More layoffs at Chrysler plant

Windsor jobs shift to U.S.

By MARGARET LONGMOORE
WINDSOR Windsor
Chrysler workers are losing more
jobs to the U.S. The company
confirmed rumors April 10 that
the six cylinder line will be trans-
ferred to Trenton, Michigan, and
that there would be a two-week
layoff. Company plans are to in-
crease the V-8 line and it expects
no decrease in manpower.
However at that evening’s city
council meeting, United Auto
Workers local 444 president
Frank LaSorda noted there were
no assurances that the increase in
V-8 production would absorb the
jobs lost in closing the six line,
particularly in view of the recent
U.S. government decision to ease
exhaust emission standards and
the growing trend by the U.S.
auto makers toward smaller cars.
With the upcoming closure of the
light truck plant, the dropping of
the six line, and the news that the
Detroit Jefferson plant is building
a van plant, Windsor workers are
becoming increasingly concerned
for the future of their jobs.
LaSorda charged that the com-
pany’s plans mean harm not only
to Chrysler workers but to the
community of Windsor as well.
He warned that if the elimination
of production of light trucks and
of the six line is allowed to occur,
that would leave Chrysler work-
ers only producing high cost cars
and vans, and that if there was a
decrease in demand there would
be even more layoffs.
Jobs Gone For Good
“Once these jobs are gone to
the States, there is no way of get-
ting them back’’, LaSorda said.
‘With 1.6 million Canadians out
of work the government can’t
allow this.”” ae
City Council unanimously pas-
sed a resolution calling for the im-
plementation of the intent of the
“Auto Pact ‘“‘to provide for the
concept of fair trade and invest-

ment on research and develop-
ment, and capital expenditures in
both countries, to provide for
auto industry workers based on
markets and sales in their respec-
tive countries.”

This resolution is to be circu-
lated to a number of city councils
across Ontario for endorsation
and to members of the federal and
the provincial governments in-
cluding Prime Minister Trudeau,
and Ontario premier Davis.

The council meeting was jam-
med with workers from the light
truck plant, and outside about 300
workers demonstrated before the
meeting. Placards read: ‘Stop
runaway plants!’’, ‘‘First INCO
now Chrysler’, and ‘‘Uncle
Sam’s auto pact’.

; Rug Pulled Out

Windsor mayor Bert Weeks
told the demonstrators that the
council has been working vigor-
ously to keep and build the auto
industry in the city but he said,
“there is no way that local
government can stop this.”

One auto worker pointed out
that finally after four years ““we
had the chance to work for a full
year and get a product going, and
now the rug is being pulled out
from under us.’’ Others charged
there had been other recent run-
aways and that workers are losing
their rights to organize in their
plants.

The demonstration was pre-
ceded by a union meeting April 9
when president LaSorda called
on workers and their wives to
form a lobbying committee. He
said that, ‘‘Hurley (Chrysler Co.,
president) says it’s a corporate
decision (to close the plant) and
that there is nothing we can do
about it.

“But if we all get together’’,
LaSorda pointed out, ‘““we can do
something.”

Watch Corporations —

The April 9 meeting endorsed a

Fleck situation grim
warning to labor — CP

TORONTO — The combined
provincial police — Davis
government — Fleck Manu-
facturing Co. management as-
sault on workers at the Fleck
plant in Centralia, Ontario, drew a
resolute response from the Cent-
ral Committee of the Communist
Party of Canada when it met
here, at the end of March.

“The combined assault by
management and the state, and in
particular, the Ontario Provincial
Police, against the workers of
Fleck Manufacturing of Cen-
tralia, is a grim warning to the
labor movement everywhere,”’
the political body said in a state-
ment issued for the press.

“It is made clear in this vicious
assault on a small group of auto
parts workers, the majority of
whom are women, who have or-
ganized themselves in a rural
community and are seeking their
first contract, that monopoly is
moving over from an attack on
wages and working conditions to
a union-busting drive which is a
threat to the very existence of the
trade union movement,”’ it
¢ :
“This drive,’ the Communist
Party stated, is abetted by the

strike-breaking role of the Ontario
Provincial Police and by the
anti-working class character of
Ontario labor laws which con-
done and encourage strike-
breaking.

‘“‘The Communist Party as-
sociates itself with the legitimate
and modest demands of the work-
ers of Fleck Mfg. :

‘“‘We demand that the Ontario
Government, one of whose de-
puty ministers is in real fact the
owner of this factory: :

1. Compel the company to
meet with the United Auto-
workers Union and settle this
strike on the basis of the legiti-
mate demands of the Union;

2. Withdraw the Ontario Pro-
vincial Police from the strike as
scab herders, which is the only
basis upon which this company
can continue to ignore the modest
demands of the union;

3. Withdraw charges against
pickets.

The Communist Party pledges
full support to the strikers, and
assistance in mobilizing the labor
movement behind the gallant
Fleck Mfg. Co. strikers to ensure
their full victory.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—April 22, 1978—Page 4

resolution to be presented when
the union meets with Industry and

Trade Minister Jack Horner April .

12 that calls on ‘‘the Canadian
government to monitor the ac-
tions of corporations, especially
multi-national corporations,
much more closely; compel strict
adherence to the terms of the auto
pact, and end the present policy
of concessions which corpora-
tions promptly exploit for their
own ends to the detriment of the

well being of their own
employees.”
LaSorda also charged the deci-

sion to transfer the light truck
plant to Detroit illustrates corpo-
rate disregard for the individual
employees in an effort to increase
profits. ;

UAW Local 44 workers during demonstration agains layoffs in March.
Recent company announcements indicate the layoff trend is to
continue. é

New president and policies for
emerge from CLC meet

fightback

QUEBEC — Delegates to-the
12th biennial Canadian Labor
Congress convention here April
3-7, emerged after one week of
heated but productive debate
with policies to confront the
deepening crisis attacking
peoples’ living conditions, and
with a new president for the 2.3
million member labor centre.

