CPR pay rightful taxes

_WINNIPEG — The new Win-
ipeg Council has supported a
esolution by Labor Election
ommittee councillor Joe Zuken
alling upon the CPR to pay
ll taxation on its Winnipeg
roperties.

The resolution, seconded by
NDP councillor Laurie Cherniak
d given an overwhelming 36
0 five endorsation by Council,
alls upon the provincial gov-
mmment at the next session of
he legislature to amend the ex-
Sting agreement with the CPR
Ind make it liable for full tax-
tion and assessment by Jan. 1,
973.
; Since 1881 the CPR has evad-
paying full taxes on its pro-
rties and instead paid a grant
lieu of taxes. In the period
04 to 1965 the CPR paid
50,000 annually on properties
sessed at $9 million. The actu-
value of its properties is
Nuch higher.

In 1965, under pressure from
ate taxpayers who were fed up
With subsidizing the multi-
Million dollar company, the
Ory government of Duff Rob-
, N renegotiated the agreement
Which stipulated that the CPR
ould pay taxes on 50% of the
Ssessed value of its properties
ind would eventually pay full
xes in the year 2004.

sf" °

,_ this favored treatment of the
R_ was quickly. exposed by
€ Labor Election Committee
a policy of continued public
bsidization. When Duff Rob-
n abandoned the provincial
litical scene and attempted
d failed to grab. the leader-
iP Of the federal Tories, he
“yentually found a cushy job
ith CP Investments, the CPR’s
vestment arm. The CPR is
ast master at manipulating gov-
nments to get pay-outs from
€ public purse to finance its
a projects and inflate pro-

ye 1969 the consolidated in-
i ¢ of the CP Investments
a8 approximately $39 million
which it paid a little more

an $1.5 million in taxes, indi-
foe that Roblin was still get-
8 the CPR a pretty fair tax
f-"Cession in his new job. In
ra the CPR received in sub-
idies from the federal govern-
onent about $25 million or ap-
oximately one-half of what it
eft S in taxes to all levels of

Resentment in Winnipeg
st the arrogant actions of

Dtudents protest

B ONDON—The recent British
ee: national day of demon-
4. 10n against Education Min-
die <' Mrs. Thatcher’s attack on

eit unions involved 400,000
rat dents,

0) gMaking the headlines here was
i walkout of 16 pupils when
ety Mrs. Thatcher appeared

“| dedicate the new luxurious

ral (2 million private American

m@"00l — attended by the sons

roP d daughters of American bus- -

_*ssmen and diplomats. The
rof™Onstrators. said they were
jeOtesting against the disparity

ween “the Juxury of our

bUNOol and the poverty of British
i Ools.”

it Y ne headmaster has suspend-
tie’ 16 indefinitely.

Alderman Zuken

the CPR is mounting. One of the
latest incidents involved home-
owners on Selkirk Avenue in
the city’s working-class North
End. The City designated Sel-
kirk Ave. a truck route to serve
the CPR piggy-back terminal at
Selkirk and Keewatin. The huge
trucks were breaking up the
street, cracking basement foun-
dations and endangering the
children. The street is only 24
feet wide and trucks were
mounting the curbs when mak-
ing turns.

For six years the residents
battled the CPR and were given
the run-around between city,
provincial. and CPR authorities.
Finally, on the advice and with
the support of Councillor Zuken,
the residents blocked the streets
with well-organized picket lines.
Men, women and children, some
in baby carriages, stopped the
semi-trailers and created a huge
traffic snarl-up. Finally City
Council got. the message, but
not before city and CPR police
attempted to intimidate the de-
monstrators with a show of
force, including driving up a
paddy-wagon and attempting to
drive motorcycles through the
picketers.

The Selkirk residents stood
their ground and showed up in
force to a packed meeting of
the Winnipeg traffic commission
and later to a large meeting of
City Council. So determined and
well-organized was their pre-
sentation; which by this time
had the backing of other groups,
that the City Council over-
whelmingly voted to re-route
traffic off the Selkirk Ave. route.
Evidence presented at City
Council showed that the CPR
had a private access road to its
piggy-back facility and that it
did not need to use Selkirk Ave.
This prompted some observers
to point out that the CPR may
have other aims including a road
built at public expense over its
own property.

