‘make pensio

;
|

Canada

in B DBURY — With nickel prices soar-
Gene $7 a pound and the prospects of
alta Profits to be made, Inco Ltd.
an €d a strike by some 6,950 miners and
“iter workers here and in Port Colborne
Y agreeing to a ground-breaking contract
Ba give all current and future retirees
€ir spouses lifetime indexed pensions.
=atly ratification votes May 31 showed
j a Steelworkers members accepting the
1.700 year contract by a vote of 3,599 to
pane Gerard, the union’s Ontario direc-
peed the pact “the most significant
i ever negotiated” by the Steel-
Ris €ts, and was quick to pledge that the
a N will try to achieve the same pension
standard for the rest of its 165,000 members
Mm the province.
€ next big confrontation comes up in

- {WO years time when basic steel contracts

lien” and Gerard has stated that indexed
Me pensions will be a strike issue.
= € union saw the emphasis on pensions
Means of coming to grips with an indus-
tty that has cut its labour force drastically
Over the past six years. Inco’s Sudbury
©Perations, which once employed more
than 10,000 workers, now maintains pro-
duction with only 6,300 employees.
Because of the hundreds who have been
id off during the recent period, the work
force.is also aging. The retired proportion of
the Sudbury population in general is grow-
ing due to natural processes and increased
Pressure on older workers to take early
Tetirement in the wake of the mining com-
Panies’ restructuring and the reduction of
the work force due to fluctuating metal
market prices and the introduction of new
technology.

Nr.

— Inco Steelworkers
Jains

LEO GERARD

Inco has emerged from the six-year
slump in world nickel prices and its own
internal restructuring with a $125.9-million
profit in the first quarter of 1988. The
workers haven’t fared so well, with
hundreds laid off during the same period.

In addition to increasing pensions by
almost 50 per cent immediately and wages
by 21.8 per cent over the next three years, a
cost of living allowance was negotiated
which the union estimates will add another
76 cents an hour to the hourly wage. By
June, 1990, according to the union, miners’
wages will rise from $15.58 to $18.99 an
hour.

The contract also provides for workers
with 30 years service to retire early ona full
pension. A $1-million fund for those

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

spouses who have survived deceased Inco
workers retiring before 1972 without pen-
sion, was set up. The union added that the
pension indexing will be funded from the
$48-million surplus in the company’s pen-
sion fund.

Gerard said the pension protection will
cover about 80 per cent of the inflation rate.
With inflation between one and two per
cent, pension benefits will increase by one
per cent. From here there is a sliding scale of
increases as inflation rises, with a cut-off
point at seven per cent inflation when benef-
its will increase five per cent.

A pensioner with 30 years service and
collecting $1,300 a month in company and
government pensions will get an extra $52
added to his/her pension, assuming a five
per cent inflation rate.

Gerard said the plan was unique in Can-
ada in that it was negotiated as a lifetime
plan that won’t have to be re-negotiated.
The other major contract breathrough on
pensions, negotiated by the Canadian Auto
Workers with the Big Three auto corpora-
tions last year, won partial indexing, but
current retirees weren’t included in the con-
tract and the pension plan will have to-be
re-negotiated with the companies at the end
of six years.

The Steelworkers breakthrough comes at
a time when pension indexing is up for
public discussion. Ontario Treasurer Robert
Nixon is supposed to unveil government
plans for pension legislation later this
summer, but a government task force,
chaired by Toronto law professor Martin
Friedland, is already trying to dampen the
growing demand for indexing.

His report suggested companies would
find indexing too costly and should try to
escape by either withdrawing pensions or
slashing wages. ;

The labour movement counters this
claim by pointing out there is enough
money in pension plan surpluses, if corpo-
rations don’t dip into them, to index all
pensions in the province.

Labour is already demanding that the
government use the Steelworkers-Inco pen-
sion deal as a model for its new pension law.

June 12 actions will be decisive

Clear the decks for June 12. That’s one
Sunday where the most important item on
every worker’s agenda should be making
sure you get your friends, neighbours, fam-
ily and union sisters/brothers to join you in
one of the dozens of actions that will take
Place across Canada to give the Mulroney
Tories a clear message:

As you can see elsewhere in the paper, the
Pro-Canada Network’s country-wide Day
of Action Against Free Trade and its call for
an immediate election on the issue is being
Picked up by various broad-based coali-
tions and organizations the length and
breadth of Canada. :

Labour
in Action

Mike Phillips

The various border demonstrations, pic-
nics, rallies, cultural and educational events
can make a liar out of Free Trade Minister
John Crosbie, who’s been frantically criss-
crossing the country making the claim that
the Tory sell-out is inevitable and there’s
nothing any provincial premier, never mind
we humble Canadians, can do to stop it.

