By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORONTO — Delegates to the
last meeting of the Metro Toronto
Labor Council Oct. 21 seized a
Tare opportunity to get some of
their own back from one of the
food monopoly’s representatives.

The occasion was a panel dis-
Cussion and educational meeting
by the Council’s Consumer Af-
fairs and Union Label Committee

.on UPC, or the ‘‘Universal Pric-
Ing Code.”
._ The panel consisted of provin-
cial NDP consumer affairs critic
Donald Macdonald, Dick Rooney
director of the retail division of
the Amalgamated Meat Cutters
union, Janice Scanlon of the Con-
Sumer’s Association of Canada,

and Doug Stewart, a spokesman
for Steinbergs Ltd. and the focal
Point of much angry criticism
from the delegates.

In effect the UPC will eliminate
the individual pricing of ‘com-
Modities, robbing the consumer
Of the basis for price comparison
and eliminating a lot workers who
formerly had the job of pricing
and stocking the commodities.

The Consumer Affairs Com-

“Ottawa has a plan to avoid lay-
Offs: so read the first line of a
tWo-line headline in the Toronto
Star, Friday, October 22. My

Opes began to rise. They rose
€ven higher after reading the sec-
Ond line: ‘‘Shorter work week, no

in pay”. Who would have
thought . ..7I began to say to my-
Self. This is progress! Just what

Communist Party and or-
8anized labor have been saying
for a long time now. One of the
Very first steps toward a policy of

ll employment in this country is
8 shorter work week without any
OSs in pay. Take as an example a

our work week for 40-hours’
Pay in all basic industries.

Most unfortunately, my hopes
Were soon to turn to anger, when
Teading further what the Hon.
J.S.G. Cullen, Minister of Man-
PoWer and Immigration had in
fact told the House of Commons
at Ottawa. To put it as the paper
actually reported it: ‘‘The federal
80vernment will set up an ex-
Perimental work-sharing program
Next fall that would use unem-
Ployment insurance funds to keep
People at work who would other-
Wise be laid off’’, and this to be a
Part of a 5-year employment
Strategy as planned by the gov-
€mment. (emphasis added)

Not a Serious Effort
Here’s how the ‘‘Cullen Plan”’
_ Would work:

“‘Forinstance, instead of laying
Off 25% of the workers, a com-
Pany and its employees would
gree that the available work will

shared, and all of them will
Work a 30-hour week instead of a

hour week.”’

“The government would pay

Unemployment insurance benefits.

Or a quarter of the week to all
Workers, instead of paying for the

week to one-quarter of the
Workers.’’

mittee reported to council that the
estimated reduction of store em-
ployees as a result of UPC could
be as high as 45%, and called on
the Council to present a brief on
the subject to the provincial gov-
ernment through the Ontario
Federation of Labor, and on the
Canadian Labor Congress to con-
tinue to press for protective legis-
lation at the federal level. The re-
port was endorsed by Council.
Who will control

Art Jenkyn of the United Elec-
trical workers (UE) placed the
workers’ position before Stein-
bergs’ Stewart; ‘‘we aren’t about
to take axes to the computers in
an effort to stop progress as you
suggest. The central question that
is open for debate,”’ he said ‘‘is
who is eventually going to take
these computers over, and in
whose interest will they be
operated.”

In hfs speech Stewart had
suggested that the source of
labor’s opposition to the UPC
system was a child-like fear of the
unknown and of change, and that
Steinbergs in particular was
introducing the new technology

According to the Hon. J.S.G.
Cullen, the $350-million a year
plan to create jobs fot the next
five years ‘‘will be funded through
savings made by tightening the
unemployment insurance sys-
tem.’’ (emphasis added)

As officials explained later to
the press, a man earning the
maximum insurable wage of $200
a week would be paid $150 by his
employer and $33.30 by the UIC.
(A man earning $400 a week
would receive $300 from his em-
ployer and the maximum $33.30
from the UIC.) .

Asked what level of employ-
ment the program would achieve,
Cullen is reported as having re-
plied: ‘‘I hope we get to the point
where everyone who wants a job
has one.” %

So this, then, is the magnanim-
ous full employment program
planned by the government to

come into effect sometime next’

year. The largest single element
of the plan is to be called Canada
Works — a. year-round job-
creating program costing about
$200-million and providing work
for about 61,000 in 1977-78. It is to
be concentrated in high unem-
ployment areas. 3

This is not a meaningful or seri-
ous effort to create jobs, or even
to keep those presently with a job
to go to, secure in the knowledge
that they will not loose that job.

Lower Standard.

This is a diabolical scheme to con-
demn all permanently or partially
unemployed to hopelessness and
starvation while putting growing
numbers of employed workers on a
dole at a lower standard of income
so as to guarantee super-profits for
the monopolies.

This is being done in a country
that is the second largest in the
world in area, tremendously rich
in natural resources, with modern
technology and a skilled labor

Government to subsidize
employers through UIC

PR NS eceli

ED MCDONALD

to, improve its service to the
people. He even presumed to
speak on behalf of the union and
management at Steinbergs in de-
manding an apology from fellow
panelist Donald Macdonald for
suggesting that the introduction of
the technology was ‘‘clearly very
profitable’ for the retail chains.
Stewart said he “‘resented the
imputation that Steinbergs and
the Canadian Food and Allied
Workers Union were trying to
con people’ to make a profit.

force which if fully employed
could produce an abundance of
goods and services.

