Special to the Tribune
MONTREAL — As financial and
moral support for Quebec’s militant
teachers multiplied throughout Canada,
last week, the 350,000-member Quebec
Federation of Labor declared that if the
teachers are forced by the government to
remain on strike after March 14, the QFL
would unleash a province-wide general
strike in their support.

QFL President Louis Laberge made
the announcement Feb. 23, joining the
200,000-member Confederation of Na-
tional Trade Unions, (CNTU-CSN)
which has already taken a similar de-
cision.

March 14 is the deadline for the end of
the self-imposed three-week truce
teachers offered the government in order
to make a last ditch effort to settle the
sien strike which began Jan.
As the Tribune went to press, Feb. 24,
no progress was reported in the contract
talks with the Parti Quebecois govern-
ment. The strike is against government-
imposed contracts that roll wages back
as much as 20% over the first three
months of this year, increase the work
loads of the teachers and impose staffing
cuts that will see almost 10,000 teachers
lose their jobs this September.

The government tried unsuccessfully
to force the teachers back to work
through the passage of what most union
leaders and civil libertarians across the
country have called the most repressive
anti-union laws ever seen in North
America.

The 23;000-member Canadian Union

Labor solidarity grows to back
teachers’ just fight for contract

of Postal Workers two weeks ago issued
a challenge to the rest of the Canadian
labor movement to rally behind the
teachers with financial assistance.
CUPW is holding a referendum vote
throughout Canada on the question of
hiking union dues by $10 a month to raise
money for the teachers. The results of
the vote are expected soon.

The public Service Alliance of Canada
has also indicated its support for the
teachers, and a PSAC local in the Yukon
on its own intiative raised $1,000 toward
the teachers’ support fund.

Need Maximum Support

In telegrams to Action Caucus leaders
throughout Western Canada and in On-
tario, joint caucus chairmen Dick Barry
of the United Electrical Workers, (UE),
and CUPW’s Andy Beauchamps called
on the caucus and its supporters to urge
labor councils, provincial federations
and unions to mobilize the maximum
moral and financial support during the
next three months for the teachers.

In Vancouver, the public service
committee of the Vancouver and District
Labor Council was slated to meet Feb.
24 to discuss action recommendations
for the council. Among the proposals for
discussion at that meeting is the pos-
sibility of bringing in a speaker from
Quebec to address the labor movement
in B.C.

About a dozen of the biggest labor
councils in B.C. have sent messages
offering the teachers full support in their
fight.

In Toronto, on Feb. 2lst, trade

unionists, members of the Union of Un-
employed Workers and New Democrat
MP Dan Heap picketed in support of the
teachers outside Quebec government of-
fices located in the Eaton Centre. -

Gets CLC Backing

In announcing the QFL’s support for
the teachers and their fight against the
government’s repressive Bill 111, Presi-
dent Louis Laberge declared the federa-
tion had ‘‘the full backing’’ of the Cana-
dian Labor Congress.

This was an indication of the ground-
swell of support behind the teachers, be-
cause CLC president Dennis McDermott
had criticized CUPW President Jean-
Claude Parrot for “‘grandstanding’’ and
not consulting the Congress with his
union’s solidarity plans.

A key element in the CUPW support
plan was a call on the QFL to urge the
CSN to join together and organize a gen-
eral strike to back the teachers, an initia-
tive that was carried through with the
QFL’s decision last week.

The CLC’s passive response to the
Common Front general strike and the
teachers?’ militant battle has come under
intense pressure and criticism within the
labor movement.

Bill 111 has been universally con-
demned by labor and democrats in gen-
eral because it suspends the federal civil
rights charter and its provincial counter-
part where teachers are concerned. It
provides for firing teachers, cutting their
senionty three years for every day they
defy the law, and suspension of the Rand
Formula.

&
a
=
PS &
a
w
4
=
|
2
je)
rr
a
w
ra
=)
©
a
F

The teachers’ unions have given the
government until March 14 to come to4
satisfactory agreement, or they will 1
sume their strike, shutting down most of
the province’s schools. i

Laberge has called the government
imposed contracts the worst in Canadia®
labor history and predicted that if ab
lowed to stand, it would mean “‘the ef
of the labor movement in Quebec.”

He reminded reporters at a press CON”
ference, where the general strike was a”
nounced, that in 1972 when the leaders
the public sector common front of that
day were jailed for defying anti-strike
legislation, protest strikes broke oul
throughout Quebec. :

Laberge was locked up for foul
months that time. He said that anyone
who’s ever been in jail doesn’t want [0
return, but added, that wouldn’t stop him
from going back this time, if he wer

forced to.

better.”’

kept nnging.

and other problems.

said.

