oe oe Forty-seven- -year-old Vyacheslav Ivanovich Koptev is a steelworker in Moscow’s Hammer and Sickle Plant. He was recently interviewed in his home, about his life as a worker in a socialist society and his feeling about what the future holds for him. Q: What does socialism mean to you? A: Socialism means everything we have achieved to date. There just isn’t any comparison between working condi- tions and living standards now, and what they were like in the past. The factory is ours. We take part in running it, we earn good money and get all sorts of benefits. The apartments we live in are com- fortable. Most of the apartment blocks . you see around here have been built by the factory. But, for me the main thing socialism means is a secure future in every respect. Q: Why are you so confident about what tomorrow will bring? A: Well if you’ ve got time, it will mean having to tell you my life story. I only got through 10 years of schooling. After leav- ing school I learned to drive a truck and worked in the north for a while. I actually took part in the first harvesting campaign there, and let me tell you that was’quite an experience. When I got out of the army, I started working at the Hammer ard Sickle Plant where three generations of my family had already worked before me. I learned this trade of operating an open hearth furnace. Today, the plant is being re- tooled and modernized so the open hearth process is being replaced with electric smelting furnaces which makes the work a lot easier and does less dam- age to the environment. Q: Did you have to go back to school? A: To some extent yes. It took us a while to get used to the new equipment, but we have skilled workers and en- gineers to help us learn the tricks of the New technology is no threat to the Soviet worker. Jobs are guaranteed so noone is ind off when new processes are introduced. trade on the job. Retraining isn’t much of a problem. Our jobs are guaranteed so that we all know we aren’t going to get laid off when they. bring in new proces- ses. We're treated well. We get X-rayed — and a full medical examination once a year, with all sorts of specialist doctors coming right to the factory. When I hit 50, I'll be able to retire with a full pension. Right now I get a 30-day paid holiday every year, which on top of the various national and other holidays gives me about 40 days in vacation,over the year. Q: Many factories have their own holiday resorts, what about yours? A: Sure, I’ve been there several times, but I prefer travelling around the country in my Moskvich car. My wife and I take the kids and drive down south. We’ve Sa also got a summer cottage outside of Moscow, where my mother-in-law takes the kids when they’re not in summer camp. The factory sponsors a number of Young Pioneer Camps and the children love them. Q: Tell us a bit about your family. A: Well, there are seven of us living in this apartment. My wife works in the marketing department of the Moskabel Factory. Her mother, an old age pen- sioner lives with us. My oldest boy. who’s 18, works at the Hammer and Sickle Plant and studies in the evenings at the Metallurgical Institute. We’ ve got two more sons aged 12 and 10, and a daughter who is 8. I feel pretty secure about their future too. They can pursue their education as far as they want to go, but if they decide they want to work in a factory, they'll always have a job waiting for them. Q: It all sounds pretty good. Are you saying that you have no problems? A: Of course not. But I don’t have to worry about losing my job, or getting evicted for not paying the rent, or that we won't be able to get proper medical care if I don’t have the money.: Q: What do you do for relaxation at leisure? A: To start with, I work eight hours 4 day, and get two days off a week. Some of my free time is spent as a representa tive to the Moscow Soviet. We call them deputies, but it’s something like being a2 alderman in your country. I like the work on the Moscow Soviet, so I don’t beg rudge the time I spend being a deputy. I enjoy watching TV, and going to the movies and theatre. My wife likes classI- cal music and we go to the opera once in a while.’ I recently saw the oper ‘*Aida’’ at the Bolshoi. I like reading a bit before I go to bed, too. Q: In Canada we hear a lot about human rights in the Soviet Union and about how they are being violated or not - being guaranteed at all under socialism: As someone who’s lived in a socialist system all his life, and as a worker, what can you say about the quality of humat rights in the Soviet Union? A: What else can I say that I haven't already told you. I think the whole pul pose of the campaign in your country an the capitalist world in general is to draw” people’s attention away from the count less violations of human rights in the West. Life under capitalism can be pretty humiliating, with massive unemploy~ ment, racism, and the basic insecurity of life that the system creates. From what we read about the West here, the economic, social and political ~ situation is getting worse, not better. me, that goes a long way in pe why such a campaign is being promoted: es ODEC sets up new committee PARIS — The United States, Japan and the European Economic Community agreed Sept. 23 to set up an autonomous and permanent steel committee within the Organization for Economic Cooper- ation and Development (OECD) to monitor world market developments in an attempt to ward off growing protec- tionist tendencies. The committee, to be open to non- OECD members as well, is scheduled to be formally established by the OECD - Council in October. Agreement to set up the U.S.