Why then this belt-tightening
nonsense, with periodic
philosophical lectures about there
only being a limited pie to share?
Why not bake a bigger pie?

The answer is simply that the
working people of Canada have
no control over their resources,
their wealth-producing machin-
ery as well as accumulated capital

* already on hand. Those corporate

industrial and financial structures
in whose private hands these re-
sources presently reside, are re-
fusing to put the capital to work
unless they are guaranteed
super-profits. They have gone on
strike and-refuse to budge, hold-
ing the country up to ransom
while the economy stagnates and
goes to pot. :

Last year, the five. biggest
banks made a profit of $600-
million dollars. This was an in-
crease of 46% over the previous
year. This year the same profit,
plus an additional $38-million
were made in the first nine
months.

There is plenty of capital avail-
able to put Canada to work. There
is no need to rob the unemployed.
Nor is there any need to put the
employed workers on relief,
while they are working, so as to
makeia big surplus for the big bos-
ses of our economy.

Bill C-73 is no answer to in-
flation! The Cullen, plan is no
answer to unemployment!

Both of these nefarious
schemes to rob the working class
of this country must be scrapped.

Nationalize ‘the banks, the
major industries, and our re-
sources. Put these under public
ownership and democratic con-
trol and begin to really plan our
economy for the people of the this
country.

This unbridled hypocrisy pro-
duced the most unified attack
from the floor on an issue that this
reporter has ever witnessed in the
Council.

Business gouges

Alex Maclennan of the Public
Service Alliance of Canada set
the tone for what was to follow
when he said: “‘business exists to
gouge as much profit as it can at
the expense of the buying public
and the working people. Mono-
polies can do as they please in
setting prices.”’

Nat Schacher of the Amalga-
mated Clothing Workers declared
“you tell me you worry about me
as a consumer and I say that’s
garbage. Making a profit is your
main objective and what I’m say-
ing is that I want you to share it
with me.”’

Pointing out that the food in-
dustry was monopolized ‘‘from
what comes out of the ground to
what goes onto the shelves. and
everything in between,” Art Jen-
kyn also referred to the mterlock-
ing directorships and the ways in
which the food monopolies -are
interconnected at the top.

“Everyone in this room knows
from bitter experience in the
supermarkets of this city that it’s
a lie that the food companies are
not fixing prices,”’ he said. ‘“‘You
should apologize to us!’

Speeches from the gallery were
permitted and Metro Toronto
Communist Party Industrial or-
ganizer Ed Macdonald rose to
point out that over the recent

period advances in technological
change have been very profitable
for corporations but the benefits
of this progress, as evidenced by
the rising unemployment rates,
have not been passed on to the
consumer.
Control Monopoly

He referred to labor’s recent
Oct. 14 protest as a reflection of
this problem and said that ‘“‘it

highlights the need for the or-

ganized labor movement to de-
mand that labor have the right to a
say in the introduction of technol-
ogy.”’ He also called for the plac-
ing of corporations like Stein-
bergs under legislative controls
with the end in sight of eliminating
them completely.

Noting the frustration express-
ed by Donald Macdonald at the
impossibility of getting private
members Bills through the house
on topical issues, the communist
Macdonald said -that this reality,
“raises the need to challenge
monopoly and its cohorts in Ot-
tawa and Queen’s Park to enact
legislation to curb monopoly,
both inside and outside the vari-
ous legislatures.”

He asked the NDP panelist if he
could endorse the concept of
bringing the food- monopolies
under public control with workers
having a say in the introduction of
technological change.

Donald Macdonald responded
saying that his party was for stric-
ter controls on prices but has not
called for the nationalization of
the food monopolies.

Saskatchewan workers
made message clear

REGINA — The Saskatche-
wan Federation of Labor an-
nounced Oct. 18 that their most
recent count of participants in the
Oct. 14 Day of Protest indicated
that over 27,906 workers took part
inthe Canadian Labor Congress’
protest against the wage-cutting
program of the Trudeau govern
ment.

Spokesmen for the federation
said-that the Oct. 14. demonstra-
tion was the first time in history
that a number of Saskatchewan
centres were the scene of labor
demonstrations. There were pro-
tests in 17 different centres includ-
ing Regina, Saskatoon, Moose

Jaw, Swift Current, Estevan,

Wynyard, Hudson Bay, Melfort,
Meadow , Lake, LaRonge and
many other centres.

Joining the labor movement in

the protest, were participants
from the National Farmers Union
(NFU), the Association of Metis
and Non-Status Indians, senior
citizens groups, teachers, stu-
dents, and some un-organized
workers.

Protest activities ranged from
marches and rallies to soup kitch-
ens and even included the ‘“‘tar-
ring and feathering” of an effigy of
Trudeau in Yorkton.

The SFL noted that ‘‘Sas-
katchewan has never seen an oc-
curance like Oct. 14,’’ and when
on to say ‘‘Saskatchewan work-
ers spoke on Oct. 14, and their
message was clear.”

The federation warned in con-
clusion, ‘‘if our system of gov-
emment still claims any legiti-
macy at all that message must be
heard and acted upon.”

“Stop making a fuss about it.

I've been trying to-
muzzle our shop steward for years !”

—e