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No American rules for Canadians
Windsor auto workers demonstrated last year following announcement
of massive layoffs in the industry. This same kind of action is necessary

to combat the recently announced U.S. imposed wage cuts.

Canadian workers. ~

WINDSOR — The harsh wage cuts imposed upon
Canadian Chrysler workers by the U.S. Loan Board
have been condemned by the Windsor region of the
Communist Party of Canada as direct interference in the
Canadian collective bargaining process. Asa result, over
$60-million. in wages and benefits will be lost to the
Canadian, and primarily the Windsor economy over the
next 22 months. The U.S. Government has also ordered
a $400-million reduction in Canadian investment. In
spite of these sacrifices there are no job guarantees for

Ina statement issued Jan. 16 by Mike Longmoore, its
Windsor Region industrial organizer, the Communist

Ottawa must guarantee Chrysler jobs

Party of Canada demanded action by the Canadian
Government ‘‘to guarantee the jobs and incomes of
Canadian Chrysler employees. The Canadian Govern-
ment must now nationalize the Canadian assets of
Chrysler and negotiate marketing and production
agreements from a position of strength.”

The Communist Party calls for a separate vote by
Canadian workers on the proposed agreement.

It calls upon Canadian workers to reject the agreement
and begin the fight to put pressure on the federal and
Ontario governments to take action in the interest of
Windsor and Canadian workers.

CANADIANS CAN TACKLE AUTO CRISIS

ses over made-in-U.S. wage cut

By MIKE LONGMOORE

WINDSOR — Chrysler Canada workers are get-
ting angrier by the minute over the U.S. Govern-
ment imposed wage-cut they're being asked to
swallow. They’re also equally impatient with the
total surrender of the U.S. United Auto Workers
leadership to the company’s blackmail using the
workers’ jobs as hostages.

With a recently leaked confidential economic
report to Ontario treasurer Frank Miller, indicating
the probable loss of 20,000 more auto jobs and the
strong likelihood Chrysler will go under, more and
more workers are turning to a made-in-Canada,
working class solution to the auto crisis.

For years a publicly-owned Canadian auto in-
dustry, producing a Canadian car has been dis-
cussed by Canadian auto workers, and with each
‘final’ crisis the number three auto company tries
to pass onto the workers, Chrysler looks more and
more like the right candidate for a public take-over.

Nationalization of Chrysler as the basis of a
Canadian auto industry producing an all-Canadian
car for the domestic market has long been a de-
mand of the Communist Party of Canada and its
Windsor regional committee.

On Jan. 19, the U.S. Government announced its
approval of another $400-million in loan guarantees
to bail out the sinking ship at the public’s expense.
However, one condition for the loan guarantee was
that Ottawa continue its support for a $200-million
loan guarantee.

This was placed in doubt last week by federal
Industry Minister Herb Gray, who represents one
of the Windsor ridings in the House. He told
Chrysler the government isn’t required to back the
corporation for the $200-million if Chrysler doesn’t
go ahead with its original promise to spend $1-bil-
lion in Canada by 1985.

Chrysler Canada announced Jan. 19 it will roll
back its investment plans in this country to $600-
million. The $400-million cutback in Canadian
investment would phase out van production at the
new van plant in Windsor and see the car plant
converted to van production.

This would place the futures of both the van
plant and the spring plant, after 1982, in doubt
along with 4,000 jobs.

Adding insult to injury, the U.S. Government is
calling for greater concessions from Canadian
workers than from Chrysler workers in the U.S.
Canadian workers, if the new contract is ratified,
will lose 16 more personal paid holidays (PPHs)
than American workers. Canadians would also
lose their cost-of-living allowance, pension pay-
ments by the corporation would be deferred and
then, pension benefits would be frozen.

Not surprisingly, there is a lot of opposition to

- the proposed sell-out inside the plant, with a very

strong possibility the rank and file Chrysler work-
ers will vote ‘‘no"’ to the ratification which is ex-
pected to take place early this week.

A significant number of local UAW leaders, in-
cluding most in-plant chairmen have indicated they
are not prepared to recommend the package to the
membership.

Because of the international agreement between

: Chrysler and the UAW a ‘“‘no”’ vote by Canadian

workers wouldn’t necessarily reject the package if
the American workers voted to accept it.

In view of this some workers are saying that the
Canadian workers should be able to vote sepa-
rately on the proposal on the grounds that the U.S.
Government shouldn't be allowed to dictate a wage
cut for Canadian workers.

The resistance among Windsor workers to the
package is significant in view of the fact that the
Windsor Star has mounted a noisy campaign por-
traying the current situation as “vote yes or lose
your jobs’’.

The Star has effectively blocked out the fact that
the federal Liberal cabinet has considered
nationalization of Chrysler's assets, and that
Canadian Labor Congress president Dennis
McDermott has also called for nationalization of
Chrysler as a last resort.