-inspired committee, which conference sources called a “‘crisis committee’. was reached at the last meeting of the OECD “tad hoc™ steel group. which began its work more than a year ago. Steel to get 3% hike in 1980? PITTSBURGH — Lloyd McBride. president of the United Steelworkers union may agree to a 3% total pay hike in 1980, according to the Wall Street Jour- nal, Sept. 8. The 1977 contract guaranteed annual wage hikes of at least 3% in addition to an annual cost-of-living increase. However. the contract also provided that the 3% could cover both the annual wage hike and COLA in 1980, if the union agrees. McBride indicated that he might do so. **There’s no reason to believe we won't agree,”” he said. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 6,1978—Page 8 Call to nationalize steel : Special to the Tribune ATLANTIC CITY — Steelworkers in _the United States are facing threats of plant shutdowns and layoffs, speed-up and efforts to limit wage increases and benefits to three percent. As the crisis deepens the members of the United Steelworkers Union (USWA) are be- coming critical of the union’s Expen- mental Negotiating Agreement (ENA) which prohibits industry-wide strikes, while top leaders of the union argue that the union’s right to conduct such strikes would **devastate corporate earnings.” Speaking to some 4,000 Canadian and U.S. delegates to the union’s 19th annual Convention in Atlantic City, N.J., presi- dent Lloyd McBride, said he had met with President Carter October 3, 1977, and told him that a long term solution for the steel industry was to ‘modernize and expand their facilities... Exactly the same proposal was advanced at the American Iron and Steel Conference in New York earlier this year by Albert Speer, chairman of U.S. Steel Corpora- tion, who also said that such a program would result in cutting the work force by 40-50%, which would approximate some 150,000 jobs lost. McBride did not mention this threat in his speech to the delegates in Atlantic City on September 18. Writing in the U.S. ‘‘Daily World”’, Rick Nagin of the Communist Party, grows among USA, points to a widespread sentiment for nationalization of the steel industry that has emerged in the past year because of plant closings and massive layoffs by private owners in Big Steel. Last winter, Local Union 1418 at Campbell Works in Youngstown, Ohio adopted a resolution calling on the USWA to study the feasibility of nationalizing the steel industry. Last March, district director, Frank Leseganich, publicly called. for nationalization of steel. Appeals from the hard-hit workers of Youngstown area have been welcomed by progressive workers throughout the union who believe that public take-over is the only way to put the skids on the deteriorating crisis. In June, Chicago- Gary District 31 adopted a strongly worded resolution at its annual confer- ence urging protection of steelworkers’ jobs by rolling back steel prices, remov- ing trade restrictions with socialist coun- tries and nationalizing the steel industry. Since then many locals in all parts of the country have sent similar resolutions to the USWA convention. Workers and the people of Youngstown refuse to accept the shut- down of the Campbell Works by the Lykes Corporation and, instead, are probing every possible way to get the plant reopened. A coalition of labor, church and other community forces is .S. workers now calling for massive government aid to reopen the plant under public owne! ship. Edgar Speer, chairman of the U.S: Steel Corporation, afraid that the publi¢ ownership idea may spread to his steel worker employees in Youngstow?y hopes to divert the growing interest i public ownership by red-baiting. This is like employers in the past who de nounced unemployment compensation, — social security and industrial unions as ‘“‘communistic’’ and violations of “pig vate property rights.” Of course, as Rick Nagin correctil points out, public ownership of single plants or even entire industries is very fat from socialism. Many U.S. cities hav — ' publicly owned power plants, transit sy tems and other facilities — and they d0_ not have socialism. Public ownership | under capitalism is a stop-gap measure — which is made necessary when privaté owners demonstrate their inability to provide necessary services and jobs: This is the situation in steel in the USA+ With public ownership and democrati¢ - controls the steel industry can be made t0 — comply with health and safety standards, — civil rights laws and environmental regU” lations, guarantee jobs and a reasonable — price structure. Maybe the time has — come for the government to just take over the steel industry from the privat — buccaneers.