Multinational corporations— ty NORMAN FERGUSON ba Dept. United Electrical, and Machine Workers : of America (UE) anal there has been a “ae by sections of tuntrieg NE class in foreign nla the U.S. ational corpora- inontzol Most of the meal tem Industries. This con- Pople on from the fact that the 7 More readily recog- tional Teat posed by multi- tee ty, Corporate policies to ben elihood and the develop- Mies their domestic econ- On i a “ountry in this position e Available statistics Rusty tthe bulk of Canadian The aut 18 under U.S. control. Mach; °, rubber, agricultural othe.’ electrical, chemical beta Miscellaneous manu- tte pyeaustries in Canada thitolleg < 50% owned and “sty th by U.S. corporations, € giant multinationals. While there are other Cana- dian industries more directly controlled, one example of the operation of the multinationals is Canada’s electrical manufac- turing industry. : This industry is controlled 66% by U.S. firms. The giants of the industry, GE and West- inghouse have had subsidiaries in Canada since around the turn of the century. These subsidiar- ies are the basis of the industry in Canada as in many other countries. Other U.S. .corpora- tions have extensive Canadian operations such as Litton, IBM, Raytheon, RCA, IT & T; etc. In recent years, there has been an apparent trend on the part of the multinationals, to in- tegrate and rationalize the elec- trical industry on a global scale. This trend has been character- ized by mergers and continental rationalization of product manu- facture. The process is being carried on by the multination- als in their own interests and has resulted in unemployment Ry Bruce Magnuson e Sime tari Provincial gov- we, tWO ie recently introduc- malig .-S Which purport to cts Wdicial review of de- Mr tissig 60vernment boards, ae 4 aie and similar bodies. iy Od 54 ace of it, these bills “othin look all right. There Na th Particularly offensive tek ve S legislation. It all ine “4 Mnocent and well in-: teva : fact it has been put “ise gf S a step towards de- lal ,A2€ tights of the indi- zen, and who could veut hoe sect to that? iw F 1! From the point of Le Coulg eanized labor these e Tye Oubles, the cause of end- best, .; mba a With, every mining ty eve, Very timber compa- Wi Org Pree struction compa- She ite 9 fat number of them, Wrleng attery of lawyers to hrkten,s etY decision of the ) Keen th Compensation Board el “ir merit rating down. rout Procrastinations in Cede alot proceedings, ex- tainly ore, who needs them? an ane the injured work- The nts ing woman. athe ig government has tea labo, “TS been forced by Movement to provide 'Slatio,, 800d compensation » But it will now go hey NTH MY WIFE GOING To WORK | CAN'T MAKE ENDS MEET: Mm POOR 4 gecLow! Their decisions close our plants and job insecurity for thousands of workers in the foreign sub- sidiaries and even in the domes- tic plants of these corporations. An illustration of this is the dislocation resulting from the movement towards reliance on Asian factories for home enter- tainment products. The results of this move in Canada have been outright plant closings on a wholesale basis and severe cutbacks in productions in those still open. Many, many hundreds of long-service workers have lost their jobs through corpor- ate decisions made outside of the country at a time when un- employment in Canada is at its highest level since the great de- pression of the thirties. The security of Canadian workers and the national inter- est are also being undermined in other industry sectors. In re- cent years the multinationals have invested large sums of capital in new and expanded plants and equipment for heavy apparatus manufacture in the U.S. While doing this they have allowed facilities for this prod- uct in Canada to become out- moded in many respects. As a result, the Canadian subsidiar- jes are now acting as sales agencies in many instances, bid- ding on Canadian requirements and then sending the order to the multinational parent for manufacture in the U.S. Conse- quently, more jobs are lost and the nation is deprived of the continuing development of skills and facilities necessary to keep its position as a growing indus- trial country. In summary, this is how the multinational corporation works generally to the disadvantage of Canadian development— 1. The decisions as to what to manufacture in Canada are made by the foreign parent company based on criteria other than Canadian interests. 2. The subcontracts for Canadian manufacture are usually for parts of systems. The Canadian subsidiary ex- ports these back to the parent company, which has complete control over the market for the system and the price paid to the Canadian subsidiary for the part. 3. The price bid by the Canadian subsidiary for par- ent company patents and technique, research and de- velopment, administration and what-have-you is a financial drain of unknown proportions with important balance of payments. implications. 