LABOUR

Meet set
against
sell-off

Representatives of community organiza-
tions and trade union locals are expected to
hammer out a program of action against the
provincial government’s privatization plans
at a public meeting set for Jan. 27, 7:30 p.m.
at the [WA Hall, 13th and Commercial in
Vancouver. :

Called by the Council for Public Services,
a trade union-community group coalition
established last year, the meeting comes out
of a conference on privatization Dec. 12
which was initiated by the Vancouver and
District Labour Council. More than 170
people from union locals, the Canadian
Labour Congress, the B.C. Federation of
Labour as well as a number of community
groups, attended the conference which also
set up the Council for Public Services as a
first step against the government’s selloff

Labour council secretary Frank Kennedy
said the meeting Jan. 27 would be making
concrete plans ‘based on the discussion at
the conference and would likely establish a
structure for the coalition, including joint
chairs from the trade union movement and
community organizations.

“We're hoping to pack that hall,”
Kennedy said. He added that the council
had already done considerable organiza-
tional work in lining groups up for the meet-
ing.

The council has also put out its first bro-
chure on the government’s privatization
plan, entitled “Privatization and You”,
which is already into its second printing.

Firestone — justthe beginning

Firestone is skipping out.

The giant international tire cartel is set
to pull off a scam rivalling the Manhat-
tan purchase. Not only is Firestone walk-
ing away from the city of Hamilton and
its 1,300 employees with nary a back-
ward glance, but it is also checking out of
the country with enough dough from the
public treasury to fund the Winter
Olympics.

With its government loans and grants

it has obtained over the years, its deferred
taxes and workers pension money safely
tucked away in U.S. bank vaults, Fire-
stone risks nothing by shutting down its
Canadian tire-making operations, other
than some bad PR. But as the saying
goes, “sticks and stones ....”

Firestone is not the first corporation
to snub its nose cynically at its work force
or its community and it’s a safe bet that it
won’t be. the last, particularly if the
Reagan-Mulroney tryst signed on Jan. 2
comes into effect. Firestone will be one
drop in a tidal wave of corporate ration-
alization in which social responsibility
will be determined only in terms of the
balance sheet.

The Firestone closure has some hard
lessons for Canadians, particularly
workers.

First, the “trickle down” theory
doesn’t work.

This line, peddled by Mulroney, that
the private sector is the engine of growth
creating jobs, jobs, jobs has been used to
justify the billions handed out every year
to the corporate sector, while taxpayers
sink ever more collectively into debt and
social services are cut to ribbons.

The corporate sector, especially trans-
national corporations like Firestone,

Labor in
action

cannot be counted on to develop an
industrial strategy for Canada. Given the
lessons of Black Monday, it is clear that
they have trouble handling even their
own affairs, much less those of the pub-
lic.

Secondly, Canadians must begin to
demand stricter controls over the activi-
ties of the transnationals in Canada.
Labour cannot restrict its fight to better
severance arrangements, important as
these are.

That means rejecting the “jerking
around” which both the workers and the
community of Hamilton have been sub-
jected to in the idle speculation over this
or that anonymous buyer possibly being
interested in buying all or part of the
Firestone operation. All of this cynical
conjecture was intended to head off any
meaningful campaign to keep the plant
open, while softening up the Firestone
workers on the need to make conces-
sions.

The workers have sweated enough
profit and the community has given
enough handouts over the years to justify
nationalizing Firestone several times
over. Is it too much, then, to ask the
provincial government to enact plant
closure legislation which would prohibit
the shutdown of Firestone?

Third, the lessons of Firestone for the
post-free trade era are painfully obvious.
Experts in Nova Scotia, which developed
a unique union-proof labour bill, predict
that the prize for all their effort,
Michelin, will pack up its Canadian
rubber and vinyl operations if a free
trade agreement goes into effect.

Workers from across Canada have yet
to make their voices heard in sufficient
numbers and volume to prevent the trea-
cherous Mulroney trade deal and the
repetition of the Firestone closure a
hundred times over.

Among the biggest obstacles to the
mobilization of the labour movement, it
would appear, is the understandable
preoccupation of workers with everyday
struggles on the job, the attack on their
living standards, health and safety and
union and social rights. That means
those of us who play a leadership role in
the trade union movement have a special _
responsibility to assist in finding the links
between the free trade fight and the more
immediate issues in workers’ minds
— not the least of which is the loss of
jobs.

