ne

Guild strikes Oshawa Times

OSHAWA — Forty-nine members of the Southern Ontario Newspaper
Guild-were forced to take strike action against the Thomson-owned
Times March 26 to back demands for a decent contract. The strikers are
after a similar agreement won by Sudbury Star workers, also owned by.
Thomson, which provided among other benefits a 100% company paid

drug and dental plan.
GOV'T GRANTS
WILL KILL

g00 JOBS

TORONTO — The $140-million
in grants the federal and Ontario:
governments will take from. the
taxpayers’ pockets and hand over
to the pulp and paper industry is
slated to wipe out 800 jobs over the
next five years. A consultant to the
Ontario government recently ad-
mitted in print that poor manage-
ment was behind the need for mas-
sive government infusions of
money to refurbish the industry
and replace its obsolete machinery.
Ontario is to provide two-thirds of
the’ grant money. The consultant
admitted that company managers
in the industry chose ‘‘to keep the
shareholders happy” (by paying
dividends in good years) instead of
planning for the low profit periods
by re-investing high profits into
new machinery and. equipment.

8,000 FACE

LAYOFFS

BRANTFORD — White Farm»
Equipment Ltd., bared its plans
April 22 to lay off 2,000 produc-
tion workers when the company
shuts down in September and Oc-
tober after taking stock inventory
in August. Meanwhile Massey-
Ferguson Industries Ltd., has
also threatened to lay off its 6,000
workers here, if, as one company
spokesman said, economic condi-
tions continue to decline.

ENGINEERS WIN
UNION CONTRACT

TORONTO — After a three-
_year fight, 150 professional en-.
gineers and technicians at Spar
Aerospace Ltd., have won the
‘right to form a union and this
month signed their first collective
agreement, The two-year contract
won by the Spar Professional and
Allied Technical Employees As-
sociation provides for mandatory
dues checkoff with wage increases
of 11.5% and 9.5% in the first and
second contract years. It also in-

” BRIEF

cludes a cost of living adjustment’

(COLA) which will kick in after
the Consumer Price Index rises 1%
or more.

HARVESTER
“FURLOUGH’S” 280

HAMILTON — Layj
workers arbitrarily for eee soy
even months is: now being
quaintly described by big busi-
ness as a furlough, so 280 Inter-
national Harvester Co., workers
are getting the sack for at least
seven or eight days, and they’re
getting furloughs. It’s cute, be-
cause when the term is used in the
military it means that soldiers are
being given a holiday away from
their daily duties. Getting laid off
from monopoly’s viewpoint is
considered a holiday. From the
worker’s viewpoint, it’s called a
rip-off by the bosses.

FIRST CONTRACT
PROMPTS STRIKE

_ GUELPH — Following the re-
cent release of a conciliation board
report, all 22 members of the Re-
tail, Commercial and Industrial
Union at Guelph division of
Maclean-Hunter Cable TV Ltd.,
struck for their first contract April
16. Money leads a whole host of
other key issues enumerated in the
conciliation report which forced
the cable TV workers to strike. -

CARETAKERS
FAVOR STRIKE

TORONTO — Some 1,450
public school caretakers, non-

‘teaching staff, bus drivers and

maintenance workers have set
April 23 and April 28 in Toronto
and Scarborough respectively as
strike dates unless Education
Boards in both areas make satis-
factory offers that will settle con-
tract talks. Toronto’s 700 care-
takers voted 85%, April 13, to
strike while their counterparts in
Scarborough voted 95% for the
same action, April 12. Members
of CUPE, the caretakers want a
13% or 90 cent an hour wage hike,
whichever is higher.

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SCENE

There has been a concerted ef-
fort by the Building Trades De-
partment of the American Feder-
ation of Labor, based in
Washington, to scuttle the dem-
ocratic rank and file base of the
Canadian Labor Congress, dating
back to the Vancouver Con-
vention of the CLC in 1974.

This attack is carried through
by the international representa-
tives of the building trades unions
in Canada known as “‘roadmen’’.

The signal for the latest attack
was the resignation from the
executive of the CLC by Ken
Rose, who heads up the Inter-
national Brotherhood of Electri-
cal Workers in Canada.

Behind the machinations of
Washington, and its ‘‘Canadian”’
roadmen is their refusal to accept
the growing demand in their own
ranks for full Canadian auto-
nomy, as well as their resentment
of the changes in the CLC brought
about by the growing weight of
solely Canadian based unions
such as the Canadian Union of
Public Employees, the Public
Service Alliance of Canada, etc.

Quebec Rights

Implacable hostility to the

legitimate demands of the people

_of Quebec for self-determination

is another plank of the roadmen.
This is inspired by their reaction-
ary chauvinism but it is further
aggravated by the fear that such a
right for Quebec would spell the
end of the craft unions there.
Moreover, representing as they
do, the collaborationist U.S. state
department line of _ the
Washington Building Trades
Department, they are hostile to
the more advanced positions

. taken on a wide range of political

issues by the CLC; compared to
the AFL-CIO.

The 1976 CLC Convention -
dealt with the question of auto-
nomy and agreed to the
establishment of a Canadian
Building Trades Department
which would break the
Washington Control over Cana-
dian Building Trades workers.
However due to great pressure
and threats by the roadmen and
Washington the CLC backed
away from its mandate and the
whole thing was scuttled. Re-
cently the building trades workers
in Quebec have filled the breach
by setting up their own building
trades department which has in-
furiated the roadmen and
Washington who demand the
CLC break up this formation.

