LABOR

Saskatchewan public workers

demonstrate against layoffs

By KIMBALL CARIOU
BeCINA — A spirited
Monstration and a strong anti-
Tory mood marked the annual
tchewan Government Em-

Ployees Union, (SGEU é
tion May oe ) conven

Since the election of the Con-
SeTvative government two years
480, provincial employees have

d new difficulties, including

the elimination of many full-time
es. Membership in the
EU, the largest union in the

Province, has begun to decline

Ta misleading spurt caused by
ie ng of part-time and tem-
ae. employees to replace full-

me workers. Among the latest
aes are nearly 200 employees
of the Highways Department,

Whose jobs wer
May 18. e terminated as of

SGEU, the Sask
U, atchewan
Federation of Labor, and sup-

_ Porting organizations held a pro-

test at the Saskatoon fairgrounds,
site of an auction sale of $40-mil-
lion worth of the department’s
€quipment, on May 16. As private
buyers gathered from across
western Canada and the northern
USA, they were met at the gates
by dozens of pickets.

Y Noon, busloads of SGEU
Convention delegates and high-
ways workers helped swell the
crowd to 400. Those who came to

workers were shown examples
along the route of shoddy road-
building done over the ‘last year
by private contractors.

In some cases, sections of road
began to disintegrate almost
immediately after completion,
giving the lie to Highways Min-

ister Garner’s claims that private :

industry can do the job better and
cheaper than government.

SGEU executive secretary
Larry Brown drew the biggest
applause from the demonstrators
with his offer to auction Premier
Devine and his entire cabinet, al-
though, he admitted, ‘‘we
wouldn’t get much for them’’.

Other speakers at the rally in-
cluded out-going SGEU president
Jim Hayes, SFL president
Nadine Hunt, NUPGE president
John Fryer, Rev. Ben Smillie, a
highways worker, and a rep-
resentative of Saskatoon’s
People’s Rights Action Commit-
tee, which is organizing opposi-
tion to the Conservative budget in
that city. All the speakers pointed
out that the Tory trend to privati-
zation of the wealth of Saskat-
chewan goes hand in hand with
attacks on the labor movement
and low-income sectors, for the
benefit of corporate friends of the
government.

After briefly disrupting the sale
by drowning out the auctioneer

and ‘‘sell Grant Devine’’, the rally
dispersed and SGEU delegates
returned to Regina.

Resuming their convention, the

delegates re-affirmed the union’s

stance of strong opposition to the
Tories and seeking alliances with
like-minded forces, such as the
recently-formed People’s Budget
Coalition. Barb Byers of Regina
was unopposed to her bid to be-
come the new provincial presi-
dent. She has been linked with
those in SGEU and the SFL
pressing for militant policies and
actions in recent years, and her
victory was seen as a victory for
these forces. Voting for other
executive positions generally
confirmed this trend.

In another important develop-
ment, a vigorous debate on
whether SGEU should remain in
the SFL was decided by a sub-
stantial majority in favor of stay-
ing in the Federation. A strong

impression was made during the |

debate by those delegates. who
pointed out that staying in the
SFL would not signify full sup-
port to the Federation’s leader-
ship, which has often been
criticized for its lack of effective-
ness, but would strengthen those
trying to re-unite and strengthen
the labor movement in Saskat-

chewan. Despite the vote, indi- -™

vidual SGEU locals still retain the

IBUNE PHOTO — KIMBALL CARIO

Reconciaccroned ee.

Grant Devine’, SGEU members urged at the government auction

Saskatoon with the highways

with chants of ‘‘we want jobs”

right to withdraw from the SFL.

of $40-million worth of provincial highways equipment.

Two great actions are taking place today in world
Capitalist citadels. One is in the Federal Republic of

Tmany where metal workers are conducting a mass
Strike for the 35-hour week with no reduction in take-
home pay. The other is in Great Britain where coal
miners are taking on the whole British establishment to

Prevent the closure of their pits and protect their very
livelihood.

The great virtue of both battles rests in their dual
defensive-offensive features. They are defensive in that
they represent two different struggles to protect workers
against the ravages of monopoly capitalism gone wild.

