By JACK PHILLIPS

_ The Vancouver Sun describes
Itself as politically independent.
However, it is not independent in
relation to big business.

The lead editorial of November
1, 1975 dealt with the subject of
Wage controls under the headline

“The Saboteurs.”

' “There is one word for the
Canadian Labor Congress

Position’”’ said the editorial —
Sabotage.
_ ~The CLC has now made it clear
It is opposed to everything about

€ program. It will not even
Propose amendments that might
Improve it.’’

The editorial referred to CLC
: president Joe Morris as ‘“‘usually
 Feasonable’’ and quoted him in
_ Connection with the Trudeau wage

Testraint program: ‘“‘This is one
: law that I am prepared to disobey
— RO matter what the cost.’’

_ The Sun ihen added: ‘‘We are
Sorry he said that because the costs
are quite clear — up to five years in
Jail and we would rather that Mr.
Morris did not end up in jail.”
Thus, ‘the great defender of
freedom” tells Joe Morris that if he
Continues to defend free collective
argaining he could end up in jail.
While it is the hope of big business
that the top leadership of the trade
Union movement will cooperate in
Selling the wage control program,
they are prepared to use harsh
Measures, if necessary and if they
Can get away with it.

Collective bargaining under the
Tules laid down by the Trudeau
S0vernment is no longer free
(Collective bargaining in the

Classical sense. No matter what a

Union and its employers agree to,

the settlement must fall within the

Sidelines laid down by Bill C-73,

aS interpreted by the Anti-Inflation

Board, or be rolled back. While the

ATB has done almost nothing to roll

ck prices, it is very active in

Tolling back wage increases. This

has been referred to as rough

Justice. A more accurate term is

Class justice.”

In the case of the B.C. Sugar

Refinery, 250 workers have been on

€ picket line since June of dast

year. They recently negotiated a

Settlement providing for a wage

Ncrease of 26.5 per cent in the first

year and eight per cent in the

Second year. However, company

President Peter Cherniavsky is

Quoted in the Vancouver Province

of February 26 as having been

Mformed by the AIB by telephone

at the first year increase should
_ hotexceed 10 per cent. Later, Jean-

|

Oe
— tno

Luc Pepin, chairman of the board,
gave the opinion that the parties

were still free to negotiate a

“reasonable settlement” within
the guidelines.

The sugar company president is
further quoted as saying that the
company and the union (Retail,
Wholesale and Department Store
Union) had jointly asked the AIB
for special consideration after the
union had been offered 28 per cent
over two years shortly before the
October announcement of the wage
control program. If this is true, it
signifies that the union failed in
this appeal and then went on to
negotiate a higher settlement in
January, which the AIB is not
prepared to accept. It also proves
how deceitful it is for leading
government spokesmen to claim
that free collective bargaining
continues to exist.

In the case of the Canadian
Paper Workers Union and the
Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of
Canada, the AIB rolled back the

- first year increase in a two-year

agreement from 16.5 to 15 per cent.
The chairman of the AIB claims
that the 15 per cent increase will
maintain the traditional
relationship between these two
unions and the International
Woodworkers of America, a claim
supported by union leaders. The
extra 1.1 per cent we are told, will
come out of negotiated fringe
benefits. Thus, somebody in Ot-
tawa has the right to step in and
say that the two unions are not
entitled to the full measure of
fringe benefits they won through
struggle and collective bargaining.

In the case of the pulp and paper
workers employed by the Irving
Paper Company in New Brun-
swick, the increase was rolled back
from 23.8 per cent to 14 per cent.
Why 15 per cent in B.C. and 14 per
cent in the Maritimes? Because,
said the board, there is no
traditional relationship with
woodworkers in the Maritimes to
support a claim for special con-
sideration. That the company was
prepared to pay, and could afford
to pay, the full 23.8 per cent in New
Brunswick did not count. The
company was fined $25,000 and the
$100,000 it had placed in trust on
behalf of the workers, representing
a portion of the negotiated increase
exceeding the guidelines, was
confiscated. -

While such figures as 14 and 15
per cent may seem big to many
people, they are not big when
compared with corporation profits

sae

Fightback against controls pressing

B.C. Federation of Labor delegates... the trade union movement's message still holds but the point has yet

to be driven home.

over the past decade, and high
prices for consumer goods and
services, housing and interest
rates. It should also be remem-
bered that the overall aim of the
wage control program is to limit
wage increases to an average of six
per cent per year over a three-year

‘period.

