FEDERATION
ATTACKS
GOVERNMENT

The Manitoba Federation of Labour
attacked the policies of the two-year old
provincial Conservative government
saying its obsession with privatizing the
economy has not only led to a poor economic
performance but has created a serious
exodus of the workforce from the province.

According to the MFL in its annual brief
to the Cabinet, the exodus of Manitoba’s
workforce is the most serious of many
indications of financial mismanagement
and narrow mindedness.

“Your government’s primitive pre-
occupation with the adverse effects of
government deficit spending is not substan-
tiated by Canadian experiences,” the brief
says.

“Wrecking the Manitoba economy in the
face of what your government perceives to
be the adverse effects of borrowing money is
economic paranoia at the expense of mas-
sive economic and social hardships suffered
by Manitoba citizens.

“Your government must reverse its exist-
ing economic policies from which it will take
Manitoba many years to recover.”

The social fabric of the province is being
undermined, the brief said, because of the
government’s obsession with cutting back
services and programmes and its headlong
rush to “privatize” some publicly run
programmes.

The brief documants drastic declines or
slowdowns in economic performance in
sector after sector: retail sales figures,
housing starts, investment, and the overall
gross provincial product.

So bad is the situation that workers are
leaving the:province (leading to.a decline in
overall population in 1978-79) because of
lack of jobs and opportunities.

Ironically, this migration says the Feder-
ation makes the unemployment picture look
much brighter than it actually is in Manit-
oba. Official figures show a 5.5% unemploy-
ment rate.

UAW WANTS:
ASSISTANGE
BENEFITS

The United Auto Workers will ask the new
federal government to immediately provide
assistance benefits for workers whose jobs
have been affected by the current disruption
in the auto industry.

More than 16,500 assembly and parts
industry workers are on indefinite layoff in
Canada and thousands more are experienc-
ing temporary layoff because energy
uncertainty in the United States has
prompted a switch by consumers to smaller
cars.

To back its request, the UAW will seek the
support of provincial governments, munici-
pal politicians and its auto assembly and
parts industry members, who are being
asked to sign petitions calling on the
government to immediately bring in
legislation to provide the aid.

A resolution calling for the aid was passed
recently by delegates to the Canadian UAW
Council meeting in Toronto.

Hundreds of workers on indefinite layoff
in Canada have run out of unemployment
benefits and SUB, forcing them to go on
welfare.

Workers facing a similar situation in the
United States, however, are receiving Trade
Re-adjustment Assistance under a federal

government program that provides up to
$250 a week.

Both Liberal and Conservative govern-
ments have been urged in recent years to
establish an assistance benefits program.
In addition, the Automotive Task Force
established by the former Liberal govern-
ment and the Reisman Commission study
(another Liberal government project) urged
that an assistance program be introduced.
The government rejected those appeals.

In citing the need for assistance benefits,
UAW director for Canada Bob White told
Council delegates that the current upheaval
in the auto industry is worse than that
which occurred in the mid 1960’s after the
Canada-U.S. Automotive Trade Agreement
was signed. .

The Canadian government saw fit at that
time to grant workers transitional
assistance benefits (TAB), because . it
realized the impact the agreement would
have on workers. The TAB program ended
in 19738.

White reminded delegates that the Auto
Pact allows corporations to move produc-
tion of automobiles and parts back and forth
actoss the border at will, causing worker
dislocation in both Countries.

DISSENTERS FACE
EXECUTION

Political dissenters were facing an
increasing threat of murder or execution in
countries with widely differing ideologies
around the world, Amnesty International
Says in its annual report.

The growing tendency to use the death
penalty and resort to abduction and murder
to eliminate political opposition is high-
lighted in the Amnesty International
Report 1979, a country-by-country survey of
the organization’s efforts to combat human
rights violations in some 100 countries
covered by the report.*

Despite the release of large numbers of
political prisoners in some countries during
the year, the report indicates that arbitrary
arrests, political imprisonment, torture and
the use of the death penalty continued to
constitute a global pattern of human rights
abuse.

