Camco flops in bid for injunction against UE HAMILTON — Camco has failed in its efforts to secure an injunc- tion limiting the numbers of pickets on company property during the strike by Local 550 United Electrical workers (UE). Armed with mountains of documentation, the company filed its application in the wake of a successful action June 10, by the strikers in stopping a train from coming out of the plant. A video taping of the incident by the strikers proved decisive in the Ontario Supreme Court’s ruling, June 21, that denied Camco its injunction. The tape showed that, contrary to the initial report by Hamilton- Wentworth Regional Police that fear of potential violence stopped them from asking the picket line to disperse, the police never ap- proached the peaceful and orderly strikers nor interfered in their action in preventing the train from leaving the plant. In other developments, Camco’s failure to secure the injunction came as the UE denounced the provincial Tory government’s inter- vention in the strike on behalf of the company. Queen’s Park has extended the delivery date for appliances bought under Ontario’s temporary tax exemption another 90 days. UE secretary-treasurer Val Bjarnason, in an angry telegram to Premier William Davis, June 20, accused the Tory government of introducing the tax exemption to take Camco off the hook. The 90-day extension won’t give consumers any. break because it doesn’t extend their tax-free buying period. It only extends the time corporations can supply goods to distributors. Bjarnason said the massive support by the 850 Camco workers for the strike caught the company off guard and put it into a situation where it is pressured to settle quickly. Low inventories and an expected buying surge because of the tax holiday on appliance purchases between May 11 and Aug. 8 kept the pressure on Camco to negotiate an agreement satisfactory. to the workers. “Undoubtedly at the demand of Camco’s parent, Canadian General Electric, your government relieved that pressure by extending the deadline for delivery of tax-free appliances until Nov. 7,”” Bjarnason charged. ‘**These actions are typical of what labor has come to expect from a government which has forced wage controls on its own employees, while giving tax breaks and incentives to corporations. Wages, cost of living adjustment, pensions and job postings continue to be the main issues in the strike which began May 27 after an 80% strike vote. Leading up to the strike and throughout the negotiations the company tried to intimidate and exploit its 150 probationary “employees, going so far as to practically cue them to vote for the company’s so-called ‘‘final offer.”’ Camco felt the probationaries could swing enough votes to deny the UE the 70% minimum rejection vote required for strike action. The effects of Camco’s attempted blackmail of the probationaries was displayed in the overwhelming 80% rejection vote the workers gave against the ‘‘final offer.”’ SEAMEN TO FIGHT SIU “DISCIPLINE” WELLAND — Four seamen who supported a challenger to SIU boss Roman Gralewicz in the recent union elections and were dealt severe penalties by the union for alleged disloyalty, said June 15 they are taking legal action against the Seafarers International Union. The seamen, Ron Wheaton, Don Davis, Jake Barrie and Tim Siegrist, all supporters of Ted Williams who was the first union member to challenge Gralewicz since he took over the union in 1973, were originally suspended from union membership for periods ranging from life to two years. Under stiff public pressure, Gralewicz later announced after he had ‘‘reviewed’’. the local decisions, that he would reduce the penalties to a range of 17 months to 30 days. The four seamen say accepting these reduc- tions is an admission of guilt and the union has no right to discipline them simply for exercising their democratic right to support a new leader- ship in union elections. The SIU was imported into Canada by the federal Liberal government during the early 50s to smash the Canadian Seamens Union, which at the time was the largest union of the Gréat Lakes. AUPE GOES TO ILO. TO FIGHT BILL 44 ‘CALGARY — Alberta’s union-busting Bill 44 is being raised before the International Labor Organization by the 45,000-member Alberta Union of Public Employees, (AUPE). Bill 44 titled the Labor Statutes Amendments Act, will effectively take away the collective bargaining rights of about 60,000 Alberta work- ers while it strips hospital workers in five unions of their right to strike. The ILO, based in Geneva is a United Na- tions agency concerning itself with labor re- lations and standards on a global basis. It has twice ruled against Alberta’s 1977 Public Ser- vice Employees Relations Act because it viol- ates the ILO’s rules prohibiting the denial of | public sector workers’ right to strike. COMINCO STRIKERS REFUSE CONCESSIONS TRAIL, B.C. — Cominco’s 4,200 striking ” lead and zinc miners voted 80%, June 21 for a contract that holds none of the concessions the multi-national was demanding but contains a | wage freeze in the first year. - Members of Local 480 United Steelworkers | struck the world’s largest lead and zinc opera- tion, June 13 in the face of the corporation’s insistent demands for extensive concessions including cancellation of the COLA, and “‘shar- ing’’ of the cost of benefits, the company pre- sently assumes by itself. - The workers accepted the first-year wage freeze Cominco was demanding but will receive — a wage increase in the second year based on the COLA and a 20 cent an hour wage hike if the company has runway price increases on lead, — zinc and silver. The new agreement