LABOR By MIKE PHILLIPS WHITBY — A corporate take- Over in the candy industry that threatens to eliminate the jobs of 420 Cadbury-Schweppes workers here, and give William Nielson Ltd., a bigger monopoly to gouge consumers at will, is being fought by the Canadian Auto Workers and the entire community. Though a firm date for the pro- test hasn’t yet been set, more than - 300 of the 420 Cadbury workers tepresented by the CAW voted Jan. 18 to demonstrate on Parlia- ment Hill against the takeover and subsequent plant closure which is Slated to take place Feb. 12. The union is awaiting a response from federal Consumer and Cor- porate Affairs Minister Harvie Andre to. its telegrammed request from CAW president Bob White, Jan. 20, for a meeting with the minister to discuss the takeover and for Andre to convene an enquiry into the move by the Can- adian competition tribunal. CAW secretary treasurer Bob Nickerson condemned the move as yet another in a string of corpo- White: Our determination is not blunted. rate takeovers that enhance mono- poly control over the economy but do nothing to create new wealth or jobs in Canada. Nickerson told the Jan. 18 meet- ing that takeovers, “don’t mean a damn thing to a worker. What’s important to us are our homes, our families, our mortages. “The millionaires just keep tak- ing and the workers keep losing their families and their homes through these takeovers,” he said. The announcement hit the workers and the community like a Labor Briefs New NSFL president chosen HALIFAX — Gwen Wolfe, a senior officer of the Nova Scotia Government Employees Union, and a vice president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labor was unanimously elected to the presidency of the federation, Jan. 12, at a special executive meeting. The NSFL’s top post was left vacant following former presi- dent Gerald Yetman’s surprise resignation, which he announced in November, and which took effect, Jan. 1. Yetman resigned to return to his position as a full time national representative for the Canadian Union of Public Employees on — Cape Breton Island. It is widely believed that he will seek the New Democratic Party nomination in one of Cape Breton’s pro- Vincial ridings. Yetman has been criticised in labor circles for offering himself for election to the two-year post, when he knew he would likely hot complete his full term of office. Furthermore, he had told the federation executive of his resig- . nation plans on the eve of this year’s convention, but news of this decision was withheld from the delegates. Several labor councils have already expressed their resent- Ment over the executive’s behavior by passing resolutions criticising it for withholding the information. Wolfe’s mandate comes up for renewal next October at the annual NSFL convention, at which time all of the federation’s €xecutive offices will be open for re-election. At her first press conference, the new president pledged to lead 4 province-wide campaign for equal pay legislation and for la- I's rights in general. _ Three month battle at Spar DOWNSVIEW — Fighting a hi-tech employer and its 19th Century approach to labor relations, some 600 Canadian Auto Workers members have been on the picket line against Spar Aerospace, since Oct. 10. CAW locals 112, (production workers), and 673 (office and technical staff) are up against a long list of takeaways demanded by the company including wiping out the cost of living adjust- ment, weakening of seniority rights, enhanced management s Tights, and the introduction of lump-sum payments to the work- ers instead of regular wage increases. ; John Bettes, residentor Local 112, has said that while talks Tesumed, Jan. 8, no issues have been resolved. In a union bulle- tin, Jan. 9, he indicated that 1987 would be an important year for aerospace negotiations, with CAW bargaining with both Boeing and de Havilland. Because the workers at Spar lead the industry in wages, he Said, the corporations want to set an example of the Spar workers Or the rest. In addition to the contract issues, there are a number of health and safety problems at Spar, including the use of toxic chemicals In the plant. Bettes noted that the provincial environment mims- try recently ordered the company to dispose of 300 barrels of Used cyanide that it was storing with a license behind the plant. | Cadbury merger fought thunderbolt, Jan. 13 as Local 222 representatives were meeting com- pany officials in what the union expected to be the opening of negotiations for a new collective agreement. Instead of getting contract talks off the ground, Cadbury man- agement informed the union that some 12 hours earlier the $47 mil- lion deal had been signed, sealed, and the workers jobs delivered. The takeover is to be investi- gated under the new federal com- petition act that came into being last June, but there appears to be . little reason for workers to hope they will be satisfied by the enquiry. The mandate of federal com- bines director Cal Goodman is to decide whether competition is “substantially” lessened in the “relative market.”” Goodman has to decide to recommend whether the takeover should come before the competition Tribunal, a panel of judges and citizens with the power to review or reject mergers. ‘Michelin bill hit HALIFAX — Pounded by relentless media propaganda, and corporate and government pres- sure, Michelin’s 3,000 Nova Sco- tia workers voted not to join the Canadian Auto Workers union. Though the certification vote was actually taken in November, the results weren’t released by the provincial labor ministry until Jan. 15. The CAW effort was the fourth attempt to organize Miche- lin Tires Canada Ltd., during the past 17 years. CAW president Bob White, obviously disappointed by the