To give it real meaning

CANADA DAY 1977

The following is a statement of
the Central Executive Committee
of the Communist Party of
Canada.

Recently the Trudeau Gov-
€mment decided to spend three
and a half million dollars for the
Purpose of celebrating Canada
Day, this July First. This will in-
Clude‘a firecracker display, TV
Program and so on. Canada Day
however is too important to be
tumed into a three ringed circus in
which the Government will wrap
Itself around the flag of “‘national
unity’’, while ignoring the ingre-
dients that can make ‘‘national
Unity” more than a mere slogan.

What are these ingredients?

First, the national rights of the
French Canadian people must be
constitutionally guaranteed in a
Made-in-Canada Constitution

ed on an equal voluntary
Partnership of the two nations in a
bi-national state.

Second, policies of full em-
Ployment and rising standards
Must be implemented, including a
_ Teal redistribution of national in-
Come in favor of the working
People, so as to put an end to pov-
erty and indignity. As steps in that
direction the wage controls must
be ended and real controls im-
Posed on prices and profits.

_ Third, policies must be adopted
to put an end to racism, to dis-
Crimination against minorities and
to elements of national oppres-

sion of the Native Peoples. To
this end a Bill of Rights must be
embedded in a new constitution
which guarantees equal rights to
all Canadians and the specific
rights of the Native Peoples.

Fourth, policies must be im-
plemented to end U.S. domina-
tion over the Canadian economy
through measures of public
ownership of natural resources
and energy.

Fifth, policies should be
worked for: which will make
Canada a force for peace and sec-
urity ona world-wide scale, based
on policies of détente, an end to
the arms drive and withdrawal
from NATO and NORAD.

It is such measures which will
give real meaning to Canada Day,
and evoke an enthusiastic re-
sponse among the majority of
Canadians.

Never look a gift —

horse in the mouth

Labor Minister John Munro
has announced the federal
80vernment will introduce legisla-
tion to strengthen the rights of
non-union workers. More than 10
_ amendments to the Canadian
Labor Code will be placed before
Parliament this fall. Here are
Some highlights: ;

— Three weeks paid vacation in-
Stead of two weeks after six years
of service.

— Up to three days paid be-
reavement leave in the event of
ath in the immediate family.
— Protection against dismissal of
employees absent from work for
Up.to 12 weeks due to sickness or

injury,

Prevention of dismissal of pre-
Snant employees with less than 12
Months’ service as now permitted
Under the Labor Code.

— Employers must obtain
Ministerial permits in order for
them to ‘‘average’’ hours of work
M certain situations involving
Maximum hours and overtime.

r. Munro said existing formula
has ‘unfortunately been mis-
Used.”

Hopes Provinces Follow

Mr. Munro is reported to have
Said in an interview that some
250,000 employees under federal
Jurisdiction will be directly af-
fected by the proposed Labor
Code changes.

The Minister is also reported as
Saying: ‘‘I see some provinces
talking about initiatives such as
these’’. The minister hoped the
Provinces will follow the govern-

ment’s lead and institute similar
changes in provincial legislation.

This last point is important,
since employees in the private
monopoly sector come under
provincial and not federal jurisdic-
tion. They will inevitably resist
any and all extension of workers’
rights. Mr. Munro mentions one
such area — the right to refuse to
do work under unsafe conditions
— as “‘undeniably controversial
because some employers have
exhibited a knee-jerk reaction

- against them’’.

Employers of labor in our pri-
vate profit system exhibit much
more than a knee-jerk reaction to
expansion of even the most
elementary rights of workers. As
every worker knows, every ad-
vance made is the product of an
unending struggle, including the

right to organize and practice col-

lective bargaining. .
Employer Paternalism

Any paternalism or benevo-
lence shown by employers — pri-
vate as well as governments in the
case of public employees — is to
prevent organization of unions,
since the employers prefer to deal
with their workers one at a time.
When this is no longer possible,
every effort is made to weaken
the workers’ organizations.

The greatest attack on working
people today is depriving them of
the right to work, and blaming
workers — organized labor in the
first place —as being the cause of
inflation. Fighting inflation on the
backs of the working people has

scuttled free collective bargaining
and is threatening the workers’
right to strike. A clear example of
this is the recent outlawing by the
B.C. Labor Relations Board of
strikes against wage rollbacks by
the federal Anti-Inflation Board.

While welcoming every move
in the direction expanding work-
ers’ rights by legislation, the only
reliable protection for the work-
ing people’s most elementary
rights remains an independent,
sovereign and united trade union
movement.

