Long, bitter strike at Lakehead

Non-medics nearing settlement

By E. ROGERS

THUNDER BAY — When 100
non-medical employees struck
the Doctors, Port Arthur Clinic
in July 1975, they were under no
illusions concerning the need for
long, bitter cold, picket line
duty. The doctors: vowed they
wceuld have no part of a union
on their premises. They offered
only 4% addition to an already
low wage scale and bargained in
a manner calculated to smash
the new union.

Picketers were harassed to an
unwarranted degree, being run
into by doctors’ cars crashing
picket lines at high speeds.
Doctors were seen brandishing
violent weapons as they drove
through picketers. The city po-
lice force took an extremely ac-
tive part for the puppet admin-
istration of Thunder Bay, dis-
persing picketers, limiting their
numbers, establishing yardage
distances between picketers, and
forcibly ejecting picketers or
public sympahisers from the

Student Council workers strike

Employers walk out of talks

TORONTO — Eight employees
of the Students Administrative
Council (SAC) atthe University
of Toronto went on strike Jan.
16 after contract talks broke
down the night before. The em-
ployees are members of CUPE
Local 1222.

SAC workers had been with-
out a contract since Sept. 1,
1975. They include three special
Projects assistants, an account-
ant’s assistant, an administrative
assistant, a typist and the stu-
dent newspaper, Varsity, adver-
tising director. The Varsity has
agreed nct to publish during the
Strike,

Representatives of the student
ccuncil broke off talks Jan. 15
although a complete settlement
was almost reached. Union nego-
tiators had already sacrificed .a
number of demands, including a
Cost of living allowance, non-dif-

LABOR
SCENE

By BRUCE MAGNUSON

At long last there is a possi-
bility that an autonomous Build-
ing and Construction Trades
Council will be established in
Canada. It has been long in com-
ing. But at last a Canada-wide
building trades conference was
scheduled for last weekend a
Winnipeg.

The biggest: obstacle to Cana-
dian workers controlling their
Own organizations in the build-
ing trades, as in most U.S.-based
unions, is the senior Canadian
Officers of these unions. As the
old saying goes, ‘he who pays
the piper calls the tune.’ These
bureaucrats are paid by their
U.S. headquarters and report to,
and serve, Washington and its
interests and policies.

The AFL-CIO building trades
department controls operations
here by means of Canadian
advisory board. which consists
cf these Canadian senior officers.
They have a vested interest in
maintaining the status quo on
U.S. control in Canada. Their fat
Pay-cheques depend on it and
they shamelessly proceed to do
what George Meany wants them
to do, and to hell with the Cana-
dian membership.

This time, as usual, they have
intervened to try and persuade
their Canadian local unions not
to send delegates to the Winni-
peg meeting in mid-January,
Called for the purpose of estab-
lishing an all-Canadian council
of construction unions.

ferential wage demand, overtime
for special. projects employees,
vacation ‘demands and an em-
ployee sick pay bank: They had
agreed to a wage settlement less
than that received by similar
workers in analagous organiza-
tions.

When SAC _ representatives
broke off talks, there was virtu-
ally no difference between the
total cost of the wage package
the two sides wanted. The dis-
tributicn of wages between em-
ployees remained in dispute as
CUPE 1222 wanted lower paid
workers to get a greater increase
than those in higher pay brack-
ets.

The strike is fully in progress,
with pickets at the SAC and
Varsity cffices. The agreement to
strike was unanimous.

—J.G.

scene. Several charges have been
laid against the doctors by union
members while the police in
turn laid charges against leaders
of railway and other labor
unions who came to the aid of
the non-medics. Most hearings
are still pending.

This particular strike, although
not large in terms of numbers,
evoked the greatest sympathy
from the entire labor movement,
including massive support from
the general public. During the
provincial elections in Ontario,
two communist candidates, Nan-
cy McDonald and Clifford Wahl,
unleashed devastating indict-
ments against the doctor dis-
rupters for serious violations of
the public’s health and wellbeing
while receiving their pay from
the coffers of a Public Health
Program.

The pressure on the Clinic and
Toronto Tories was building up.
In the second week of January
we heard reports of a near-set-
tlement reached in quiet behind-
the - scenes - discussions. Of the
original strikers only 33 have
volunteered to return to work
and complete details of the con-
tract in the next weeks ahead.
It would appear that victory is
at hand for the hard class strug-
gle waged by these non-medic
employees. The rest found other
work.

A flour mill processing 200
tons of grain per day has been
inaugurated in Aden; the mill
was built with the assistance of
experts from the German Demo-
cratic Republic.

Autonomy may be here for

Canadian Building Trades

However, this time they went
too far by their lies that “ Com-

_mies and radicals” were trying

to take over and run construc-
tion union affairs in Canada, ex-
actly in the same way as they
misrepresented the decisions of
the Canadian Labor Congress on
the issue of Canadian autonomy:
at its Vancouver Convention in
May, 1974. The result is that
both provincial and local build-
ing trades councils as well as
locals of building trades unions
have defied their Meany-domi-
nated advisors and proceeded
with the Winnipeg conference.