re- sults, nevertheless stated that the defeat wouldn’t blunt the union’s determination to keep trying to organize the notoriously anti-union firm. Despite the outcome, many local labor activists were im- pressed by the fact that the union was able to sign up the required 40 per cent of the work force for a government-supervised certi- fication vote. They condemn the hypocrisy of calling it a “‘free’’ vote in the light of the notorious Michelin Bill, and the media barrage prior to the vote predicting the French trans- national would pull out of Nova Scotia if the workers joined the CAW. The so-called Michelin Bill was brought down in 1979 to make it practically impossible for a union to get a foothold in the tire manu- facturing operation. It says that any union seeking to certify the workers in a plant that is interde- pendent with other plants owned by the same company, must or- ganize all of that company’s operations in order to win certi- fication. Michelin is the only concern in the province that fits that descrip- tion, and the three previous or- ganizing drives failed because of the legislation. The company is also Nova Scotia’s largest manu- Labor in action GEORGE HEWISON Workers’ Co-ops not an industrial strategy From one end of the country to the other, some of the best brains of the labor movement have slaved tirelessly to provide less than fundamental answers to fundamental questions. How, they ask, does labor cope with the plethora of plant shutdowns and lay-offs? How do we deal with the matter of workplace, community, or industrial democracy in the era of the trans- national corporation? The medieval alchemist, too, squandered precious hours ignor- ing the basic laws of science in a futile attempt to turn base metals into gold. Now, the modern labor alchemist, indifferent to the fundamental economic laws of our system, and to the past debris strewn from decades of similar experiments, goes merrily about his work selling the virtues of his magic formula to undermine the power of the transnational corporation with a minimum of strug- gle and a maximum of benefit. From the proposed Solidarity Fund of Cape Breton Island, to the Community Based Economic Development of B.C. to the Hamilton Challenge sandwiched in between, neatly packaged proposals are brought forward to a beleaguered trade union movement anxious. to get the monkey of unemployment, and neo-conservative reaction off its back. Salvation or Cement Boots? But labor is absolutely correct to give the proposals more than the once over. For what may look like a life ring, may be a pair of cement boots. A salvation for labor may prove to be its undoing. All of the proposals have several things in common: a. they all ignore the basic economic reality that the means of marketing, distribution and communications are all highly monopolized. A workers co-op, or a limited company in which workers sink deferred income or pension money is at the mercy of this power. b. invariably the enterprises which are subjected to such an approach are those which big capital has targetted for shutdown — “‘the losers’’. Labor is asked to bail out the losers. The commodities produced by the worker co-op nevertheless find themselves back in the marketplace dominated by the big corporation. | c. they are brought foreward at this time as a strategy to counter the neo-conservative strategy of survival of the fittest, but in fact offer no real challenge to monopoly power of the market which generates the neo-conservative phenomenon. d. they all invariably end up undermining the basic objectives of the trade union movement. Ignores Labor's Alternative Take the Hamilton Challenge which writes off the industrial city of Hamilton as an industrial center because ““technological change, and increasing international competition will not be the source of employment growth’’. The diversification, the Challenge says, will come from the “cooperative movement and the establishment of worker-owned enterprises’’. Such an approach ignores labor’s alternative eco- nomic strategy which would create a booming steel industry in which jobs, working conditions, health and safety and the environment would not have to be traded off. Such an approach ignores the vast wealth already created by Hamilton’s steelworkers which currently goes to Stelco coupon clippers, and would have the workers and the community pay once again to create the new diversified jobs. In short, the Chal- lenge deflects labor from the task of taking on the corporations and 2nds up running interference for them. Or take the celebrated co-op set up by the Victoria mill- workers. They found that the only way they could make a going concern of “‘their’’ operation was by a wage cut. Naturally the IWA was opposed, so the workers, to save their operation, jettisoned the union and decertified the IWA. : Gimmicks Won’t Work A rather convoluted but effective way for the corporations to obtain concessions, but in this case the workers themselves not only slit their own throats, but those of their fellow workers in the forest industry. : Control by the workers at their workplace is a fundamental demand of the labor movement. A say in the overall economic future of the country by the working class is also becoming of paramount concern to the trade union movement. But this control and this say can only come about by diminish- ing the power of those who presently have a monopoly on the ‘control and say’’ — the large transnational corporations and their flunkeys in Ottawa and the provincial capitals. Winning the “control and say”’ is basic to the trade union movement. It will not be done by gimmicks. It will take united, determined struggle. facturer. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 28, *987 e 7