|Make peace an election ‘issue, says UAW leader } TORONTO — Some 600 peace activists from all walks of life roared their approval Mar. 9 to declara- _ tions by peace movement and labor leaders that disarmament and testing of the Cruise missile must _ be made key issues in the forthcoming federal elections. - Organized just three days after the U.S. conducted _ its first test of the Cruise missile’s guidance system _ over Alberta, the rally sponsored by the Toronto _ Disarmament Network reflected the impressive _ breadth of forces in this country fighting for nuclear disarmament. Bob White, Canadian director of the United Auto Workers, a TDN affiliate, earned.a warm response when he declared the recent Cruise test would defi- _ nitely not Stop the protest movement against the _ deadly missile nor demoralize the peace forces. He said he has written to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau telling him that his current peace initiative would have had much more credibility had he can- _ celled the umbrella agreement that provided for U.S. _ testing of the Cruise missile on Canadian soil. White declared that Trudeau’s very peace initia- ~ tive was fueled on the massive public mobilization of _ the peace movement and its effective campaigning against the Cruise missile. “Does anyone really think that Pierre Elliot Tru- _ deau’s initiative would have happened without the _ existence of a growing peace movement?” the UAW _ leader asked. A resounding chorus of “No” from the _ audience was the reply. \ He added that the Canadian Labor Congress was - committing its financial and organizational resour- -ces to ensure that the Peace Petition Caravan Cam- _ paign will be a huge success in both mobilizing Canadians behind the petition’s demand for ending Cruise testing, declaring Canada a nuclear weapons- free zone and directing military spending toward _ socially useful production. The campaign he said would culminate sometime this summer with the presentation of the petitions to the federal government and the massive demand for _ a free vote in the Commons to see “where the politi- ' cans Stand on world peace and nuclear disarmament,” Echoing TDN spokesperson David Craft, who earlier in the program had made a similar appeal, White told the assembly “in spite of the John Turners and Brian Mulroneys of this world we’re going to make peace a major issue in the next federal election in this country.” He also spoke of the crucial need to return to detente between the U.S. and the USSR and to move away from the corrosive practice of confrontation. “The issue facing the world today is not whether we in the west are going to change the political system of eastern Europe, but whether or not we’re going to live together in peace instead of under the threat of nuclear war. “And this can only happen through debate and dialogue,” between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, he said. TDN spokeperson David Craft blasted Trudeau for trying “to straddle the issue which has deeply polarized public opinion in Canada” by simultane- ously allowing the Cruise to be tested and carrying through with his peace initiative. Craft said the testing agreement was essentially an exercise by the U.S. to prove to its European allies that despite the majority opposition both in wetsern Europe and throughout Canada to deploying the Cruise and Pershing II missiles, it can still make some of its allies toe the U.S. aggressive foreign policy line. Calling the cruise testing “the thin edge of the wedge,” Craft said it woud! draw Canada further in to the U.S. military plans and would “‘open the door to an ever more extensive commitment (by Canada) to U.S. nuclear policy.” U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s so-called two- track policy ushered in a new stage of the cold war Craft said. “The claim of Soviet nuclear superiority won’t stand up to scrutiny,” he said. “We now know that new weapons such as the Cruise and Pershing II were already in production in the mid-70s before the SS20s were deployed.” He appealed to peace activists to step up their fight for disarmament and against the Cruise and to make sure that these two questions in particular become major election issues. Laurie Bell of Youth Corps linked the peace and women’s movements and noted the growing under- standing in both movements of the importance of that relationship. Sister Rosalie Bertel spoke of the urgency of the global nuclear danger and of the need for people everywhere to make peace and disarma- ment their number one concern. MINERS BACK UMW IN CAPE BRETON GLACE BAY, N.S. — By a larger margin than last year’s vote, coal miners on Cape Breton Island rejected a bid, March 8, by the Canadian Mineworkers Union to displace the United Workers of America as their bargaining agent. Some 60 per cent of the Island’s 3,100 miners voted for the UMW, increasing the margin of support from 347 in last year’s CMU bid to raid the UMW, to this year’s spread of 553 votes. Some observers see the results as an indication the miners see that in the battles looming between workers and the establishment their interest are best served by fighting within the ranks of the mainstream labor movement rather than suffer weakness and silation on the labor movement’s fringes. STRIKE DATE | SET AT DOUGLAS MALTON — March 21 has been set by United Auto Workers Local 1967 at McDonnell-Douglas Aircraft as the opening day of strike action unless the U.S.