Braving '-13 Celsius weather, more than 1,000 Chrysler workers in
Windsor marched past the assembly plant (left) to a rally outside
the Chrysler administration building (right) Feb. 6 to protest rising

unemployment, continuing layoffs and imbalances in the auto pact

with the U.S. Currently some 1,000 workers at the auto giant's
plant are on indefinite layoff and new layoffs are feared.

Anti-labor article

undermines Fed’s

The January issue of the Western
Canadian Lumber Worker
republished an anti-labor article
from the Victoria Colonist. I
suggest that the article has no
place in a genuine trade union
paper. The Western Canadian

- Lumber Worker is the official.
organ of B.C.’s largest trade union,
the International Woodworkers of
America, and its January issue
had a press run of 34,000 copies.

The B.C. Federation of Labor,
labor councils and local unions in
every part of the province will not
be pleased with that article
because it attempts to ridicule the
demonstration on unemployment
scheduled to take place in Victoria
on March 30 in front of the
legislative buildings.

In view of the massive layoffs
announced by MacMillan Bloedel
and Weldwood, we have every
reason to expect that the IWA
leadership will take a_ positive
attitude to the fight for jobs, but the
January issue of the union's paper
seems to be pointing in the opposite
direction. Here is what the article
said about the March 30 demon-
stration:

“The notion that the appearance
of several hundred trade union
members on the Parliament
Building lawns is going to convert
the government to labor’s point of
view is simply not credible. It is
not likely to change the minds of
the majority of the voters who
support that government either.
All that a mob scene in Victoria
will prove is the B.C. Fed’s ability
to charter buses and organize a
demonstration— and no one has
doubted that in any case.”

The author of that ‘‘gem” is
Walter Young, head of the political
science department at the
University of Victoria. Young was
associated with the old CCF in the
thirties and later with the NDP.

LAYOFFS

Continued from pg. 1

fails to take action -against the
company, a one day shutdown of
MacMillan Bloedel operations will
take place with MacMillan Bloedel
employees from all over the
province converging on Victoria to
carry the union’s demand to
premier Bennett.

But first, the IWA will take their

ition to the union membership
and the public, to explain the facts
and win support for the union’s
actions. A ‘“‘committee to fight
layoffs” has been struck, com-
posed of the president of each IWA
local and representatives from
Van-Ply, to lead the campaign.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 17, 1978—Page 12

However, it would be wrong to
consider him a left winger or a
socialist. According to what I have
been told by people who should
know the score, he has a strong

_dislike for Len Guy, secretary-

treasurer of the B.C. Federation of
Labor, on personal grounds and for
policy reasons. :

The opening paragraph of the
Young article in the Lumber
Worker drips with hatred for the

LABOR
COMMENT |

BY JACK PHILLIPS

leadership of the Federation: ‘‘The
recent B.C. Federation of Labor
convention reinforced the views
that the leaders of that body are
men dangerously out of touch with
the times. In their speeches and
deportment they were reminiscent
of nothing so much as a parade of
dinosaurs lumbering about the
landscape, bewildered by events
but driven by a conviction that
brute strength alone would solve
the problems of their en-
vironment.”

I wonder if he is referring to the
firm position ‘taken in support of
the striking ferry workers, a stand
that was endorsed by a standing
ovation from all delegates? I
wonder as well if his condemnation
includes Jack Munro of the IWA
and John Fryer of the B.C.
Government Employees Union?
Although they were among the
strongest critics of the Guy-
Johnston administration, they too
stood in support of the ferry
workers.

Jack Munro, as regional IWA
president, must be greatly em-
barrassed by the reproduction of
the Young article. He is committed
to a program of a one-day shut-
down of all MacMillan Bloedel
operations and a mass delegation
to Victoria to protest the proposed
Vancouver Plywood closure. Tell
me, Jack, do you agree with
Professor Young when he calls you
a ‘“‘bewildered dinosaur?”

Like some other academics who
masquerade as friends of
organized labor, Young is an elitist
who has nothing but contempt for
ordinary people. He proved that in
his article when he said, ‘What
unions need to realize is that the
public, great mindless beast that it
is, prefers companies to unions.’
Then, dealing with unions, he
shows his contempt again: ‘‘What
emerges from the deliberations of

in WA paper
fight for jobs

labor is a clear indication that the
unions appear to sense that they
have a great power, but they either
lack the sophistication to use it
responsibly for they are so
determined to be vindictive that
responsibility is not a practical
consideration. And this is
paradoxical, for in almost the
same breath that they talk general
strikes, they vow allegiance to the
NDP...” This is another version
of the old argument that strikes
and demonstrations serve no
useful purpose. According to
people like Young, workers should
be more sophisticated in labor-
management relations with a view
to producing a better image in the
capitalist news media and, at

election time, vote NDP. He is.

looking for alternatives to what he
calls the bargain-strike-settle
syndrome, but he has nothing to

_offer except a vague reference to

Sweden, Australia, Britain and
Austria.

