Won’t be scapegoats for education cuts

By MIKE PHILLIPS
TORONTO — As the Tribune
Went to press, April 5, Toronto
Board of Education workers rep-
resented by the Canadian Union
of Public Employees, (CUPE),
Were mulling over a tentative pact
Teached last Wednesday after-
noon to end their three-day strike.
_ Morale was high on the picket
. lines of both the 400 clerical and
technical workers in CUPE Local
1325 and the caretakers in CUPE
Local 134. The number one issue
followed closely by the demand
for improved benefits and protec-

a asccceetnesoareetatrerommtenee eee

At press time the Tribune
learned that Local 1325 voted
183-56 to ratify the proposed one
year Pact providing a 5 per cent
Wage hike, upgrading of the dental
Plan to the 1983 ODA rate
Schedule, stronger job security
Provisions and improved vaca-
tions.

Caretakers, members of CUPE
“4 ‘al 134 were meeting April 5 to

cide whether to ratify the pact.

ee

hon from the adverse effects of
tech change.

The workers in both locals hit —

the Street April 2 after talks,
which were launched in De-
cember, broke down without a
Settlement. Both units went out
determined to break the provin-
Clal government's five per cent
8uideline for compensation
Increase,
saobifically the unions were
= Inga “‘real’’ wage in-
Case, benefits for women on

———

in the confrontation was wages, .

maternity leave, improved safety
boot allowance, update of dental
plan benefits based on the 1984
Ontario Dental Association rate
schedule, (the current benefits are
based on the 1980 ODA rate plan),
and improved vacation credits.
Negotiators for the school
board came to the table looking
for concessions, crying poverty
and restraint and claiming their
hands were tied by Queen’s
Park’s five per cent compensation
guidelines, as set out in Bill 111.

On the picket lines, however,
this complaint didn’t hold much
water with the strikers, who re-
called the board’s remittance of
an $8-million surplus to the pro-
vincial government from last
year’s budget. Many strikers said
they were fed up with being
scapegoats for the provincial

Tory government’s education.

cutbacks.
The 87 and 85 per cent strike

votes for Locals 1325 and 134.

members respectively showed
the school board workers were in-
tent on stopping the assault on
their real wages by inflation.

Many of the strikers pointed
out that while the consumer price
index for Toronto soared upward
by 69.2 per cent from Jan. 1978 to
Dec. 1983 real wages were consis-
tently falling behind. A grade four
level clerk for example, earning
an annual salary of $12,795, in
1978, according to CUPE sta-
tistics earned $19,774 by the end
of 1983 — a 54.5 per cent salary

- increase in nominal wages but a

loss in real wages of 9.5 per cent
compared to escalating living
costs. :

The one-year suspension of

collective bargaining rights for

. public sector workers in 1983 by

the imposition of Bill 179 meant
the school board workers were
denied the right to bargain protec-
tion against inflation, which ho-
vered at six per cent that year.

This year, the workers were
determined to start closing the
gap between their wages and the
cost of living and to improve their
benefits. They weren’t prepared
to make concessions on what had
already been gained.

Mediation efforts, under the
auspices of the provincial labor
ministry were started shortly after
the strike began and talks went on
until the tentative pact was
reached April 4. No details of the
proposed agreement were avail-
able at press time. Local 1325
members saw the package at a
membership meeting that eve-

‘ning, while the caretakers’ local

met to consider the proposal the
following day.

Local media coverage of the
strike centred on isolated inci-
dents of vandalism by a few stu-
dents at a couple of schools and
almost totally ignored Local 1325,
labelling the strike a caretakers’
strike and ignoring the clerks and
technical workers or the central
issues of the strike, behind which
both locals were united at the bar-
gaining table. cee

Visits to the picket line by
CUPE national president Jeff
Rose and Ontario CUPE leader
Lucie Nicholson went unnoticed
in the big-business media, which
preferred to fill its columns and
airspace with stories of how stu-
dents were either: tearing schools
apart to get them shut down so

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

they could get a holiday; or
enthusiastically scabbing on the
caretakers by ‘going out of their
way’ to clean up their schools
during the work stoppage.
Nevertheless, morale on picket
lines throughout the city was sol-
id, particularly outside the To-
ronto board headquarters where

2%, ¥
mit Z

the strikers made up songs ridicul-
ing their employers’ stingy con-
tract offers. They were heartened
and encouraged by the frequent
honking of horns from the passing
traffic on College Street as people
responded to signs urging them to
show their support as they drove
by.

tee,

CUPE
vocat +. CUPE
st ON ST
AGAIN
fire | \ sara AE
ma BOARD

OF E0vcaTion |

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Closing the gap

Clerical workers picket the Toronto Board of Education building to back
their demands for a contract which will bring wages more in line with

cost of living increases.

