Labour A merchant marine: a demand renewed Just one of many tragedies of the Cold War for Canada was the destruction of our merchant marine. In the late Forties, as the Truman Doctrine for U.S. world domination was being echoed in Ottawa by the Abbott Plan, strategies were being laid in this country for the systematic des- truction of one of the world’s great ship- ping industries, employing thousands upon thousands of workers. The great conspiracy to wreck our mer- chant marine was tied to yet another great conspiracy — the destruction of one of Canada’s great unions, the Canadian Seamen’s Union (CSU). U.S. gangster Hal Banks was given a royal welcome to Can- ada by government, ship owners and col- laborationist trade union leaders to do a job from within the trade union move- ment on the CSU. The CSU, like the trade union move- ment today in face of deregulation, privat- ization and free trade, stood between the government and the destruction of a vital maritime and ship-building and ship repair industry. Successive governments since have never tired of reminding Canadian workers about the need for restraint in face of Canada’s role as a trading nation. Yet for all of its excessive dependency, Canada sends its products to world markets in foreign cargo holds — often Liberian or Panamanian “flag of conven- Labour in action ience” ships — paying sub-standard wages and conditions to their heavily exploited and poorly trained crews. Canada — searching for jobs and prosperity and struggling for national and economic independence — must have a merchant marine. Why? First, Canada is held to ransom by the foreign “flags of convenience,” whose owners charge what the traffic will bear. Second, if we hope to expand and diver- sify our trade with all countries, to break the virtual monopoly of the U.S. on our foreign trade and our economy, our own Canadian merchant marine is vital to get- ting our goods to market competitively. | Third, the jobs created in such a venture would not be restricted to those involved in immediate construction, as considera- ble as those would be. There would be jobs in supplying the shipyards with raw mate- rials, plant and equipment; in training facilities; and in the ship repair industry, including in their expansion and upgrad- ing. Today, our shipyards in Atlantic Can- ada, the West Coast, the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence are struggling to stay alive. The Mulroney Tories cynically offer the drowning sailor a life-ring ... made of cement. They offer jobs in the industries of death. They hope to develop a junkie-like dependency on military contracts as they go about their agenda of tying Canada closer to the U.S. economy and to the Pentagon. They dangle contracts first before desperate shipyard workers in the East, then in the West, then in Quebec, pitting each against the others. Then they announce they are opting for 10 to 12 nuclear-powered submarines. These are to come from either England or France at costs in the eleven digit range, fuelling an arms race already at precarious levels. : In so doing, they not only abandon any pretence of realism about the globe upon ~ which we live, but they also betray their argument about how to pay for a Cana- dian merchant marine. The money is clearly there. Everyone knows that there are more jobs created in civilian industries than in military contracts, shrouded in secrecy with cost-plus overruns. What is required in the circumstances is concerted action, first by the trade unions in shipping and ship-building, irrespective of affiliation or region, to hammer away on the need for a merchant marine. Per- haps a planning conference, under the auspices of the CLC, whose program for many years has included the call for the re-establishment of a Canadian merchant marine, would be a good place to start in building all-Canada unity around this vital need. The possibility of involving more allies for the unions in the fight for a merchant marine now exists as the fight on free trade gets sharper, and the Tories along with - other free traders throw down the chal- lenge of an alternative. While the CSU is no longer around, CSU’ers still are. They are still fighting for and dreaming, on behalf of their children, their grandchildren and their country, ofa merchant marine. They have a wealth of expertise. It should be put to use in the service of the labour movement in devel- oping the alternative. Rollbacks, Bill 19 point to tough trade talks The province’s Building Trades unions are facing a long list of concessions and the “loaded gun of Bill 19” in negotiations for new trades agreements, the secretary of the Provincial Council of Carpenters said last week. Colin Snell told the Vancouver and Dis- trict Labour Council that the trades faced “a very, very difficult set of talks” in the 1988 bargaining round as a result of Bill 19 and the additional ammunition handed the contractors by the Industrial Relations Council. On Jan. 28, the FRC ruled that individual contractors can de-accredit from the employers’ bargaining arm, Construction Labour Relations Association (CLRA), and conduct their own negotiations with the Building Trades. The ruling will enable con- tractors to tie the unions up in a lengthy series of talks and creates a minefield of potentially divisive issues in bargaining. As a result of the ruling, when CLRA came to the table for the first meeting Feb. 12, the employers’ group was speaking for only 130 of the 400 contractors it has tradi- tionally represented in negotiations, Snell said. “The main spokesman for CLRA also told us that they intend to use the provisions of Bill 19 on final offer selection,” Snell noted. Under the provision, unions are. compelled by law to put the employers’ ces; SE aS Ne OIE TOE RENAE SES? i y t | TRIBUNE = j ELSA EON RB I SOI ES ARE MIRE TE i Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street | | Vancouver, B.C. V5K 125. Phone 251-1186 | : Name: |. 5). 2.5 eS 5. ESSER SG See ee ee - : } Address: (sic, . so Es RS as 5 ee ee SS eas i Beas a ss cae PostalCode: as aes. es 1 1 jamenclosing 1yr.$200 2yrs.$350) 3yrs. $500) Foreign1yr. $320 b : Bill me later Donation$........ 4 L READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOUR | 12 « Pacific Tribune, March 23, 1988 stated final offer to the membership for a vote. There have been no further meetings since that time because of the CLRA refusal to give a written commitment to the bar- gaining council of the Building Trades that it will represent certain contractors for the duration of negotiations. But in trade talks — covering individual trades, as opposed to the “big table’’ talks which cover wages and other issues com- mon to all the trades — unions were given a hint of the concessions they are likely to be up against. CLRA has not yet outlined its “big table” demands, including expected wage cuts, but . the concessions it outlined to carpenters at a meeting March 4 have been echoed in other trades. They include: e An increase in the work week from 37% hours to 40, with provision for four 10-hour days at straight time. @ Complete name request hiring for employers and the deletion of the memo- randum on hiring procedures from the col- lective agreement; @ Deletion of tool and metro travel allo- wanes; @ The elimination of all employer fund- ing for apprenticeship training programs; e A 20 percent cut in wages for apprenti- Trade unionists joined a picket Saturday called acon and Yukon Building _ Trades Council of Hyundai cardealerships oo includii _ Burnaby (above) — _ with notorious B.C. 2 Hyundai, which also target the firm’s workers domestically, are also taking place in calorie. whine: = hasa - partnership ina non-union steel firm. eS | Metrotown Hyundai in ‘J.C. Kerkhoff. Actions against ysmal record of exploiting its — @ A 33 per cent cut in holiday and the elimination of three statutory holidays; @ Reduction in overtime from double time to time and a half. ene list just goes on and on,” Snell said, adding that the concession demands handed the carpenters indicate what all the trades can expect. He said the trades would be looking for assistance to the B.C. Federation of Labour, particularly since the contractors’ stand has pointed to the likelihood of early strike votes. “If we are to boycott the IRC in taking those strike votes, it will probably mean 00000" court cases and large fines for the Building Trades,” he warned. But it is not the first time the Building Trades have been handed formidable odds in bargaining, Snell emphasized. “The contractors tried to scuttle the Building Trades Unions in 1986 — and they weren’t successful then,” he said. “We're confident that if we can win out membership, we can come out of this witha decent agreement.” As part of its campaign, the Carpenters Union is circulating a slide-tape show on the dramatic resurgence of the Building Tra in Calgary last year.