TORONTO — ‘‘The declaration by Inco that it will delay opening its opera- tions until April and that over 3,000 min- ts will lose their jobs, is a further body blow to Sudbury and its working People,’ the Communist Party of nada declared in a message to Prime ister Trudeau and Ontario Premier ViS On Oct. 20. _ Having amassed hundreds of mil- lions of dollars from the exploitation of ME miners, Inco now seems determined ‘0 turn Sudbury into a ghost town,”’ the Message says. ‘At this time of crisis,”’ it says, “when the Parliamentary political parties should _ Rot only express concern with the plight of the working people but also do some- hing about it, Liberals, Tories and some Night-wing New Democratic Party lead- fs are involved in a ‘life and death’ Stfuggle over who should speak on TV! a shameful ,exercise in futility! What political impotence!”’ The reference was to time allotted to Trudeau for his three addresses to the Country, and to time demanded by op- PoSition parites to respond. Copies of the Communist Party message went to Tory leader Joe Clark, NDP leader Ed Broad- Mt, several NDP Ontario MPPs, On- tario Liberal leader David Peterson, as Well as to Dave Patterson, president of District Six of the United Steelworkers, € union representing the Sudbury min- €ts, and to Local 6500 of the union in Sudbury. “While Canada as a whole is faced with a national emergency, Sudbury has Ome a disaster area,’’ says the mes- SRR COMMUNISTS PINPOINT SUDBURY to Coy sage, approved by the party’s central executive committee. : With this in mind the Communist Party of Canada proposes that the following measures be taken by the federal and Ontario governments: 1. Demand that Inco and Falcon- bridge go back to production immediate- ly and stockpile the nickel if necesary, until markets improve. These corpora- tions stockpile nickel in preparation for strikes and with the aim of breaking strikes. Why can’t they stockpile nickel now to save Sudbury and its people from disaster? 2. Demand there be no layoffs either Labor backs ‘Lou Grant’ The recent convention of the California State Federation of Labor passed a resolution calling on all affiliates of the 1.7 million member organization to protest the cancellation of the popular TV series ‘‘Lou Grant.”’ The resolution brought in by the Santa Clara County Central Labor Council accused the “‘most anti-union reactionary right-wing forces in corporate America’’ of forcing the cancelation of the pro- gram. Unions are asked to contact local TV stations demanding the network return the ‘‘Lou Grant”’ series. _ businesses, now or later. Inco and Falconbridge are using the crisis to modernize and get rid of thousands of workers, a process being followed in other industries also. These corporations must be stopped. Their new technologies must be used to improve workers’ living standards, not to throw them on the slag heap of unemployment. 3. The federal and Ontario govern- ments should declare that if these corpo- rations refuse to act along the above lines then Inco and Falconbridge will be nationalized. No corporation should be allowed to make arbitrary decisions that create ghost towns. 4. The export of capital to other coun- tries from Canada by Inco and Falcon- bridge must be stopped. ‘‘Ottawa and Ontario have the powers to act’’, the Communist message asserts. ‘‘Under peace, order and good govern- ment’’ they have the means to act. The question is: will they? Or will they con- tinue to place the profit interests of these corporations above the needs of the people and entire communities? It notes that Sudbury is not the only city faced with a disaster. There are many such ‘Sudburys’ throughout the country. Therefore: ‘*The two governments must be made to act, not for the corporations but for the people. The government and the banks found one-and-a-half billion dollars to save Dome. Let them find the will to save Sudbury and other ‘Sudburys’. An emergency program should include legis- lation against: evictions, repossessions, foreclosures, closing down of small and should extend un- TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS In 1978 when the first wave of layoffs began Inco workers took their case to the Ontario legislature. Four years later no action has been taken. A further 3,000 miners have received layoff notices turn- ing the city into a virtual ghost town. employment insurance payments for the entire duration of unemployment at 90% of earnings. “While doing all these things the government must also undertake, to- gether with the organized labor move- ment, the planning of economic development programs that will diversify industry in Sudbury and in other one-in- dustry towns and cities,’’ the Communist Party states. “‘These are some of the measures necessary to cope with this national dis- aster,’’ it says. — Our prime minister took to the airwaves for three Successive nights appealing to Canadians to pull together and overcome the economic crisis gripping Canada. Leaving aside his overall pitch, labor would do well to ask Mr. Trudeau, who’s pulling whose wagon? — At the last Canadian Labor Congress Convention the Main body of organized trade unionists in Canada put forward a 10-point program for jobs and security for all lada. This program has been updated and issued again by the CLC as part of its answer to wage controls } 8nd concessions. : Canadian Government has ignored this construc- tive Program of labor. ge Big business has