TORONTO — More than
3.800 members of the Ontario
Public Service Employees Union
(OPSEU), in 19 different loca-
tions across Ontario participated
in noon-hour pickets outside of
the province’s main psychiatric,
mental retardation, and correc-
tional facilities as part of the
union’s planned week-long cam-
‘paign against cutbacks.

Nov. 23 was designated **Cut-
backs Day’’ by OPSEU presi-
dent Charles Darrow asa result of
a growing tide of anger among the
workers expressed earlier this
month in a number of spontane-
ous demonstrations throughout
Ontario to protest the Ontario To-
ries’ staff cutbacks in the pro-
vince’s health care. system.

“Cutbacks: Day’ = was
scheduled as part of a series of
activities tied together in a week
of protest against provincial gov-
ernment cutbacks. The week-
long campaign included the circu-
lation of a petition demanding an
end to cutbacks, a massive letter
writing campaign to local MPPs to
get their position on the cuts, and.
if necessary put the pressure on
them to fight and oppose the cut-
backs program.

Organizers of the protest ac-

tivities expressed pleasure at the

Meaningful collective bargain-
ing in Canada has been seriously
undermined by the federal govern-
ment’s wage controls. In place of
collective bargaining ‘‘a new and
broader consultative forum’’ is
now being instituted, or planned,
according to Labor Minister John
Munro. This new body, consist-
ing of anywhere from 30 to 50
members is proposed ‘‘as approp-
riate to reflect the views of the
_ principal interest groups, as well

-aS providing for regional rep-
resentation.”’

The multipartite forum would
meet three or four times a year. It
would have no decision-making
powers with respect to govern-
ment policies and programs. This
so-called consultative forum
would become a poor substitute
for collective bargaining to mill-
ions of organized workers who
suddenly would find themselves
_ reduced to one of many so-called
_ interest groups.

In addition to this multipartite
body, Munro wants to establish a
number of tripartite bodies with
representatives of labor and man-
agement to deal with industrial re-
lations matters. :

Tripartite. boards would direct
a number of special institutions,
such as: a collective bargaining
information centre; a_ national
safety and health institute; and a
_ quality of working life centre.

oS

While this sinister plan for the
_ redirection of traditional indust-
rial relations practice in Canada
has been rejected by the Canadian
Labor Congress, along with an
omnibus bill recently introduced
by Munro, the drive to integrate

response Nov. 23. One union
spokesman said the turn-out was
excellent, particulary because the
largest response came from those
areas where the service cuts are
the heaviest and where there is a
greater number of jobs en-
dangered.

In Toronto 750 OPSEU mem-
bers set up pickets at five different
locations, including the Queen
Street Mental Health Centre, the
scene of one of the original spon-
taneous demonstrations which
inspired the whole campaign.

By far one of the best responses
was in the small community of
Smith’s Falls where workers at
the Psychiatric Hospital put 600
of the staff's total complement of
950 on the picket line.

Meetings between union mem-
bers and the MPPs in their home
constituencies were being plan-
ned for last weekend as the
Tribune went to press.

In addition to the obvious injus-
tice of the cutbacks placing the
worker in serious physical
jeopardy, public service workers
in Ontario remain uncovered and
unprotected by any and all exist-
ing safety and health legislation.
They will still be excluded under
Bill 70, the new omnibus safety
law, if it passes the House.

labor leaders into the mechanism
of state-monopoly capitalism is
going full speed ahead.

Two weeks ago the Canadian
director of the United Steelwor-
kers of America expressed skep-

ticism about government-
employer schemes to improve the
quality of working life. That skep-
ticism, however, did not prevent
the Ontario director of the same
union, Stewart Cook, from going
on an Ontario-sponsored labor-
management committee tour of
Europe to study precisely such
schemes in London, Paris and
Rotterdam. Other labor members
of this tour included Clifford Pil-
key, president of the Ontario
Federation of Labor, and Robert
White of the Auto Workers Un-
ion.

The leader of the tour was On-
tario Deputy Labor Minister T.E.
Armstrong. Business representa-
tives included: Ralph Barford,
chairman of General Steel Wares
Ltd., Robert Hurlburt, president
of General Foods Ltd., and W.A.
Macdonald, senior partner of
McMillan Binch, who acted as
committee counsel. Another
member of the committee, Wil-
liam Dimma, president of Torstar |
Corporation, did not participate
in the European tour.

Both the Ontario and federal
governments are presently prom-
oting the development of
quality-of-work-life projects in
individual companies to help
management improve productiv-
ity (read speed-up) while keeping
the worker unaware of increased
exploitation. This is what is called
“‘creating a climate in which the
private sector will expand with
confidence and create new jobs’’.

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 2, 1977—Page 4

A dangerous diversion)
from reality

Protests mark ‘Cutbacks Day’
in public service campaign

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ae
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Members of OPSEU Local 531
picket outside Mental Health:
Centre in Toronto, Oct. 14.

