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concemed they’re going to.keep us.”’

Sit-in demands pensions

By MIKE PHILLIPS

OSHAWA — Till hell freezes over.
__ That’s how long the 200 United Auto Workers
(UAW) members occupying the Houdaille Industries

plant intend to stay unless the company changes its ~

Position of refusing to negotiate decent severance pay
and pensions for the workers it will toss on the streets
Oct. 31 when the plant shuts down for good.

This determination was backed up by support from
UAW director for Canada Bob White who called on
the Ontario government to seize Houdaille’s assets if
the company refuses to meet the workers’ demands.
White also answered the company’s threat with legal
action to end the occupation by stressing the workers
would stick to their protest until they got satisfaction
from the company.

The workers, members of Local 222 UAW took the
plant over Aug. 8 after the company made it clear it
would not improve its severance pay offer of one
week’s wages for every eight years of service with the
company. Supervision at Houdaille have been prom-
ised one week’s wages for every 1.7 years of service.
This means that production workers will get sever-
ance pay of about $850 while management and super-
vision will get as much as $20,000.

Pensions Ripped-Off

Houdaille also refuses to allow workers over 55

years old with 30 and more years seniority to draw
their full pension until they reach age 65. In addition to
this they also said they would stop paying Ontario
Hospital Insurance and drug benefits for all pen-
sioners as of Oct. 31, 1980. -

There are some 38 workers with more than 30 years
seniority who aren’t 65 years old yet. As one angry
Houdaille worker told the Tribune, “‘they’re between

__ bingo.and disco —not old enough to retire, but too old

to be hired when there are so many unemployed
young guys around.”’

On top of the union’s total backing for the occupa-
tion both the New Democratic Party and the Ontario
Committee of the Communist Party of Canada have
indicated their support. NDP. federal leaders Ed
Broadbent visited the workers on their fourth day of
occupation and pledged support to Local 222.

The Ontario committee of the Communist Party in
telegrams of support to both the UAW and Local 222
declared full support and called on the Davis govern-
ment in Queen’s Park to seize all of Houdaille’s assets

if the company goes through with its plan to close the
plant Oct. 31,

Harold Hogarth, UAW committeeman in the plant
noted the broad support shaping up for the Houdaille
workers. ‘‘If they (the company) try to put us out it
looks like we can get support from half the country”’,
he said.

Second UAW Sit In

Hogarth said the occupation took plant manage-

ment and company officials at the Fort Lauderdale,

Florida headquarters by surprise. ‘‘They don’t know -

what to do”’ he said.

The workers took the initiative for the occupation in
response to a statement made recently by White at a
UAW Canadian district council meeting in which he
called for massive protests to fight plant closures.

The Houdaille occupation is the second time this
year that a group of auto workers has reacted to a
plant closure by taking over the plant. On June 21
members of UAW Local 195 took over the Windsor

plant of Bendix Canada Ltd., after the company

ended 50 years of production in that city by sending
management to the shop floor at 10 a.m. to tell the
workers to put away their tools and go home.

’ Besides the point they are trying to make in getting
a measure of justice from the U.S. corporation, the
Houdaille workers also pointed out that they hoped to
set an example across the country for other workers
facing plant shut downs.

One veteran with 38 years at Houdaille and at age

‘55 summed up the feeling of many of the protestors:

““We’re finished as far as our working lives are con-
cerned, but if we can do something for the younger
guys following us then we should do it,” he said.

: ““Gov’t Hosed Us’’

_ Another high seniority man, named Harold aimed

his fire at the government. ““The government fet us
_ down’’, he said. ‘‘When the company announced the

shut down the government should have investigated.
The government gave us a hosing and as far as I’m

Management responded to the occupation Aug. 13
saying they would launch legal proceedings against
the union unless the occupation was ended that day.
White responded that only a resolution of the work-
ers’ demands would end the occupation:and said the
workers wouldn’t necessarily turn the plant back over
to the company simply because the Ontario Labor
Relations Board says so.

As for the workers’ determination to fight, Harold
Hogarth summed it up this way: ‘‘The sign says it all
— we get a just settlement or we stay till hell freezes
over.’’