Even the Toronto Star, one of the big-businesses
loudest mouthpieces, ina Jan. 17 editorial respond- .
ing to the confidential Ontario cabinet report on the
auto industry, called for a parliamentary inquiry
into the industry. Such an inquiry, the Star said,
should be mandated to ‘‘examine the potential for
the self-contained production of a Canadian car for
the Canadian market.”

Struggle — key to real worklife quality

For close to a decade a debate
has raged throughout the Cana-

* dian trade union movement onthe

Issue of tripartism. ;

Tripartism, boiled down to its
essence, means joint union,
Management, government col-
laboration to work out solutions

earing on the whole set of.rela-
tions between corporations and
workers.

In the name of “‘ironing out the
kinks’? or ‘‘smoothing out the
bumps”’ in the relations between
workers and their bosses, tripar-
tism sets as its objective the con-
Cealing of. antagonistic class
Struggle relationships tetween
workers and capitalists.

_ It is based on the false assump-
tion that there are no basic con-
tradictions between the interests
of workers and capitalists, only
Subjective differences which can
be worked out in discussions be-
tween workers, companies and
governments.

But of course there are no such
illusions on the part of big
corporations, or top echelons in
government ofi this score. They
know full well where their inter-
ests lie. Tripartism, for them, ‘is
another part of their total scheme

to prevent workers from uniting
as a class to restrict and eventu-
ally replace monopoly control

‘over society with control by

working people and their demo-
cratic allies.

- All questions addressed by tri-
partite bodies are quite legitimate
areas of concern for workers.
Moreover some apparent (more
apparent than real) gains may be
registered by such an operation.
This is essential if such bodies are
to gain any credibility in the eyes

of workers. It is much like playing -

roulette at Monte Carlo or slot
machines in Las Vegas. The odd
sucker hits the jack-pot in order to
induce others to play. In the end
however the odds are loaded in
favor of the companies.

The most current form of tri-
partism enjoying credibility at top

‘levels in the Canadian labor

movement, is Quality of Working
Life, (QWL) programs, spon-
sored in Ontario by the provincial
government and formalized in
many unions including Auto, Re-
tail-Wholesale and others, in ac-
tual union contracts.

Last week the Toronto Globe
and Mail’s labor columnist Wilf
List eulogized: the present

QWE program under wayin Ford.

According to Mr. List, the pro-
ject so far is a qualified success.
Management and workers are
doving and cooing their way to-
ward turning the workplace into a
real chummy cooperative collec-

5] LABOR
SCENE

William
i Stewart

Leaving aside Mr. List’s inter-
pretation of what is really taking
place inside Ford Oakville, one
may well ask whether or not
Ford’s quality of working life pro-
gram includes ending the merci-
less speed-up of the assembly
lines, compulsory overtime, mass
layoffs, plant, closures?

Conditions in auto plants,
primarily in the U.S., steadily
deteriorated as Walter Reuther
made a practice of trading off
working conditions for monetary
gains. This was the basis of the
so-called prosperity of auto
workers. It was based on the most
relentless speed-up and exploita-

tion of the work force. Thus the
present conditions in auto were,
in fact negotiated by the auto
union.

Canadian auto workers fought
against this process much more
militantly and often struck against
agreements concluded in the U.S.
because of working condition
provisions such as line breaks,
etc. However, over time most of
the conditions were shipped ac-
ross the border. The. Canadian
UAW leadership, under Dennis
McDermott, sided with elements
prepared to trade off working
conditions for labor peace rather
than promote struggle policies.
This so-called labor peace was
bought at the expense of the’ real
quality of life of the workers.

Workers in the Canadian UAW
have been demanding these

‘conditions be made a major issue

in collective bargaining and
an end to the para-military inten-
sified speed-up system in the auto
industry, not least of all at Ford.

This is the proper path to re-
solve the problems of quality of
life inside the auto plants. This
places the matter where it be-
longs, on the bargaining table, not

on the cookie and tea tray where
the union will find itself sucked
into collaboration with a
management which has nothing in
mind other than stepping up the
rate of exploitation of its work
force.

Workers will get from Ford, or
GM or Chrysler, precisely what
their strength and unity is able to
win from them. Fancy gift-
wrapped packages with company
and government labels, are in fact
concealed time bombs designed
to blow up in the workers’ faces
when the company and govern-
ments decide.

At this time when the auto
industry is in a crisis of its own
making and is trying to pass the
cost of it along to the public and its
own workers, unity and struggle
need to be the watchword, not
collaboration. Such unity and
struggle can only emerge around
an independent program by the
Canadian UAW for a revitalized
auto industry providing jobs for
auto workers and stimulation for
the entire Canadian economy.
This, not simply reactions to the
ever deepening crisis of the U.S.
multi-national auto industry, is
the way forward.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 30, 1981—Page 5