ee A i CARPENTERS RETURN TO ALTA. FED. _ AFL meet united against concessions By DAVE WALLIS EDMONTON — Delegates to the Alberta Federation of Labor convention Feb. 19-21, overwhelmingly supported policies to confront monopoly’s offensive against the people, with greater unity and co-operation in bargaining. The unity was emphasized through the enthusiastic support given to representatives of the three unions involved in the strike against Pacific Western Airlines. Delegates unanim- ously agreed to a resolution in support of the workers’ struggle against attempts by PWA aimed at “‘gutting their collective agreements, contracting out, cross utilization, extended hours of work and wage freezes.” The Convention called on all AFL affiliates and all Canadian trade unions to support the strikers financially and morally by joining them on the picket lines for the duration of their strike. Delegates also agreed that the AFL and CLC should help coordinate a country-wide boycott against PWA. The determination of organized labour to take on the big | business. assault on wages and benefits was further strengthened by the election to the Executive Council of Becky Kershaw, one of the PWA strike leaders and Kathy Kennedy, leader of Lakeside Packers workers’ 16-month strike. Unity was further strengthened by the readmission to the AFL of Alberta's carpenters. Martin Piper, Calgary business agent for the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, representing a small contingent of carpenters said the convention was ‘‘a tremen- dous experience”’ and wished more of his members could have been there. In a show of determination to bring all construction unions back into the AFL, the convention instructed the incoming “executive to add a Carpenter to the Executive Council as a non-voting member. 4 “Work and Wages Was the theme of the three~day-convention’.~. and it was the title of the key policy paper adopted by the _ delegates. ‘‘There is no economic crisis for big business .. . profits and assets are up, labor costs are down, and corporate taxation is down,”’ the paper declared. It went on to call for ‘‘an economic strategy that will pro- duce jobs and a balanced, growing economy, not simply to put more money in corporate coffers.” _ That strategy, overwhelmingly endorsed by the convention, called for ‘a, massive, increase in. public spending to create employment and, stimulate, the economy through increased consumer spending.”’ It also called for nationalizing the banks, and shifting government spending on the military to socially- useful production and job creation projects. ; On the banks, the paper argued that “rather than funding resource extraction, Overseas investments and real estate speculations, (they) should be promoting investment in re- search and development that will create stable, long term employment.” The delegates also called on the trade union movement to lead a ‘‘political struggle’ against government policies that attack the rights and living standards of the people. _ “The fightback can take place on both parliamentary and extra parliamentary levels,’’ the Work and Wages paper stated. *‘Support for picket lines, boycotts, demonstrations, and information campaigns are all important political tools.”” _It projected an action plan that included stepping up support for Solidarity Alberta, strengthening the process of AFL-led co-ordinated bargaining to defeat concessions, producing and distributing analytical information laying out labor’s views on the critical issues of the day, and urging the Canadian Labor Congress to implement its. nine-point economic alternative _ program including the country-wide March for Jobs. The delegates also heard speakers discuss the need for nuclear disarmament and to combat free trade with the U.S. United Electrical Workers president, Dick Barry, describ- ing the dangers of free trade, proposed that delegates consider as an alternative, not the continuation of the status quo with 1.5 million unemployed but an economic Strategy to turn “Canada’s economy around’’. Barry suggested that delegates consider a policy of economic self-reliance based ‘on co- _ operation not competition and based on “‘community owner- ship and control of industries.”’ Organized labour in Alberta emerged from the 30th Conven- tion of the AFL united and determined to stop the offensive by | _ big business and its governments. Delegates expressed their determination to stand united behind their brothers and sisters | in struggle. Against Free Trade Review marks PM’s Washington trip TORONTO — When Mul- roney meets Reagan in Wash- ington, March 18, the Coalition Against Free Trade wants the prime minister to know without any doubt that Canadians are sol- idly against surrendering our independence to the U.S. That’s why the coalition is or- ganizing to pack Massey Hall March 17, for what is being billed as ‘‘an evening of entertainment and opinion’’ against free trade between Canada and the U.S. “‘Our aim is to make it a public issue and to show the intensity of the opposition in this country to free trade,’ Marjorie Cohen of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women told re- porters at the Ontario Legis- lature, Feb. 24. Cohen, accompanied by rep- resentatives from a wide range of organizations reflecting the breadth of the Toronto-based co- alition, charged the Tory government in Ottawa with trying to push through a free trade