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