_ Better wages key demand in
~ TAW walkout at Canadian Ca

By E. ROGERS

THUNDER BAY — Without a
Wage increase for more than two
years, Local 1075, United Auto
Workers Struck Hawker-Sideley
Canada Ltd., (Canadian Car Di-

vision), March 31.
cket lines were thrown up
around the Can Car plant at 7:00
4.M. as a result of a union meeting
h 30, attended by some 900
1075 members who voted
90% for strike action to back their

Contract demands.

Negotiations have dragged on

for weeks without any sign of a
settlement. Hawker-Sideley is in
a Most favored position because
Its payroll has remained at a con-
stant level because of the wage
freeze produced by the so-called
Anti-Inflation Board. The work-
ers Were trapped 33 months ago in
a contract settlement which was
negotiated before the wage con-
trols were phased out by the fed-
eral government. f

There was no wage increase in
the last agreement, only minor
benefits improvements and the in-
troduction of a Cost of Living
Adjustment (COLA) clause. The
company, in short, has exper-
ienced what Can Car workers are
calling a bonanza rip-off period.
Workers feel they’ ve ‘‘been taken
to the cleaners by Hawker-Side-
ley.”

To close the wage gap, the
UAW is asking for a two-year
pact and a wage hike of $1.75 an
hour. The company isn’t even
coming close to the workers’ de-
mand with its ‘‘offer’’ of a two-
year agreement with a 10 cent in-
crease in the first year, 10 cents
again in the second year and
another nickle in July, of the sec-.
ond year.

Brian Powers, chairman of
Local 1075’s bargaining commit-

Some 1,200 members of UAW Local 1075 started picketting Hawker-
Sideley’s Canadian Car division, March 31, to back demands for decent

wage hike. :

tee said, March 31, the strike
would continue around the clock
until a settlement was reached.
The 1,200 Hawker-Sideley work-
ers are dug in for a long fight if
that’s necessary and are deter-
mined to end Can Car’s sweat
labor rates. :

Hawker-Sideley is . partially
owned by the federal government
but the Can Car division in Thun-
der Bay has been the recipient of
the Ontario taxpayers’ generosity
through massive infusions of
Tory government subsidy grants
to keep the operation solvent.
The UAW and the Can Car work-
€rs Say the company has recently
signed a number of good con-
tracts for transit vehicles and
should give the workers their
share, in better wages.

The company has a 190-car
order from the Toronto Transit

Commission for light rail vehicles
of which 75 have been delivered.
Can Car also has contracts with
the Boston transit authority for
190 subway cars, and with the
Canadian General Transport Co.,
for 400 railway hopper cars. Both
orders are only partially com-
pleted:

Some 300 pickets sealed off all
gates to the plant, March 31, and
management responded by cal-
ling in six cruiser loads of police,
who were booed and jeered at by
the strikers.

The cops behaved themselves
and there were no clashes.

The strikers are stressing the
need for unity in the ranks to wina
decent contract and challenge
Hawker-Sideley’s drive to keep
wages low and boost company
profits.

.

Strikers and wives protest

federal handouts to Boise

FORT FRANCES — The
Boise Cascade strikers and their
wives have launched a campaign
to protest provincial and federal
government handouts of the tax-
payers’ money to the strike-
bound multi-national.

In a letter circulated to labor
councils and strike supporters
signed by the strikers and wives it-
is revealed that Boise Cascade is

slated to receive $1.7-million in
government grants for projects at
one of its Canadian mills. __

- “As they (Boise Cascade)
claim to have made $150-million
in profits in 1979’’, the letter ar-
gues, “‘we feel they do not need
any grants from our government
that could be utilized for better
purposes by Canadians for

OR

The letter also suggests the

possibility that Boise Cascade
may have already set aside the
required amount of money for its
expansion and that the govern-
ment grant could be just another
windfall to swell company profits.
Wherever the U.S.-owned multi-
national has taken over Canadian
mills, the strikers note, ‘‘these
mills have been the scenes of
tough battles by labor for justice
and a decent living standard.”

The current 17-month battle
between Lumber and Sawmill
Workers Union Local 2693 and
Boise Cascade officially began
Oct. 11, 1978 through the workers
had lodged earlier protests against
the company’s union-busting plan
to put the workers on a piece rate
system, and force them to buy
their own logging equipment.
Boise is out to smash the union in

this way trying to force the work-

ers to become independent con-
tractors. : :

Under the union-busting plan,
the workers would supply and
maintain their own costly logging
equipment, cut wood for Boise on
a Contract basis, based on piece
rates, and company profits would
soar. Meanwhile the workers are
to be reduced to the virtual slav-
ery of the loggers to the logging
company which existed before
LSWU forced the companies to
supply the logging equipment, 30
years ago.

