CoE TT Toe A OCT ATOM BOTTA RTO TMM | “tf Canadians aren't going to get jobs after spending billions on the F-18, the- federal government should take the $4.4 billion and put Canada back to work”, aircraft worker Joe McConnel (photo) told the Jan. 7 Local 1967 pro- test rally. Angry young men and women, the first to lose their jobs in the wake of a government defence contract with the U.S. multi-national, hammered Tory and Liberal politicians demand- ing action to stop the layoffs. Workers spoke of losing homes and of young families strained by unemployment and inability to keep up with mortgages at $700 a month with ‘STOP THE LAYOFFS! Get as mad as hell and let them know you are no income. Older workers recalled the Tory payers’ money.” TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS government's disastrous cancelling of the Avro Arrow on Black Friday in 1959. “Don't let them do it”, retiree Allan Craig, Local 1967’s first president told the rally. “Get as mad as hell and let them (the politicians) know you are.” A soon-to be laid off worker summed it up for the rally. “Why do we have to fight for our jobs anyway. We’ve paid for them, Its our money they’re giving Douglas. $4.4-billion — doesn’t that make me some kind of a shareholder or something. That’s my money — that’s the tax- Wa ih Hospital workers sit in to defend member's rights Special to the Tribune ; SUDBURY — Management at Laurentian Hospital was faced witha sit-in by members of Local 161 Canadian Union of Public Employees, (CUPE), Jan. 6. More than 180 CUPE members refused to leave the Laurentian cafeteria after their lunch break in order to enforce their demand that a worker who had been suspended be recalled. Ward clerk Monique Gravelle had been suspended for exercising her rights under the collec- — tive agreement when she refused to accept a transfer outside the bargaining unit.. ‘‘Hospital workers are ready to take illegal action if necéssary to defend their rights’, Local 161 president Justin Legault said. Workers returned to their jobs at 1:30'p.m. when the hospital ad- ministration and CUPE agreed to review the grievance the next day. No action was taken against anyone taking part in the sit-in and as a result of the next day’s meeting Gravelle was reinstated though the suspension was reduced to a warning. : The sit-in closely followed the recent visit to Sudbury of CUPE national president Grace Hartman, as part of an Ontario-wide tour publicizing the fight of 16,000 hospital workers with the Ontario Hospi- tals Association (OHA) for a new contract. - The highlight of Hartman’s visit was an information picket by more than 150 CUPE members outside Sudbury General Hospital protesting the OHA’s refusal to negotiate a new hospitals agreement to replace the last contract which expired Sept. 30. Negotiations between the OHA and CUPE collapsed Dec. 3. CUPE locals have been preparing for a province-wide strike vote with Jan. 26 as the strike deadline in the face of anti-labor legislation in Ontario denying hospital workers the right to strike. Despite an overwhelming 91% rejection, by hospital workers Oct. 27, of a tentative agreement with the OHA, hospital negotiators have refused to take the message from the workers that they want a decent contract, and instead are relying on the law which gets them off the hook as far as serious negotiations are concerned. Rather than negotiate, the OHA has preferred to cop out and pro- ceed to arbitration under the Hospital Disputes Arbitration Act. CUPE thas refused to nominate a representative to the arbitration board be- cause the union says this route allows the hospitals to. duck the respon- i ow sibility to negotiate seriously with the workers. ba No solid job guarantees in Ford deal By MIKE PHILLIPS OAKVILLE — Ford Canada workers aren’t exactly doing handsprings in the aisles over the recently announced deal. between the company and the federal government which is supposed to bring 1,300 laid off workers back to their jobs in June. One 18-year veteran with the company summed up the Ford workers’ mood over what he described as a “phoney’’ deal between Ottawa and the multi-national. “Only those who want to see everything rosey are excited about the news’’, he said. ‘‘We’ve been bumed many times before, I believe Ford is trying again to pull off something from the government.” On Jan. 6 Ford and the government announced that Ottawa was relaxing the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact’s truck production ratio requirements to allow Ford to drop van production in the Oakville plant and produce nothing but the gas-guzzeling LTDs —a move the company promised would bring back 1,300 of the 2,000 laid off Ford workers this June. The federal government