only covering, a barrel. Canadian

“'ve got nothing left to give Chrysler,” this Windsor car plant worker has painted

workers walked off the job Nov.Stobeck  -/

demands for a catch up with their Ford and General Motors counterparts.

Chrysler workers
determined to win

By MIKE PHILLIPS

WINDSOR — What we’re facing here

is good, old fashioned 1930s class strug-
gle, and we’re determined to win’’, a vet-
eran Chrysler trim plant worker said
Nov. 9 after a strike rally in Ajax, On-
tario.
The mood was the same here, Nov. 5,
when more than 9,600 Canadian
Chrysler workers at three Ontario loca-
tions, Ajax, Windsor and Toronto,
kicked off their strike to begin recovering
the lost wages and benefits North Ameri-
can Chrysler workers gave up in 1979 to
help bail out the ailing corporation. The
concessions added up to some $1.5-bil-
lion.

At exactly 10 a.m. that chilly Novem-
ber morning, workers poured out of
Chrysler plants throughout Ontario,
angry at the corporation for refusing to
offer a single dime in wages, and bitterly
resentful of the Ontario Government's
threat to impose back-to-work legislation
if the strike wasn’t settled quickly.

This open threat to the Canadian sec-
tion of the United Auto Workers and the
Chrysler workers sparked such bitter-
ness among Ontario workers that pro-
vincial premier William Davis had to
publicly deny his labor minister's threat
later that day (Nov. 5).

On that date Chrysler told the union
through the media there was no way it

- would settle a contract with the Cana-

dians until a contract was reached with
U.S. workers, who’ve hoisted talks tl
February, after a massive rejection of a
proposed contract.

This company antic outraged Cana-
dian workers who agreed with Canadian
UAW director Bob White that the cor-
poration’s statement wasn’t only an in-
sult to workers but to the country as a
whole.

Chrysler locals throughout Ontario re-
‘sponded to the corporation's veiled
threat to move equipment out of Cana-
dian plants for use in the U.S., with the
pledge to set up 24-hour mass pickets and
the warning that any bid to’move any-
thing in or out of the strike-bound plants
will be met with the kind of militant pic- —
ket lines reminiscent of the battles of the
30s and 40s.

Messages of support for the strikers
have begun to pour in to stnke head-

quarters from other trade union locals.
The Ford local in Windsor voted last
week to double its dues to supplement
the strikers’ $65 a week strike pay for the
duration. The most welcome messages
came from U.S. Chrysler locals, such as
the one in Highland, Michigan, where
the workers were laid off because of the
strike in Canada. ;
The strikers have countered the com-
pany’s and the media’s complaint that
the strike could cripple Chrysler and is
shutting down U.S. plants with the chal-
lenge to the corporation to head off this
crisis by investing in better wages for the

Canadian workers. :

“I’ve got nothing left to give Chrys-
ler,’ was the message painted on the side
of a barrel that was the only covering a
Windsor car plant worker wore Nov. 5 to
brave the brisk fall weather. As he led the
strikers in a march around the car plant
and joined in shouting demands for a
wage increase, retum of the cost-of-
living adjustment and parity with work-
ers at Ford and General Motors, he cap-
tured the singleness of purpose motivat-
ing Chrysler workers in this most impor-
tant strike battle in Canada.

‘“‘Chrysler gave us no choice but to
strike’’, a nine-and-a-half year assembler
in the car plant told the Tribune, Nov. 5.

He spoke of the frustration of seeing
his wages drop some $3 an hour behind

Canadian Ford and GM workers, and he __
pointed out that because Canadian ~

Chrysler wages lagged more than $7 an
hour behind wages in the U.S.: cor-
poration, Chrysler is duty-bound to raise
wages out of the depths of 1979 levels.

On the threat of back-to-work legisla-
tion a 19-year veteran wryly suggested
the move might be part of a job-creation
plan. “‘If the government tries to order us
back, theyll have to hire about 11,000
people to come to our homes and bring us
in to work, because nobody I know will
go back voluntarily,”’ he said.

A series of meetings with the top union
leadership last week brought out an
overwhelming majority of the 9,600
strikers. At these meetings Bob White
reiterated the union’s demand for a
significant front-end wage increase
immediately, pension improvements and

progress toward restoring parity with ~

GM and Ford.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

Support Canadian strikers — CPUSA

NEW YORK — Calling for massive support for Canadian Chrysler workers from
the U.S. side of the border, the Communist Party of the USA hailed those workers’
‘‘courageous action,” and, in a statement Nov. 9, urged ‘fullest support” by U.S.

auto workers.