A policy paper currently being circu-
lated by the Steelworkers is an instructive
contribution is this regard which can
help stimulate the fightback. The resolu-
tion at the Ontario Federation of Labour
which called for, among other things,
action to occupy plants to block free
trade closures, can also play an impor-
tant role.

Finally, the labour movement can get
wholeheartedly behind the activities of
the Pro-Canada Network and similar
coalitions which are working overtime to
halt the free trade deal.

Labour Briefs

Strike ends in
paper's closing

Thomson Newspapers has shut
down the 108-year old Kamloops
Sentinel rather than meet the
union’s demand for above-pov-
erty level wages. The Sentinel,
published three times a week and
distributed free through advertis-
ing, closed last month.

About 40 mailroom employees,
members of Local 226 of the
Communications Workers of
America, had struck for a wage
increase on the hourly average of
$4. The company had also
refused to negotiate health and
welfare or pension benefits.

However, elsewhere in the
media, the union has finally got
into the anti-labour Winnipeg
Sun, owned by Quebecor Inc. of
Montreal. Thirty-four editorial
employees who voted to join the
Media Union of Manitoba have
their first contract.

Attendants ready
for pension fight

Air Canada’s flight attendants
are determined to follow in the
footsteps of the company’s ground
workers and win inflation protec-
tion for pensioners.

The airline division of the
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees is building up its war
chest and has announced that
strike pay will be raised from $50
to $225 a week in preparation for

what is expected to be a difficult
battle.

The union’s 3,200 members
lack the clout of the International
Association of Machinists which,
because it represents aircraft
mechanics and other skilled
trades, was able to shut the airline
down when members were locked
out for three weeks just before
Christmas. Air Canada’s flight
attendants struck for seven weeks
in 1985 but the company kept
planes flying by using strike-
breakers.

Both CUPE and the Canadian
Auto Workers, which represents
the airline’s ticket agents, sup-
ported: IAM during its lockout,

hoping the union would set a

precedent with Air Canada for
pension protection.

The flight attendants’ contract
expired in August but the union
refused to negotiate until a set-
tlement was reached with the
ground workers. CA W says pen-
sion indexing will also dominate
its talks with the company, sche-
duled to begin late in the spring.

IAM ratified its agreement last
week. The three-year pact gives
partial indexing of pensions for
current and future retirees and
annual wage increases of four,
four and 4.5 per cent. The deal,
which had been tabled with no
recommendation from the bar-
gaining committee, was approved
by 81 per cent.

65 cents an hour
a free trade job

While Prime Minister Brain
Mulroney concedes the free trade
deal with the U.S. will bring some
dislocation, he promises that in
the long run more Canadians will
be working. -

It is worth questioning the kind
of jobs the PM envisions — and
Washington’s other free trade
partner, Mexico, provides an
insight.

A free trade strip has existed
along the Mexican-American
border since 1960 and several big
U.S. corporations have estab-
lished plants there: RCA, Gen-
eral Motors, General Electric and

others. In all, 1,000 plants are in
the zone, employing 300,000
Mexican workers. Approximately
50,000 new jobs are created each
year and economic forecasters see
over one million Mexicans work-
ing there by the turn of the cen-
tury.

The U.S. is also proving to bea
good market for Mexican-pro-
duced goods, so good that Mex-
ico is quickly moving to top spot
as the leading exporter of manu-
factured goods to the U.S: —
from less than two per cent in
1969 to over 40 per cent today.

However, the blossoming of ©

U.S. plants south of the Rio
Grande doesn’t represent an
expansion in manufacturing but
rather a shift in production from
the U.S. to Mexico. This has
caused some dislocation (read
unemployment) for American
workers. General Motors now
has 27 plants in Mexico while in
the U.S., many have ben boarded
up.

Some may ask why corpora-
tions take the trouble of setting
up in Mexico when the U.S. sun
belt can provide ample unorgan-
ized labour. The answer is that
Mexico can even underbid Mis-
sissippi’s wage levels. At 65 cents
an hour, super-exploited Mexi-
can labour can fulfill Reagan’s
dream of a continental common
market.

And 65 cents an hour may be
how Mulroney plans to fulfil his
election promise of jobs, jobs,
jobs.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 20, 1988

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