CANADA

Special to the Tribune
MONTREAL — Delegates to
the annual Quebec Federation of
r Convention, which opened
- 12, voted to launch a mas-

‘Sive campaign throughout
Quebec demanding shorter work-
Ing hours.

With full employment the
theme of this year’s convention,
the call for the QFL to launch
Such a campaign among its
320,000 members was an attempt
to tackle the unemployment crisis
Tavaging Canada and hitting
Quebec particularly hard.

The resolution also called on
QFL affiliates to oppose overtime
Work, but failed to link the de-
Mand for shorter hours with that
of maintaining existing wage
levels. This reflected the federa-
tion leadership’s steady move
away from its traditionally mili-
tant style to the current ‘‘social
‘Partnership’ approach reflected
i the so-called Solidarity Fund.

While the campaign will stress
the need to meet unemployment
With a work week reduced froin
40 and in some cases 44 hours, the
Tesolution left it open to the af-
filiated unions to link the demand
for shorter hours with mainte-
nance of wages.

Again this reflected the pres-
Sure from the: grass roots for
_ fundamental answers to the crisis
gripping .workers’ lives and the
QFL leadership’s failure to come
Up with bold, militant strategies
that challenge the roots of the
crisis — monopoly control.

_ This conflict between the
Members and the leadership was
obviously throughout the conven-
tion but was particularly evident
during the three-hour debate on
__ the federation’s Solidarity Fund.

the federation in the wake of the
public sector strike last January.
QFL affiliates contribute a
Monthly per capita to a special
_ fund that is to be used to help keep
_ ailing companies from collapsing
and supposedly save jobs. Special
legislation was passed in the Na-
tional Assembly making the fund
Possible. —
Critics oppose the use of work-

This scheme was introduced by .

PQ support, ‘Solidarity Fund’
_ debate rocks Quebec labor

ers’ money to bail out floundering
companies, particularly when the
workers don’t even get any equity
ownership in return for their
“investment.”

Delegates were evenly split
during the debate. Supporters ar-
gued that the plan was a way,

however feeble, of trying to save :

jobs that would be lost when
companies collapse.

Opponents to the fund ham-
mered the proposal as a time-
worn employer-inspired “‘share
the poverty’’ scam. These dele-
gates urged the federation to
focus ‘on nationalization as the
workers’ answer for job creation.

Many delegates noted how the
fund was a sharp departure from
the federation’s militant fightback
traditions, and they said workers
ought to reject any notion that
they are in any way responsible
for the crisis.

One Pratt and Whitney worker
pointed out that the fund would be

_of no use to his members or any

others working for transnational
corporations whose decisions are
made abroad.

The convention voted to en-
dorse the fund but almost one-

third of the delegates voted in op-
position.

Another heated debate took
place over whether the QFL
should continue giving electoral
support to the Parti Quebecois.
The PQ’s treatment of the labor
movement during the public sec-
tor strike and subsequent anti-
labor policies have produced a re-
sentment throughout the entire
Quebec trade union movement
that found its reflection in at least
three convention resolutions
opposing the QFL support for the
PQ.

The convention agreed that the
question of the federation’s poli-
tical support at elections would be
determined at a special QFL
convention just prior to the next
provincial vote, whenever it is
called.

A resolution on peace, tracking
the labor movement’s commit-
ment to pressing Ottawa to op-

- pose the Cruise, annul the testing

agreement and declare Canada a
nuclear weapons-free zone never
reached the convention floor,
though it is expected that it will be
endorsed at the QFL’s next gen-
eral council meeting.

Refuse the Cruise
if peace you love

‘cause there’s nowhere
to hide ,

when shove
comes to
Push.

—

STRATFORD — In an historic
__ breakthrough, auto workers at an
_ American Motors Corp., trim

_ Plant last week signed a three-
_ Year contract that has the com-
_Pany agreeing to help fund day
Care for the workers’ children.

Under the pact, AMC will con-
tribute two cents per member for
_ €very hour worked in the plant
Into a day care fund.

Ninety per cent of the 1,400

__ Stratford AMC workers are wo-
_ Men. The UAW says acommittee
will be struck for a year-long
Study of how to set the program
- Up. UAW administrative assis-
tant to the Canadian director,

_ 8uzz Hargrove, who helped
_ Regotiate the contract, said the

_ 10cal day care committee will be
- 80ing to all levels of government
for funding and the UAW hopes
_ 80vernments will cover the short
fall between the company’s con-

tribution and the total program
costs.

Hargrove added that the VAW
breakthrough will open the way
for other unions in both the public
and private sectors to make the
same gains.

The AMC contract marks the
first time a union has been able to
get a company to finance a child
care program for the workers in
the terms of the collective agree-
ment.

