LABOR [ The one-million-member United Church of Canada added its voice to the growing demand across the country that Eaton’s sign a contract with 1,500 workers who have been on strike for a first-ever collec- tive agreement since Nov. 30. That statement, issued May I and signed by Rev. Philip Cline, secretary of the church’s general council and Very Rev. Clarke MacDonald of the office in church in society, followed closely a statement of support issued by the Social Affairs Committee by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. The United Church statement is of par- ticular significance, however, since the Eaton’s family are members of the United Church and one church in Toronto is named after company founder Timothy Eaton. The church must support policies which “place the needs for full employment and the well-being of people...ahead of the free movement of capital,” the statement declared. “We recognize the importance of trade unions and the search for greater eco- nomic equity,” it said, “and we are com- mitted to the full emancipation of women United Church backs Ea in the workplace thorugh equal compen- sation for work of equal value.” The statement also noted the problems faced by the labor movement in organiz- ing retail chains such as Eaton’s and secur- ing collective agreements. “We recognize that the right of workers to collective bargaining through represen- tatives of their own choice and to partici- pate in trade unions under reasonable conditions and secure collective agree- ments are under attack from many quar- ters,” it said. “We also recognize that the legal affir- mation of these rights may only be effec- tive with the co-operation and the will to abide by collective agreements on the part of management as well as labor; and we recognize that it often requires persistent and sometimes sacrificial action to elicit such will from management and that the sympathy and support of the community at large can often be instrumental in secur- ing the willingness of management, par- ticulary in long-unorganized sectors of the economy, to participate fully in an effec- tive collective agreement.” Pointing specifically to the Eaton’s strike, it noted that women were the pre- dominant participants and that the dis- pute “involves a history of practices which have a deleterious effect on working income, job security and a guarantee of adequate pension income on retirement.” The strike also involves “‘a significant sector of our economy which has, by and large, avoided trade union organization,” the statement said. It called on the company “to begin immediately to negotiate in good faith with the union...and to proceed to the elaboration and ratification of a collective agreement which is of a comprehensive and company wide character.” That agreement should “provide improved opportunities for secure and adequately-paid employment with respect for seniority and the provision of adequate retirement income; (and should) provide effective grievance procedures and the secure and effective participation of workers, through the democratic struc- tures of their trade union, in industrial relations with the company.” The release of the statement was clearly a cause for embarassment to Eaton’s management, prompting company spo- kesmen to break the traditional silence on ton’s strikers the dispute. Bill Stark, vice-president for personnel told reporters: ““We’re rather disappointed the church would involve themselves in these matters.” Eaton’s management is also expected to face more heat from the Canadian Labor “Congress as a result of the decision to target two company directors as part of the CLC campaign for support of Eaton’s strikers. The two directors are Richard Thom- son, also the chairman of the Toronto- Dominion Bank, and Allan Leslie Beattie, a lawyer and the chairman of several Eaton’s subsidiaries, including Eaton Bay Financial Service, Eaton Bay Life and Eaton Bay Trust which administer group life insurance and pension funds. They will be getting letters from CLC president McDermott advising them that Eaton’s ‘‘can no longer be viewed as an isolated entity” and warning that if there is no resolution of the Eaton’s dispute, the CLC will mount a mass fund withdrawal of the T-D Bank as well as an eventual boycott of the bank’s Visa cards. Unions and other organizations may also be called upon to renegotiate group life and pension plans they now hold with Eaton’s subsi- diaries, McDermott said. — “Air Canada target The fallacy of restraint ‘‘We must all learn to pull in our belts.”’ ‘“‘We must produce more and consume less.”’ These and similar formulas are the common refrain of politicians and industrialists today. It should hardly be necessary to ask why we should produce more if we are going to consume less, but the prevalence of this absurd contradiction makes it nec- essary to deal with it seriously. It is fundamental to economics; and indeed to common sense, that the national income of any coun- try is the sum total of the incomes of its citizens, which in turn is equal to the total value of goods and services produced (adjusted, if you will, for the differ- ence between materials imported and exported). When, therefore, politicians and industrialists tell us that we must learn to be content with smaller incomes, they are actually advocating less, not more production. That lesson was learned the hard way during the great depression. In defiance of common sense, R.B. Bennett in Canada and Herbert Hoover in the United States, tried to deal with the economic crisis by bal- ancing the budget, thereby cutting the incomes of people employed on government-financed projects. Their successors reversed the policy, resorting to de- ficit spending to create jobs and stimulate the econ- omy. They were not altogether successful, but they did bring about considerable improvement. The theo- retical rationale for the new policies was