Share increase in
productivity with workers

HE CANADIAN farm imple-
ment industry is failing
to provide an adequate

Share of the benefits of in-
Mcreased production with its
Workers and customers, the
Canadian Labor Congress said
Ma submission to the Royal
Ommission of Farm Machinery.
The 1,500,000-member labor
&oup took sharp issue with the
Contention of the Massey-Fer-
son Company that wage par-
ily between farm implement
Workers in Canada and the
Nited States was impractical.
he CLC placed before the Com-
Mission figures which it said
Proved that the company could
€stablish parity of wage rates
and at the same time reduce the
Ost of implements to farmers.
Sence. of parity, the CLC
charged, simply gave Massey-
€rguson an unfair advantage
Over its competitors. Increase in
Productivity in the industry was
€scribed as “phenomenal”.

‘While the benefits of im-

Proved productivity have been
80 very substantial, virtually all
Of those benefits have been ap-

Propriated to themselves by the .

Management and_ shareholders
the companies concerned”,
© memorandum said.
Latest government figures
Showed that between 1962 and
965 real output of the industry

Went up 99 percent; wages and |

Salaries combined increased 54.6
Percent, while profits and other
Non-labor costs increased by al-
Most 195.9 percent. Unit labor

Costs had actually dropped by”

8.3 percent.

The CLC suggested that the
Ommission call for full disclos-
Ure of the Canadian operations
Of international companies. Un-
€r present conditions Massey-
€rguson’s Canadian operations
Were consolidated with the

company’s world-wide  activ-
ities; while International Harv-
ester operations covered both
farm implements and _ other
activities.

The tendency on the part of
some people, including Agricul-
ture Minister Greene, to at-
tempt to throw the blame for
high implement prices on work-
ers gave emphasis to the need
for the establishment of a Price-
Wage Review Board, as had
been previously proposed by the
CLC.

Wages could not be consider-
ed in a: vacuum. Other factors
which entered into the pricing
of farm implements included:
materials, energy, transporta-
tion, profits, dealer. mark-ups
and trade-in practices, exclusive
dealership, opposition to co-
operative retailing, duties and
taxes,

In the 1962-65 period real out-
put per production worker in-
creased by 36.6 percent, or at

.an annual rate of 11 percent.

Turning specifically to the

‘wage parity issue, the CLC es-

timated the differential between
production workers’ earnings in
the United States and Canada
to be 15 percent.

“The industry's phenomenal
rate of productivity advance
since 1952 has already provided
the financial means by. which it
could not only establish wage
parity, but provide for further
increases”, the CLC maintained.

“If in 1965 Canadian hourly
wages and monthly salaries had
been raised by 15 percent, and

profits and other costs had been .

held to the same portion of
value added as in 1962, average
selling prices could have been
cut by four percent.

“Such price cuts would have
been extremely welcome to
farmers beset by steady pres-

sure of rising production costs.
They would also have provided
a measure of relief from gen-
erally increasing pressure on

_prices in the economy resulting

from the ploughing back of
burgeoning profits reaped from
investment in new plant and
equipment over the previous
three years.”

The threat of the Massey-Fer-
guson company to close its
Canadian operations and move
to the United States, should

- wage parity be introduced, was

“singularly unimpressive”. Cit-
ing the company’s reports, the
CLC said its facilities would
have to be built entirely in the
United States. In addition, its
labor costs would be increased
7 or 8 percent over the Cana-
dian “parity” level.

“Massey-Ferguson does not
suggest that its Canadian em-
ployees are any less productive
than those of its competitors -in
U.S. plants”, the CLC document
continued. ‘Massey - Ferguson
has simply taken advantage of
the fact that in the agricultural
implement industry some pro-
cesses, such as the production
of tractors, lend themselves
readily to mechanization; they
are capital intensive rather than
labor intensive. Others, such as
the production of combines, re-
quire a much greater proportion
of hand-work; they are labor in-
tensive. What Massey-Ferguson
had done is simply to concent-
rate its capital intensive, opera-
tions in the United States and
its labor intensive operations in
Canada, where wages ate sub-
stantially lower . . . For a great
many years Massey-Ferguson
has been enjoying a competitive
advantage over the other major
companies in the _ industry,
based on low Canadian wage
rates.”

_ Three key unions with a total membership of more than
20,000, The American Federation of Musicians, the Federa-
tion des Auteurs et Artistes du Canada, and the Associa-
tion of Canadian Television and Radio Artists, representing
all the performers in the broadcasting industry of Canada, —

_ have agreed to take a common stand in this year’s nego- —
tiations with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. —.

_ Along with two other unions which do not bargain with |

the CBC—Actors’ Equity Association (Canada) and the |
American Guild of Variety Artists—they recently formed |
a Canadian Council of Performing Arts Unions. All are
affiliates of the Canadian Labor Congress.

CLC Executive Vice-President William Dodge, who
chaired the meeting, said that the Congress is in full ac-
cord with the demands of the Council that the share of
the Corporation’s budget allocated to the remuneration —
of the performers be substantially increased. -

owe Heralogas
TEE Ht Norge Pere

‘Hold still, boy, while | gift wrap you'

Trade unionists must be heard on Vietnam

Following are excerpts from

8n article by Margot Thompson,

dian editor of Steel Labor

in the December, 1967 issue of

magazine of the United Steel

Workers of America, Informa-
On.

