~ Canadian steel talks hit by USX lockout 7}

The American labor movement
is locked in deadly combat with
the giant U.S. Steel Corp., now
known as USX, with a potential
outcome that could affect the
1987 Canadian steel negotiations.

Since Aug. 1, USX has illegally
locked out 44,000 members of the
United Steel Workers of America
in its steel plants throughout the
country. The union and the entire
AFL-CIO leadership have fo-
cussed on this struggle as a critical
test of labor’s ability to turn
around a frontal attack by big
business on the trade union
movement in the steel industry.

While the union had agreed to
continue negotiations, and work
under the old contract, USX re-
jected the offer and shut the
workers out. With Reagan in the
White House, deep crisis in the
domestic steel industry, and ex-
tensive transnational and
financial investments in steel in
low wage dictatorships such as
South Korea, USX bosses felt the
time was ripe to force the workers
to swallow massive concessions.

The total concessions package
demanded by the corporation
amounts to about $7 an hour. On
top, the corporation was demand-
ing a wage cut of $3.50 an hour;
the surrendering of one week’s
vacation; the slashing of 33 job
classifications to 9; the right to
continue unlimited contracting
out of union jobs; and changes in

the grievance procedure that
would undermine the union’s
very existence.

The American labor movement
also knows that a USX victory
now would have a devastating
impact on the entire U.S. trade
union movement as it enters next
year’s round of contract negotia-
tions.

But it is a fight that has begun to
capture the imagination of the
U.S. trade union movement,
much in the same way that Gain-
ers, NAPE, and other struggles
have in this country.

USWA members are keeping
picket lines going 24 hours a day
in the face of police repression,
court actions and the threat of jail.
Despite the repression they re-
main determined to prevent scab
steel from leaving the USX
plants.

In Chicago, 27 steelworkers
were arrested for sitting down in
front of rail cars being used to
sneak steel out of USX’s South
Works plant.

The workers have conducted
mass picketing at USX locations
throughout the country, and the
union has won the backing of sev-
eral city councils, including Chi-
cago, Lorain, and Gary Indiana.

At its September international
convention the steelworkers
union resolved to treat the USX
fight, ‘tas an all out war,’’ pledg-
ing to commit all of its resources

in the rejection of concessions
and the achievement of a satisfac-
tory contract for the locked out
workers.

The AFL-CIO has set up a
country-wide Steelworkers Sup-
port Committee to rally the forces
of the American trade union
movement behind the USWA.
Speaking to the steelworkers
convention, AFL-CIO President
Lane Kirkland said the USX bat-
tle was as good a place as any to
draw the line ‘‘against those smug

and comfortable elements who
are seeking the last drop of blood
and the last pound of flesh from
the American workers...”

The struggle is releasing a flood
of support and solidarity with
growing financial donations and
picket line support.

Canadian steelworkers have a
stake in this battle too. With the
current neo-conservative of-
fensive against trade union rights
evident in the Alberta struggles
and the legal assault expressed in

the Lavigne case, a victory for —
U.S. steelworkers at USK would
help strengthen the determined
and so far successful resistance
Canadians have waged against —
the industry’s concessionary de-
mands here.

The support for locked out
USX workers generated by
Canadian steelworkers locals and
other trade unionists will un-
doubtedly be given with aneyeto }
the 1987 steel talks looming onthe |
horizon. —M.P.

Leak reveals Ul

OTTAWA — Canada’s million
and a half jobless workers disco-
vered why the Forget Commis-
sion on unemployment has been
taking so long to deliver its report
to the Mulroney government.

To no one’s great surprise,
other than the big business me-

dia’s, it was learned Oct. 13, that’

Claude Forget, chairman of the
Royal Commission mandated to
study the country’s unemploy-
ment insurance system is plan-
ning to inflict the country’s

unemployed with the biggest cut,

in the history of unemployment
insurance benefits.

This Thanksgiving turkey was
delivered to the public through a
leaked minority report from the

two labor members of the Royal
Commission, Jack Munro of the
International Woodworkers of
America, and Canadian Labor
Congress vice president Frances
Soboda.

Munro and Soboda predicted
that Forget’s planned recom-
mendation for what is being de-
scribed as a system of
‘‘annualization’’ whereby a
claimant would have to work a
full 52 weeks before getting full UI
benefits, would reduce benefits
by an average of $72.50 a week for
about 78 per cent of recipients.

Claimants who worked less
than 52 weeks would be docked
for every week they couldn’t find
work. The minority labor report

trade. :

MONTREAL — Quebec’s three labor centrals and the far-
mers’ union joined forces Oct. 1 to launch a coalition against free

Quebec centrals against free trade

The coalition goes on to declare its support for multi-lateral
trading patterns to reduce Canada’s economic dependence on the

USS.