also put forward its program. It is this Program which has the approval of the government and On which it is acting. : bor’s program calls for stimulating the economy ugh government spending in job creation areas, in- Ceased pensions and income protection measures. It Calls for public ownership and control of the banks, Public Ownership where necessary and control over the Tsource industry; a new industrial strategy to overcome Our one-sided dependence on the export of raw mate- Nals; cuts in low-income tax areas and increased taxes On the rich and on corporate wealth. It calls for govern- Ment controls over investment policies. Monopoly on the other side has called on the govern- Ments at all levels to cut back on public spending, mean- ing health, welfare, education, unemployment insur- , Pensions, etc. It has demanded that governments Provide the example in cutting wages. It has pushed for restrictions over the importation of foreign cap!- tal, and opposed any restrictions on the export of Cana- capital, It has asked for more and more government hand-outs to big corporations, on the one side, while Msisting that the government abandon any role in the Market place. It has demanded controls over wages and Testrictions of the collective bargaining rights of Workers, Want Bill C-124 Scrapped Clearly the government has come down on the side of the corporations. They have not agreed in substance Trudeau — repeal Bill ft .4| Laborin action y. =¥ | william Stewart with a single major proposal put forward by labor, but have lined themselves up in one degree or another with most of the propositions of big business. How, in the circumstances, can working people pull together with the government and business? We are being asked to pull ourselves apart, and to pull monopo- ly’s chestnuts out of the fire. Labor wants no part of such a scheme. Mr. Trudeau should be told by the entire labor move- ment that if he wants the working people to take him seriously and pull together to resolve the current crisis, he could begin by repealing Bill C-124 which cancels the collective bargaining rights of public employees and sen- tences them to a sharp decline in living standards. The repeal of Bill C-124 is the number one demand of organized labor in Canada, together with all provincial legislation of tHe"same nature. Labor has put forward a just atid equitable program to get Canada out of the crisis. It will co-operate with anyone to put such a program into place. It cannot be expected to co-operate in schemes designed to hurt the interests of its members, and the entire community. Workers were told to accept high interest rates be- cause they would offset inflation, which would in turn lower unemployment. We now have high interest rates, high inflation and mounting unemployment and we are told that all this is beyond our control and we can only resolve it by agreeing to more of the same. The very day after the PM asked us to pull together, the oil companies in Canada shoved up their prices by more than 25%. Postal rates are going up, hydro rates are going up, unemployment is going up, everything is going up but wages — they are coming down. Let’s all pull together? C-124! If the prime minister had any real message for working people it was the need for working people to pull together to defeat this savage attack on their wages, social stan- dards and very lives. In the front line of the battle now are longshoremen in B.C., locked out by their employers and threatened by legislation to cripple their bargaining rights. Teamsters in Ontario are striking against the Ontario wage guideline formula which business is trying to extend into the pri- vate sector. Chrysler workers, who face a strike deadline are trying to win back some of the concessions wrested from them in 1979. Workers need to throw their entire weight behind these three battles and every other struggle which emerges as monopoly and its governments try to force through their policies of wage controls and concessions. Every battle on every sector becomes the battle of the entire labor movement. While it has not been possible as yet to meet the challenge of monopoly on the broad front of a general strike by the trade unions, such a confrontation cannot be ruled out and labar as a whole should be taking step by step action at all levels to build up the muscle to chal- lenge its foes in whatever way is necessary to win its just demands. In Quebec all local unions are being circularized by the Common Front of the three labor centres representing 200,000 public workers in that province, asking for authorization to call a one-day general-strike sometime next month in support of their demands for wage in- creases and other benefits. They refuse to even recog- nize the Quebec Government’s wage control legislation. Such a one day general-strike could be a real shot in the arm for the fightback movement across the country. Coming as it does when most provincial federations of labor are meeting, it can set the stage for picking up where the Canadian Labor Congress convention left off. Repeal Bill C-124, and all similar provincial legisla- tion. Full support by the entire labor movement of any and all workers on strike or locked out in defence of their legitimate aims. This is the kind of pulling together needed — demanded — and blowing in the wind. 9 APE eA SETH RRR MET SE PORE ER NE cS PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 5, 1982—Page 7