will also at ovide: better pensions, early retirement, disability pay, sick leave and job security provisions. NISSAN IN AMERICA HI-TEK, NON-UNION SMYRNA, Tenn. — Heraided by big busi- ness and its propaganda machine as ‘“‘a new beginning for the American automotive in- ~ dustry’’, Nissan Motor Manufacturing Corp., | USA opened its first $660-million U.S. plant here, June 16. The plant will go into full pro- duction in mid-1984 producing 120,000 pickup trucks a year with wall-to-wall robots, some 220 of which will weld and paint the truck bodies. Though control rests in Tokyo, management is American. Marvin R. Runyon, Nissan’s U.S. president is a former Ford executive and his view of the bright new beginning centres on making sure the United Auto Workers are frus- trated in their campaign to organize the Nissan — workers. The plant is located about 24 kilo- metres southeast of Nashville. —_ ns It can’t be put any clearer than Marc Lalonde did Labor must say no to Lalonde Labor needs to give its message to Mr. Lalonde and last week in Ottawa. The alternatives are government imposed wage controls or self-controlled wage con- trols. Mr. Lalonde is no longer talking about the public sector, he is now openly including the private sector. Much like a primary school teacher lecturing grade one pupils, Mr. Lalonde peeled off on Maritime con- struction workers for negotiating an 11% wage in- crease, and on the construction industry for agreeing. Just to make clear how matters stood, the minister of finance, in the same press conference, said he saw absolutely nothing wrong with a more than 40% profit increase for the banks in the first half of the year. What is surprising is not that Mr. Lalonde would think this, but that he would have the impudence to say it, not accidentally in some passing remark, but quite deliberately. It shows how far the Canadian government has gone in lining itself up completely with monopoly in its drive for higher profits, lower wages and living conditions. Any pretext of the government being an impartial element between capi- tal and labor has been discarded and the government openly appears as a force to raise profits and lower wages. Will It Wash? What remains to be determined is the extent to. which the government’s open, pro-monopoly stance is determined by political reality. That is: will it'wash with the labor movement and Canadian society in general? Or, to what extent it is determined by politi- cal expediency, that is; an attempt to head off the strengthening position of the Tories and curry favor with U.S. and Canadian monopoly interests. Labor in action William Stewart workers continue to resist the. employer offensive, refuse to give in to concessions, insist on trying to protect and extend their inadequate living standards, the government will not only continue wage controls where they presently exist, in the public sector, but will extend them to the private sector. Mr. Lalonde’s assurance that this is not contemplated is to be taken as seriously as previous government assurances it would not introduce such controls. The trade union movement, and the entire labor movement should make it clear, now, that it will not brook any extension of controls in the public sector, nor their application in the private sector. If the government wants seriously to bring down inflation, while ensuring jobs and adequate living standards, it should control the profits of the big cor- porations, the banks and financial institutions. This should be the demand of the entire labor movement. Give Lalonde a Message It was precisely at this time last year, just as the labor movement geared down for summer holidays, that the government introduced its wage control pro- gram. A quite deliberate and cynical maneouver to place the program in action at the weakest point of labor mobilization. It is quite conceivable that they -will try to extend the controls scheme again at this time hoping it will work in the same way. the government and to provincial governments as well. Controls on wages must go. There will be no caving in this time. Any attempt to extend or broaden the wage control program will be met by the united, firm and militant resistance of not only the trade union movement, but the entire labor movement, the NDP and the Communist Party. The ERA (Economic Recovery Alternative) Con- ference sponsored by the Metro Toronto Labor Council on June 16-18, in cooperation with the Social Planning Council, showed there was broad support among widely divergent sections of the Canadian | people for labor’s program of struggle against the big corporations and for increased purchasing power and expanded social services. In fact, some spokesmen from churches and social agencies displayed a hostil- ity to the system and a preparedness to unite in strug- . gle, which surpassed that of many areas of the labor movement. _ Struggle Is the Key The key at this time to mobilizing this support and isolating monopoly and its governments is the militant struggle of the trade unions against monopoly’s wage control and cutback programs. If the trade unions stand up now and announce their ‘outright refusal to contemplate a continuation and extension of wage controls, it can be the signal for an alliance of all democratic Canadians which can force the government to back down. There is still time to carry through the brave words of the 1982 CLC convention — No to Wage Controls. No to Concessions. New policies and New Govern- ments. Psaier giY ge a ep ee oe TOMmI INE DUMRTr For the labor-movement the warning is clear. If : : Fs we = , ‘ 4 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 1, 1983—Page 6