PD ccc an emme De Jobs for — construction workers now! © Community Party of Canada statement Plagued by growing unemployment, penalized by discriminatory unemployment insurance laws and _ regulations, dominated by United States trade union ~ ‘ bosses, threatened by so-called ‘‘Right-to-Work”’ (meaning the Right-to-Scab) laws imported from south of the border, Canadian construction workers face a return to open-shop (non-union) conditions as employers and governments press the attack on both the legislative and economic fronts to take away all rights won over many decades of difficult struggle. This year witness a 43% decline in housing con- struction as land speculators’ profits and usurious ‘mortgage interests have increased housing prices and rentals beyond the reach of all ordinary working ‘people dependent for their living on wages and regular salaries. What we need to cope with this situation is: expropriation of needed land for a country-wide hous- ing program under public ownership and democratic control, with financing at interest of no more than 5%, and with housing available for sale or rentals at prices ordinary working people can afford. Such a program would make jobs for construction workers. , The cutback in unemployment insurance an tighter regulations for temporary and seasonal work- ers make it extremely difficult for construction work- ers to qualify for U.I. benefits. Such benefits should be made available without discrimination and for du- ration of unemployment at a minimum rate of 90% of earnings prior to layoff. : . Workers want and need the protection provided by being organized in a trade union.. This lays the basis for the exercise of such fundamental laws as govern collective bargaining and the right to strike, without which collective bargaining in our capitalist society becomes meaningless. Union security is provided by various* forms of collective agreements, such as: closed union shop; union shop; modified union shop; the Rand formula — also called the agency shop. It is these forms of union contract security provisions which the so-called ‘‘right-to-work’? movement — originating in the USA — want to do away with. The special conditions facing U.S. and Canadian labor, and which arise from the operations of the -S.-based multi-national corporations and finance-capital in this country, can and must be hand- led through agreement between the unions concerned and fraternal relations based on .cooperation and equality, not domination. ‘ The demand for new relations based on equality and fraternity with the U.S. trade union movement arises at a time when Canada has come under intense and growing economic and political pressure from the big monopolies to bail out U.S. imperialism from its bankrupt policies at the expense of American workers and workers of other countries. An independent, sovereign and united Canadian trade union movement would greatly strengthen the possibility of international trade union unity, so imperative today as imperialism Sa to solve its problems at the expense of the working class. In 1970 the Edmonton Convention of the Canadian : bor Congress did adopt some modest guidelines on limited autonomy for its affiliates. But the building trades unions have stubbornly refused to act on the CLC’s guidelines. In fact, they have withheld per Capita tax to the CLC as a form of pressure (black- mail) to force the CLC to adopt constitutional amendments that conform to the bureaucratic prac- tices of the AFL-CIO. The CLC leaders themselves have capitulated before this pressure to the extent that they have refused to fight for their own guidelines, inadequate as they are, with respect to minimum standards of Canadian autonomy. More than three years ago, on January 17 and 18, _ 1976, 182 delegates representing 133,000 construction workers in Canada met at the first ever National Con- ference of Canadian Building Trades in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The importance of that conference is the fact it was called jointly by the 10 Provincial Building Trades Councils in Canada to give expression to Canadian the construction workers’ wish to have a National Building Trades Council recognized by the international” union headquarters in the USA, with a proper charter, constitution and by-laws, and the authority to act and ‘speak on behalf of building tradesmen in Canada. _The point was made abundantly clear that Cana- dians would no longer tolerate a situation where ap- pointed so-called International Representatives, whether through an Advisory Board or individually, speak on behalf of Canadians without consultation with the area building trades officers and on occasion, contrary to the objectives of the Canadian Building Trades membership. The Winnipeg Conference adopted 36 resolutions which covered the Consti- domination no tution and By-Laws of a Canadian Building Trades Council, Federal Wage and Price Controls, organiz- ing the unorganized, Unemployment Insurance, in- come tax, housing, reciprocal health and welfare plans, portability of pensions, ‘union education in schools, and public relations, to mention the main subjects. The right-wing leaders on both sides of the border, who failed to prevent the above mentioned confer- ence from being held, have since succeeded in scuttl- ing the work of the Winnipeg Conference. The AFL-CIO Building Trades Department in Washington has become bold enough to present the federal government at Ottawa with a brief which made no mention of the CLC but had the support of right- wing Officials in the Building Trades on both sides of the border. This makes it imperative to repeat the old slogan: ‘‘Cooperation — yes; domination — no.”’ Canadians must have the unfettered right to be mas- ters in their own house. The growth of the trade union movement within Canada, particularly in the public sector, has placed the so-called international union in a minority position in this country. If the CLC fails’to take up the chal- lenge and act for Canadian independence at this time, it can open the door to extended raiding and greater splits in the ranks of organized labor. If, on the other hand, the CLC acts decisively to lead the struggle for _ new relations between Canadian and U.S. labor, the way will be opened to unity of Canadian trade unions. The CLC is duty-bound to insist that the AFL-CIO and its affiliated unions place no obstacle in the way of Canadian workers achieving an independent and - sovereign Canadian trade union movement based on equality and fraternal unity. The United States unions should declare their support for this objective because it conforms to the spirit of true working class inter- nationalism and, likewise, corresponds to the real interests of organized workers on both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border. As a prominent American union man has stated: ““Government is the instrument of the major monopolies to maximize profits. The trade unions for all their weakness are the great bulwark of democra- cy. That is why they (the monopolies and govern- ments) seek to destroy the labor movement. In this, they cannot succeed . .. Change is inevitable. Labor is a force for life. Necessity compels higher levels of solidarity and struggle on the economic, legislative and political fronts.”’ Forward to an independent Canadian economy and jobs for all! Forward to an, independent, sovereign and united Canadian trade union movement! Cooperation yes peta ie it RS Rg a TN i stele J | PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 23, 1979—Page 5 q 7 . |