4, The source and nature of important Canadian imports are determined by parent company decisions. Not only does this destroy Canadian job opportunities; but con- sumers also are denied any benefit from lower priced im- Ford in Quebec and International Electronics’ runaway capacitor shop in Taiwan. ports since the distribution of the latter is subjected to the Canadian subsidiary’s arbi- trary mark-ups. 5. In the multinational cor- poration’s widespread opera- tions, profit can be switched from one country to another by.internal price and account- ing procedures. Therefore, control over international flows of funds and even taxa- tion of profits created in any one country can escape that country’s authorities. In order to maintain sov- ereignty and grow towards full potential, Canada must have the capability to be self reliant in basic, modern industries, such as the electrical industry. Tech- nological capability in Canadian plants must keep pace with or lead the rest of the world in order that Canada have a bal- anced economy, develop the skills of the people and maintain the home market by keeping them employed. : tad Laws that strangle unions out the window, and companies will adopt the procedures com- mon in the USA if we allow this legislation. to open the door to court proceedings as a means of establishing the rights of un- fortunate accident victims. Just imagine the costly drawn- out procedures necessary to geta pension for a widow of a sili- cosis victim! Or to establish whether or not a back injury 1s compensable, and at what rates for how long? Far from being a boon to the individual workman or working woman, this could easily become their personal disaster. Employers would charge legal expenses to corporate expense accounts. The legal profession would no doubt expand. More paper work experts, more bu- reaucrats and more parasites for workers to feed. Surely we have too much of that sort 0 thing now and need to cut it down to size. But the Workmen’s Compen- sation Board is hardly the place to start. Despite shortcomings and mistakes that are made in its operations, it disposes speed- ily and reasonably fairly of hun- dreds of thousands of injured workmen’s compensation claims every year, not to speak of the dispensation of pensions to de- pendents of fatally injured. Then there is the Labor Rela- tions Board, which deals with unions. In the first place a Labor Court was given a trial. It did not work. Lack of under- standing and protracted court procedures forced the provin- cial government, after growing pressure from working people and their unions, to set up a bi- partisan Labor Board. As the Ontario Federation of Labor correctly points out, “To now subject the Labor Board to court reviews would re-invite all the delays and other defects of the court system with the time consumed by the Labor Board added to the delays.” Attention is - drawn to. the spiteful action of the Metropol- itan Life in launching a court appeal against the certification of 32 stationary engineers who wanted a union. The case took two and a half years to, deter- mine. Regardless of the verdict ‘reached, the long procrastina- tion destroyed the union, which was what the company wanted. The company lawyers will have a field day with cross ex- amination of union organizers and a long list of names provid- ed for company blacklists. What an opportunity for intimidation and discrimination! Workers will be afraid to join a union and to help sign up their fellow- workers to establish a union. Moreover, the Labor Board will most definitely want to play it safe if all its decisions are to be subject to court re- views. Reasons for decisions will have to be carefully formu- lated and written. The proce- dure is going to cause endless delays. Unions are going to be tied up in all sorts of costly court procedures. The courts and the judiciary have never been not- ed for understanding of indus- trial relations. Their hostility towards trade unions is well known, established over the de- cades. If this legislation goes through as it now stands there will be a rapid deterioration in labor- management relations in On- tario. There will most certainly be a polarization of class forces and a deepening of the conflict between capital and labor, be- tween the big corporations and the labor unions. The reviews by courts of ar- pitration awards which are sup- posed to be final and binding will be the “icing on the cake,” so to speak. Weare going back to square one and the “free- dom” of the jungle in which the conglomerate multi-national cor- porations will reign supreme. The Ontario Federation of Labor has announced its inten- tion to meet the Davis govern- ment to voice objections to “The Judicial Review Procedure Act 1971” and “The Statutory and Powers Procedure Act 1971.” The Labor Council of Metro- politan Toronto has endorsed the OFL stand and urged all its affiliated locals to contact their MP’s and voice their op- position to the type of legisla- tion proposed. It is to be hoped that every local union and Labor Council in the province take this matter up in a similar way. At the same time it should be warning to labor in all the provinces to look out for simi- lar “subtle” procedures which open wide the door for em- ployers to use courts to stifle organization and to prevent their employees from realizing legitimate aims and aspirations. In truth, it must be said that eternal vigilance is the, way to protect the freedoms we have already won, and unflinching struggle’ is the way to still greater freedom, until exploita- tion of man by man is brought to an end. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FRIDAY, JULY 2, 1971—PAGE 9