provided by the British economist, John Maynard Keynes. In spite of the fact that for a whole generation thereafter, Keynes’ prescriptions were followed by all capitalist governments, the lessons have been for- gotten and the Mulroneys and Reagans have returned to the policies of Bennett and Hoover. They do not, of course, speak of balancing the budget, since the hor- rendous deficits of both countries make such an objec- tive unrealistic. Instead they have coined the term ‘‘restraint”” which can be uttered with due unction and piety. Their logic, however, is just as absurd as that of their long-ago forebears, which is: deal with the problem of falling incomes by instituting ‘‘cut- backs”’ to make them fall further. Actually, the consequences are worse than that... Let us borrow from the Keynesians the common i. FETS Sees Economics sense principle of the multiplier. In times of recession, the incomes of workers are necessarily spent on the necessities of life, but the incomes of the rich tend to be saved. The millionaire cannot consume his whole income, and, with markets depressed, has no incen- tive to invest what he saves. Savings, therefore, go into the mattress, production falls and unemployment grows. However, if the government undertakes deficit spending at such a time, it has a ‘‘multiplier’’ effect. Each million dollars the government spend emerges as wages or profits of the recipients. The resulting wages, net of taxes, will in turn be spent on consumer goods and services. That in turn results in further wages and profits in the industries supplying the goods. Those wages repeat the cycle, and so on ad infinitum. In Canadian conditions, it can be calculated that when this process has fully worked through the system, the original million dollars of government expenditure will have increased the income of the population by about $2'-million. The taxes on that additional income will return to the government its original million dollars. The multiplier also works the other way. A cutback of one million dollars in government outlays during recession will reduce the income of the community by two and one half millions. Such is the real effect of “‘restraint’’. In time of full employment, excess government: spending cannot have a multiplier effect (because, by definition, there are not workers and other resources available to produce more goods). Therefore, in such conditions excess spending will produce inflation, or so the theory holds. Lord Keynes’ idea therefore, was that governments would use deficit spending during recessions to overcome unemployment, but would budget for surplusses during boom times, to curb inflation. Keynes, however, was reckoning without the psy- chology of the capitalist at the hog-trough. For two decades now, governments have stood Keynes’ for- mula on its head: when times are good, they run up huge deficits in order to hand out lucrative contracts to their political friends, but cut back expenditures in time of recession. Thus they exacerbate both ex- tremes of the business cycle. And by the way, when they say we must all be satisfied with smaller incomes, they don’t really mean all. They mean the workers. They have never been known to object to rising profits. 10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 8, 1985 aS CALEA strikes over job security MONTREAL — Air Canada’s 3,000 ticket agents are locked into a battle with the crown airline that pits the workers’ just demand for job security against manage- ment’s attempts to reduce as much of the full-time work force as possible to part-time status. With every seventh job in the work force now a part- — time one, the phenomenon that has recently characterized the retail industry and other sectors where women predom- ~ inate, threatens to spill over into the deregulated airline — industry and sweep away full-time jobs and the rare oppor tunity for women at a decent paying job. The strike ties together into one struggle labor’s opposi- ~ tion to concessions, its fight to exert a measure of demo- cratic control over tech change, the fight for women’s equality and the battle against deregulation of the industry. Members of the Canadian Airline Employees Associa- tion (CALEA), the strikers launched their battle with Al Canada, Apr. 26 after it became clear that further media- tion efforts were futile. : At the centre of Air Canada’s demands is a bid to gut job security provisions CALEA has spent the past couple of decades fighting to put in the contract. In the name 0 work rule “flexibility” management wants to change the ratio of part-time to full-time workers at any location from 20'to 40 per cent. The corporation wants to start new part-time workers at” $1.30 an hour less than the current full-time starting wage rate of $7.43 an hour. Management wants to eliminate all full-time positions as they become vacant and replace the workers with part-timers. e| CALEA reps say if Air Canada gets away with thes demands, the majority of its full-time work force will bé reduced to part-time work. Some 66 per cent of CALEA members are women and the ticket agents’ job is one of the few in our society that pays women anything resembling a decent wage rate. Also impending, CALEA notes, is a massive automa” tion program that threatens the jobs of more than half of _ current Air Canada ticket agents. The company eventually hopes to install machinery that will have customers pro cessing their own airline tickets, much in the same way W° use the “instant teller” to do our own banking. CALEA members have taken their pickets to ticket” - offices and outside the international airports, while Al Canada bosses scramble around trying to do the agents — work and calling retired workers in to scab on the strikers They’ve even sunk so low as to offer all passengers the higher cost Connoisseur service to entice them to fly ® struck airline. fa SaaS SNS SRI i Oe: Pee ee ee a :