Amnesty International campaigns for the
release of all “prisioners of conscience”
throughout the world, seeks fair and early
trials for all political prisoners, and opposes
torture and the death penalty in all cases
and without reservation.

In many countries there was little or no
change in the systematic repression docu-
mented by Amnesty International in pre-
vious years.

In much of Latin America suspected
political opponents continued to “disap-
pear” and corpses were found long after
victims were abducted or arrested. “Disap-
pearances,” assassinations or deaths in
prison as a result of torture were reported
from Argentina, Chile, Colombia, El] Salva-
dor, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Para-
guay and Uruguay.

In many Asian countries long-term impri-
sonment without trial remained prevalent.
In addition, executions or killings of politi-
cal prisioners in custody were reported from
Afghanistan, China, Kampuchea, Nepal,
Pakistan, the Philippines and Taiwan.

Accounts of torture and political killings
were received from a number of countries in
Africa and the Middle East. Political pris-
oners were reported to have been executed
in Angola, Iran, Iraq, Mozambique, Soma-
lia, South Africa, Zaire and Zimbabwe
(Rhodesia). Arbitrary killings took place in
the Central African Empire (under Em-
peror Bokassa), Equatorial Guinea (under
the Macias Nguema government), Ethiopia
and Uganda (under the Idi Amin govern-
ment).

In Eastern Europe dissenters and human
rights activists received heavy prison sen-
tencesor,in some cases, were forcibly
confined to psychiatric hospitals. Members

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of human rights groups in Czechoslovakia,
Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union
were arrested or detained during the year —
often for publicizing the cases of prisoners of
conscience held in their countries.

In Western Europe measures adopted to
curb political violence resulted in restric-
tions on individual rights, leading in some
cases to the ill-treatment of suspects and
prisoners. Amnesty International submit-
ted reports on the ill-treatment of individu-
als in police custody in Ireland and the
United Kingdom to the governments of
those countries, and a report to the govern-
ment of the Federal Republic of Germany on
the effects of isolation on prisoners.

In the United States of America, the
organization was concerned with allega-
tions of ill-treatment of illegal immigrants.
Use of the death penalty remained of serious
concern, as it did in several Caribbean
countries.

During the year the organization broke
new ground by issuing a report on political
imprisonment in China and the first known
account of the experience of a political
prisoner in North Korea. Few details had
previously been known or published about
the treatment of political prisoners in either
country.

*Copies of Amnesty International Report 1979 are available from

Amnesty International U.S.A., 413 East Capitol Street, S.E., Washington,
D.C. 20003 (Tel.: 202-544-0200).

FEMALE WORKERS
CLOSING WAGE GAP

Female workers in industry in Sweden are
gradually closing the gap between their
rates of pay and those of their male col-
leagues. According to the wage statistics for
the second quarter of 1979 the rates of pay
for male workers in industry are “only” 8.5%
higher than those for female workers. The
difference between the rates during the
same period the previous year was 9.4%.

Separate wage scales or rates for women
in the wage agreements in Sweden were
abolished in 1960. At that time, women’s
rates of pay in industry were almost 30%
lower than men’s. Thus, in the space of 20
years the wage differential between male
and female industrial workers has dimin-
ished by over 20%.

In addition to abolishing separate wage
rates for women, Sweden has begun to close
the gap between women’s and men’s rates of
pay, and this is thanks to the trade unions’
concious efforts in this respect. This
approach is known in Sweden as “Solidarity
in Wage Policy” and it has been one of the
LO’s main objectives over the past 20 years.
Furthermore, this policy has met with
success, not least in respect of women
workers.

It is, however, improbable that the differ-
ences between men’s and women’s rates of
pay in industry will disappear entirely. This
is primarily due to the fact that women are
still very much in evidence in low-wage
sectors, e.g. the ready-made clothing indus-
try. The lowest paid jobs in factories are
done by women. To achieve complete equal-
ity in pay rates would require an even
distribution of men and women throughout
all branches of industry and this is hardly
likely to happen in the foreseeable future.

Lumber Worker/March, 1980/5