Soviet-French declaration step
ahead in fight for disarmament

Genrikh Trofimenko, a Soviet
expert on disarmament affairs,
expressed the views in the ac-
companying article, when inter-
viewed by a correspondent of
Novosti Press Agency (APN).

The signing of the Soviet-
French declaration on non-
proliferation of nuclear weapons
is a major step by two great pow-
ers towards fulfilling the provi-
sions of the Soviet Union’s
memorandum on stopping the
arms race and disarmament.

This declaration marks a major
positive contribution to the rein-
forcement of the nuclear non-
proliferation system.

They expressed readiness to
improve the inspection system of
the international atomic agency,
which ensures control over the ef-

fective observance of the com-
mitments taken by the states in
the field of non-proliferation.

A special responsibility rests on
the nuclear powers for
strengthening the non-
proliferation system, not only be-
cause they possess these
weapons, but also because they
have the most advanced nuclear
technology, including that for the
use of nuclear energy for peaceful
purposes.

These are now the major expor-
ters of such technology. It is an
open secret that its value on the
world market could, by the mid-
eighties, reach an estimated
$300,000,000,000. Therefore, the
initiative taken by the USSR and
France is a responsible and far-
sighted approach to the vital

safety of all nations. They have
clearly voiced their determination
to limit the transfer of materials
suitable for the production of nuc-
lear weapons or other nuclear
explosive devices, as well as
equipment and technology with
which to produce these materials.

The approach is not one-sided

and moralistic, but businesslike
and concrete, on the basis of f

international cooperation of 4 oF

states with different social sys-
tems. .The exceptional signi-
ficance of the joint declaration
also consists in the fact that Fr-
ance, anon-signatory to the treaty
of 1968, has now virtually ac-

cepted its spirit.and goals, name-:

ly, to make the commitment on
rejecting the spread of nuclear
arms a norm of international life.

Reject double-talk on

collective bargaining

On June 24, the Toronto Globe
and Mail reported Donald Mont-
gomery, secretary-treasurer of
the Canadian Labor Congress, as
telling a graduating class of the
Labor College of Canada that the
traditional collective bargaining
apparatus cannot guarantee labor
input in corporate decisions that

' affect workers.

‘‘Canadian trade unions must
obtain input to the making of de-
cisions that affect workers’ lives
through our own form of indust-
rial democracy. Otherwise, we
run the risk of destroying collec-
tive bargaining by forcing it to
work in situations it was never
designed to handle.”

But surely the only way that
labor and its unions can obtain an
input in decision making is by ex-
tending the scope of the traditional
collective bargaining apparatus,
based upon the adversary
relationship which is inevitable

between labor and capital in a pri- ,

vate profit system of economic
and social relations, which consti-
tute todays reality in Canada.
Mo.eover, to do this, demands
the continuously expanding in-
volvement of the union member-
ship in union policy formulation
and the fullest inner-union
democracy. No other form of in-
dustrial democracy -has any
meaning.

To talk about guaranteeing gre-
ater labor input in private corpo-
rate decision-making by mere
centralization of union power to
the exclusion of membership par-
ticipation in decision making, and
the abandonment of the tradi-
tional adversary character of col-
lective bargaining is pure double
talk without meaning. Such
bureaucratic centralization of
union power while restricting
rank-and-file participation in
decision-making is simply class-
collaboration and a betrayal of
both the interests of the working
class and of democracy.

Unfortunately, in Canada to-
day, there is such a tendency. It is
to be found in many situations. To
mention a few:

There is the effort to restrict

membership participation in
selection of delegates to Conven-

tions and Central labor bodies.
There is the effort to centralize
and deprive the membership of
full participation in the collective
bargaining process. And, there is
the effort to take away hardwon
democratic membership rights,
such as the right to referendums
conducted among the member-
ship on the ratification of
contracts.

These are merely some of the
many restrictions now being con-
sidered as the means to re-inforce
so-called Tri-partism, which
means collaboration between top
union leadership, employers and
government.

Here is what the General Ser-
vice Group of the Public Works
Component of the Public Service
Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has to
say about this in their Bulletin
‘TODAY’, Volume 1, No. 16,
June, 1977:

“On June Ist the Executive
Management Committee (the
Ivory Tower Team) which con-
sists of the-PSAC President and
four (4) Vice-Presidents, unanim-
ously agreed to sign a G.S.
memorandum of agreement with
Treasury Board which has been
unanimously rejected by your G.S.
negotiating team a few hours be-
fore, for the third time. The G.S.
negotiating team was advised of
the decision on June 2, but for
some mysterious reason they
were not consulted by the E.M.C.
to give their reasons for rejection.
Why?

‘*‘What caused the rush to signa
memorandum: of agreement
which the E.M.C. has known for
in excess of one month was unac-
ceptable to the negotiating team?
Could it be that the G.S. members
are being sacrificed for some
other PSAC group? Was a deal
made with the Treasury Board?
Why was the G.S. group not al-
lowed to proceed to Arbitration?
Why has the General Service
Brief to the Arbitration Tribunal
not prepared and printed as of
June 1, 1977 (hearing scheduled
for June 3rd)? ...