‘The strike of the Canadian Chrysler workers against this giant U.S. multi-national
corporation is a dramatic challenge to the anti-worker policy of concessions, the
_ Labor and Farm Department of the CPUSA declared. The party called for U.S. auto

_ worker support “‘on behalf of their Canadian sisters and brothers. International trade
union and working-class solidarity is imperative,’’ the message said. ‘‘It is the key to
victory not only for the Canadian Chrysler workers; it will spearhead gains for the

Chrysler workers in the USA.

‘The example of the Canadian Ford workers in voting a tax on themselves to help
the Chrysler strikers is a dramatic example of rank and file solidarity,’ said the
CPUSA. “Support actions might well be considered by U.S. auto workers as well.
This strike should receive the fullest support by the entire U.S. trade union move-

ment and its friends and allies.”

The U.S. Communist statement described the demands of Canadian Chrysler
workers as ‘‘legitimate and modest. They are seeking the restoration of concessions
exacted by the corporation in the past two years. They are asking only to return to
parity in wages with the Ford and General Motors workers as in the past.

‘‘The Canadian auto workers have their own separate contract with Chrysler,”’ the
statement reminded U.S. workers, ‘‘and have the right to make their own inde-
pendent decision as to whether or not to strike. Massive support from our side of the
border will show Chrysler and the other giant U.S. corporations that they cannot play
off U.S. workers against their fellow workers in other countries.”

Special to the Tribune

MONTREAL — Schools, hospitals,
and government offices throughout

. Quebec as well as this city’s transit sys-

tem were either closed, or as in the case
of the hospitals, kept only ‘on an
emergency services, Nov. 10, as more
than 200,000 public sector workers
defied court injunctions and govern-
ment legislation to strike against Bill 70.

Bill 70 was introduced in Quebec’s
National Assembly last spring, to slash
public sector wages and makes public
sector unions the scapegoat for the
economic mess created by the big-
business policies of the federal Liberal
and provincial Parti Quebecois
governments.

In the first three months of 1983, the
bill will roll back wages for more than
300,000 public sector workers by al-
most 20%. This is a cynical move by the
PQ government which used to boast of
its “‘favorable bias toward labor’’, to
rob public sector workers of about
$521-million in wage increases paid out
over the last six months as a result of
the current agreement between the
government and the public sector
unions.

The 24-hour general strike in the pub-
lic sector, Nov. 10 was a show of
strength by the Common Front of

‘Quebec’s three largest trade union
-centrals, the Quebec Federation of

Labor, the Quebec Teachers’ Central,
(CEQ), .and the Confederation of Na-
tional Trade Unions, (CNTU). The
Common Front embraces some 220,000
public and para-public sector workers
negotiating new contracts this spring
with the Quebec government. The
legislation rolling wages back 20% also
outlawed strikes in the public sector
until April.

In addition to the legal prohibition,
strikers defied three last minute court
injunctions to show the government
they mean business in their battle to
destroy the PQ’s anti-union legislation.

The Quebec government threatened
to prosecute anyone who joined in the
militant walkout, and the workers took
their action in defiance of being placed

‘Quebec labor strikes |
against PQ rollback |

in contempt of court and fined to the
tune of $1,000 a day in the case of the
provincial workers, and $50,000 each, |:
in the case of Montreal transit workers |

who are still shackled by a special pro- |
vincial law passed earlier this year to |
block an earlier strike. |

The workers’ anger at being fleeced |
by the Quebec government was
demonstrated at a CNTU rally, during
the strike at Montreal’s Paul Sauvé are-
na, where a copy of a provincial Sup- }
reme Court injunction banning strikes |
in more than 450 Quebec health care |
institutions was burned to the music of |
a brass band.

Inside the arena, the strikers heard |)
their leaders encourage them not to give |
an inch in the fight to defeat Bill 70 and ||
stop the gutting of their collective bar- |)
gaining rights. Some leaders warmed of |
a possible unlimited general strike |)
against the government’s reactionary |
law.

With the deepening of the economic |)
crisis in Quebec, most vividly revealed |
by the rapid decline in the mining indus-
try particularly- on Quebec’s North |)
Shore, and the province’s 450,000 of |
ficial unemployed statistics, the |
government of premier Réné Léves- |
ques steps up its attacks on the living |
standards of Quebec workers, starting
first with those in the public sector wh
are directly within the government’s
control. Lévésques has already slash¢
some $1.5-billion from the provinct
budget and Quebec’s Treasury De |
partment head promises to scalp al |
other $650-million from next year's
budget. :

Just as the government’s draconia®
measures are in line with most of Cana
da’s pro-big-business governments
the federal and provincial levels, thé
actions of the public sector workers
hanging tough to protect their livin’ |
standards and collective ining |
rights, can serve as an example to theif
fellow workers throughout the count
of the kind of militancy and solidarity
that is required ‘to’ turn the UP
precedented gang-up on workin
people’s backs.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 19, 1982—Page 8