ED

‘Refuse th

e Cruise’: UAW

said. ‘‘We will also be working

Unemployed Westinghouse worker Bill MacLeod of Hamilton
has been getting an education as a result of being jobless for the
past four months. *‘If you try to fight by youself you get nothing.
If you can get something like this behind you, you’ll do a lot

The hammers were flying, partitions were going up and through
all the racket of people building the new unemployment help
centre, sponsored by the labor council’s Wage Restraint and
Unemployed Co-ordinating Committee (WRUCC), the phone

Steve Jefferies the co-chairman of WRUCC’s unemployed
organizing committee told us ‘“we’re not even officially open yet,
and the phone’s been ringing all day with people asking for help.””

WRUCC was slated to formally open the downtown help
centre Feb. 23 but unemployed workers were somehow getting
hold of the centre’s number — 522-HELP — to get advice on UIC

“We're already had one guy call about Hydro threatening to
cut his electricity off, and another person wanted to know how to
get temporary assistance with his OHIP premiums,”’ Jefferies

Jefferies’ co-chairman, Kerry Wilson summed up the role the
committee sees for WRUCC and the help centre. ‘‘As long as
WRUCC is in Hamilton, we’re going to see to it that no one is
going to be without food, no unemployed worker will be evicted
from their home and we're going to do what we can to make sure
unemployment insurance claims are speeded up and people get
the welfare benefits they’re entitled to,’’ he said.

‘The centre is there to help workers help themselves with day
to day problems related to being without a job’, he said, ‘‘but
ultimately a political battle must be won if we want to end the
conditions that produce unemployment.”
Both chairmen were clear on the point that organizing the —
jobless into a political force was the job of WRUCC itself, not the
centre, and Wilson stressed “‘the jobless can only have real
political weight in this country with a fighting organization of
unemployed people, that’s WRUCC’s role.”’

TORONTO — Highlighting an
open letter to the prime minister
to stop any testing of the Cruise
missile on Canadian soil, the
United Auto Workers (UAW) be-
came one of the first major trade
unions in the country, Feb. 24, to
publicly commit itself to support-
ing the broadening Canadia
peace movement.

Flanked by top church leaders
and Murray Thomson of Project
Ploughshares, Canadian auto
union leader Bob White said the
UAW opposes the Cruise ‘‘be-
cause it will sabotage future arms
talks since it is impossible to veri-
fy the numbers of missiles pro-
duced and deployed.”’

The Cruise would accelerate
the arms race, be regarded by the
Soviet Union as a first strike
weapon and therefore increase
‘the chance of triggering a full
scale nuclear war, White said.

He was joined by Anglican
Church primate, Archbishop
E.W. Scott, Murray Thomson,
and Msgr. Dennis Murphy, gen-
eral secretary of the Canadian
Conference of Catholic Bishops
in the Feb. 24 press conference.

It coincided with the publica-
tion in Toronto’s Globe and Mail
of the open letter to Trudeau
which was signed by more than 50
leaders in the labor, religious, cul-
tural, academic and political
communities.

That letter reminded the prime
minister that 52% of all Cana-
dians, recently polled by the Gal-

UAW's Bob White
lup organization indicated they
didn’t want the Cruise tested in
Canada and that 70-80% of the
voters in municipal disarmament
referenda cast their ballots for
disarmament.

“Clearly there is no public
mandate for such testing’ ’, the let-
ter told Trudeau and the signa-
tories urged the government not
to allow any testing and instead
‘‘press for productive negotia-
tions toward disarmament.’’.

White pledged that the UAW
“‘will be launching a campaign
among our members mobilizing
their support against the Cruise
testing. E

“We will be committing re-
sources and taking the issue right
to our members in local unions, in
the plants and offices’’, White

very Closely with the peace
movement on an ongoing basis tO -
pressure the Canadian Govern-

‘ment to refuse the Cruise.”’

White pointed to the other

“prominent trade union leaders

who’ ve signed the open letter and
said that he felt the issue of labor’s
participation in the fight to stop —
Cruise testing and disarmament —
would be reflected at the up-com-_
ing Canadian Labor Congress
executive council. He said he
would be raising the matter at the
CLC leadership meeting.”

He also recognized the im-—
portance of the UAW’s public
commitment to the peace move-

» ment at this time.‘*Our appearing

here today represents the first
time in recent years that the labor —
movement has joined hands with
the broader peace movement to
work together against the arms
race and nuclear weapons, speci-
fically the testing of the Cruise —
missile.”’

The event also marked the first
time that the church and labor —
have linked together around the
fight for peace, White said.

Noting the UAW’s long-stand-
ing activity around the peace
question, through the circulation .
of peace petitions and internal
union discussions, White stressed —
that “‘as a union we feel that the —
last thing we can do is live in isola-
tion. We've got a responsibility to
do what we can to prevent a nu-
clear war.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 4, 1983—Page 6