Dennis. McDermott, former
Canadian director of the United
Auto Workers union succeeded
retiring president Joe Morris, and
was elected unopposed. In his ac-
ceptance speech the president-
elect pledged to faithfully persue
the convention’s policies.

Concluding with a call for
world peace, McDermott called
on the delegates to recognize the
importance of international labor
dialogue in the face of the
multi-national corporations.

“The awesome power of the
multi-nationals must somehow be

encountered”’, he said, ‘‘the only -

effective answer to the multina-
tionals is for the trade unions of
the world to organize on a global
basis regardless of political,
ideological and other differences
because its the only way that
we're going to get at that awe-
some animal.”’

With the endorsation by the
delegates of the historic decision
regarding the recognition of the
bi-national character of Canada,
and the recognition of national
self determination rights of the
English-speaking and French
Canadian nations, the topic which
dominated the convention’s pro-
ceedings was the deepening
economic crisis, and labor’s
response.

Though in on the last day, the
convention endorsed an omnibus
resolution placing the CLC on re-
cord supporting public ownership
as an instrument of economic
planning and industrial strategy,
the CLC leadership came under
attack by many delegates for what
United Electrical workers union
president C.S. Jackson called
“burying the guts of the 528 re-
solutions’, submitted by local
unions prior to the convention, in
bland policy statements.

‘Failure Outlined

Jackson and other progressive
voices like Jean Claude Parrot,
president of the Canadian Union

of Postal Workers (CUPW) noted
the failure in the executive state-
ments of isolating the main enemy
— big business and the absence of

‘mobilizing the same kind of un-

ited, independent labor fightback
against the inflation and unem-
ployment crisis as witnessed in
the October 14 general strike
against wage controls.

The shock of the announce-
ment in INCO that it was extend-
ing its planned layoffs this sum-
mer from four to six weeks, is
beliéved to have heavily in-
fluenced the CLC to put its posi-
tion regarding public ownership
on record more clearly than any
other time in the past.

Prior to this convention deci-
sion, delegates had debated a Na-
tional Industrial Strategy, a
strategy for labor, and an
economic policy statement which
many affiliates felt didn’t go far
enough in attacking the problem
in the economy, domination by
foreign-owned, primarily U.S.
multi-nationals.

C.S. Jackson criticized the “‘vi-
tal omission’’ in the Industrial
Strategy which failed to deal with
the question of U.S corporate
domination of the Canadian
economy. ‘‘We can’t develop an
industrial strategy in this country
unless. we first solve the problem
of the control that is held by U.S.
corporations over the whole of
our manufacturing and our re-
source industries’, he said. No
Canadian secondary industry is
possible to develop fully, he said
unless U.S. corporate control of
the economy is eliminated.

CUPW Program
Central to the industrial
strategy debate was a-document
by CUPW entitled ‘‘A Program of
Action for the Labor Move-

ment’’,

Referred to in many delegates’
speeches, the action program cal-
led for an industrial strategy for
Canada based on ‘‘development
of secondary industry for export
and internal consumption, a ra-
tional plan for the processing of
raw materials in Canada, the ex-
tension of public services to meet
the needs of the people, the crea-
tion of publicly funded and con-
trolled research and development
projects, the nationalization of
key industrial sectors, particu-

larly the primary resource indus- ~

tries and financial institutions:

and bringing under Canadiat
ownership those industries now

owned by foreign interests.”

Other important resolutions
passed by the convention helpe®
spring the labor movement
forward. a

_ The delegates endorsed resolU-
tions calling for a $4.50 minimum

wage, and unanimously endorse¢
a CUPW resolution calling on the
CLC to demand the trans

formation of the Post Office into ae
crown corporation, Delegates
also endorsed a proposition that”

the CLC ‘‘spearhead a natio
campaign’”’ to achieve the goals 0
a 32-hour work week with no loss
in pay as a counter to unemploy-
ment.

C-28, Fishermen

The convention unanimously _

pledged support to the campaig®
to public service workers, lead by
the Public Service Alliance

- Canada to force the Liberal gov

union’s newspaper. —

ernment in Ottawa to withdraw
Bill C-28, designed to keep publi¢
service workers under wage coB
trols.

The resolution called on thé
CLC to organize special cai
paigns to defeat MP’s supporting
the Bill, and to organize whole
hearted support for mass actions
by any union involved in the
to defeat the bill.

Delegates also unanimously
endorsed a resolution calling £0"
the CLC to demand the droppifié.
of all charges against the seve?

members of the United Fishel

men and Allied Workers Unio?
facing jail sentences in their fight 3
to stop the Combines Investig”
tions Branch of the federal R&
strictive Trade Practices Com
mission from smashing the!
union. In addition, it called for th
granting of collective bargain

rights for all fishermen and for

CLC to mobilize the broadest
possible support for the UFAWU

‘in these struggles.

UFAWU president Jack
Nichol called on the CLC @
spearhead the national fightback
campaign and praised the suppot
shown by Local 1005 Uniti
Steelworkers in giving ¢t
UFAWU campaign full paé
treatment in Steel Shots the jocal

of