The Tories are more than a little worried, |
though it’s clear they intend to do anything,
even sacrifice a second term in office, to do
the job in Parliament that corporate Can-
ada and the U.S. transnationals are

_ demanding of them.

_ After blowing $30 million of our dollars

to convince us, there are fewer Canadians
supporting free trade than when the Tories
launched their disinformation campaign.
Representatives of the anti-free trade
movement, such as the Pro-Canada Net-
work and the 28 organizations which lob-
bied the Parliamentary opposition last
week, report new forces joining the cam-
paign, contacts spreading into previously
inactive regions, and a renewed commit-
ment to the fight by the core groups in the
coalitions, including labour, the women’s
movement, the churches and others.

That’s also why Bill C-130, the package
of laws introduced to Parliament May 24 to
implement the free trade agreement, is such
a devious gambit to shade the real impact
the deal will have on Canada.

As if walking through a mine field
toward the Jan. 1, 1989 deadline for imple-
menting the deal, the Tories assembled the
bare minimum of legal amendments in
order to avoid taking on the provinces,
municipal governments, as well as critical
sectors of the economy and the public.

Nevertheless, C-130 would allow the free
trade pact to override and be paramount to
all current and future Canadian laws.
Cabinet, not the elected Parliament of Can-
ada, would have the power to amend any
Canadian laws that are found to be, or
become, inconsistent with the pact. And,
the cabinet would be empowered to review
any social or economic legislation to make
sure it complies with the free trade deal.

It also shows that the Tories have made
major concessions to the Americans. Not
only have they surrendered our right to set
lower domestic prices for our own resour-
ces, but the government will be empowered
to decree and enforce proportional sharing

of our resources, including water, with the
U.S. during shortages.

Controls on the investment and removal
of capital by U.S. firms would be effectively
eliminated. The Americans would be able
to.charge us for the television programs they
broadcast our way, and the domestic maga-
zine industry would be shafted with Income
Tax Act amendments that no longer require
that Canadian publications be printed in
this country for advertisers to get a tax
deduction.

And that’s only the beginning. According
to the Pro-Canada Network, the American
Senate has identified at least three major
objectives in its ongoing trade negotiations
with Canada. They want even more access
to our cultural and energy industries. They
want a complete level playing field in the
provision of services, and they want to elim-
inate completely any screening of invest-
ments, technology transfer requirements,
performance requirements, local resident
requirements and what they call “subsidy
trade distortions.”

The corporate vision of what the Cana-
dian Labour Congress described at its
recent convention as “the lean and mean,

- dog-eat-dog, lowest common denominator

world of the North American right wing” is
already upon us. The Pro-Canada Net-
work’s plea to the opposition New Demo-
crats and the Liberals to shut down
Parliament if need be to block the Mulroney
sell out is one important side of the fight for
an election on free trade.

But far more decisive will be the kinds of
actions undertaken by the largest possible
number of Canadians on June 12, and
action days that must and will follow, right
up to election day.

Cleaners —
_win pact
remains on —
contracting

TORONTO — The Canadian
Union of Postal Workers and Cana-
_ da’s Capital Building Services signed _
anewcontract with Canada Post here
_ May 18 on behalf the cleaners at the
South Central postal facility, but —
there’s nothing to stop the Crown
corporation from tendering the clean-
ing contract to a “low-ball” bidder
paying the minimum wage with no
benefits. :
e two-year contract will bring ©
_ wages for light duty cleaners to $8.50-
_an-hour and $9.50 for heavy duty |
add four additional paid
to the collective agreement, _
provide for the company to pay full
hi insurance plan premiums; and —
ive the cleaners a’ $2-a-day travel —

only the cleaners’ second con-
th the company. The first was _

after a bitter five-month

in 1987. The new pact was rati-
_fied May 19 with a 100 per cent affir-
mative vote on an executive recom-_

_ mendation to accept. .
_ Andre Kolompar, CUPW’s Tor- .
resident, said it had ta

only able to achieve this
t determination of our
membership,” Kolompar said in a_
May 27 union statement. os
No one in Canada can accept the
blatant exploitation and degradation |
of immigrant women and men.” They _
make up the majority of postal clean-
at South Central. See
But the cleaners aren’t “out of the
vi yet,” and the Toronto local has
_ served notice on the corporation tha’
union will use the “‘strongest pos-
methods” if Canada Post tries
poverty level wages on the

through the tendering pro-

problem, Kolompar points
: Ontario labour law lets _

Pacific Tribune, June 8, 1988 « 7

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