Canada

DAVE WERLIN .

AFL demands Wilson

ra steps-down from AFL presidency.

budgetbe withdrawn

By MARC YOUNG

EDMONTON — Alberta Federation of
Labour president Dave Werlin took with
him the thanks of more than 550 delegates
for his six years of militant leadership as he
stepped down from his AFL post at the
federation’s convention April 23-26. But he
also left unionists with some advice about
trade union strategies in the wake of the
Free Trade Agreement and the Wilson
budget.

Werlin, first elected as the federation’s
top officer in 1983, announced earlier this
year that he would not seek re-election for a
fourth term.

He led the AFL during the bitter strike
against Gainer’s which later developed into
a campaign across Alberta to change the
province’s labour laws. The same period
also saw the formation of Solidarity Alberta
as the AFL became a central part of a broad
Jabour-community coalition.

But if it is to counter the anti-worker
program of the right today, Werlin told
delegates, organized labour will have to
maintain and enhance its work in coalitions,
learn to mobilize workers on a large scale
and deepen its critique of the Canadian
economy.

The right, he said, represents those who
don’t really want a society. What they want
is a marketplace in which the wealth created
by working people is controlled by the rich
and powerful.

“What they want in place of a caring
society is a society in which the marketplace
determines everything, in which the strong
take the most (and) the weak are left behind
_.. That’s the kind of society envisioned for
us as the neo-conservative agenda is
imposed on us.”

As big business presses forward with glo-
bal integration and greater internationaliza-
tion of capital markets, it strives to remove
impediments to its plan. The trade union
movement is the most formidable impedi-
ment, Werlin argued. That explains the
assault on organized labour that has taken
place during this decade, and will continue
in Canada with the trade deal.

In Alberta, this has taken the form of
Pocklington’s assault on Gainer’s workers
and the increased use of scab workers. It
continues to be manifest in the province’s
labour legislation, identified as the most
reactionary in the country by the conven-
tion document.

To realize a society with different priori-
ties, Werlin maintained that labour will
have to be at the centre of a fightback whose
participants must include all the forces
under seige from Getty, Mulroney, and the
business elite.

“We have to continue to build those coa-
litions and explain to the farmers who are
being thrown off their land... that when the
trade union movement is suppressed then
their ability to fight back along with us is
also undermined. °

“And we have to explain to the unem-
ployed and the unorganized and the poor,

the very poor ... that when the labour
movement is under attack, that they should
not see that . .. as putting big labour under
control so that they can get a fairer share of
what’s being produced ....”

Werlin argued that while countering neo-
conservatism is going to require leadership,
it is not a project that can be won by the
leadership. Getting the mass of workers
involved in the fight-back is an essential
task, and will require an extensive program
of education and discussion involving the
rank and file.

Nor can struggle be successful if it is
limited to a 28-day election campaign, the
convention heard, in an implicit but clear
criticism of methods adopted to combat the
trade deal before the November federal elec-
tion. “If we haven’t learned from history
that that doesn’t work, then we’ll go on
repeating those mistakes over and over
again.” nie

“Tt isn’t good enough to adopt good pro-
grams and have them collect dust on the
shelves or in the filing cabinets of the CLC
or the AFL or any other part of the trade
union movement,” he added.

__ Werlin also argued that organized labour
is going to have to be more willing to ana-
lyze and criticize the way in which the Can-
adian economy is organized, owned, and
managed. And it should demand that polit-
ical parties that seek its support talk about
these issues too. It is necessary to question,
he said, how it is that “26 families could
control all of the wealth in Canada and
make all of the decisions in Canada about
our economy and even our political deci-
sions . .. people like the Conrad Blacks and
the Bronfmans.”

The convention condemned the federal
budget as “an unjustified attack on working
people, their jobs, and their standard of
living.” And _ it adopted a resolution
demanding that the AFL, with the Cana-
dian Labour Congress, “‘mobilize massive
protests by trade unionists and social justice
activists across Canada to demand that
(the) budget be withdrawn immmediately.”
It also called on the Mulroney government
to resign.

The AFL presented a “ People’s Budget
for Alberta, “ which calls for job creation to
be the first priority of the federal govern-
ment, and an end to “policies that promote
the proliferation of low wage, part-time
work.”

It also called fora strengthening of social
porgrams, the institution of propgressive
tax refrom to shift the burden of taxation on
to the wealthy and strengthening of the pub-
lic sector to make it “the engine of economic
and social development in Canada.”

Don Aitken, former secretary-treasurer
of the federation and a member of the Pub-
lic Service Alliance of Canada, was elected
to replace Werlin as president. Audrey
Bath, from the Energy and Chemical
Workers Union, is the federation’s new
secretary-treasurer.

Liberals’ resurgence
Squeezes out the NDP
in Newfoundland vote

Yet another Tory provincial beach-
head was rolled back recently with the!
election of a majority Liberal govern-
ment in Newfoundland/Labrador.

