LABGR Quebec labor refuses burden of crisis Special to the Tribune MONTREAL — At least 40,000 workers from Quebec’s three labor centrals rallied outside Premier René Levesque’s office in the Quebec Hydro building, April 3 as part of labor’s Canada-wide protest against interest rates. The rally also deli- vered a warning to the provincial government not to try to saddle ‘ public sector workers with the cost of the economic crisis. — ~ Heavy rain and frigid tempera- tures combined to lower the 50,000 target the three labor bodies had hoped would turn out for the protest. The protest was nevertheless significant for three reasons. It was part of the first joint, vince-wide campaign involv- ing the 325,000-member Quebec Federation of Labor (QFL), the 200,000-member Confederation of National Trade Unions (CNTU), and the 80,000-member Quebec Teachers’ Central since the historic common front of the three labor bodies in 1972. Secondly, it was a united labor | test following up the massive demonstration last November in Ottawa and a campaign being conducted by the labor move- ment right across Canada. And finally, it was timed to co- incide with the opening of Pre- mier Levesque’s government, business and labor summit on the economy, April 3-5. . The three labor centrals stres- sed that they went into the sum- mit on the basis of putting forward labor’s proposals for a way out of the economic crisis and not, as the government had hoped, to rubber stamp a program of con- cessions levelled first of all against the 300,000 public sector workers getting set to negotiate new contracts later this year. _ Leaders of all three labor bodies, ina common effort toured the province helping to strengthen and mobilize the resistance to concessions. Speaking to the rally April 3 each of the three leaders declared his opposition to any efforts to make workers pay for the crisis of the capitalist system. QFL president Louis Laberge flatly rejected any suggestions that workers accept a wage freeze. The government should be fighting to solve Quebec’s 11.4% official unemployment rate and spend less time trying to con- trol inflation at the workers’ ex- pense. ‘‘Unemployment is the number one problem, not inflation,” Laberge said. “‘We’ve been able to live with inflation for the past 10 years.”” The growing anger of labor to- ward the Parti Quebecois was re-~ flected in the recent statement by QFL secretary-treasurer Fernand Daoust who said that if a pro- vincial election were to be called at this time the QFL wouldn't be able to support the PQ. In their province-wide rallies, the three centrals focussed on the workers’ refusing to shoulder the burdern of the crisis; the demand for laws against plant closures; and, the development of an economic recovery program. The program includes demands for emergency measures to ease unemployment, roll back interest rates, and measures to create gre- ater access for the unorganized to unionize. . The public sector unions argue that the way to remove the gap in wages and benefits between workers in the private and public sectors is not to freeze public sec- tor wages but to make it easier for workers in the private sector to organize so they can have the economic power to secure higher wages and better working condi- tions. In addition, organized labor is calling on the provincial govern- ment to: set up an employment stabilization fund to help the vic- tims of plant closures, and stem the flood of closures; stop cuts in health care, social service and education; demand federal government participation in a massive program of low-cost housing construction, and public works; demand the feds not cut transfer payments to Quebec; cut taxes on low and minimum wage earners; and, raise the minimum wage. publicly-owned auto industry. No concessions in auto More than 6,000 leaflets, supporting the determined resistance by auto workers to company-inspired wage and benefits conces- sions in the forthcoming contract talks, are being distributed by the Communist Party of Canada to General Motors workers at plants in Oshawa, St. Catharines, Windsor and Toronto. Oshawa GM workers, shown here receiving the leaflet, April 7, responded to the company’s recent announcement of massive layoffs, with about 1,000 of them turning out April 4 to a meeting which sup- ported the “No concessions” stand being advocated by the leadership of the United Auto Workers in Canada and Local 222. The communist leaflet notes the need to combine mass, demon- strative political action with militant bargaining demands to win a good settlement in the forthcoming negotiations. The letter agrees with the union’s fight for 85% Canadian content legislation and places the demand as part of the vital struggle for a Canadian, Bipartism “Several months ago we wrote a column on the Inter- in CLC foreign affairs Thus the ICFTU proposal to support the Reagan Zero national Affairs Department (IAD) of the Canadian Labor Congress, and its director John Harker. In the course of the column we asserted that Harker was an ex-employee of the External Affairs Department (EAD) of the Canadian Government and a member of the Trilateral Commission. We subsequently received a letter from Mr. Harker denying both these allegations. We have checked our sources of information and find that Mr. Harker is correct and we must apologize for the wrong information we presented. Harker was a full time