ag- reement with as little public input as the government feels it can get away with. Council of Canadians spokesperson, Gail Lord said the fact the government refuses to re- lease 42 background studies it commissioned to assess free trade’s impact on various aspects of the economy, supports Co- hen’s claim. \. “The. fact they: won't be re- leased suggests to me that a good proportion of those papers reveal a picture that may not be as good as the government says it will be with free trade,’’ Lord said. She went on to stress that the Mulroney government was not elected on a mandate to negotiate free trade. John Foster of the United ~ Church welcomed the formation of the coalition and said his church is concerned about the issue because it threatens the basis for a humane Canadian soc- iety and ties the country closer to the militarized U.S. economy. “‘Are we to become a society where welfare is cut back to feed the military?’’ Foster asked. “‘Are we to become a society in- capable of utilizing the tools of our government to assist the poor and those injured by our economy because such initiatives would represent an undue subsidy or an interference with trade?” The increased leverage free trade will give the U.S. military over the Canadian economy is the focus which brought the Toronto - Disarmament Network into the coalition, TDN _ spokesperson Wendy Wright said. ‘‘By broadening our trading re- lations with other countries and by looking to non-military sources of technological innova- tion, Canada can effectively guard its freedom to act as a force for peace in the world and at the same time create economic pros- perity at home,’’ Wright said. Ontario Federation of Labor vice-president Suzie Valence out- lined the federation’s province- wide campaign for jobs and. against free trade. Coalition members are taking part in many of the 20 regional forums being organized by the OFL as part of its drive for a massive anti-free trade protest at Queen’s Park, April 26. Cohen added that the coalition will be taking part in mobilizing for the April 26 protest, and noted that contacts are being made ac- ross the country with similar coalitions against free trade. The Massey Hall revue boasts an entertaining program of Cana- dian talent including the Royal Canadian Air Farce, Nancy White, Eric Peterson, Pierre Ber- ton and others sharing the stage with personalities including David Suzuki, auto workers leader Bob White, Walter Gor- don, Marjorie Cohen and Bishop Remi De Roo. For tickets and more informa- tion on the event, the number to call in Toronto is 534-3523. Soviet peace plan ‘practical’ speaker tells AFL delegates EDMONTON — Stressing labor’s crucial role in the peace fight, Dr. Tom Perry told the AFL dele- gates that the Soviet peace proposals had brightened the prospects for peace in 1986. Perry, a Vancouver member of Physicians for Social Responsibility which is connected: to the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize winner, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, welcomed ‘the very practical and radical”” pro- posals advanced last month by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviet plan calls for halving the number of strategic nuclear weapons on the planet by 1991, and removing American and Soviet intermediate weapons from Europe as steps toward the com- plete elimination of nuclear weapons all over the globe by the year 2000. “The Soviet proposals are important new de- velopments that need to be responded to,’’ Dr. Perry told the delegates. But he also stressed that massive pressure has to be organized on our government and the U.S. to respond concretely. Perry also noted the importance of the Soviet’s unilateral ban on testing nuclear weapons. New weapons can’t be developed if they aren’t being tested, the doctor told the convention. ‘‘They can’t _ develop Star Wars if they are not testing,’ he said. ‘‘There are two bromides that have been forced on us by big business,”’ the doctor told the conven- tion. “One is that there is a military threat and the other, that money spent on weapons creates jobs.” Pointing to the 20 million Soviet lives destroyed during the second world war Perry rejected the proposition that the USSR has any territorial claims on Canada or the USA. Government spending on socially-useful pro- duction and services, he said creates twice as many jobs as money spent on the military. He went on to demonstrate how the increase in U.S. military spending, by driving up U.S. and Canadian interest rates can damage the Canadian economy. He cited the relationship between high interest rates and a slow down in housing construction as an example. Perry drove the impact of nuclear war home to the delegates by using Edmonton as a model for what could happen. A one megaton bomb, de- tonated 2,000 metres above this city of half a mil- lion, he warned, would wipe out 270,000 Edmon- tonians within the first five minutes of the explo- sion. Another 150,000 would be so badly injured they would die within four weeks. Medical care would be non-existent. An all-out ‘nuclear war would kill 21 million of Canada’s 25 million population. The nuclear winter that would be created would reduce sunlight reaching earth to one per cent. Mid summer would be far colder than the —27 degrees celsius Edmonton was suffering through, during the AFL convention. —D.W. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 5, 1986 e 11 -