Feel Cheated

The average age among the occupiers is 47 years,

and most are at the age where they still have families

. to clothe and educate. The made-in-U.S. move offers

these workers a future on welfare and the tough task
of telling their kids they can’t afford to continue their
post-secondary education.

A 25-year veteran with the company who at SI
should be looking forward to a few more productive
years ahead said what was on many of his workmates
minds. ‘‘If they shut the place down the company
should have to pay everybody a pension. After all
we're not quitting our jobs.

‘“‘They’ve been taken away from us after all those
years of service. No doubt about it,’’ he said, *‘we feel
cheated.” :

Demands for the Ontario government to take over
Houdaille Industries of Canada have come in the wake
of the plant’s occupation by UAW members.

Po

Premier Davis of Ontario has called
for banning imports of the Lada car
built in the Soviet Union. The follow-
ing statement is by Mel Doig, On-
tario leader of the Communist Party
of Canada in Ontario.

Ontario Premier Davis’ call to
ban imports of the Soviet-built
Lada car is no more in the interests
of Canadian auto workers, as he
claims, than the wheat embargo
was in the interests of Canadian
farmers or the disgusting Olympic
boycott was in the interests of the

* Canadian people and athletes.

Instead, Davis is speaking solely
in the interests of the forces of reac-

tion, of the giant auto multi-
nationals whose servant he is, and 4

of the fomenters of cold war and
escalation of the dangers of nuclear
War.

Davis is concerned about

‘‘dumping’’ in Canada of the Lada ©

car, when no claims of such dump-
ing have been made by the auto
industry, the’ Canadian govern-
ment or the United Auto Workers
Union. Instead, Davis is totally un-
concerned about the real ‘‘dump-
ing’’ by the U.S. industry. ¥

For Canadian autoworkers first
of all — with not a word from the
posturing Ontario premier — have
had ‘‘dumped”’ on them massive
unemployment, with permanent

loss of tens of thousands of auto
jobs and untold deprivation and
tragedy for auto workers and their
families.

Davis’ call for a Lada ban has no
purpose other than to mask his and
his government's complete capitu-

Ontario CP leader Mel Doig

lation to the dictates of the U.S.
auto corporations. He had rejected
out of hand the demands of the
UAW Canadian Council, sub-
mitted the day before Davis’ ban
call. While UAW demands are
based on the sound objective of an
industrial strategy for full employ-

DAVIS CALLS FOR LADA BAN

Auto workers would lose, CPC

ment in the Canadian auto. indus-

create a single job in auto.

The premier of Ontario has
stated that he *‘can accept and deal
with tough and aggressive competi-
tion from an ally and a friend, but it
is beyond me why we would accept
unfair competition from a nation
which is committed to weakening
the western economic fabric
wherever possible.”’

Both his assertions are false.

There’s not a Canadian auto
worker who does not have direct
proof that, while the Davis’ Tory
government has indeed accepted
its U.S. auto ‘‘friends’’’ tough and -
aggressive decisions, Davis and
Co. have utterly failed to ‘‘deal”’
with them and their devastating re-
sults for Canadian autoworkers.

As for Davis’ lie that the Soviet
Union’s policies are directed to
weaken ‘‘the western economic
fabric’’: ls Davis, like his favorite
U.S. presidential candidate,
Reagan, totally ignorant of inter-
national developments? Appa-
rently he is. Otherwise he would
know what, as an example, the
Soviet Union and the Federal Re-

"public of Germany have just signed

a long-term program covering the
basis areas of Soviet-West German
co-operation in the field of the
economy and industry.

Peaceful. co-existence that in-
cludes mutually advantageous

trade and economic exchanges be-

tween states with different sys-

1g | tems, has been and remains the

| firm basis of the entire foreign and

peace policy of the Soviet Union.
This was true also in 1971 when

# the Canadian and Soviet govern-
ments signed agreements for
f economic, scientific and cultural

exchanges between the two coun-
tries. Pee

Today, this is still the only realis-
tic policy in the true interests of
Canada and her people.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 22, 1980—Page 5

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try, Davis’ Lada ban would not —

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