The scrapping of the proposed
levy on export prices means that
the multinational corporations who
control the export trade (in the
field of resources in particular)
will be free to get the highest
possible prices while their workers
will be tied down by the wage
control program. Where com-
modities like copper have their
prices determined by the world
market, the world price will
prevail in Canada. Ed Broadbent,
leader of the New Democratic
Party, in criticizing this move,
pointed out that firms which sell on
the export market will make
bigger profits and that investment
capital will tend to flow to such
firms rather than to those serving
the domestic market exclusively.

According to the federal labor

unionists have been on the picket line for nine
age settlement — while studiously ignoring the

department, 389 major collective
agreements covering more than
700,000 workers will be
renegotiated in 1976. This does not

‘include the construction industry

or workers in bargaining units
under 500 employees. All in all,
approximately one million workers
will renegotiate their agreements
this year.

The figures for B.C. are 60,000 in
major bargaining units, plus 40,000
in the construction trade and those
in units under 500.

Railway workers, miners, steel
workers, dairy workers, B.C.
Hydro employees, public em-
ployees, fish cannery workers,
hotel workers, shipyard workers,
nurses, cartage workers and
construction workers are among
those seeking new agreements.

The Employers’ Council of B.C.
has prepared well for this round of
negotiations. William Hamilton,
president of the Council, was
quoted as follows in the Vancouver
Sun of February 24:

“T see a steady tightening up of
management attitude and an in-
creasing willingness to stick to the
guidelines.”

The chairman of the AIB, in a
recent television interview, alleged

, that while the top leadership of the

CLC is opposing wage controls, the
middle leadership is cooperating.
Such statements are part of the
brain-washing program of the
federal government.

That certain right-wing trade
union leaders would rather
cooperate than fight is no secret.
Neither is it any secret that the
New Democratic Party govern-
ments in Manitoba and Saskat-
chewan have come into conflict
with the CLC over NDP support of
the Trudeau program in those
provinces. Understandably, many
workers are wondering if they are
strong enough to take on both the
employers and the government on
this issue.

However, the half-day work
stoppage of 105,000 public em-
ployees in Quebec, with more of the

—Sean Griffin photos

same to come, is an example of the
pressure that is building up and the
storms we can expect.

No group of workers and no
union should be left to fight alone.
What is neededis a united, militant
labor movement determined to
smash the. guidelines. The
guidelines cannot be made
equitable through amendments or
a bit of tinkering.

The recent meeting of the central
committee of the Communist
Party proposed the following:

“AS against centralized
management, the working class
ought to fight for demotratic
nationalizaticn and democratic
planning, with a democratic
coalition to implement such a
program.

“As against regulation of the
trade union movement and
restrictions on its democratic
rights, the working class should
fight for workers’ control over
monopoly as an integral part of the
struggle for working class political
power.”

The trade union movement can
be won for more effective and
coordinated mass actions, and can
develop a broadly based working
class and democratic alternative
to big business government. In
order to play that role, the unions
will have to link the immediate
demands of the workers with the
fight for basic social and economic
reforms, development, _ in-
dependence, peace and disar-
mament.

The road to advance for the trade
union movement in this period is
that of linking economic demands
with political demands. The left in
the labor movement can play a
special role in pointing to that
road, and in advancing policies of
struggle that will unite the labor
movement internally and unite it
externally with all those who are
prepared to fight big business. The
unity that was developed around
the fight against exorbitant auto
insurance premiums in B.C. is a
good example of the possibilities of
labor-democratic unity.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 5, 1976—Page 3