The April 20 triumph of the Liberal
Party under Clyde Wells, which put an
end to 17 consecutive years of Tory rule
in the province, continued the steady
erosion of Conservative hegemony
across the country. But it remains to be
seen if the realignment of political forces
will result in real policy change in New-
foundland or to what degree the Wells
administration is prepared to resist Mul-
roney’s neo-conservative course.

The outcome of the election was, in
many ways, almost predictable. The hap-
less Tom Rideout, who ended up serving
only 29 days in office, proved unable to
shake his close personal and _ political
association with the tired and largely dis-
credited government of Brian Peckford,
who retired earlier this spring.

The Sprung ‘“‘cucumber fiasco,” into
which the province pumped almost $22
million, was the best publicized but by no
means only debacle under the previous
administration. The Peckford govern-

Miguel Figueroa

serious setback for labour and the demo-
cratic movements across the province.

The demise of the NDP’s popular vote
was perhaps best reflected in the Meni-
hek riding in Labrador. The seat, for-
merly held by the retired former NDP
leader Peter Fenwick, went Tory and the
NDP vote dropped to just over six per
cent. Newly elected NDP leader Cle
Newhook finished a poor third in his
own riding of St. John’s East Extern and
incumbent Gene Long lost a close battle
in St. John’s East.

The NDP fielded candidates in just 36
ridings. In some industrial centres, such
as Grand Falls where the NDP fell short
of election by only 30-odd votes in 1985,
or Humber Valley (Corner Brook area)
where that party broke through federally
in the 1970s, this time round the NDP
could not even find a candidate or mount
a campaign. :

No doubt the desertion of NDP sup-
port to the Liberals in this election was
largely due to an overriding desire of
Newfoundlanders to reject Tory policies
and fora change — any change — from
the Peckford/ Rideout government.

ment was notoriously secretive, vindic-
tive and riddled with patronage and
ward-heeling practices.

Liberal leader Clyde Wells capitalized
on the growing popular mood for a
change in government, even though the
Liberals failed to present any well
défined alternative. But the Liberals’ bid
for power might have fallen short had
they not received timely assistance
from — of all places — the federal
Tories. A series of federal actions within
weeks of the election sealed the fate of
Rideout.

First came the interim agreement on
fishing boundaries between Canada and
France, a deal which handed over even
greater French access to northern cod at
a time when groundfish stocks are declin-
ing. Then John Crosbie was forced to
announce an indefinite delay in the
Hibernia offshore oil deal.

Next, Barbara McDougall stepped
forward with a savage assault on the
unemployment insurance program.
Finally, the election itself came on the
eve of the federal budget which included,
as anticipated, further cutbacks on jobs,
services and regional development, while
increasing sales and other taxes on work-
ing people.

What is perhaps most surprising is
that despite these well-placed blows from
their federal counterparts, the Tories
were still able to capture 48 per cent of
the popular vote.

Nevertheless, the Liberals’ slightly
smaller but better distributed popular
vote carried the day, resulting in victory
in 31 of the province’s 52 ridings, with the
remaining 21 seats going to the conserva-
tives. The NDP, which had two seats
entering the election, was shut out of the
House of Assembly.

The near total collapse of the NDP
vote, which declined from 14 per cent in
1985 to only four per cent, opened the
door for the Liberal victory, but marks a

FROMTHE MARITIMES

The New Democrats entered the elec-
tion fray a bitterly polarized and divided
party. The recent NDP leadership fight,
in which Cle Newhook won a narrow
victory over then-sitting member Gene
Long, reflected big political differences
within the provincial party. Long pres-
ented a more detailed, left program dur-
ing the leadership campaign and was
widely supported by peace, women’s and
community activists. Newhook, how-
ever, received backing from the leader-
ship of the Newfoundland Federation of
Labour and from Richard Cashin of the
Newfoundland Fish and Allied Workers
(CAW).

The NDP’s election campaign itself
was poorly organized and financed.
Newhook, in a desperate (and failed) bid
to win his own seat, hardly ever left the
St. John’s area — much to the chagrin
of local NDP candidates elsewhere on
the island and in Labrador. The labour
movement, which had been quite active
during the leadership race, fell far short
in mobilizing its own membership during
the election.

The NDP platform contained several
good points but largely failed to confront
the neo-conservative agenda as a whole
or offer any sweeping alternatives. Its
failure to take a principled stand on the
Goose Bay NATO base issue resulted in
the decision by the Innu people to boy-
cott the election entirely.

Clyde Wells and the Liberals have
now assumed the reins of government.
They have already declared their inten-
tion to annul provincial support for the
Meech Lake Accord unless amended. In
the final analysis, however, the degree to
which the Liberals hold firm in opposi-
tion to this and other aspects of the fed-
eral Tory agenda, and introduce pro-
gressive labour, economic and social
legislation will largely depend on con-
tinued and renewed pressure from
below.

Pacific Tribune, May 15, 1989 e 7