Cy are at the same time offensive because they strike
out in the direction of substituting solutions to the pre-
Sent crisis which benefit workers rather than employers.

They bring together the immediate struggles of the
workers involved against their own employers, with the
Common struggle of all workers against all employers,
Over who is going to pay for the present crisis. Ina word
these two struggles engender both economics and
Politics. °

_The British miners are under no illusions about what
Kind of struggle they are in. The last suchcontest brought
down the Tory government in Britain, and while that is
not the main item on the miners’ agenda, neither is it
Outside their considerations. By the same token for the
Iron Lady the smashing of labor is always the top item on
her political hit list.

Magnificent Example
But what a struggle it is. The latest development just
this week is the commitment by miners in 33 unions from
around the world to refuse to ship coal to Britain, shut-
ting off the flow which has allowed the government to
avoid a coal shortage up until now. Here we have a
_ Magnificent example of international working-class sol-

| idarity.

What an example to workers of how to fight against
multi-national corporations! What an illustration of the
great power workers possess if they unite their ranks and
wield it! And perhaps most of all, what an illustration

Labor in action
q William Stewart

that the only way to strengthen workers’ power to strug-
gle and to unite, is to enter into struggle!

In the FRG, close to 100,000 workers have taken the
shorter hours struggle off the waiting list and made it the
number one item for workers’ struggling for a way out of
the crisis. Needless to say this has brought down the
wrath of governments and employers on their heads.

They have challenged the holy of holies, the right of
corporations to decide how many hours they can exploit
each worker.

This action in West Germany follows on a decision by
the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions to
make the shorter work week, and a ban on overtime, a
major bargaining item for all its affiliates. IG Metall is the
largest union in Europe with 2.5 million members and
this struggle is watched closely by all west European
unions who are to differing degrees, feeling the effects of
mass unemployment, government cutbacks, plant clo-
sures and growing demands from employers for give-
aways.

The System’s Rules

French steelworkers staged a one-day mass strike and
demonstration a few weeks ago following an announce-
ment by the Mitterand government that more than 20,000
steelworkers’ jobs were to be phased out because the
industry was not competitive with world standards.

In Britain and West Germany workers are confronted
by hostile old-line party governments. In France it is the
Socialist government of Mitterand which is computing
workers’ jobs against the scales of profitability showing
that if you want to play ball in the world capitalist mar-
ket, without any really effective alternative socialist pro-

| An example of working class solidarity

gram, you will have to play according to the rules made
by the system. ;

If you play by the system’s rules you will accept plant
closures, or mine closures, you'll acquiesce in cutbacks,
and if necessary, as in the building trades, you will be
asked to watch while your unions are smashed and non-
union labor takes over.

This doesn’t mean you have to be a red to fight for
shorter hours, that you have to be a socialist to fight
against plant closures, or for putting the right of workers
to a job ahead of profits on your scale of social values. It
means that if this system is to live up to its claim to the
right to exist today, it will be because the working people
force it to meet their needs, not because the owners, and
governments who represent them, act in such a way.

Time for Action

While the class struggle represents, at its roots, the
irreconcilable conflict between workers and owners, in
real life it appears as the struggle between workers and
Owners about who pockets how much of the fruits of the
workers’ labor.

There is good reason why that struggle is intensifying
today. The process of internationalization of production
is merging with the scientific and technological revolu-
tion to produce a condition where international
monopoly capital tries to reduce national living, working
and social conditions to the level of the lowest in the
world. ? ;

In these conditions workers are launching mighty

economic and political battles to turn the situation in

their own favor and to force the utilization of the world’s
human and natural resources for the good of all.

The immediate self-interests of the workers of Britian,
West Germany, and France, accord with their overall
and long-term interests, as well as with the short- and
long-term interests of working people the world over.

_ The best way to help them is to declare a state of seige
on our own multi-nationals and their governments in

Canada and to make the struggle for shorter hours, an

end to plant closures, workers’ rights to a job, issues for
mass struggle. It’s long since time to move from resolu-
tions to action.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 30, 1984 e 7