Labor promises to fight Tory controls By MIKE PHILLIPS TORONTO — Angry workers sym- bollically torched the premier of Ontario, Sept. 21, and the leader of the Com- munist Party of Ontario called for maximum trade union unity and a co- ordinated mass action fightback against wage controls brought down by the pro- vincial Conservative government. In two separate hastily-called de- monstrations on the same day, some 8,000 provincial public sector workers, and teachers angrily denounced the pro- vincial Tory government and its Liberal Party partners for passing a wage control law that will limit the wage increases of half a million workers in the province to 5% over the year. The law affects all provincial govern- ment employees, municipal workers, those employed on school boards, in educational institutions, the courts, hos- pitals, health care institutions and some social service agencies. The controls will run from Oct. 1 1982 to Sept. 30, 1983. Contracts expiring dur- ing that period will be extended one year with a maximum 5% wage hike. If a con- tract expires after the Sept. 30 deadline, it will be rolled back to 5% after the first year of the pact expires. One-third of the public workers, in- cluding teachers, nurses and community college workers, whose contracts expire before the controls take effect have a 9% wage ceiling, placed on the first year of their pacts, to be followed the next year with 5%. Ontario's doctors, who negotiated fat fee schedules were left out of the controls legislation. Other features of the new wage-cutting law are the setting up of toothless prices “‘review’’ mechanism, but the guts of the government’s new law _ is an attack on public sector wages, and stripping 500,000 Ontario workers of the night to strike, to bargain collectively or to seek binding arbitration. As the law was being passed by the Tories and Liberals, protesters outside the Legislature hurled angy shouts at the ~ government demanding that Davis come out and speak, that he resign, and de- nouncing the Liberals for voting with the government. A large effigy of Davis felt the blows of picket signs with each new repressive detail of the wage cutting bill, until the anger boiled up to the point where fire was set to the Davis dummy and two large push puppets. The crowd re- sponded with cries of ‘“‘strike, strike, | strike’’, as one speaker after another _ from the podium attacked the controls law. Gord Massie, provincial leader of the Communist Party, in a Tribune interview following the protest, called the new Tory law ‘‘a vicious attack on the work- _ ers of Ontario which is setting the stage for controls on all wages in the public and private sectors.”” The controls, he said, were also an attack on municipalities whose transfer _ grants from the province will be under even more stringent controls than in the past. Massie welcomed the opposition of the New Democratic Party to the con- trols, pointing out that the Liberals and - Tories ‘‘are in the same bag. ‘“Both parties wanted across-the- board wage controls on the federal level’’, he said, ‘‘as far as the basis for this legislation goes, they're in agree- ment.’’ The Ontario Communist leader also warned of the danger of criticizing the controls as unfair as if there were a controls program which could be fair. “‘Wage controls are unacceptable in principle’’, Massie said. ‘‘It isn’t just a matter singling out one group of workers, because this program is aimed at placing wage controls on all workers.”’ While criticizing the way doctors were PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 1, 1982—Page 6 let off the hook, Massie pointed out that the real beneficiaries of the program will be the corporations. ‘“‘The government, in bringing down this controls program, was acting directly on behalf of monopoly and the corporations’, Mas- sie said. That’s why the labor movement has to take up the fightback against controls and mobilize workers into mass action, he said. “‘We think the Ontario Federation of Labor has to put teeth in the Canadian Labor Congress campaign against con- trols and develop acoordinated fightback campaign involving education, action supporting affected unions and a co- ordinated fightback leading to a possible general strike, if necessary,’ Massie said. ‘‘It’s good to talk about getting rid of the Tories, but this just can’t be seen . on the basis of electoral politics alone. What’s required is mass action of the workers in this province, led by the trade union movement.” Outside the legislature in both rallies, speakers denounced the controls, be- tween choruses of union songs like ‘‘Sol- idarity Forever’’, and ‘‘Which side are you on?” OFL president Cliff Pilkey pledged: “The OFL will back any effort unions