‘Danger! Free Trade’’ is the theme of the extensive cam-
paign that will combine internal union education on the perils ofa
free trade agreement between Canada and the U.S. with
mobilization of the public at large.

The four organizations, the Quebec Federation of Labor, the
Quebec Teachers Central, the Confederation of National Trade
Unions, and the Union of Agricultural Producers have issued a
joint declaration which declares their determined opposition to
free trade and enumerates the devastating impact such an agree-
ment could have on the economies and sovereignty of Canada
and Quebec.

The declaration, which is being distributed widely throughout
Quebec, calls on the federal Tory government to cancel the free
trade talks and replace them with negotiations with the U.S. on
how to avoid the protectionist measures that country is applying
to Canadian products entering the U.S.

It also calls on the Quebec government to unequivocally de-
clare its opposition to free trade and particularly to oppose nego-
tiating around what may be construed as Quebec’s powers in
these talks. A press statement issued Oct. 1 said the four centrals
wanted to warn the Bourassa government against any idea of
trading off Quebec’s support for free trade for any so-called
constitutional veto.

““Over the next few months”’, the four coalition leaders said,
‘we intend to develop a vast campaign of information, education
and mobilization of our members and the public at large.

‘We'll spare no effort to defeat this plan with all of its disas-
trous consequences, not only on jobs, but on our social programs
and the cultural identity of both Quebec and Canada. Free trade
jeopardizes our overall political sovereignty.

The campaign will also see each of the four organizations
release sectoral and regional studies detailing the effects of free
trade on Quebec’s economy.

The joint declaration cited a recent study by the Quebec Minis-
try of Industry and Commerce identifying four industrial sectors
involving some 30,000 jobs that may benefit from a free trade
deal.

But the remaining 12 of Quebec’s 18 industrial sectors, em-
ploying some 230,000 workers, the ministry study predicted,
would be “‘losers.”’

The so-called loser industries cited by the study would include:
printing and publishing; electric products; information; metal
products; shoes; machine manufacturing; furniture; clothing, and
others.

Ina study of its own, the farmers union demonstrated that free
trade would have a negative impact on egg, poultry and vegetable
production and would deliver nothing positive to any other agri-
cultural sector.

‘*We can only conclude that a free trade agreement would not
only severely disrupt the jobs market but would in fact further
increase Quebec’s and Canada’s already unacceptable jobless
levels’, the four organizations said in their declaration.

They added in their statement to the press that, ‘the federal
government has embarked on these negotiations without any
mandate whatsoever from the people.

‘‘That’s why we’re appealing to all organizations and individ-
uals who share our concerns to join with us in building a strong
movement against free trade.”

ashi
said 47 per cent of future UI reci-
pients would receive less than
$100 a week in benefits while 62
per cent would quality for less
than what many provinces allow |
for single parents on welfare
benefits.

Depending on the region where
a claimant is applying for
unemployment insurance, the
current requirement to qualify |
ranges from 10 to 14 weeks of
work.

They predicted welfare costs
would increase by some $486-mil-
lion as workers, unable to find
jobs for a full year would be com-
pelled to go on the welfare rolls. |
Forget’s proposal, they said ‘‘will
contribute significantly to poverty
in Canada. It’s as simple as that.”

They noted that Forget also will |
recommend abolishing regionally | j
extended benefits with the effect
that the poorest provinces in the
country would lose the most. _||__

Taken together Forget’s prop- —
osals will mean Quebec would ||.
lose $930-million; the Atlantic |)
provinces $620; B.C. $430-mil-_
lion; Ontario $350-million and the
three prairie provinces, $250-mil-
lion. .

In total Forget would chop
some $3-billion from the $12-bil-
lion UI currently pays out every
year.

Reports of Forget’s annualiza-
tion scheme were even confirmed
later in the week with a third
dissenting report from the Royal
Commission, that of former Ford |
Canada boss Roy Bennett who
had to admit the proposal would
‘‘cause undue hardship to many
individuals.”

However, Bennett indicated he
would support the proposal if it
was accompanied with income
supplement programs, and he
went on to propose a 26-week
benefits period based on a week's
benefits for every week aclaimant
managed to find work.

Pressed by the opposition pat-
ties in the Commons, Prime Min-
ister Mulroney and his Employ-
ment Minister Benoit Bouchard
played innocent, citing Finance
Minister Michael Wilson’s state-
ment in Feb. 1985 that the
government wasn’t undertaking
its UI review with any intention of
cutting any federal contributions -
to the unemployed.

Both Mulroney and Bouchard
refused to comment on the Forget |
cuts, maintaining that inasmuch
as the report wasn’t due to be re- —
ceived by the government until jj
Nov. 30, they weren’t in a posi-
tion to respond on a document
they hadn’t yet seen. :