Ken Martin of London, On-
tario, who is president of the
60,000 member Ontario Building
Trades Council (OBTC) has
pointed out that a San Francisco
conference last September of the
AFL-CIO building trades council
supported the concept of a Cana-
dian council for construction
trade unions. But in a statement
to the London Free Press last
Dec. 30, Mr. Martin charged ap-
pointed international union rep-
resentatives with trying to sabo-
tage an all-Canadian council of
construction unions. Mr. Martin
said salaried officers of the build-.
ing trades initially supported the
idea, but “they are trying to
scuttle it.”

Mr. Martin also said he had
sent letters to affiliates of the
OBTC asking them to send dele-

gates to the Winnipeg confer-_

ence and ignore suggestions

from their Canadian directors
and international representa-
tives.

Henry Kobryn, executive sec-
retary of the Ontario Building
Trades Council, said there had
been some __ behind-the-scenes
moves from the U.S. intended to
stop the meeting next month in
Winnipeg. There were sugges-
tions the conference be post-
poned until after the AFL-CIO
building trades department meets
Feb. 9 in Miami. The question
of the Canadian council was on
the agenda. “Our feeling is that
if we postpone our conference
and no action is taken in Feb-
ruary by the AFL-CIO ... the
entire scheme will loose its cred-
ibility and die,” said Mr. Kobryn.

It will be remembered that a
year and a-half ago, some U.S.-
based unions withheld per capita
from the Canadian Labor Con-
gress in a dispute with CLC
guidelines for autonomy for Can-
adian affiliates of such U.S.-
based unions. That quarrel was
patched up some way or other.

The objective of the Winnipeg
conference steering committee
is to have their own Canadian
ccuncil to coordinate building
trades union positions in Canada
on legislative matters dealing
with building codes, labor legis-
laiton, problems of _ seasonal
work and pcssibly more uniform

- bargaining. The time has come

for Canadians to be masters in
their own house.

LIBRARY WORKERS
GET AIB SHAFTING
TORONTO — The Anti-Infla-
tion Board announced Jan. 16, it
has rejected the proposed wage
increases for the University of
Toronto’s ‘library and computer
technicians as excessive under
the selective controls system.

The settlement called for in-
creases averaging 18.2%, but the
board ruled it will only allow a
12.2% increase. The Canadian
Union of Public Employees re-
sponded by saying the AIB de-
cision was only an opinion and
it didn’t have the power to roll
back a wage settlement.

CGE CHAIN PARALIZED
FOR ONE HOUR

BARRIE, Ont. — About 7,300
members of the United Electri-
cal, Radio and Machine Workers
of America, working in Cana-
dian General Electric plants in
Barrie,
ronto, held a one-hour work
stoppage Jan. 16.

Union spokesman Barry Le-
may said the action was taken
in support of 400 union members
here who are fed up with what
he said is the company’s refusal
to bargain on union demands
submitted in September.

WOMEN'S WAGES
LAG 83% BEHIND MEN'S

OTTAWA — Women make up
one-third of Canada’s active
labor force, but their salaries
lag far behind men’s, according
to statistics compiled by the
Women’s Bureau of Labor Can-
ada.

More than 3,324,000 women
were employed in 1974, repre-
senting 34.4% of the nation’s
workforce of 9,662,000 the bu-
reau noted in its 1975 report.

The report points out that
men with full-time jobs earned

ants
=

Peterborough and To-_

LABOR '* BRIEF

far more than women, averaging
$9,455 compared with $5,166, a
difference of 83% in 1972, the
last year for which complete
statistics are available.

BUILDING TRADES
STRENGTHEN CANADIAN

AUTONOMY
WINNIPEG — Representatives
of 15 unions from across Canada

- drafted a constitution during the

weekend and decided to seek an
AFL-CIO charter for an auto-
nemous Canadian building and
construction trades organization.
About 200 attended the confer-
ence. They chose the name the
National Building and Construc-
tion Trades Council of Canada.
Many international union repre-
sentatives, most of whom are
not elected by the Canadian
rank and file, stayed away, in-
cluding Robert Georgine, presi-
dent of the International AFL-
CIO building and construction
trades department.

RAILWAY UNIONS
DISCUSS BARGAINING
STRATEGY

MONTREAL — Union leaders
representing more: than 95,000
railway workers across the coun-
try met here recently to discuss
negotiating strategy under the
federal government’s wage cont-
rols.

The railway workers are nego-
tiating a new contract, but talks
with Canada’s 11 railways have
not even begun in earnest, a
spokesman said.

The Associated Railway Uni-
ons had already presented a list
of demands when the wage con-
trols were announced, but had
not presented any wage pro-
posals.

Spokesmen said the various
unions might be willing to ignore
the wage guidelines. The unions’
last contract expired Dec. 31.

TRIBUNE PHOTO

TORONTO — Members of CUPE Local 1222, employees of the
Students Administrative Council (SAC) at the University of Toronto,
picket outside the SAC building Jan. 16. SAC representative broke
off talks when union representatives believed they were within an

hour of settling the contract.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 23, 1976—Page 5