*L PROTESTS
FLYNN JAILING

TORONTO — Calling on the
lario Government to grant pub-
Service workers the right to
e, Ontario Federation of
president Cliff Pilkey has
. the 35-day jail term
handed to Sean O’Flynn, president
the Ontario Public Service
pyees Union.

“O'Flynn did what any respon-
e union leader would have done
Similar circumstances”, Pilkey
dH Dec. 7, referring to the
SEU chief’s decision to en-
ge correctional officers to
and ignore injunctions to
k demands for a seperate bar-
ining category.

K OUT ..
T PETROFINA

ONTREAL — Petrofina
Inada Ltd. locked out 270
tkers, Dec. 11, following a
€-day study session organized
‘the United Oil Workers.
press time, the union was
Considering retaliation by striking
at the Montreal refineries owned
by Shell Canada and‘ Texaco

anada Inc. ©

| TEACHERS MAY
| SUE BOARD
_ NORTH YORK — High school

‘@ new contract, said Dec. 12,
‘y may sue the North York
d of Education if it carries out
threat to close high schools Jan.
District 13, Ontario Secondary
School Teachers Federation has
been working to rule for eight
Weeks in an effort to get the board
to Negotiate a contract. The
’s move is a bid to try to press
the 2,300 teachers into settling on
austere terms. In effect the
board is threatening a lockout.

50 SACKED
AT FIBERGLASS

GUELP — A grand total of 75

4 Fiberglass Canada Ltd., workers
| Jae been laid off since mid Oc-
| lber. The company announced

Dec, 12 that the latest group of 50
lF be-unemployed indefinitely.
| Fiberglass employs some 380
Workers who are represented by
= Amalgamated Clothing and
| “€xtile Workers Union.
-SOV’T WORKERS
_ STRIKE CONTINUES

REGINA — Strike support for
the Saskatchewan Government
| yees Association from ac-
T0ss the country continues to flow

SGEA uarters. The
latest donations include a $25,000
“Nation from the Alberta

on work-to-rule campaign...

Government Employees, an
interest-free loan of $200,000 from
the. Ontario Public Service
Employees Union, a $300,000
interest-free loan from the B.C.
Government Employees Union,
and a $10,000 loan from Cariadian
Union of Public Employees Local
21 (Regina Civic Employees). The
strike involves some 11,000 pro-
vincial government employees.

HYDRO-QUEBEC
STILL OUT

MONTREAL — Out since the
last week of November, electri-
cians at Hydro Quebec are con-
tinuing their strike for a new con-
tract.

Despite the appointment of two
Quebec Government mediators
to settle the strike, Hydro Quebec
still refuses to negotiate. Union
members are manning skeleton
repair crews to ensure quick re-
pairs to bréaks that would harm

publi? health or safety, such as in.

hospitals, senior citizens homes,
fire stations and water pumping
stations.

-OPERATORS TAKE

STRIKE VOTE

TORONTO — The Communi-
cations Workers of Canada, repre-
senting 7,500 Bell Canada
operators in Ontario and Quebec

are poised to strike unless, in the’
words of union president Fred

Pomeroy, ‘‘something good hap-
pens, something very good.’’ He
said Dec. 10 the union expects a
concilliation commissioner’s  re-
port on contract talks between the
phone monopoly and the CWV to
be delivered to the Federal Labor
Minister by mid-December mak-
ing a strike possible a few days be-
fore Christmas. Parity with west-
ern Canadian workers and protec-
tion from the negative effects of
technological change are among
the demands put out by the Bell
workers who haven’t had a raise

since 1977.

PILKINGTON
SHATTERS 400

SCARBORO — Pilkington
Glass Industries of Toronto has

shattered the lives of 400 of its -

workers by announcing it was
closing one of its two Toronto
plants, Dec. 11. 0

In an effort to intimidate the
workers still on the payroll, Ril-
kington management has blamed
the layoffs on a recent 16-week
strike by the United Glass and
Ceramic Workers Union. The
strike ended Oct. 26. A union
spokesman said the company had
used the threat of closing down
during negotiations, and denied
any connection between the two

events.

Ontario labor convention
demands militant action

By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORONTO — There’s a grow-
ing appreciation among working
people of the need to back mili-
tant policies and rhetoric with
-concrete actions. The recent 23rd
annual Ontario Federation. of
Labor convention with its
record-setting capacity delega-
tion of some 1,600 Ontario trade
unionists reflected this.

The four-day convention, Nov.

26-30, saw the delegates working

as hard to shape useful policies to
tackle their many problems, as
they work to earna living. Taking
into account certain drawbacks,
the OFL convention accom-
plished a great deal.

For example:

e It adopted an economic pol-
icy statement which tackled the
domination of foreign, mainly
U.S. transnational corporations

on our economy as a major root of _

both mass unemployment and
rampant inflation on the one
hand, and the gradual destruction
of our sovereignty and indepen-
dence as a country, on the other.
The statement called for public
ownership of the resource indus-
try, financial institutions, mineral
and forestry resources, ‘‘as well
as certain key industries such as
aerospace, ship building and
shipping, cable television and
telecommunications.’’ It de-
manded Petro Canada be kept
under public ownership and ex-
panded into Canada’s main
energy corporation.
e Important initiatives in the
fight for peace, disarmament and
the creation of new jobs were
supported. The convention de-
manded a full employment

_Strategy by the federal govern-.

ment through development of
secondary industry, building
east-west oil and gas pipelines and
the creation of a ship building in-
dustry to develop a Canadian
merchant marine — all to be
financed by cutting our $4-billion
defence budget in half. The
SALT IL Treaty was also en-
dorsed by the convention, and the
OFL and all its affiliates were
urged to ‘‘call upon all govern-
ments for a continuing program to
end the arms race.”’