Nowhere in his article does he
deal with the exploitation of labor,
profits, rising prices, inflation,
unemployment or the role of
multinational corporations in
distorting our economy. After
reading the article, you could be
excused for drawing the conclusion
that he blames the capitalist crisis
on the lack of sophistication shown
by organized labor.

This raises a few questions. Were
the 10,000 B.C. Telephone workers
wrong in fighting so hard to protect
their jobs against technological
change and contracting out? Was
the B.C. Federation of Labor in

error for giving these workers all- -

out support? In both cases the
answer is no, irrespective of any
tactical mistakes.

Professor Young writes off the
Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 as
something that resulted only in
bloodshed, economic stagnation
and defeat for organized labor.
Most competent historians who
have dealt with this strike describe
it as almost inevitable in view of
the conditions that prevailed and
the pressing economic and social
needs of the working people. They
also portray that stride as a land-
mark in labor’s fight for free
collective bargaining and as one of
the historical developments that
indirectly helped to lay the basis

for the CCF and later the NDP. To —

blame the workers for the violence
used by the state and to link Len
Guy with violence by suggestion is
to falsify history and to malign Len
Guy. Obviously the professor
didn’t learn very much from his
study of the Winnipeg General
Strike.

The Youngs of this world, in their

fear of working people, refuse to
recognize that the defeat of the
Socreds in the 1972 provincial
election was made possible by the
many parallel currents of
dissatisfaction and protest. The
struggles of the labor movement,
including strike struggles, played a
major role in the election of an
NDP government. Similarly,
sophisticated intellectuals of the
Young variety refuse to own up to
the fact that when the Barrett
government turned its back on the
labor movement and retreated
under pressure from big business
that it ensured its own defeat in
1975 and the return of the Socreds.

The policy statement of the 23rd
convention of the Communist
Party of Canada clearly defines
what is wrong with the thinking of
social democrats like Walter
Young: ‘‘The root of NDP policy
has to do with its basic position of
not challenging capitalism. It is
still oriented to seeking solutions
along capitalist lines rather than
solutions that attack monopoly
power with the aim of curbing and
eventually eliminating it. This

leads the NDP to support controls
over the trade union movement

and the working class. Its sole
criticism of these restraints is that
they are not fair...

“The NDP under right wing
leadership has shown itself unable
to advance an effective alter-
native. This in part arises from
illusions it had and continues to
have regarding the ability of state
monopoly capitalism to overcome
crisis.”’

In view of the basically anti-
labor content of the Young article,
let us hope that Jack Munro, the
chief executive officer of the IWA
in western Canada, will arrange

for a suitable reply. The best way ~

to guarantee that is for members of
the union to disagree with the
article to send strong letters of
protest to the editor, with copies to
Jack Munro. ;

’ locals of the right to elect delegate’

 §

CLC vote ©
proposals |
criticized —

Delegates to the Canadian Labor
Congress convention in April will
be faced with a challenge to the
“one delegate—one vote” principle
that has traditionally been the
CLC’s voting procedure.

According to Communist Party
labor secretary Bruce Magnuson,
the rules of order for the 1978
Quebec City CLC convention,
presently being prepared, will |
attempt to change the voting
procedure to a form of block
voting. a

The proposed change in the rules
of order calls for what is termed 4
“weighted vote’’ that will give
officers of the CLC and delegates
from federations of labor 1,0W
votes each while delegates from
labor councils would have 100 votes
each and delegates from individua!
unions still smaller amounts
depending on the size of theif
union. ~ Z
The CLC officers are proposing
that ‘the ‘‘weighted vote’? bé
“optional” on the demand of one
third of the delegates. “It means
to reverse the traditional rule of
the majority and substitulé
minority rule,” said Magnuson:
“In most cases votes on most
important issues require a tw0
thirds majority vote, but in this
case it is one third.” bi

Still another proposed change 0
the rules of order would set up pf) _
and con microphones on the com
vention floor, behind which
delegates would have to line up
according to their position:
Magnuson predicted that thé
proceduré would “have the effect
of psychological intimidation” an@ >
would ‘‘stifle debate’. ay

Magnuson outlined the proposed
changes in a column in
Canadian Tribune and called the
proposals ‘“‘a new attack 0)
democratic representation and #
serious effort to scuttle the on
delegate one vote principle.” —

Magnuson pointed out that in the
1976 CLC convention in Quebe
City a proposal to deprive unio?

was almost unanimously rejecte®
But the vote “did not seem
satisfy those who seem to *

embarked upon a mission to pul
ting some definite limits on gra

roots participation in policy
making within the Congress,” hé
said. :

Resolution C-58 adopted at the —
last convention did instruct ¢
officers to ‘‘explore alternaté
convention arrangements so that?
larger number of delegates can
accommodated,” but in no Ww
directed the officers to devis® -
voting procedures, said Magnuso#:

The actual number of delegate
at CLC conventions has increased
by only 606 over a period of ©
years, he noted, and in 1976 thet? .
were 211 fewer delegates than at
the 1974 convention.

“?

sac

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