has in effect told Ford it can transfer some of its surplus car production to the credit of its truck production. Ford has also said that in 1983 it will begin production in Oakville of its new front-wheel drive small car. However, the workers and their union, the Un- ited Auto Workers, (UAW), aren’t impressed. In the first place there are no written guarantees any- where that the 1,300 will be recalled or that produc- tion will start on the new car in 1983. The com- pany’s promise is based on the expectation that when Ford goes to a second shift next March to crank out 42 LTDs an hour from the line, the 1,300 workers will be needed. Ford worker Jim Bridgewood, pointed out that the 42 cars an hour production standard is part of Ford’s implementation of the White Paper Rate, in effect the application of the speeded up U.S. pro- ductivity standard to the Canadian operations. He said Ford, like the other auto corporations, is using the threat of plant closure as blackmail to get workers to accept speed-up, wage cuts, and the erosion of working conditions. ; “*T know of one Ford plant in Cleveland where the company forced the union to re-write the whole contract, taking away such worker-protecting measures as job posting procedures, forexample,”’ Bridgewood'said. ‘‘Ford told the workers: ‘Take it or we’ll close you down’; and the workers agreed under pressure.” Ford Oakville workers, he said, are angry over this kind of blackmail and talk of opposing any efforts toward speed-up. Resentment over the kind of crass bullying that companies like Chrysler are inflicting on auto workers is building up among the workers at Ford and resistence to this jobs black- mail is taking shape. ; Bill Kulich, with 26‘, years at Ford, said the deal may look sweet but the general mood among the workers is suspicion. ‘They say they’re going to call the workers back, but who knows for how long — one month, two months, three months?’’ he said. The initial excitement at the news, he said, wore off by the second day as workers pondered the implications — of the deal. They’re worried about the fact the company in Oakville will only be producing LTDs. Big vans aren’t selling very well and foremost in the minds of many workers is the likelihood that the general recession and dipping sales of the gas-guzzelers will produce production line cuts and more unemployment. : They know that at the end of the third quarter, 1980, Ford reported a loss of $595-million — the worst bath any corporation in the U.S. has ever taken. World sales of the company’s products ~ dropped 24% last year and 32% in the U.S. Sales of full-sized cars for all auto companies in Canada presently make up 18.2% of the total car market here. This is a drop from 23% in 1979. In the U:S. sales of full-sized cars have plummeted from 21.7% of the total car market in that country to 16.9%, over the same period. “The feeling among auto workers”, Kulich said ‘is that Ford should have gone over to producing small cars a long time ago. As for the promises for 1983 it’s possible the company is just taking the public for a ride. Who knows?” Bob Nickerson, administration assistant to UAW director for Canada, Bob White, said instead of giving Ford concessions on the auto pact, In- dustry Minister Herb Gray and the feds ought to be pressing the multi-national to live up to their cur- rent production commitments. ‘Even after the 1,300 return in June,’’ Nicker- son said, there will still be 700 of our members on layoff. We’re not happy to see changes in the auto _ pact while the union is fighting and arguing for the _ government to pressure the corporations to live up to their commitments.” The Ford deal, he said, demonstrates that the government has the clout to make changes in the pact. ‘“‘Gray sat down with Ford and agreed to make the changes. They didn’t have to go to Washington, so it’s obvious that the government has the clout to tell Ford how it’s going to be.”’ Other UAW spokesmen have demanded the government secure commitments from Ford to keep the second shift going even if LTD sales drop, including pushing the production deadline for the compact car earlier than 1983 if necessary. * One thing is sure, Ford milked the deal for as_ much publicity as possible. ‘‘Since the news”, the - 18-year man said, ‘‘the company’s been killing us with kindness. In the 18 years I’ve been in the plant, last week was the first time I saw the big wheels come on the line to ‘thank the guys for a job well done’.”’ Then, he noted: ‘‘the guy working beside me had been told that morning he was going to be fired; five minutes later a production manager came by to thank him for the good job he was doing.” PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 16, 1981—Page 4 —