In fact the Quebec workers are
justified on two counts in their ac-
tions.

Actions Justified

First they are justified because
of the national status of Quebec
and its right to take steps neces-
sary to protect and advance the
interests of the workers there, the
main criteria being the strengthen-
ing of the unity of the workers in
Quebec and together with that
their unity with their fellow work-
ers across the country. There is
no evidence that their actions do
not serve both these ends.

The second justification is the
failure of the CLC to act on its
mandate and set up a Canadian
Building Trades department. The
actions of the Quebec workers

By WRLIAM STEWART

LABOR | AFL fights Canadian
trades autonomy |

can only be seen as a further blow
for Canadian autonomy of all
building trades workers in the
face of inaction by the CLC and
open hostility and opposition by
Washington and their Canadian
roadmen.

Being discussed by the building
trades roadmen are a series of op-
tions, all of which are designed
either to secure the undemocratic
changes they want in the CLC, or
alternatively to try to lay the basis
for a split in the Canadian trade
union movement, and the
establishment of a second Cana-
dian trade-union centre.

Washington Pulls
in Horns

One option is to boycott the
CLC convention altogether.
However this will not be an easy
task as they tried a variant of this
several years ago when they tried
to withhold per capita-tax to deny
their affiliates representation at
the CLC. The reaction of the
Canadian locals. of the building
trades was to pay their per-capita
directly to the CLC and the boys
in Washington had to pull in their
horns. -

Another option they are exa-
mining is to have the locals give
their credentials to the roadmen
who would then try to blackmail
the convention with them or walk
out. Still another is to try to stage
a protest walk-out at the conven-
tion by all building trades dele-
gates.

The arguments being used by
the roadmen are many and varied.
Among them is their usual rabid
red-baiting and union baiting. The
fishermen are being singled out
for particular venom, as is CUPE,
along with the Postal Workers
and the United Electrical Work-
ers Unions.

In the list of complaints being
used by the roadmen to win sup-
port of their membership for their
blackmailing, splitting actions are
some questions which appear
legitimate and require some study
and action by the CLC. Two in
particular need to be singled out.

First is the complaint of raiding
by industrial unions on traditional
craft jurisdictions in big industrial
complexes. Here the building
trades unions claim, with some
justification, that work of a de-
finite construction nature is being
done by in-plant workers, and at
rates of pay far lower than en-
joyed by construction workers.

The CLC owes to the building
trades a careful study of these

charges and if they are found tobe -

true, action to redress the grie-
vance and remove this cancerous
jurisdictional dispute from the
movement.

The other is the problem of rep-
resentation, which finds the build-
ing trades, and some other unions
as well, faced with much smaller
representation at conventions be-
cause of the form of organization
of locals which is demanded by
their relationship with employers.

It is precisely this problem
which invites such proposals for
bloc voting as will be coming be-
fore this CLC convention.

This problem needs to be ad-
dressed also by the CLC, but not
by the regressive bloc voting pro-
cedures being advocated, which
will lead to the emasculation of
the democratic nature of CLC
conventions. The CLC should be
instructed rather to make a study
of this matter and come before the
next convention with proposals
for representation to the conven-
tion which would meet the com-
plaints of the building trades, and
other large industrial unions, to

overcome this problem, without

resort to the right-wing inspired
bloc voting practice, or any varia-
tion of it.

Canadian Autonomy

It has been made clear time and
time again that the roadmen do
not represent the real feeling of
Canadian building trades work-
ers. When the machinations of the
roadmen are taken out of the
backrooms and the membership
becomes aware of the issues, they
come down in their majority for
policies of unity and Canadian
autonomy, not splitting and U.S.
control.

There is every reason to be-
lieve that this will be the response
of building trades workers to this
latest made-in-USA crisis being
concocted for the CLC.

The Canadian trade union
movement faces perhaps the
toughest challenge of its entire
history. Whether the present all-
sided crisis is going to be charged
against the working people of
Canada, or whether, through
united action, the working people
are going to make the big mono-
polies shoulder the costs, is at is-
sue.

Splitters, whatever disguise
they wear, can only serve to
weaken that unity and help the
boss class and its governments.

Unity around class struggle
policies needs to be the watch-
word of the CLC Conventien.

No convictions in mine tragedy

GRANDE CACHE — Widespread disregard for roof support stan-
dards led to the deaths of: four miners at Grande Cache on Feb. 29,
according to a government investigation report. Nevertheless, Alberta’s
Health and Safety minister, Bill Diachuk, says negligence charges will not

be laid.

“The tragedy was preventable, but it looks as if there was no negli-
gence’’, Diachuk told the Legislature April 15. After the tragedy,
Diachuk originally tried to claim the accident was ‘‘spontaneous’”’ but he
was quickly contradicted by his own department’s investigation.

The final report says the four men were killed when their machine cut
into a pillar of coal supporting the mine roof, allowing it to collapse,
but contrary to safety regulations, no ‘“‘breaker’’ support posts were in

place.

Mangement and the miners were both criticised in the report. But Phil
Oakes, president of Local 7621 of the United Steelworkers, said the
report confirmed poor safety standards which the union had been pres-

sing management to resolve for months.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 2, 1980—Page 5