The fight with the CPR to
pay full taxes is continuing
with the distribution of a peti-
tion by the Labor Election Com-
mittee to be presented to the
Manitoba Legislature in March.

In the meantime, another is-
sue involving the CPR is brew-
ing over the relocation: of its
sprawling marshalling yards.
While the CPR takes its sweet

time to make known its inten-_

tions, construction of important
bridge connections are held up.

In the months ahead, popular
criticism ‘of the CPR and de-
mands to bring this arrogant
corporation under public con-
trol is bound to mount. —D.C.

Vinnipeg battles to make FVy.7,) ayes:

by Bruce Magnuson

Judging on the basis of late
1971, it is certain that the class
war will intensify as we enter
into more active bargaining in

1972. The American ‘wage
freeze, plus top labor leaders’
accommodation to it, has kept
labor south of the border on the
defensive. Wages seem to be
the only target which the big
corporations and the Nixon ad-
ministration are aiming to bring
down. Everything else is being
pushed upward, including pro-
ductivity, prices, profits and un-
employment.

There is little use kidding
ourselves here in Canada about
the terrible consequences that
will flow from this policy. Que-
bec labor leaders were right on
when they charged recently
that international corporations
operating out of the United
States have grown so powerful
that they now dictate policy to
our own elected representatives.
This is proved by the hundreds
of millions in direct grants and.
tax concessions to create jobs,
to modernize and build new
foreign-owned industries, while
actually new jobs created are
offset several times over by lay-
offs from existing industries.

The drive for productivity by
means of speed-up, automation
and the newest technology is
undertaken by the bosses at the
workers’ expense. That is why
they cannot tolerate in-plant
union activities, shorter hours
and more workers on the job.

-What they demand is longer

hours, more overtime when
needed, less pay and preferably,

-no union. While this shameless

exploitation is undertaken for
the sole purpose of monopoly
profits, it is covered up by a
sham patriotism advanced under
the slogan of “beating foreign
competition.” More often than
not, it is a matter of American
capitalists with investments in
Germany, Japan, Canada and
elsewhere simply competing
against themselves.
ag w *

However, the U.S. bosses
would never get away with
what they are doing at home in
the U.S., Germany, Japan, Can-
ada and elsewhere without col-
laborators and native quislings
who stand to gain in one way
or another from such collabora-
tion. That is precisely the
reason why the struggle for in-
dependence from domination by
imperialism is at once both a
national democratic and a class
conflict. In other words, genuine
Canadian independence can only
be won by the defeat of native
as well as foreign monopoly
control. By the same token, only
the working class is capable of

‘heading up the struggle for

genuine national independence.

To free Canada from U.S. im-
perialist domination, the rule of
monopoly capital must suffer
political defeat in Canada. The
main job now is to win the
trade unions and the broad
spectrum of the working class
for that aim. At the same time
we must link up the struggle for
real Canadian independence
with the demand for a fully
autonomous and united trade
union movement based on class
struggle policies.

The trade unions must find
the ways to cope with technolo-
gical change as it concerns con-
ditions of work and jobs. For
this it is necessary to demand
that the scope of collective bar-
gaining be extended to areas

Class struggle policies
alone assure victory

jhitherto considered the sole pre-
rogative of management.