What ‘new reality’ is Bennett preaching?

_ British Columbia’s premier, Bill Bennett took to the
airwaves last week to lecture his constituents about the
new reality’ of B.C. :
And what is this new reality which Mr. Bennett is
Preaching? The recovery belongs to big business — not
workers. It does not mean a return to things as they were
- before the crisis, but rather, realizing that just as we
found our way out of the crisis on the backs of the
working people, we can only ensure we don’t return to

an even deeper crisis if the workers sacrifice more, and °

More and more ...

If this means union bashing, as he is.now attempting
with B.C. construction workers, so be it. If it means
Imposing settlements on B.C. Pulp Workers by the

gislature, so be it. If it means using the courts to
Overturn arbitration awards handed out under boards set
up by the same government — so be it.
__ “These are difficult times,’ says Mr. Bennett, ‘“‘and a
‘ew reality must take hold’’.

Indeed it already has taken hold.
_ Statistics Canada has informed us that employers have
Mcreased their production without hiring back laid-off
workers. In manufacturing last year, productivity. shot
Up 6.9 percent with little investment in capital and a
Sharp reduction in manpower. According to Statscan
Officials, the recession did the job for them. Workers are
asking for less pay and working harder under the threat
of losing their jobs.

Economy Drying Up

The problems facing the money-grubbers however is a
little more complicated. Lower manpower requirements
and higher unit productivity, plus lower real wages, may
improve foreign competitiveness, but they do little to
Stimulate the domestic market. Thus; a week ago we
were greeted by a front page lament in Toronto’s Globe
and Mail, that lagging wages are creating a crisis for the
domestic marketplace. Z :

Statscan reports the same phenomenon in a somewhat
different way. According to them while productivity is

Labor in action

4 William Stewart

competition in the international market place. The world
market has become the ‘‘melting pot’? where profit-
ability will be the sole question, and yesterday’s stan-
dards will have to give way to “‘today’s reality’’.

If there are any positive qualities that Premier Bennett
adds to the political life of this country they are that he is
a crass, outspoken and crude spokesman for views
which are held in common by all old line party politicians

and by allmonopoly. What Mr. Bennett says, most other

increasing, the total output of manufacturing slows
down. This is a polite way of saying that companies are
producing less and making more but the long term
consequences of this process will be to dry up the
economy.

What has taken place in the past few years is a massive
increase in the exploitation of the working class. This is
what the ‘‘recovery”’ is entirely based on.

It is not based on increased production of real values
but on lower returns to workers and sharp reductions in
social spending. It does not offer any way out of the crisis
and it is precisely for this reason that even as the
“‘recovery’’ is taking place, the attack on the working
class intensifies. The recovery is based on deepening the
exploitation of the working class and it can only continue
along present lines by further extending this exploita-
tion.

“New Reality”
This is the ‘‘new reality’’ Premier Bennett speaks of.
This is the challenge before the labor movement.. In
meeting and answering this challenge the trade unions
and labor movement will indeed act on behalf of the
overwhelming majority of Canadians, small business-

-man, small industry, farmers, etc., whose interests are

not served by the narrow objectives of big business.

- Mr. Bennett has reduced the entire world into a mar-
ket jungle in which Canadian workers must compete for
their livelihood. Standards of life acquired by Canadians
over years will have to answer to the larger criteria of

government leaders think. What monopoly is pushing for
so blatantly in B.C., monopoly is undertaking across
Canada.

But where, pray — where is the response of the trade
union and labor movement, except in B.C., to this devas-
tating attack on their living standards?

What Will It Take?

The NDP is busy debating why workers seem to shift
to the right in periods of crisis, while refusing to diagnose
the crisis and come up with any real alternative pro-
posals. The trade union centres across the rest of Canada
are explaining the differences between B.C. and the rest
of Canada in terms of the stupidity of Bennett vs. the
cunning of Davis. -

But no major fightback is being waged against mono-
poly and its governments.

The working people have suffered a major economic
blow at the hands of monopoly and yet on the very eve of
the Canadian Labor Congress convention next month,

there is not a murmur from the CLC about the need for a.

massive, militant, united fightback across the country.

Perhaps the CLC leadership may think that adding six
women to the CLC executive is all that is required to get
them through the upcoming convention without any
waves.

But the workers in this country have the right to ask

what it is going to take to get the leadership of the
Canadian trade union movement off their butts to mobi-
lize the mighty trade union movement into action? Is the
““new. reality’? not enough?

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 11, 1984 e

5