the wire making indus-
try. The workers can’t be shifted
to other jobs in the Peterborough
plant because they have no other
training and the union has been
repeatedly frustrated in its efforts
over the years to force CGE to
accept its responsibilities in train-
ing workers.

‘‘The company says they’ll
never train workers as long as
people are being laid off’, Wood-
beck said, ‘‘We’ve been fighting
for the company to recognize
training in the collective. agree-

ment for years, but they refuse to

respond.”’

Woodbeck said the union is
launching a petition campaign in
the plant and the community
aimed at the federal government
and the opposition parties to build
pressure on Ottawa to move to
save the jobs of the CGE wire and
cable workers.

Overflow Crowd

The union has the unanimous
backing of the Peterborough City
Council. Local 524 took a demon-
stration of some 150 people to the
council meeting June 2. With a
crowd which overflowed outside
the council chambers into the
hall, the mayor and all city coun-
cillors pledged their support to
save the CGE jobs.

Woodbeck called the CGE
move, ‘‘another grim example of
the arrogant way in which U.S.
multi-nationals are consistently
making decisions outside Canada
that will have such a crushing ef-
fect on the lives and future sec-
urity of Canadian workers and
their families.”

Charging the multi-national
with “‘putting corporate welfare
and profitability before people’s
welfare’, the UE vice-president
declared, ‘‘this giant of the elec-
trical industry owes it to its long
service employees, and to the en-
tire community of Peterborough,
not to make such debilitating
moves without giving full regard
to the severe hardship that will be

caused when 200 people will be
turned out onto the street to join
the ranks of the million-plus un-
employed in Canada.”’
Woodbeck said the UE will
seek help from the Ontario Fed-

eration of Labor, and the Cana- 5

dian Labor Congress to save the c.

Peterborough jobs and to press & »

for legislation at all levels forcing + |
foreign corporations operating in 2
Canada to act in the interests of g
the Canadian people. Laws are y
needed, he said, to make planta

closures and phase-outs like that =

of CGE, the subject of strict UE vion-nteaident Bill Woodbeck shown here speaking at the recent
government limitations and regu- CLC convention led a delegation of union members and local politicians ©
who met with federal officials in an effort to save 200 jobs. :

lation.

The negotiated settlement of
the Canadian Postal Workers
Union was a victory for labor
solidarity and militancy. For the
militancy of postal workers who
refused to be cowed by the power
of the state, and the solidarity of
the Canadian labor movement
which lined up firmly behind them
at the recent Canadian Labor
Congress convention.

It was the first test of Dennis
McDermott’s commitment to
‘‘collective action’’ made at the
CLC convention and it showed
that united, Canadian workers
have the muscle to face the boss

_ at any level, and win.

The sceptics may say, — but
this was no test of collective ac-
tion, the government settled
without a battle! Such an observa-
tion however misses the point
completely.

The government acted some-
thing like a general who, survey-
ing the battlefront noted he is
outmanned and outgunned by the
enemy and decides to retreat to
fight at a time more favourable to
his forces.

The significance of the settle-
ment, coming at a time of sharp
attack on the.jobs, wages, work-
ing conditions and social condi-
tions of working people, should
not be underestimated.

Class struggle trade-unionism,
backed by the solidarity of the en-
tire trade-union movement can
win important victories for or-
ganized labor. Class collabora-

 tionist trade unionism, expressed
in go-it-alone policies of ‘‘across
the table’’ negotiations not
backed by the total mobilization
of the workers concerned, and
where necessary the whole
movement, is no longer able to
produce gains. In fact it is the sure

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 13, 1980—Page 8

5
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path to losses on all the fronts of
workers wages and conditions.

Those forces, inside and out-
side the labor movement who
were quick to criticize the postal
workers in the last round of
negotiations, and even to predict
the literal demise of the union
after it was driven back to work
and its leaders jailed, should feel
obliged to reappraise their views
of the dynamics of labor strug-
gles.

The postal workers at that time
were involved in a legal strike
against an arm of the government,

CUPW contract
labor’s victory

for economic and job condition -

demands that were more than
justified. Their legal strike was
turned into an illegal strike by
their employer, by the stroke of a
pen, a few short days after it be-
gan. In the quite legitimate pursuit
of their quite legitimate demands
they made the quite legitimate de-
cision to remain on strike, and for
this the entire weight of the state
was brought down on their heads,
along with its media, and un-
fortunately, the added weight of
the leadership of the CLC.

While the CUPW leadership
may have displayed some tactical
weaknesses in their approach to
the 1978 postal negotiations, it’s
obvious they drew the necessary
lessons from those errors and cor-
rected them in the current talks.

‘For two years following the
government’s move to crush the
postal strike and destroy
CUPW’s bargaining rights, the
Canadian labor movement was
involved in a bitter debate about
the CLC leadership’s actions.

Conventions of provincial
federations of labor centred

‘around the issue. Entire unions
‘lined up against the president of

the CLC. The trade union move-
ment faced a most serious split in
its ranks at a time when its unity
was more than ever essential.

It is to the credit of the presi-
dent of the CLC and its executive
that they took the steps to heal
this split and unite labor for the
crucial battles ahead.

What is’ most significant how-
ever is that the split was healed on
the basis of class struggle policies,
on the basis of the reaffirmation of
labor solidarity and labor mili-
tancy.

Thus, a relatively small union,
faced with a most powerful
enemy, able to make and alter the

es

laws of the country to suit its cok
lective bargaining needs, stuck”
determinedly to principled

union position, and over a rae
tively short period of two years,
won behind it the total unity —
necessary to face the boss
win.

The whole of Canadian labor
tips its hat to the postal workers in
their victory, while at the same
time making a bow to the CLC for
an important victory in its first
round of ‘‘collective action”.
_ One may assume that with  %
postal situation behind it for 4
least another year, the CLC will”
pick up on its other mandates”
from the convention. First on this 7
list must certainly be the growl
crisis of unemployment, layo is
and plant closures ricocheti
around the country.

‘This problem cannot be oil
dressed on a local union or single
union basis, it can only be re
solved by a determined united
struggle by the entire labor
movement.

Take for example the present”
auto crisis. One can sympathiz
with the leadership of the auto.
union, who in the immediate
struggle for the jobs of their mem —
bers, urge and welcome massive
government handouts to ati ;
companies in the hope that it will
provide or protect the jobs of the 1
membership to whom they are is a
sponsible.

However this cannot substitute
for a policy which can show some
light at the end of the tunnel, not
just for autoworkers, but for
Canadians to whom the auto im :|
dustry is quite vital. {

The task of the auto wot
leadership would be helped con
siderably by a dynamic policy by
the CLC for the 32 hour work
week, for government law’
against plant olosures, such as
they have in the capitalist countly, |
6f Switzerland, for pay at 807% 0 —
the level at the time of seve
off for all laid off workers. =

Resolutions are necessary !? —
cast their shadows before them
But the time is now for actiom
mass action to win the fine pro”
grams adopted by the CLC cov’ —
vention. Begin now to strip U¥
power away from the corpor®, f
tions and place it in the hands?
the working people, and elect
governments who represe®”
them.

*

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