**All PSAC members must now
look at what this means. If the
E.M.C. are going to overrule the
decision of your negotiating team,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE-—JULY 8, 1977— —Page 6

what is to stop them from decid-
ing they will not accept bargaining
demands from the members?
What is the purpose of having
bargaining committees? What is
the purpose of having a repre-
sentative on the negotiating team?
What part are the members going
to have in future negotiations? Is
this the first step in removing the
right of the members to vote on
their agreements? What group
will be next? Ships. Crews?
G.L.&T. Hospital Services? »

“If this is to be the new policy
of the PSAC, the Public Works
Component will have to’seriously
consider withdrawing from all
negotiating teams — we will have
no part of a fool-the-membership
game. 5...

When responsible leaders of
the central labor bodies and top
leaders of big unions start talking

about revisions of the ‘traditional ©

collective bargaining apparatus’

so as not to “‘risk destroying col-
lective bargaining by forcing it to
work in situations it was never
designed to handle’’, it is time to
ask why these leaders concen-

‘trade upon attacking membership

rights within the respective unions,
rather than the multinational cor-
porate establishment and its gov-
ernments, which are today con-
ducting an offensive against the
working class as a whole to solve
inflation which they themselves
have created at labor’s expense,
and. deliberately fostering mass
unemployment to enforce such an
assinine policy?

It is high time that the big cor-
porate rip-off is challenged by the
working class and democratic
movement by means of mass
economic and political action. It
is necessary that the trade union

movement remain at the centre of _

such parliamentary and extra-
parliamentary activities along the
lines of October 14 last, to risk
loosing all of its social and
economic gains. That includes
the right to collective bargaining
and to strike, which may throw us

back a century and a-half, in

terms of both living standards and
fundamental democratic rights. It
is something worth thinking seri-
ously about.

L.1. Brezhnev in France at the invitation of Giscard D’Estaing to dis-
cuss steps toward stopping the arms race and disarmament. }

Access to the peaceful uses of
nuclear energy represents an im-
portant means of economic
development for a growing
number of countries. It is esti-
mated by specialists that by 1980,
more than 50 countries, including
those who have not joined the
nuclear non-proliferation treaty,
will have industrial and experi-
mental nuclear installations. The
USSR and France realize that
cooperation of ‘the nuclear pow-
ers with third countries in the field

of nuclear industry could, in the
absence of proper guarantees and
control, lead to the undermining
of the. non-proliferation system
and to the destabilization of the
international situation. For this
reason the declaration states
undertakings to prevent this.

Also taking into account the
possibility of nuclear materials
being hijacked, the parties sup- —
port the working out of an interna-
tional convention on_ that
question.

CPC demands
Ziemba’s release

TORONTO — The Com-
munist Party has demanded the
immediate release of New Demo-
cratic Party Member of Provincial
Parliament (Ontario), who was
jailed June 23 for refusing to re-
veal sources of information.

It was Ziemba who, last De-
cember,
more than 800 Ontario doctors

’ who, involved with medical labs,

had billed the province’s Ontario
Health Insurance Plan for more
than $100,000 each in the fiscal
year 1974-75. Eleven medical
practitioners billed OHIP for
more than $1,000,000 in that
period.

Although, a committee of the
Ontario Legislature, won by way
of the Ontario Court of Appeal,
the right of access to the doctors’
names from OHIP and the right to
their publication, a court, acting
on demands of lawyers for own-
ers of medical labs who are now

being tried for fraud, has insisted -

that Ziemba reveal his sources of
information. This he has refused
to do.

The Ontario Executive of the
Communist Party of*Canada has
called the jailing of the member of
High Park-Swansea ‘‘a dis-
criminatory political act.”’

The Communist statement
goes on:

‘““Mr. Ziemba languishes in jail
while the real culprits, govern-
ment mismanagement of OHIP,
and rip-offs by the medical
laboratories and some doctors, go
on their merry way.

“The real issue is being
obscured,”’ the Communist Party
charged. “It is not that Mr.
Ziemba should be forced to bet-
ray the confidentiality of a con-
stituent, but whether the facts

leaked the names of ,

disclosed by Mr. Ziemba caf
stand up to legal scrutiny and be
proven. We think they can.

“Mr. Ziemba should be freed «
immediately and suffer no further
harassment,’’ the Communist
statement says. It urges that ‘‘an
investigation into the operations
of OHIP be instituted and made
public.

‘‘Further,’’ the Communist
statement concludes, ‘‘an impor
tant-civil rights issue is at stake

here. Nobody should be forced tO

disclose his sources of informa-
tion. It is up to the authorities tO.
prove their case, not force thi
party involvement by an accused
or a witness.

‘*Free Ed Ziemba!”’

Initial checks of records indi-
cate that Ziemba is the first On-
tario MPP to be sent to jail. The
terms, six days, could conceiva- _
bly be repeated for the rest of his”
life.

A public, already incensed over
probing, prying and illegal acquil-
ing of evidence by police, with the
active help of the courts and gov-
ernments, is demonstrating that
the Ziemba case concerns it. °

The NDP group in the legisla”
ture was reported preparing a pO" —
vate member’s bill demanding thé
right of MPPs to refuse to disclos¢”
sources of information.

WANTED

Progress Books is seeking
photos, unpublished poems}
and people’s memories of Joe
Wallace for an upcoming pub-
lication of his poetry. Anyone
with such material please for-
ward It to progress Books, 487}
Adelaide St. W., Toronto M5V
1T4.

ee