Working Class Action

Only such a movement and its
relentless struggles for the
genuine interests of the workers,
as a class for itself battling against
capitalist exploitation, can be
fully relied upon to protect the in-
terests of all workers — organized
as well as unorganized.

The urgency of such an ap-
proach at this point in time is
exemplified by the following.

While Labor Minister Munro
promised legislative protection
for unorganized workers, his
cabinet colleague, Manpower
Minister J.S.G. Cullen confirmed
that his department has prepared
estimates that show rising jobless
rates for the next two years.

But Mr. Cullen told the House
of Commons that no federal action
to deal with rismg unemployment
was planned, and that his depart-
ment will not make it a practice to
reveal such estimates in the future.

Enough said about worker pro-
tection from that quarter!

65 MORE WORKERS
CHOPPED IN N.B.

BUCTOUCHE — Sixty-five
more workers were added to New
Brunswick’s unemployed rolls last
week as Kent Homes Ltd. here laid
them off.

New Brunswick has the second
highest unemployment rate in the
Maritimes officially, at 15.1% as of
Feb. ’77. Newfoundland is the
highest in Canada at 17.4% of-
ficially. The real figures gre of
course about twice as high as the
government’s.

YRANSIT WORKERS
VOTE TO STRIKE

CAMBRIDGE — Five months
without a contract, city transit
workers, members of local 107
Amalgamated Transit Workers
Union voted last’ week to strike
June 27 if a new pact hasn’t been
agreed to by that date.

PULP UNIONS JOIN
FOR NEW PACT

VANCOUVER — Negotiators
for both the Canadian Paperwork-
ers Union and the Pulp, Paper and
Woodworkers of Canada sat to-
gether for the first time as part ofa
joint bargaining committee, across
the table from the bosses in the
B.C. pulp and paper industry.

The united pulp workers are
demanding a 30% across-the-
board wage hike, a 12 cent hourly
COLA from the current pact, and
improvement of the COLA by one
cent an hour for every .25 rise in
the Vancouver cost of living index.
Improvements on vacations are
also part of the united demands.

OPERATORS’ PACT
SIGNED AT BELL

MONTREAL — Workers
began trickling back to their jobs
at Bell Canada here, following the
signing last week of a new two-
year contract covering 8,500
operators across Quebec and On-
tario. Operators in Montreal and
other centres have continued
their strikes since the announce-
ment four weeks ago by the
Communications Union of

Canada of a tentative pact with
Bell. About 70% of the Montreal
operators reported for the first
shift June 6, while 40% came in on
the mid day shift.

_ TROIS RIVIERES — The Canron Co., here, responding to local 6714

HARD FIGHT AHEAD
FOR TEACHERS

TORONTO — A tough fight is
shaping up for Metro’s high
schools teachers in current
negotiations, with the Board pro-
jecting a take away contract
promising the elimination of 642
teaching jobs over the two year
proposed agreement, and a star-
vation wage increase of 4.4% over
the term of the pact.

Teacher’s reaction to the board
offer tabled June 6 was for a sal-
ary increase to fecognize the dis-
parities in the high cost of living in
Metro Toronto, and which would
give them “‘a fair share of increase
in the real wealth created by the
‘Ontario economy.”’

BROADCAST UNIONS
WANT CBC MEETING

OTTAWA — The Canadian
Labor Congress-sponsored Coun-
cil of Broadcast Unions June 2, re-
quested a meeting with top man-
agement of the CBC to discuss the
way in which the CBC has been
eroding the unions’ bargaining
jurisdictions by making assign-
ments to non-union people.

The council met for the first time
May 24, and includes the Associa-
tion of Canadian Television and
Radio Artists (ACTRA), the
Canadian Union of Public
Employees (CUPE), and Canadian
Wire Service Guild, the National
Association of Broadcast Em-
ployees and _ Technicians
(NABET), and the Union des
Artistes.

INCO HIDING
SAFETY INFO
SUDBURY — Dave Patter-

son, president of local 6500 ~

Steelworkers at Inco, responded
June 6 to the company’s state-
ment that the union couldn’t find
any supporting evidence that
workers in the gold and silver ex-
traction area of the refinery were
dying of cancer and other re-
spiratory diseases.

Patterson said Inco had refused
to cooperate with the union in
finding such supportive informa-
tion and charged Inco was with-
holding information on possible
health hazards.

Steelworkers’ insistence on a new contract guaranteeing them decent
pensions on retirement, locked the workers out three months ago. The
Quebec Federation of Labor has called on the Quebec government, and
municipalities to boycott the company’s products and on construction

and municipal workers to refuse to handle Canron materials.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 17, 1977—Page 5

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