The letter also reminds strike
supporters and the public at large
of the millions of dollars of On-
tario taxpayers’ money which the
provincial government has _al-
ready wasted by supplying Boise

Cascade with the protection of an
army of Ontario Provincial
Police. :

‘‘We have written to many
government officials concerning

this strike and the way Boise has

dealt with it, and their reply was

*that government was staying

neutral’’, the letter says. “‘Giving
them a grant at this time is not
being neutral.” :

With no immediate end in sight
to the epic labor fight, the strikers,

their wives and hundreds of -

families are enduring severe hard-
ships. ‘‘Since these are our tax
dollars that are being so liberally
handed out’’, the letter points out,
‘**we would like to see an investi-
gation into labor relations and the
bush operations of Boise Cascade
Canada Ltd.”
No money should be given the
company by either provincial or
federal sources, the strikers say,
until Boise can show they’re wil-
ling to improve labor relations
with the workers by settling the
strike and the issues which chal-
lenge the union’s very existence.

*‘No money should be alloted to ©

any company while a strike or
labor dispute is in progress’, the
strikers’ letter concludes.

WFTU BACKS
SALVADORAN
PEOPLE.

PRAGUE — The World Fed-
eration of Trade Unions,
(WFTU) recently issued an ap-
peal for mounting a mass cam-
paign with the people of El Sal-
vador, victims of a conspiracy by
U.S. imperialism, transnational
corporations and the reactionary
ruling junta. WFTU expressed its
support for El Salvador’s Revolu-
tionary Co-ordinating Body lead-
ing the country’s progressive
forces and called on trade unions
the world over, backed by the
public, to demand an end to rep-
ression and terror and the obser-
vance of democratic and trade
union rights in El Salvador.

BEER CONTRACT
OPPOSED

LONDON — Labatt’s Brewery
workers here and Molson’s work-
ers in Toronto voted April 1 to re-
ject a tentative three-year pact be-
tween the beer industry and the
Canadian Union of Brewery,
Flour, Cereal, Soft Drink and Dis-
tillery Workers. Better pension
provisions was the demand by
Labatt’s workers while at Mol-
son’s the workers were dissatisfied

. with the three-year term and the

absence of a cost-of-living clause in
1981. The two locals represent
about 1,000 workers. Meanwhile
3,000 other brewery workers at
Carling-O’Keefe, and Brewers’

Warehousing Ltd. who bargain
jointly with Labatt’s and Molson’s
voted to accept the tentative pact.

BELL STRIKERS

‘BACK TO WORK

TORONTO — Bell Canada’s
7,400 cafeteria workers and
operators returned to work
March 31 after an overwhelming
ratification of a three-year con-
tract ending their 10-week strike.
The vote by members of the
Communications Workers of
Canada to accept the tentative
pact was 4,485 to 588 in favor.
The contract is the first for the
CWC representing the operators
and dining service staff after the
workers dumped the old company
union. The solid strike produced
an increase in the top rate from
$194 to $278 a week, and full re-

troactivity to the expiry of the old
contract. Bell’s refusal to grant
retroactive pay was a main road-
block to the settlement.

LSWU CHARGES
QUASHED

THUNDER BAY — Provincial
Court Judge Roy Mitchell quashed
an information laid by the Crown
against Lumber and Sawmill
Workers Union leaders Tulio Mior
and Fred Miron, March 31, be-
cause the wording of the charge
was so broad that it would be un-
fair for the Boise Cascade strike
leaders.to answer them.

Mior and Miron were charged
between Aug. 27 and Oct. 10, 1979
with ‘‘unlawfully counselling, pro-
curing or inciting others to commit
an indictable offence.’? The
charges were just another attempt

- by the company and the govern-

ment to frame the strike leaders.

CUPW DEMANDS
REJECTED

OTTAWA — True to its anti-
union position, the Post Office
has tumed thumbs down to every
single non-monetary proposal for
anew agreement submitted by the
Canadian Union of Postal Work-
ers. The rejection was contained
in a Post Office document re-
leased April 2, listing the govern-
ment’s hard-headed response to
CUPW’s contract proposals.

CUPW is pursuing wage in-
creases and COLA increases to
protect its members from the rav-
ages of inflation, and other con-
tract demands to recoup what was
lost from the ‘‘contract”’ imposed
by the federal government in Oc-
tober 1978 to crush the week-old
postal strike.

QUIT STALLING |
PSAC TELLS GOV'T

OTTAWA — Members of the
Clerical and Regulatory group in
the Public Service Alliance of
Canada’s Ottawa-Hull area coun-
cil demonstrated April 2 protesting
the Treasury Board’s stalling in
contract negotiations. Mediation
talks have broken down for the
federal government clerks repre-
sented by PSAC.

The noon-hour demonstration
marched to Treasury Board offices
to underline their demand for the
government to quit stalling.

"WOW LET'S ALL LOOK HaPpy..EVERYBoDY say "PRoFiT'S" /

Se atoa

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL11, 1980— Page 5