I am writing to correct the errors and
misconceptions in John MacLennan’s arti-
cle “CUPW needs labour’s full backing,”
(Tribune March 9) which not only got the
facts twisted, but missed the main issue in
the struggle of external postal workers to get
their union back. The issue is workers’
rights versus union bureaucracy.

After one year of experience with
CUPW, 82.5 per cent of external workers
risked $5 and possible retaliation by signing

an LCUC card to get a democratic union of

their own choosing. To say that the certifi-
cation application is the action of a few
“leaders of nothing” is to mislead your
readers and to insult external workers.
Without the will of the membership, there
could be no power base, or LCUC.

When Canada Post was unable to defeat
LCUC on a picket. line, they simply
switched tactics. Canada Post and CUPW,
their new ally, convinced the CLRB that a
single bargaining unit was appropriate in
the post office. External postal workers lost
their right to a union of their choice, thanks
to this trio. CUP W likes to claim that postal
workers chose them in the certification vote
that followed the CLRB decision, but
ignore that fact that LCUC had almost
2,000 fewer members to draw on. Even with
this advantage, CUPW won the vote by

Letters

‘Non-representation’ claimed
in carriers d

he

had built and the organization that taught
them their trade union principles was the
ital straw. They realized that Canada
I ost’s one big union was not going to work.

_The attack on LCUC members escalated,

SOLIDARITY IN BETTER TIMES ... CUPW member helps repel scabs in Letter
Carriers’ strike, June, 1987.

ted their executive to get their union back.
In fact, for many LCUC members, the edict
forcing them to reject the union that they

pended and are being expelled in Montreal.
Ontario and the Maritimes have fared no
better. Hundreds of good trade unionists
have been charged and expelled.

Is it any wonder external workers want
out of CUPW? That is what this issue is all
about. Do workers have the right to choose
the organization that will represent them or

‘We should
say where
we stand’

The April 23 issue carried the
second of two discussion papers, p
pared by the leadership of the Com-
munist Party of Canada.

The first document was entitled
Socialism in Transition. It was an
analysis of the crisis of socialism in
Europe and the effect of the crisis on
the CPC. After due deliberati
document concluded that 1
was not Marxism that
rather the Stalinist distortion of the
theory that failed.

I would quote ¢
paragraphs fron
make my point.

“Imperialism has sought to use the
present crisis to proclaim the death of
socialism and the theory of Marxism.
It is not socialism or Ma
their Stalinist distortions which have
come to a dead end in 1989. On the
contrary, Marxism retains its validity
as a science and the changes taking
place in the world offer new oppor-
tunities for its creative development.”

Another paragraph states:

t GET eS
two oO! several