e The federal government was
called upon to recognize both the
French-Canadian and English
Canadian nations; ‘‘so they can
proceed voluntarily to build a
new, sovereign and united Cana-
da.”’ The delegates voted to reaf-
firm the OFL’s call last year, for a
new made-in-Canada constitution
“recognizing the two founding
nations as equal partners in a fed-
erated state ... dedicated to the
unity of the people of Canada and
the sovereignty of the Canadian
State.””

e Several other policy papers
dealing with sweeping changes to
the Workmen’s Compensation
Act, and the fight to stop Ontario

Government destruction of univ-
ersal medicare, were adopted.

e A host of resolutions were
passed, calling for: legislation to
‘outlaw strike breaking and the use
of police forces on the picket
lines; a joint campaign with the
Canadian Labor Congress to
“‘agitate, lobby and demonstrate”’

to force the federal government to.

stop moving toward the world
price of oil and instead implement
a two-price system with a lower
price for domestic use. This fe-
solution also demanded a freeze
on natural gas prices, develop-
ment of a comprehensive Cana-
dian energy strategy that puts
Canada first and serves the needs
of Canadians, and a halt to natural
gas exports.

e Other resolutions included: a
call on the CLC to demand the
federal government to stop erod-
ing the Unemployment Insurance
system by repealing all benefits
changes and stopping all further
cutbacks; a call for the OFL and
the CLC executive to urge their
affiliated locals and labor councils
to endorse International
Women’s Day and plan ‘“‘events
of solidarity, protest and celebra-
tion on March 8, 1980 in their own
areas.”’ :

The delegates launched the
convention in an atmosphere of
militant unity, and that’s the way
they wanted to keep it right up to
the last day. They voted unanim-
ously to give full support to
Jean-Claude Parrot and the
Canadian Union of Postal Work-
ers, while they were manoeuvred
into voting not to ask for CLC
president Dennis McDermott’s
resignation.

When the OFL leadership
wanted to coast on sharp rhetoric
and motherhood resolutions the
delegates pressed for concrete ac-
tion. The convention for ex-
ample, referred to a weak resolu-
tion supporting the Boise Cas-
cade strikers which limited the
OFL’s support to pledging to
renew its efforts to have the use of
police banned in all labor
disputes.

Attacked by Police

With the referral, the delegates
insisted and succeeded in getting
the OFL to help establish a
Northern Ontario strike support
committee, and a central speak-
ers’ bureau to tour the country
publicizing the strike and raising
support for the strikers. More
than $2,000 was collected from
the convention to bolster the
Boise Cascade strike fund.

The struggle symbolized the
unprecedented attack being
waged by the bosses, their police,
courts and news media on Cana-
dian workers. But as another sign
of the times, the spotlight was
shared with the grim picket line
sagas of Radio Shack, Blue
Cross, Canadian Gypsum, Foto-
mat, Butcher Engineering and the

BEcnvuse OF ALL
iE DOUGH THE

conPAany i$ INyES

So He Aamos (/°()"/) ANDSAUS 115
EVERYONE A =
TURKEY EGG

THE THOUGHT
THAT COUNTS

Children’s Aid Society staff in
Sault Ste. Marie.

Canadian
Union delegate Carl Stephens re-
vealed the kind of rude awakening
more and more trade unionists ac-
ross Canada are experiencing:
‘*People think they’re got rights,
and you get cops there on the pic-
ket lines — wait ‘til they throw
your ass in jail and see how many
rights you’ ve got. Your right to a
phone call — you get that in about

three days, if you don’t agree to

their terms right away.”

Fred Miron, vice-president of
the union striking Boise, the
Lumber and Sawmill Workers
Union, felt the humiliation of an
Ontario Provincial Police search
of his home, while his seven year
old daughter tried to grasp the
meaning of the police questioning
her father.

**They’re the same faces on the
cops in Fort Frances as they were
at Fleck Manufacturing’, Miron
told the convention. ‘‘Put 100 to

* 200 cops on a picket line and they
become a bloodthirsty mob. On —

one occasion as the strikers were
picketing, about 100 OPP came on
the line, formed into platoons,
split us in half and started shoving
people into snowbanks. Three of
them held me while one pounded
the hell out of me.”’

Time We Took Them On

It was Hotel Workers’ Union
delegate John Ferris who
suggested how to strengthen the
Boise resolution. Delegates
cheered when he said that waiting
for the laws torbe changed isn’t
good enough. :

Even the OFL’s statement on
Labor’s Political Responsibility

- had to recognize the growing mili-

tancy at the grass roots. While the
‘“‘close working relationships (of
the OFL) with labor’s chosen
political party ...’’ continues to
be stressed, the statement moves

away from the traditionally sterile: :

position of the labor movement
sitting on its hands waiting for the
election of its ‘‘political arms’’ to
solve its problems.

It recognizes the ‘‘need’’ for a
more effective central political
program’”’ to counter the growing
political attack on workers and
their living standards. The Oct.
14, 1976 National Day of Protest
which brought out over one mill-
ion workers to oppose wage con-
trols, the statement noted, ‘‘con-
firmed that workers are prepared
to take bold initiatives when
necessity demands it.”’

“*Vigorous political means’’ are
suggested to advance labor’s go-
als, including ‘‘an emphasis on
lobbies, selective meetings with
government officials and worker
rallies and demonstrations to
press for. the implementation of
our policies’’ Also recognized is
the need for ‘‘developing more
participation at the local labor
council level to strengthen labor’s
voice locally.”

However, the stubborn refusal
of the leadership to allow the con-
vention to debate a resolution
calling upon the OFL to withdraw
from tri-partite and bi-partite-
government committees, vividly
illustrates the general preference
the labor movement leadership

Paperworkers’*