still ALLELE LIE

LUE TEU

[HE BATTLE OF 66 STREET
IT’S YOUR Fi IGH! T TOO!

Labor in action

GEORGE HEWISON

Stand up for justice!

! Boycolt Ganers & Sn

' Produced and distributed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in support of striking

r
S$ Workers in Edmonton.

| Gainers bo ycott taking hold

| Tor
PorgONTO — The national
tot o of Gainers meat products
H) S ny gathering speed, but it
Scalating, United Food and

“umercia| Workers director

i Protest firings

ie — The Canadian
fin Of Postal’ Workers is
.. § to win back the jobs of
eks Workers fired here two
4g0 after taking part in a
against management try-
asercut the current collec-
“greement by hiring casual
i hing rievances against the
ol The Were filed last week.
Nar io © Union is also grieving sus-
Ng fhe handed out to more than
€r workers after a one day
tere Wn at the main post office
ae August. Chris Ryan,
lide Person for CUPW, said in-
Beets have been pushed to
: It by speed-ups and by
Ment of workers to cut

&

Frank Benn told a press con-
ference, Sept. 2 that most Ontario
retail food stores were co-operat-
ing in the campaign against Gain-
ers, and that the union would be
taking its fight against Tory mil-
lionaire Peter Pocklington to
every Edmonton Oilers hockey
game on both sides of the
Canada-U.S. border.

The news came in the midst ofa
cross country tour by striking
members of UFCW Local 280P to
gather financial and other support
from trade union members from
Nanaimo to St. John’s.

The strike, and support for the
strikers and the Gainers boycott
figured prominently in labor day
celebration across Canada last
weekend.

Benn said the strike is costing
Pocklington about one million
dollars a week, while the list of
retail chains in Ontario refusing to
sell his product includes Domin-
ion Stores, Miracle Mart, A&P,

and Loblaws, all of which are or-
ganized.

At the heart of the four-
month-old strike is the union’s
demand for parity with the rest of
the meatpacking industry. Two
years ago the Gainers strikers ag-
reed to concessions with a prom-

footsteps of Lewis, McDermott, Schreyer and now Deans.

_ naming someone like Deans who ee fabor $ ies of
_ view. .

ise from Pocklington of a catch up
when the company’s economic
picture became brighter.

This was the year the members
of Local 280P figured the picture
was bright enough and they aren't
prepared to settle for less than
what was achieved by the work-
ers at Fletcher’s Meat Products in
June.

Fletcher’s, which is owned by
the Alberta Hog Marketing
Board, brought the strike by
workers there to an end with an
agreement of wage parity with the
Canada Packers contract signed
earlier this year. They also re-
stored most of the concessions
workers had made in the last
contract.

Bis tn

—

0

ort Reece, one of the best

is a in U.S. working class
we

eS

has died. The Tennessee
©'s work lives on in the

Ry oe

Se Se Bt St PFS ZF
————

we * S of her hard hitting songs
(ns, 88 “‘Which Side Are You
tne ow out of the historic ef-
44 the United Mine Workers
kong aa in Harlan County,

Ui
fe for Reece was no half mea-
‘ong aa mbe third stanza in her

Mey Say in Harlan County
y ere are no neutrals there
org Biker be a union man
(Bla; 2 thug for J.H. Blair
i ' air was the sheriff who
‘Utde €d the Vigilante squads who
Bees union miners.)
Nate wr died in Tennessee, the
Nd on here she was born, reared
Mess tried. It wasn’t until the
10n hit and the mines
{that she, her husband and
Of what would be 12 chil-
meved. to neighboring Har-
Unty in search of work.

re
—

te,
tao

She recalled that the first visitor
to her door was a company thug
who sounded the warning ‘‘Don’t
think union. Don’t talk union.
That isn’t healthy.’’ But unionism
was part of the Reece family life
and when a union organizer
knocked on the door they were
welcomed by Florence and Sam.

When the United Mine Work-
ers temporarily abandoned Har-
lan County because the price in
blood had been too great, the
Communist Party USA sent in
organizers to keep the union drive
alive. It was from them that the
Reeces decided they had to be
part of a movement of working
people fighting for a system which
put people before profits.

The Harlan strike began in 1931
in the depths of the Great Depres-
sion. The miners stood firm
against the thugs. Sam Reece, an
outstanding union leader, was on
their hit list. One day they tore the
house apart looking for him.

‘Harlan County’ writer dies

A veteran Communist Party
member and personal friend of
Florence Reece wrote this ac-
count of ‘Harlan County’ in his
reminiscences of Florence for the
U.S. People’s World:

‘“‘They found nothing except a
copy of the Daily Worker. When
they left, the words of a new song
were humming in my mind. I
looked for paper to write it on.
The thugs had torn up every sheet
in the house. Then I took the
calendar off the wall and began to
set down the lines of ‘‘Which Side
Are You On.”

‘I’ve written many songs and
ballads. But none came so fast as
this one.”

The 1931 strike was not won
but it paved the way for future
victory by the United Mine
Workers. Florence went on to
sing and write, her lyrics heard
on thousands of picket lines
across the continent.

tena: of all, ‘reassuring the country that he wouldn't be
. taking any similar pose Y Baal at oes after the next federa

with all three political parties | in the Conment

. without a viable option, inviting the rise of the

: ‘may be Giiecicee between communist: and

e ‘workers a He oe ine coe

Cheering on the
Benedict Arnolds

New Democratic Party MP Ian Deans’ defection to the role of
chief public sector worker basher has evoked strange reactions.

First, the big business media is delighted.

They have reveled in the complete humiliation of a leading
critic of the Progressive Conservative government, who a few
short weeks ago listed the performance of the arrogant Tories a as
his chief reason for leaving the House of Commons.

Naturally, Mulroney’ s Tories are delighted. The popularity of —
his government is in desperate need of a face lift, so much so, that _
the P.M. prorogued Parliament last week in the hopes of breaking
his regime’s downward popularity spiral and opening a new
chapter leading to the next federal election a year or two hence.

Pulling Deans out of the hat at a mere cost of $93,000 a year,
over the next ten years, has to be classed somewhere as the
bargain of the decade. The Tories can continue their much criti-
cized assult on public sector workers behind a face that many in
labor considered friendly.

Naive reaction

The reaction of some public sector union leaders is puzzling, to
say the least, betraying either a complete ignorance of the mean-
ing of Deans’ appointment, or a secret longing to follow in. - Z|

At least two prominent public sector union leaders who sit on
the Canadian Labor Congress executive have welcomed the —
appointment, congratulating the government for its good sense in

To be most Chacatre — How. maivel i .

The problem in the past has not been a lack of aaa of |
labor’s position, which Mulroney and the bosses. understand
quite well.
Mulroney, Ss problem t has been to ae labor to agree

eS Vaskess, che ate cise Benedict Arnold started firing at them
_ from the opposite side of Bunker Hill. : |

But federal NDP leader Ed Broadbent’ s reaction s. the

it is potentially dangerous situation for labor,

Thus we take ‘no comfort by the sad comment:

we swim in the same labor movement, and ar

Deans fits into the oho Sook blue

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 10, 1986 7

ee