take to fight controls’’. He predicted more and larger demonstrations and var- ious fight-back responses by the groups affected, including work stoppages. Pilkey also noted that the OFL execu- tive would be holding a two-day meeting in Windsor to discuss and plan labor’s response to the controls and mobilizing the fightback that lies ahead. Sean O'Flynn, president of the On- tario Public Service Employees Union, (OPSEU), blasted what he called the “‘class’’ nature of the controls law. He told the demonstrators to ignore calls from governments and establishment politicians for public sector workers not to become involved in politics. “‘I’m told not to be political, and you'll be told not to be political. That’s hogwash’’, O’Flynn said. Malcolm Buchanan, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF), said Sept. 21 will go down in history as the day the Tory government ‘“‘brought down its War Measures Act against teachers and pub- lic sector employees.” ‘‘We'd better not forget’’, Buchanan said, ‘‘that the Tories and their lackey Liberals have declared war on us.”’ He called on teachers to fight the wage controls in every way, and he projected demonstrations eventually of 25, 50, and 100,000 as well as work-to-rule cam- paigns. OPSEU, and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, (CUPE), who’s 16,000 hospital workers are approaching the expiry of their contract Sept. 28, were planning meetings of their top leadership to assess and formulate their response to the law. CUPE Ontario division president Lucie Nicholson predicted her members would be very angry over the govern- ment’s move, particularly those groups such as municipal workers who have the right to strike and have had it stripped away by the controls. NDP Ontario leader Bob Rae and Scarborough MPP Richard Johnston also spoke to the rallies stressing the need to make the descent of the Tories’ wage controls the opening shot in the campaign to bring the government down. Johnston called the Tory wage law a bid to shift wealth from the teachers and pub- lic sector workers to the bankers and the corporations, and urged a stiff fightback. The leaders of all the major teachers’ organizations also spoke and pledged not to see their collective bargaining, and strike rights crushed by Queen’s Park. TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS outside the Legislature to protest the. introduction of wage controls by the Tory government. 3 os eS : : Angry public sector workers burned an effigy of Ontario premier William Davis, Sept. 21 a Special to the Tribune SUDBURY — For the second time in two weeks, the nickel giants here have dealt the Sudbury area devastat- ing blows. First Falconbridge, the area’s second largest employer announced the exten- sion of its summer shutdown until Jan. 3 affecting 2,800 Falconbridge workers. Then a week later, the giant nickel pro- ducer Inco also announced the exten- sion of its summer shutdown til Jan. 3. The Inco operations were to have re- sumed on Oct. 3. The reaction by the workers to the Falconbridge announcement was a noisy one with more than 2,000 workers belonging to Local 598 Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union protesting the extension of the shutdown witha march through the city and a rally at City Hall. But in the case of the Inco announcement the reaction was more muted. The quieter mood was perhaps a result of Inco’s carefully timed shut- down announcement and to sugges- tions for worksharing programs and the recall of some maintenance and pro- duction workers. The production workers are to be engaged in producing copper. The mood, however, isn’t expected to stay quiet for long. Talks are begin- ning to get under way for some joint action between Local 598 Mine-Mill Layoffs extended into winter More grief for Sudbury and members of Local 6500 United Steelworkers. : On the community level the need for support action to get all of the workers back on their jobs, is being more clearly recognized, and calls for unity in action are beginning to swell. As one commu- nity leader said, ‘‘we’ve been hit hard by both Inco and Falconbridge. The hits have stopped us momentarily but now we’re planning to hit back. The companies can’t be allowed to close the doors on Sudbury after all these years, and we won’t let it happen.” Canada’s trade _ Surplus goes up OTTAWA — Someone was bound to ask it, and people are ' asking: How come, ifas the ruling class claims, Canadian workers’ wages are pricing Canadian pro- ducts out of the world market, Canada wound up with a $2-bil- lion trade surplus in June? For the first half of 1982 Canada’s mer- chandise trade surplus was $8.2- billion, up $850-million from the $7.4-billion surplus in the first half of 1981.