It will also be necessary to
demand a four-day 32-hour
work-week with no cut in pay.
These issues are both subject to
collective bargaining and eco-
nomic action. But they also re-
quire political action on a mass
scale to force governments to
legislate along these lines, legis-
lation in the same general
direction but much stronger and
more effective than the federal
labor bill presented last June
and which will no doubt be re-
introduced this year. The big job
will be to win such legislation
at provincial as well as federal
levels. Opposition to such legis-
lation has not been slow in
‘forthcoming from spokesmen
for big business and their poli-
tical friends. Ontario’s Labor
‘Minister Gordon «Carton has
made it clear that he has no in-
tention of adopting legislation
giving unions even a qualified
right to bargain on and strike
over technological change intro-
duced during:the life-of a col-:
lective agreement. At the same
time Mr. Carton states catego-
rically that there will be no in-
crease in the current Ontario
minimum wage of $1.65 per
hour. The Ontario labor minis-
ter is also strongiy against any
law that would prohibit or in-
terfere with those who offer
strike-breaking services.

fre oh A.
7 ue “

There ought not now be the
slightest doubt about the anti-
labor and anti-popular nature of
monopoly capital and its selfish
and unpatriotic aims. Nor ought
there to be any room for illu-
sions about the serious conse-
quences resulting from accom-
modation by leaders of labor to
the policies and aims of mono-
poly capital. _

The accommodation of U.S.
labor leaders to President
Nixon’s wage freeze policies in-
cluding the participation of
UAW President Leonard Wood-
cock and Machinists President
Smith as members of President
Nixon’s Pay Board, has not pre-
vented that body from disallow-
ing pay increases negotiated by
these two unions with six aero-
space firms employing 114,000
members in the USA. These
contracts were negotiated with
the active support of Canadian
aircraft workers who struck for

‘Toronto unions

apres

Acting on the call of the
Canadian Labor Congress for
full employment as the theme of
this year’s citizenship month,
the Labor Council of Metropoli-
‘tan Toronto, at its meeting of
Jan. 6, called with one dissent-
ing vote on the federal govern-
ment to accept the responsibil-
ity to provide every Canadian
willing and able to work with
the guarantee of a job com-
mensurate with ability and
training, and at reasonable and
fair wages.

The Labor Council also called ~

on the federal government to
immediately begin planning the
long and short-term  develop-
ment of the Canadian economy
so that this principle can be
implemented... ~ .

two months before the Irterna-
tional Union forced them back
to work on company terms. In
fact the action of the Interna-
tional Union in this case has
opened the door for an anti-
union offensive that now
threatens to undermine and de-
stroy the UAW as an effective
force in two Canadian aircraft
piants. This includes severe re-
strictions on activities of union
representatives in the plants.

In the case of DeHavilland
Aircraft of Canada Ltd., work-
ers who want to maintain cover-
age for hospital, medical, drug,
life insurance and indemnity
plans hitherto paid for by the
company, now are asked to sign
an authorization by January 16
to permit the company to de-
duct the cost of the premiums
from the workers’ pay. This will
range anywhere $36 to $61 per
month.

The company has also stop-
ped deducting union fees and
cut off a 5-cent-per-hour contri-
bution toward a suplementary
unemployment benefit plan. in
addition to the above mentioned
restrictions on uriion activities
in the plant.

Negotiations at DeHavilland
have been under way for several
months without any settlement
in sight.

tk Bs tk

What is clear from all this is
the fact that close to a million
postmen, public service, steel,
mining, railway, construction
and other workers negotiating
new contracts this year are go-
ing to face the stiff resistance
of monopoly. Efforts are bound
to be made to increase the pres-
sure for some incomes policy
similar to that of the U.S. which
must be- resisted by every
means.

Only if buying power is in-
creased and the benefit of in-
creased productivity is redistri-
buted in a way so as to increase
standards of living, will it be

possible for the economy to ex- .

pand to higher levels, providing
jobs for an expanding labor
force.

This, along with a curb on
monopoly power and expanded
public ownership under demo-
cratic control is the way to
abolish unemployment and pov-
erty.

It goes without saying that
class struggle policies are the
only way by which labor can
hope to win concessions along
the above lines and for more
autonomy and unity in 1972.
Efforts to avoid struggle by
means of class collaborationist

policies and accommodation to —

monopoly will only mean sure
defeat.

“YOU'RE PUSHING ME UP!”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1972—PAGE 5

.

sae TE CT RR aaaacmnaaanes

ee

:
)
:
:

yp ene RT TS I

conn

——