employee for the Association of External Affairs Officers, which would, we suppose, be a sort of company union set up by these officers for _ purposes of representing them with the government. On the Trilateral Commission our information was just dead wrong. : We're doubly sorry about the incident, first because it is not at all useful for anyone to throw around accusa- tions which turn out to be without foundation. But even more so because it gets in the way of matters of sub- stance we were dealing with in respect to the Inter- national Affairs Department of the CLC and in particular the role of John Harker in it. - That there is a close connection between the activities of the LAD-CLC and the EAD of the Liberal government is borne out by fact. Most recently for example an arrangement has been made under which Canadian trade unionists, selected by the CLC will be sent to third world countries, financed by the Canadian International - Development Agency (CIDA) a government agency, presumably to help workers there with questions related to trade union matters. Nor is this an isolated matter. There is more than one External Affairs employee on loan to the CLC depart- ment at this time. Moreover in seeking employees for the International Affairs Department of the CLC Mr. Harker» ‘usually turns to ex-employees of the government rather than the labor movement. — sax In short what is practiced by Mr. Harker, and in large , the IAD, is bipartism in the field of foreign Ee S| : at policy. Mik - Labor in action ' William Stewart The IAD is trying its level best to pull the CLC back into the cold war camp and it’s hard to understand why the executive of the CLC stands by and allows this to take place. Particularly when its instructions from conventions point it in the opposite direction. The most recent contribution to come our way under Mr. Harker’s signature is a short letter to Presidents and or Secretaries of all British Columbia Labor Councils. The letter deals with the petition, Peace is Every- body’s Business, being circulated by the Canadian Peace Congress. Mr. Harker suggests in his letter that the Peace Congress is using the signatures for purposes other than that for which they were obtained. It also notes that the statement ‘‘not surprisingly, is totally one-sided, conveying the impression that the USSR is indeed peace-loving while the USA is bent on aggres- sion’’. He suggests that trade unionists keep this in mind if asked to sign the petition. Mr. Harker encloses the statement of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) on Peace, Security and Disarmament and says: ‘“Workers. everywhere will benefit more from its implementation than from the Peace Congress petition.”’ Actually the ICFTU statement referred to by Mr. Harker has much to recommen it. It is the first time this body (ICFTU) has placed itself on record in this way to fight for peace and disarmament. This represents an ‘awareness by the ICFTU that it cannot stay aloof from the great peace sentiment engaging Europe and the world. At the same time it represents an attempt by the ICFTU to redefine the world peace struggle from a movement centring its attention on the main source of the war danger, U.S. imperialism, to a movement which_ centres its attack on the ‘‘two super powers” equally” Option proposal for withdrawal and termination of production of SS-20 missiles by the USSR and the abandonment of the deployment of Cruise and Pershing II Missiles by the USA. The Tribune and many other publications have ex- posed this proposal for exactly what it is, an attempt to smuggle through U.S. nuclear arms superiority in Europe. What we would like to deal with here however is another matter. Please let us see some action by Mr. Harker and his department to activize the proposals in the ICFTU statement to stop the nuclear arms race, to mobilize the Canadian working people for peace. Bob White, Cana- dian Director of the UAW, also had some misgivings about the fact sheet accompanying the Peace is Every- body’s Business petition so he developed his own peti- tion in the UAW which is now being circulated through- out the UAW membership for signature. No one, least of all the Tribune, is going to criticize Mr. White for this action, even though we may disagree with his reasoning. If, indeed the peace of the world is going to be pre- served it will take the united efforts of all men of good will, and particularly of the organized working class, to ensure this. a We have seen little action from the International Af- fairs Department of the CLC to help this process. When therefore, Mr. Harker is finally disposed to recognize the struggle for peace and does so by attacking the most consistent champion of peace onthe Canadian scene, we once again question his credentials. In the critical period we are entering where the com- mon actions of workers in all countries against the multi-national corporations is becoming a basic bread and butter issue, and where the co-ordinated actions of the world’s working people for peace can and must tilt the balance, we can ill afford to see the CLC burdened with the head of its International Affairs Department going in the other direction. "If the present executive can’t deal with this matter perhaps it’s time workers changed the composition of the executive somewhat. == =e . PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 16, 1982—Page 7