An OPSEU spokesman told of
one worker, employed at. the
Queen Street Mental Health

-Centre, asa result of the staff cuts
found himself alone on night shift,
was attacked by a patient, and
suffered a groin injury which sub-
sequently peeded surgery.

“Since the cutbacks started to
take effect’’, an OPSEU spokes-
man said, ‘‘there have been a lot
of horror stories like this one com-
ing in every day. Unfortunately,
the way things are going, we’re
afraid we're going to hear a whole
lot more.”

At the same time it is interest-
ing to note that even right-wing
social democratic labor leaders in
Western Europe. are convinced
that higher profitability of corpo-
rations does not result in greater
investment and more jobs.

The first union in Canada to
undertake an experiment in joint
decision making with manage-
ment, if delegates to a union na-
tional policy conference this week
approve, will be the Canadian
Paperworkers Union.

* * *

What Canadian workers really
have to make up their minds
about is what kind of society we
have in Canada. Industrial rela-°
tions is the term used to describe a
basic economic and political rela-
tionship between capital and
labor.

The $64 question is whether
society is to continue to be domi-
nated by those who own wealth
which they invest to exploit labor
for profit, or whether workers are
to acquire a greater say in matters
over which they presently have
no say whatever.

The so-called ‘‘industrial
democracy” or ‘‘worker. partici-
pation in management”’ as prac-
ticed in Europe, simply co-opts
labor leaders into management of
enterprises still controlled by
capitalist monopolies and oVer
which workers have no control

whatever. All this does is to mud-
dle up and obscure the reality of |

class divisions, direct workers

away from struggles for their _
rights, and play into the hands of _
the exploiters of labor —the mul-

ti-national corporations like
INCO, who seek to stabilize their
profit system at workers’ expense.

HOSPITAL WORKERS
PROTEST CUTBACKS

MONTREAL — About 1,750
service employees at the Royal Vic-
toria Hospital remained on strike
in a protest against hospital and
Quebec Government austerity
measures. The striking employees,
who belong to an independent
union, include housekeepers, por-
ters, orderlies, nursing assistants
and clerks. More than 10 police-
men ‘‘supervise’’ the picket line
every day.

CLC SUPPORTS

STRIKING WOMEN

OTTAWA — The Canadian
Labor Congress declared its sup-
port for 25 striking female
employees at the British American
Banknote Co., who are trying to

_ gain wage parity with at least the
newest company janitor. Top

wages for women is $5 an hour — .

almost 30% less than the com-
pany’s lowest paid male employee.
The women inspect bank notes,
stamps and bonds for flaws. Brinks
security truck drivers are honoring ©
the picket line.

PROTESTS OUST HITLER SS OFFICERS FROM BRITAIN
LONDON — After two days of protests and demonstrations three 0
Hitler’s former Waffen SS officers were driven out of Britain last week
One of them, a former adjutant to Hitler, Col. Schulze-Cossens, who
had been thought to be on his way here, was actually found to be a guest —
at the London home of Jonathan Guiness, a former chairman of the ;

Conservative Monday Club.

Home Secretary. Merlyn Rees issued an order banning the three
ex-nazis from Britain after the protests. They had been due to attend -
the launching of a glossy pictorial about the Waffen SS at Brown’s |

Hotel in London.

JAPANESE GROUPS UNITE IN OPPOSITION TO U.S. BASES
TOKYO — More than 1,000 peace activists in Japan gathered at a
conference for banning nuclear weapons and abrogating the Japan-
U.S. security treaty. The Tokyo conference was an initiative of the
Japanese Peace Committee, the Communist Party of Japan, and sev-
eral anti-war, trade union, student, women’s and democratic organiza- _
tions. The conference called for the removal of U.S. military bases
from Japanese soil, and pointed out the dangers of expanding U.S.- —
Japanese military collaboration. Masayasu Hasgawa, chairman of the |
Japanese Peace Committee, praised the initiatives of the Soviet Union
towards ending nuclear testing and a-halt to the production of nuclear

CANADA TOPS LOST
TIME DUE TO
STRIKES

GENEVA — Canada and Italy |
topped the list of 55 countries in —
time lost due to strikes last year, @ |
report of the International Labor —
Organization says. The Geneva
based ILO, said strikes and lock-
outs cost an average of 2.27 work-
ing days for each worker in
Canada. In Italy the figure was 2.2
days. The 55 countries reported
28,000 disputes last year. A total
of 109 million days were lost due
to strikes throughout the capital-
ist world.

BOYCOTT
POSSIBLE

SYDNEY Australian |
maritime unions may ban work on
all South African ships because of
the recent murder in jail of Steve
Biko. ‘‘We want some questions
answered about the Biko case,”
said Don Henderson, secretary of
the New South Wales Fireman and
Deckhands union. a

WASHINGTON — Eight thousand people converged on the Wh
House Nov. 15-16 to protest the Shah of Iran’s visit with Carter and U.S.
support of the repressive Iranian regime. _