+Y s . ’ FEBRUARY, 1978 By JUDY WASYLYCIA-LEIS Federal NDP Women’s Organizer It has often been said that if men could get pregnant, a truly safe and effective means of birth control would have been devised long ago. It is equally likely that if more men were working in jobs where women are employed largely or exclusively, much more knowledge on health hazards in such occupations would be available. Health hazards at work are a most neglected cause of death in Canada. Very little research has been done on the dangers - to everyone and virtually noth- ing has been done on the special ways in which women THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER are affected by industrial society. There has been little attempt to even monitor health hazards in the textile and elec- tronic industries, offices, hos- pitals, beauty salons, and laundry and dry-cleaning es- tablishments — all fields where the majority of workers are women. In 1913, the Inspector of Fac- tories for Ontario described the situation facing laundry workers in this way: “‘Standing the whole day, their exhausted bodies had to contend with an atmosphere vitiated by gas and other impurities, which has continued to accumulate during the whole day, and the workers then inhale it at a time when the body is fatigued by a full day’s work.” LITTLE HAS CHANGED Very little has changed since 1913. Today 62 per cent of all launderers and dry cleaners are women and these women still experience constant ex-. posure to chemicals and sol- vents which can lead to scaling skin, cancer, and spontaneous abortion. Similarly, laboratory workers, hospital employees, and dental assistants are ex- posed to radiation, anesthetic gases, mercury and toxic chemicals which, according to U.S. and European studies, are linked to cancer, leukemia, liver damage, central nervous system changes and congenital abnormalities in children. More and more research is being conducted on the rela- tionship between lung diseases and employment in the mining sector. However, very little has been said about the hazards that face women who work in the textile and clothing industries. Earlier this year, Elmina S. died after having worked for over 40 years in a shirt factory. She died of a lung disease caused, one would suspect, by years of breathing in lint and dust. The disease was discovered just months before she was to retire. There was no Workers’ Compensa- tion, no inquiry, no attempt to check the effects of such an environment on a woman’s health with a view to correct- ing the situation for all other employees. Even more neglected than the dangers facing garment workers are the health hazards found in offices. Denise D. had a job of answering the tele- phone for a northern Ontario company. She was allowed no lunch breaks and, thus, had to spit out or swallow her food when the e rang. She also persistent ear lighting, noise pollution, mon- otony, lack of exercise and stress. As well, there has been no attempt to relate such hazards to physical and mental stress, heart disease, ulcers and hypertension among office workers. Is this lamentable lack of research and action related to the fact that 75 per cent of all office workers are : women? Women have a right to work in the occupation of their choice, to work without fear of being in danger, to work while pregnant without endangering the health of unborn children. The answer to the problem is not to deny employment to women of child-bearing poten- tial as the Medical Director of Inco Ltd. has done. The answer is not to demand proof of steril- ity before hiring women as General Motors in Oshawa did in 1976. The answer is not to hand out ‘uppers’ and ‘downers’ to women experienc- ing stress on the job as so many doctors are want to do. And the answer is not to allow the myth that women are psychologic- ally weak to be perpetuated by our psychiatric profession. The real solution lies in changing industrial society to fit the needs of women as well as men. The government, the medical profession, and the corporate sector must be made to realize that women too have a right to be protected and to benefit from medical research. As governments move to legis- late occupational health and safety standards, they must be reminded to take into consid- eration the special ways in which women are affected and to implement appropriate measures for relief and pre- vention of hazards which only women experience under the existing economic system. It is foreseeable that, under the current situation of high unemployment, governments will be even more unwilling to take responsibility for occupa- tional health and very likely to use health hazards as an ex- - cuse for not employing women. To allow such discrimination at this point in time can only negate what little gains have been made in the struggle for equal job opportunities. LONG-TERM COAL PLAN The Government of British Columbia has asked Japanese steelmakers to buy about 10 million tons of coking coal a year on a‘long-term basis from private Canadian collieries. The B.C. Government and the Canadian Federal Government are said to be ready to construct port, railway and other infrastructure facilities necessary to operate coal mines in order to lighten the financial burdens of both suppliers and buyers. B.C. officials have said that prices in the long-term deal would be held to a level competitive with those of other coal-exporting countries. Japan now imports about 60 million tons of coking coal a year, of which about 10 million tons comes from Canada. OMINOUS THREAT | SHIFT TO THE RIGHT BIG DANGER FOR UNIONS By ED FINN One of the most worrisome trends in recent years — worri- some to unionists, anyway — is the pronounced shift to the right in conventional wisdom. «Conservatism is on the march everywhere, and left-of-centre forces are in retreat. Nowhere is this swing to the right more evident than in the . field of labour relations. Unions -have become the country’s whipping-boy for every conceivable economic ill, from low productivity