Union day care clause a first —

The UAW victory reflects the
growing influence of women in
the trade union movement and
their increased participation in
the work force. It also reflects the
growing recognition among
workers in general that corporate

profits can and must be made to —

serve social needs like child care.

In the 10-year period prior to
1981 statistics Canada shows
women’s participation in the
work force rose from 2.9 to 4.8
million.

CUPW showed 10 cent mail passed

OTTAWA — The Canadian Union of Postal Workers, in a test

carried out in Novem
letters it posted with 1

ber last week showed that 98 percent of some 50
0 cent stamps got through the postal service
because, CUPW charges, management doesn’t assign enough workers

to catch the undervalued postage. CUPW has been conducting a vigor-

ous campaign over the pas
cuts in service to the publ

t two months to warn the public of massive
ic being planned by Canada Post, while

corporate customers get preferential treatment.

UNE}

The pleas of the pcor, the jobless, and taxpayers fell on deaf
ears, Dec. 13 as the well-healed Tory and Liberal politicians who
make up the Toronto Transit Commission said no to the requests
for half fares for the unemployed and people on social assistance.

* *« *

‘‘They did it to us again’’, said Bill Devine, of the Committee of
Progressive Electors, (COPE), after the commissioners unani-
mously voted in a five per cent fare hike. COPE in its brief to the
TTC noted that fares have risen by 112.5 per cent, (40 cents to 85
cents) between 1976 and 1983.

Devine had been part of another deputation to the commission
opposing last year’s fare hike and met with the same stone wall of
privileged refusal.

_ Kirk Roberts of the Toronto Union of Unemployed Workers, a
young man in his 20s, literally personifying today’s jobless —
the vast majority under the age of 30 — failed to dent the commis-
sioners’ smugness with his graphic description of the reality of
being out of work. é

The average unemployed worker, he said, is left with about
$100 a month for essentials like food, clothing, and transporta-
tion, after housing has been paid for. ‘‘ Yet you want us to pay $36
of that $100 to go out looking for work, for access to what’s
supposed to be a public transit system’’, he told the
commissioners.

The unemployed, he said, also are demanding transit fares be
cut in half for the jobless, welfare recipients and people taking full
time job training courses. Like COPE, which endorsed the
TUUW’s appeal, the unemployed backed the COPE brief and
added their voice to the demand that fares not be increased.

In a remark pointed at Metro Council chairman Paul Godfrey

but applicable to all of the TTC commissioners Roberts ques- —

tioned the board members’ priorities. ‘‘Before we need a dome
stadium in this town we have to look at the fact there are more
than 250,000 unemployed in Metro Toronto and tens of
thousands of people living under the poverty line who can’t even
afford to get around their own city because of exorbitant transit
rates’’, Roberts said. Godfrey has been a vocal booster of a dome
stadium for Toronto.

* * *

Devine, who had to put up a stubborn fight to be allowed to
even read his brief to the commission, placed the reduced fare for
the poor and the jobless in the context of an immediate measure
toward the ultimate objective of acompletely free transit system.

‘“‘Transit serves a social need, therefore is a social respon-
sibility’’, he told the TTC. A main function of the TTC is to move
workers, shoppers and consumers to those who directly profit by
them . .. Thus we propose a system whereby those who are the
main beneficiaries bear a fair share of the cost and, since a social
need and a social responsibility are involved, the cost of financing
the TTC should be based on ability to pay.

Rather than individuals bearing the full weight of financing the
transit system, Devine proposed, “‘a levy on corporations and
commercial establishments to reflect the benefits accruing to
them from the TTC and the remainder of TTC costs to be
financed by the more progressive tax base of senior government
which can be based on the aforementioned ability to pay.”’

COPE reminded the TTC that the half fare proposal had al-

ready been adopted by the Niagara and Hamilton-Wentworth

Regional Transit Commissions.
Devine said COPE would support the TTC pressuring pro-

. Vincial and federal governments to cover Toronto’s transit costs.

‘After all it is senior governments’ policies that produced such
widespread unemployment,”’ he said. .

He called on the TTC to endorse the half fare proposal in
principle and establish a citizens’ committee to help find answers
to Toronto’s transit funding problem.

* * *

Following the TTC’s rebuff, and the commissioners’ detailed
excuses for why they wouldn’t go to Queen’s Park to ask for more
money for transit, why the fare hike wasn’t exorbitant and why,
as Godfrey put it, the TTC was continuing with its policy of

annual increases instead of gigantic hikes on a periodical basis,

Devine accused the commission of forcing the poor and the

jobless to subsidize the transit system.

‘Most fundamentally the TTC insists on approaching the in-

creased fares issue within the framework of a status quo that ~
‘favors corporations and the most wealthy of our society’’, he

said. ‘‘Our suggestion to them is that they view things differently
and take the position of placing working people ahead of the
corporations and the wealthy.

— Mike Phillips

_ i

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 21, 1983—Page 9°