LABOR

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~ Marine workers won’

By CLAIRE DaSYLVA

SOREL, Que. — Frustrated and angry because of the
Quebec Government’s refusal to intervene in their
seven-month-long strike against Marine Industries Ltd.,
hundreds of shipyard workers drove Parti Québecois
justice minister Pierre Marc Johnson out of town, March
24.

Johnson, widely touted as a possible heir-apparent to
the ailing Premier René Levesque, was greeted with
boos and pelted with eggs by the more than 600 strikers,
whose local is affiliated to the Confederation of National
Trade Unions (CSN).

The banging of tables and chairs on the floor of the
meeting hall symbolized the frustration of the strikers
who, since walking off the job last August, have been
waging a bitter fight against MIL’s concessionary de-
mands that attack the workers’ job security, wages and
working conditions.

Right now, union executive member Regeant Verrault
told Combat, the Tribune’s sister paper in Quebec, can-
cellation of the company’s suspension of seven strikers,
all of them rank and file leaders of the strike, is the top
priority if the dispute is ever to be turned toward a
settlement.

Surrendering to this obvious threat to their union, the
CSN leaders point out, will just open the door to more
company attacks on union members.

One of the seven has been cleared of responsibility for
the events relating to a picket line fracas last fall, while it
has been established that two of the others suspended
weren't even on the picket line when the incidents took
place. :

Job Security

Job security was the number one issue for 30- and
40-year veterans of MI interviewed at the union hall in
Tracey. Euclide Roy, a pipefitter with 30 years seniority,
told Combat he was worried about the future and about
his family who depend on his pay cheques.

MIL is pushing a ‘‘job flexibility’’ program that will
force workers to do any job the company pleases
whether or not it is covered by their particular trade.
Many trades are being displaced by the scheme, Roy
pointed out. Some trades have been cut in half over the
past few years.

The CSN and the company have an agreement that
provides for an arbitration committee whose decisions
aren't binding, but which over the next year will try to
iron out the differences between the union and MIL over
the job flexibility program.

PHOIO —CUMBAI

Striking pipefitter Euclide Roy (right) is worried about his
future, , while local union executive member Regeant
Verrault (left) says company could swiftly end conflict.

Verreault says the union will try to ensure the workers
have the final say in the process, but he’s convinced MIL
was already committed to rationalizing the workforce
when it signed its latest ship refitting contracts.

With the current contracts on hand, the union leader
points out, the company could hire 2,500 more workers
than it currently employs. Yet with the new flexibility
system, MIL will only need to hire 240 workers for every
thousand it normally would have needed.

Roy confided that the union has believed from the start
of contract talks that MIL is planning to get out of
shipbuilding altogether in order to focus, production
exclusively or turbines and railway cars.

If Prime Minister Mulroney’s recent talk about revis-
ing government aid to the shipbuilding industry means
anything, Roy’s speculation may be right.

All-Time Low
Yet, despite these promises and the government's
current warship building program, even Mulroney ad-
mits that employment in Canada’s shipyards is at an
all-time low. And, Ottawa has already threatened to
withdraw its contract to refit naval destroyers at Sorel
because of the lengthy strike.

The union is demanding concessions of its own from
the company. It wants a reduction of the work week
from 40 to 37'2 hours with no loss in take home pay, the
ending of compulsory overtime, and compensation for
overtime worked, with extra time off the job.

t bow to pressure —

Wages aren’t the main issue in the strike, union of-
ficials say, but the workers aren’t about to swallow what
amounts to a $40 a week cut in wages. The last three-year —
contract was to provide the workers with an 11 per cent
wage hike, butilast summer MIL scrapped the contract
and decided to impose the federal 6 and 5 per cent wage
guidelines.

‘That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,”
Verreault told Combat. In a secret ballot the workers
overwhelmingly rejected MIL’s contract offer. While
they aren’t looking for heavy increases, the workers are
determined to protect the buying power of their current
wages.

The union estimates the total cost of its demands as a
little less than $11 million. It also believes the strike has
already cost MIL nearly $100-million, including money |
the company has shelled out to a private security agency
calling itself Don McCleary and Associates of Montreal.

Determination, Solidarity
They’ ve been on the company payroll since before the
strike began, all with the blessings of the Quebec
Government through its ‘‘Societé générale du
financement,’ which owns 65 per cent of Marine Indus-
tries Ltd.

Combat has learned that former mountie Donald
McCleary, while in the RCMP, was among those who
authorized the 1972 barn burning incident in the force’s
activities against the FLQ, following the October crisis. —

McCleary’s anti-union and anti-people record has the
union convinced his services are being used by MIL to
spy on the workers and their families with a view to
breaking the union.