HERE’S a plant in Newport,
Indiana, that, in 1954, was
‘ operating around the clock
i the production of nerve gas.
Very potent stuff, apparently:
JUst one drop either inhaled or
absorbed through the ‘skin, can
be a fatal dose. A U.S. reporter,
Writing about this plant and its
Product at the time explained
that the gas was “poured into
Tockets, land mines and artillery
‘Shells — destination, secret.”
Whether the plant is still pro-
ducing nerve gas at the same
Tate, I couldn’t say. But there
Can be no doubt whatever that
'n the chemical warfare arsenals,
this nerve gas and other chemi-
Cals, just as lethal are being
Stored away by the U.S. and
Other countries against the day
When some general . . . some
Politician, somewhere deems it
€xpedient to turn them loose.
Chemical warfare is not new,
Of course. Phosgene gas was
Used in the first world war. Com-
Pared to what is now available,

Vietnam. Perhaps in the military
vocabulary, napalm and phos-
phorus aren’t included in the
chemical warfare group. But
they’re chemicals just the same.
And even the military must have
to include things like arsenic
and cyanide in the chemical war-
fare group.

These two killers are among
the many chemicals that go into
the various herbicides used by
U.S. Air Commandos Squadrons
in its defoliation and crop des-
troying operations. ...

e

Fighter-bombers that carry
their own weight in bombs
“while hugging the ground at
575 m.p.h. went into action in
Vietnam” just recently, accord-
ing to the Toronto Daily Star...
Low-flying bombers delivering
“conventional” bombs; planes
scattering napalm and phospho-
rus rockets; planes destroying
crops with herbicides . . . Will
we wake up some morning to
learn that nerve gases have come
out of the arsenal to be put to
“practical” use?

With things like this in mind.
is it any wonder that civilized
people the world over have
joined in protest against the kind
of warefare being carried on in
the name of democracy in a

“Few wars in history have
been more degrading to human-
ity than the war in Vietnam to-
day.”

This was the opening sentence
in a resolution adopted at the
recent Ontario Federation of La-
bour Convention. And the reso-
lution went on: “Here, the
world’s most technologically ad-
vanced nation, capable of doing
the greatest good to the cause

of freedom and democracy has

involved itsels in a destructive
struggle that cannot positively
be won, for a cause that cannot
rationally be defended . . .”

It was a long resolution, more
in the nature of a statement of
opinion rather than a call for
action. Commendable though it
was, it omitted what, to my
mind, were two essentials: first,
that trade unionists must make
themseles heard, both collective-
ly and as individuals, among the
protesting voices; second, that
Canada cannot continue to hide
behind the cloak of “quiet dip-
lomacy” which, so far has had
no effect whatever on the ever
more dangerous policies being
adopted by our side in this bar-
barous conflict.:

e

“Lately, voices in the United
States itself are being raised

both sides . .
resolution.

The resolution might have
noted that among the U.S. voices
beginning to be heard are those
of trade unionists who have had
the courage to take a stand
against the “all-the-way-with-
LBJ” policy of the AFL-CIO.

While the Ontario Federation
convention was in session, some
500 trade unionists in 30 states
across the line were making
plans to assemble in Chicago for
an historic meeting that took
place on November 11. They
were, for the most part, middle-
echelon leaders and lesser known
Officials from 50 international
unions. One could read all about
it in the Wall Street Journal even
if there was a news— blackout
on the .event in most union
papers in the U.S. and Canada.
Suffice it to say here, that this
was no “communist-inspired
left-wing” protest.

They spent two days on a

-” said the OFL

“thoroughgoing examination of ©

the war in Vietnam and its im-
pact on the labor movement and
American society’, to quote
from the statement issued at the
end of the Chicago meeting.
‘Despite the unwavering sup-
port of the administration’s Viet-
nam policy in the official coun-

monstrated that there exists at
all levels in our unions the same
disquiet, frustration and oppo- ~
sition that characterizes the
American people as a whole.

Isn’t it time that the trade
union movement here followed .
through with more than resolu-
tions? If not, then we must ac-
cept Canada’s “quiet diplomacy”
policy as good enough since it
reflects our own ritual opposi-
tion. .

Are we afraid, as trade union-
ists, that if Canada were to halt
the sale of war supplies to the
U.S. (as Sweden has done), the
loss of $300 million a year which
those’ sales mean in terms of
trade, would mean a loss of jobs
for .several hundred workers?
What is needed is a good hard
look at the effect of U.S. war
production on rising prices and
inflation in Canada.

Do we really believe that
Canada is so close to bankrupt-
cy, both economic and moral,
that we could not survive if we
called a halt to supplying arms
to one of the belligerents in a
war that Canada’s spokesmen
profess to be trying to help bring
to an end? Do we really believe
that we can expect to be taken
seriously when we cling to this

Owever, that was mild. It was

Mild compared to the chemicals small, poverty-stricken country more and more /against this cils of labor”, that statement ambivalent. (to put it mildly)
that are now in everyday.use in, in southeast Asia? ......, ,. ,Senseless, fearful slaughter. on., reads,..‘‘this Assembly -has,-de~ » ,ROliCy? ns... vdnetidehenes
. FEBRUARY «2, 1968---PACIFIC FRIBYUNE—Page 5

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