to inflation. Laws curbing or denying the right to strike have been enacted in several provinces. Even more restrictive anti-labour laws are being considered. The most ominous. threat is to the institution of collective bargaining itself. Already strangled by the red tape of wage controls, it may not survive the fetters and for- mulas to be applied when formal controls are lifted. And if collective bargaining is destroyed, the unions them- selves will be doomed. The federal government seems determined to prevent a revival of collective bargain- ing freedom in the public sector after April 14. Its Anti- Inflation Board and Treasury Board technicians have devised the Average Compara- bility of Total Compensation (ACTC) formula to determine ‘future improvements in pay and fringe benefits for public employees. In brief, ACTC would tie each group of public em- ployees to some comparable group in private industry. It would work out average levels of both pay and fringes and make that the maximum the public sector group could receive. This would effectively prevent public sector unions from negotiating any gains other than those determined by the ACTC formula. David Morley, deputy secre- tary of the Treasury Board, has been touring the country, visiting provincial government officials to sell them on ACTC; and he’s reportedly being met with open arms. The grand strategy is to have all govern- ments in the country — federal, provincial and muni- cipal — adopt ACTC as a sub- stitute for collective bargain- ing. If that happens, it won’t be long before another formula is devised to prevent or supplant collective bargaining in the private sector. And so one of the bulwarks of our democratic system will have been demol- ished. * * * Stanley Hartt, a prominent Montreal lawyer and labour mediator, sees the attack on unions and collective bargain- ing as a threat to democracy in Canada. ‘How long can our society stand right-wing overkill as the politically expedient reaction to the problems of the day?”’ he asked. ‘Where are the believers in democracy? Where are the democrats to point out that the collective bargaining system is like the free society itself? It can never work perfectly. It cannot please everyone. But it is better than the alternative. ‘‘Anyone can live in.a well- ordered, uncomplicated, strictly-governed dictatorship where nothing ever goes wrong,” he added, “‘or, if it goes wrong, someone orders it to stop going wrong, and if the mailman strikes, you shoot him. The trick is to live in a society where people are free to disagree and to use the insti- tutions created for the purpose to discuss and resolve the disagreement. “Where are the liberals,’ Hartt asked, ‘‘to point out that the collective bargaining system is more than a means of settling terms and condi- tions of employment — that it is also an instrument for social change and a safety valve for social pressure?”’ The liberals and democrats Hartt is seeking — outside the labour movement — are indeed strangely silent these days. But it may be instructive to quote from past statements and comments by two of them: Toronto labour lawyer Aubrey Golden, and Senator H. Carl Goldenberg, also one of Canada’s best and most exper- ienced labour conciliators. Speaking at a Liberal party conference several years ago, Golden argued for labour code reforms that would facilitate EEE EEE > Kamloops Katie points out that middle age is when your husband’s age starts to show around the middle. ie ae ae Chokerman Charlie says that a sure sign that old age is creeping up on you is when you feel your corns more than your oats. a ae Chokerman Charlie was ad- vised to give up drinking be- cause he was developing alco- holic rheumatism — he was getting stiff in every joint. union organizing and broaden and strengthen the collective bargaining process. “The most obvious charac- teristic of unions in collective bargaining,’’ said Golden, ‘‘is that they have to be the aggressors .... History reveals that the entire collect- ive bargaining process had to be forced upon the employers in an inch-by-inch struggle. . . The employer’s power is not, as commonly perceived, the lockout, but the massive power of withstanding the union.’’ He argued that, when gov- ernments in their role as peace-makers enact legislation such as compulsory concilia- tion or arbitration, ‘it there- fore operates to curb the union’s power more than it curbs management’s.”’ * * * Golden said that, despite management resistance and government deterrence, col- lective bargaining has directly or indirectly raised collective bargaining, has directly or indirectly raised everyone’s living standard. “It has ac- complished what general welfare legislation could not have begun to accomplish. . “One wonders,” he added, “what the fate of our capitalist system would have been if it - hadn’t been for the ameliorat- ing influence of the unions. . . The value of our way of life may be tested by our willing- ness to preserve a free collect- ive bargaining system as opposed to a closely controlled one.” Finally, Senator . Golden- berg’s warning against resort- ing to simplistic and authori- tarian measures: “There is a tendency when strikes occur for people to say ‘there ought to be a law’... But we have to recognize the fact that labour-management disputes. are problems in human relations. Such problems cannot be solved by law alone.” Calling restrictions on the right to strike ‘incompatible with our democratic system,” Senator Goldenberg declared: “For effective collective bar- gaining, employees must be free not only to form trade unions, but. also to invoke economic sanctions in support of their bargaining ... To force men to work under condi- tions to which they object can only be justified in a demo- cratic society by very excep- tional circumstances.” These are not popular senti- ments to express today. But they need to be said. For if union freedom can be des- troyed, so can all the other basic rights on which a truly democratic system relies.