The strikers reaffirmed their determination to win a
no-concessions pact with another vote, March 13,
endorsing the strike. Solidarity from throughout Quebec
and sections of the union movement in the rest of Canada
has been generously given.

Jean-Claude Parrot, on behalf of the 23,000-member
Canadian Union of Postal Workers, recently presented a —
financial contribution and messages of solidarity to the”
strikers from his union. ¢

So far, more than 300 organizations and groups from
all walks of life within Quebec have rallied behind the’
strikers to demonstrate their moral and physical support

for their just cause.

o-strike bill — no way

MONTREAL — More than one ‘million leaflets

Accord near in UAW split

TORONTO — At press time, the four-member United Auto
Workers committee negotiating the Canadian section’s with-
drawal from the international, announced that ‘‘a tentative
agreement on major issues pertaining to the Canadian decision”
had been reached.

Union sources said the tentative pact, which will lead to the
formation of a Canadian auto workers union, was endorsed by
the UAW International Executive Board which met in Detroit
March 22.

The committee will continue to meet to iron out the remaining
issues relating to the separation of the Canadian section from the
international. Details of the accord were to be made public
following consideration and approval by the Canadian UAW
Council, slated to meet here March 30-31.

Edmonton labor blasts Tory lies

EDMONTON — Doug Elves, president of the Edmonton
Labor Council, hammered the federal Tory government March
18 for scuttling the council’s bid through the Canada Works
program to get funding to operate its five Unemployment Action
Centres.

‘For the growing number of people falling through the badly-
frayed UIC safety net, the lack of concern by the federal govern-
ment for this country’s jobless is self-evident,’ Elves said.

The council is writing to each of Edmonton’s Tory MPPs
seeking a meeting to call the elected representatives to account
for their government's lack of concern for the unemployed and to
demand funds be found to re-open the Unemployment Action
Centres.

The official Edmonton jobless rate stands at 15 per cent, but
labor estimates the real level could be as much as 10 per cent
higher. ‘Mulroney was elected on the program of ‘jobs, jobs,
jobs’,”” Elves said. ‘‘To this I reply: ‘lies, lies, lies’ .:

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 3, 1985

and 25,000 daffodils were distributed throughout
Quebec during the March 20 Day of Protest or-
ganized by the massive public sector unions’ coali-
tion for the right to bargain.

The daffodils symbolized both the coming of
spring and more importantly, the solidarity of
366,000 public sector workers with the general pub-
lic whose services they provide.

The unions also called on the public to sign peti-
tions endorsing the coalition’s demands and for the
maintenance of good quality social services.

The day of protest capped off a month of regional
and local demonstrations and actions by the 19-
organizations, including all four Quebec labor cen-
trals, which make up the public sector coalition. It
has rallied together a wide variety of public sector
workers’ organizations, ranging all the way from
teachers and nurses to police officers, jail guards
and wild life wardens along with the traditional
public sector unions to press the Parti Québecois
government to back off of its plan for legislation
that will effectively strip public sector workers of
the right to bargain and the right to strike speci-
fically over wages. ;

Coalition leaders compare the legislation intro-
duced last Christmas by Treasury Board president
Michel Clair to the draconian edicts of the Duples-
sis era, and say the measures will wipe out the
collective bargaining system public sector workers
have put in place over the past 20 years.

On March 12 more than 6,000 public sector
workers, and a few from the private sector as well,
packed Montreal’s Paul Sauvé arena in a rally
demanding that the right to negotiate be preserved.

Speaker after speaker, representing the 19
organizations in the coalition, hammered on the
different harmful aspects of the Clair Bill, and were
unanimous in calling for its withdrawal.

PHOTO — COMBAT

More than 6,000 public sector workers packed pau!
Sauvé arena March 12 to demand the right to ba”
gain collectively and to say: ‘‘No to permanent af
crees.”

Some speakers, such as Confederation of N&
tional Trade Unions president Gerald Larose, said
the government is showing some signs that the
coalition’s campaign is hitting home. However he
said, the overtures are only verbal so far, and th
government still hasn’t made any real concessions
in its meetings with the coalition on the key issue>
of the right to bargain and strike on’ wages, t
linking of public sector wages to the genera
lower private sector pay levels, decentraliziné
negotiations, the unions’ right to information of
bargaining and the right to negotiate all workiné
conditions.

The government has promised to bring dow?
another bill at the beginning of April that will ade
dress some of the issues raised by the coalitio™
However, nobody's expecting major improv!
ments. As many in the public sector unions
saying: ‘‘We’re not dreaming in technicolour.’

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