-owned multi-national comes up with an acceptable contract offer. McDonnell-Douglas is trying to impose a two-tier wage structure on the Canadian workers, union Officials say, like the plan U.S. workers were compelled to accept after a prolonged strike. The plan would see new hires earning as much as $3 an hour less than their fellow workers doing the same jobs. UAW Canadian director Bob White has said such a settle- ment is unacceptable in Canada. The contract for the 2,000 production and 350 office workers expired last Oct. 17. ONTARIO EMPLOYEES CHALLENGE STRIKE BAN TORONTO — The Ontario Public Service Employees Union and the province’s liquor board employees have taken the On- tario Government to court to overturn the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act, (CECBA). The legislation limits provincial public sector workers’ bargaining rights and denies them the right to strike. The unions representing in total some 65,000 Ontario Government workers asked the Ontario Supreme Court, March 14, to declare CECBA beyond the Legislature’s powers because the unions believe it-contravenes the federal Charter of Rights and Freedoms. OPSEU president Sean O’ Flynn called CECBA, ‘‘just about the most repressive labor law in Canada,’’ and said the union believes the Davis Tory government ‘‘will be unable to justify the existing restrictions.” Shorter work day needs labor’s focus Events in the past week give some indication that Canadian trade unionists are about to challenge the “hold the line — cutback”’ policies of Canadian govern- ments and corporations. Two unions, the United Auto Workers union and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation served _ notice on their employers that they were putting pay increases number one on their bargaining agenda this year. The UAW is in negotiations for 30,000 General Motors workers and 13,000 Ford of Canada workers, with the contracts due to expire in September. The OSSTF, rep- resenting 35,000 teachers in 79 Ontario areas, faces a September deadline in its negotiations with the Ontario Govetnment. The United Auto Workers settled three years ago for a 3 per cent a year agreement but was forced to give away 11 paid holidays and some other monetary items in a period dominated by a crisis in auto and at the height of the demand by corporations for major concessions. ' The OSSTF had their wages locked in by Bill 179 which tied the union to increases of 5 per cent for 1983 at a period where inflation was running at 11 per cent, and their right to strike removed. The tough bargaining stance of these two key unions is undoubtedly occasioned by the injustice forced on workers by unfair imposition of wage controls and hys- teria whipped up by governments and media which in- fluenced the collective bargaining scene in the past sev- eral years. : Reports coming out of Ottawa show that wage in- creases last year were held to 4.7 per cent, far below the ~ Labor in action 4 a William Stewart rate of inflation for the year, while profits for the manu- facturing industry went up from $19.88-billion in 1982 to $34.75-billion in 1983, an increase of 54%. This ‘‘recovery’’ for big business was attributed to four elements: (1) higher export prices, (2) higher productivity, (3) lower wage demands (4) lower taxes for corporations. All the gravy from three of these four elements was lapped up by the corporations and the result showed up in lower wages for workers and higher profits for cor- porations. It is this gross injustice which is being chal- lenged by the UAW and the OSSTF and their struggles could well act as the catalyst to put the trade union movement back on track in its never-ending struggle to protect and extend its wages and living standards against capitalist assault. It is to be hoped that other unions, in and facing negotiations this year, will take heart from the example of these two unions and demand that workers be a part of the so-called ‘‘recovery’’, not its victims. The United Steelworkers union is locked in difficult negotiations with Stelco and Algoma and facing demands for a roll- over agreement, and other weakening of their contract. It could benefit from the changed atmosphere made pos- sible by the UAW, OSSTF militant stance and pick up the tempo of mobilization of its membership to win important gains in their agreement which expires July 31. We notice at the same time the UAW has placed the shorter hours question on the agenda as a serious item for this year’s bargaining. Robert White, Canadian Di- rector stated in a press conference that the question of ‘‘more time off the job’’ is going to be a central issue in this year’s Canadian bargaining. All workers will identify with Mr. White’s remarks, but in the view of this column the matter would be better put as “‘less time on the job’’. We can appreciate the difficulties faced by a single union trying to break the shorter hours barrier in a critical industry while the labor movement as a whole has not dedicated itself to the kind of struggles necessary to win such a demand. At the same time however, the very experience of the UAW with its PPH days shows the weakness of frill ap- proaches to shorter hours as any long-term and mean- ingful substitute to the demand for a shorter work day | and a shorter work week. Economically and culturally the need for less time on _ the job, not more time off the job, is the critical issue which stands before the working class of Canada. The UAW will get, and deserves, full support from its own membership and the labor movement for its efforts to shore up workers’ time off the job. However in terms of the coming Canadian Labor Congress Convention and ‘the more long-term struggle to put Canada’s one-and-a- half million unemployed back to work, the question of a shorter work day and shorter work week should be the focus of organized. labor. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 21, 1984 e 7