HARTMAN AND TAYLOR URGE METRO LABOR

‘Answer from the streets’ on Oct. 14

TORONTO — ‘‘The decision is ours to stand solidly and un- itedly together, not only as trade unionists, but with those 750,000 unemployed workers, with stu- dents, with senior citizens, with ‘the anti-poverty groups; or we have the choice to.stand with the federal government: and their

guidelines and the monopolies. I’m sure that when you’re asked which side you’re on, you will -answer from the streets on Oct. 14.”

This was the way in which Grace Hartman, president of the Canadian Union of Public Em- ployees, expressed her con- fidence in the success of labor’s planned Day of National Protest against the government’s wage- cutting ‘‘anti-inflation program’’, here Sept. 16.

Hartman, who presides over ‘Canada’s largest trade union, joined Don Taylor, administra- tive assistant to William

_ Mahoney, Canadian Director of the United Steelworkers of

America, in exposing the fraud of the controls and reporting the progress in the mobilization for the Oct. 14 protest to a packed meeting of the Metro Toronto Labor Council.

_ Taylor spoke at lerigth on the

According to Statistics Canada

nominal gross national product

_ fose by 13.2% in the second quar-

_ ter of this year, but it was all eaten

- up by inflation, which rose from an annual rate of 8.4% in the first quarter to 13.2% in the second quarter of 1976, resulting in no growth in real gross national product.

Personal income rose 10. 8%

compared to 18.4% in the first quarter. With personal incomes declining, and the economy stag- nant or moving into reverse, there is bound to be a growth in unem- ployment. ' The Secretariat of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade _ (GATT) states in its annual report that inflation remains a major danger. But, it adds ominously, “the margins of unemployed or under-employed labor should be expected to remain relatively large for a number of years.’

No. wonder Prime Minister

_ Trudeau used the word ‘‘crisis’’

- to describe the problem of in-

. flation, speaking to a meeting of his Liberal caucus.

“It is a bit like a wartime situa- tion and we are asking people to restrain themselves ... and we’re telling people you have to pull your belt in a little and make some sacrifices to win the war.

‘‘And after the war, Canada

will be a land of opportunity.” _ But the government’s plan for fighting. inflation, its *‘cure’’ for the country’s economy, is worse than the disease.

Consequently the McLaren

_ Advertising. Agency in English- speaking Canada, and BCP Ltee in French-speaking Canada, are

_ to be'given $1.2-million to try and

inequities of the program and il- lustrated his point-that the con- trols were only affecting wages while prices and profits continued to rise’ unabated with a slide pre-

. sentation.

The Steelworkers. official demonstrated that while the total of net corporation profit in the period from 1971 to ’74 more than doubled from $4,438,000,000 to- $8,694,000,000, labor’s share of the national income in wages dur- ing the same period went up 15.8%. Taylor went on to point out that when the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was applied to labor’s wage increase during this period, taking inflation into account, the actual real increase in labor’s share of the national income was only 4.2%.

He also. exposed the AIB’s claim that the program had led to a decrease in the.CPI from 11% to °75 to between 8-9% in the second quarter of ’76. By removing the food.component from the gov- ernment’s figures, and reminding the delegates that by the AIB’s own admission it has no. control on food ,price increases Taylor

‘showed how the CPI went from

9.72% in the 4th quarter of ’75 to 9.98%, 9.87%, in the first two quarters of ’76.

GRACE HARTMAN

CUPE’s Grace Hartman lashed out at the Trudeau government’s

‘‘political immorality’’ in mislead-

ing Canadian workers during the °74 election campaign promising that a liberal government would: not introduce wage controls and 18 months later bringing in its wage-cutting legislation.

She blasted the “phoney ad- vertising program’’ which the government has embarked on to

sell its controls. “‘They’re going to spend $1.2 million of our tax dollars to tell us why the program is so good and why we have to

AIB ‘cure’ worse than disease

convince Canadian working people that they are better off with their wages rolled back while prices and profits are advancing.

Government-monopoly plot

In the meantime the much costlier AIB exposes the whole government-monopoly plot by giving monopoly a free hand to increase its profits while clamping down harder on the working people’s wages.

‘Take the case of the garage

mechanics in St. John’s who were —

rolled back by federal controls un- til they now earn 95 cents an hour less than other mechanics work- ing across the street in the same city.

Take . the 353 teachers employed by the Sault Ste Marie and District Separate School Board, who have been ordered to return $46.83 in wages gained in a recent round of contract negotia-

-tions. Their contract was worth

8.27% in wage increases which has now been ordered rolled back to 8%.

_Or take the Toronto Trans- |

portation Commission, which re- cently signed a contract with its employees, including a clause of both parties to urge AIB approval of the total settlement, only to have the General Manager of the TTC come out publicly to state that the TTC expects the AIB to roll back the settlement, that the TTC approved the current stric-

-ter attitude of the AIB and that if

the AIB approved the settlement, which was unlikely, then cuts in the TTC service would follow. Even the Canada Labor Rela- tions Board has now ruled that a rollback by the AIB of the terms of a collective agreement invali-

dates a contract, leaving a union free to strike legally to protest an

AIB decision. But the ruling

applies only where the union has complied with all requirements of the CLRB, including the use of conciliation services. Moreover, it applies only to workers coming under federal labor law juris- diction. The ruling came in the form of a rejection of an applica- tion by Anvil Mining Corp. near Faro in the Yukon for a declara- tion of an illegal strike, applicable to Steelworkers Union members already on a seven-week strike to protest an AIB wage rollback in a place where the cost of living is more than 30% higher than in Vancouver, B.C.

All out Oct. 14

However, while this ruling is of precedent-setting importance, it should not be allowed to foster any false illusions about legal technicalities facilitating or otherwise any meaningful fightback against the AIB by indi- vidual unions. It would be foolish in the extreme to think that judi- cial or quasi-judicial bodies can be depended upon to fight labor’s battle against monopoly power.

That is precisely why the Oc-

tober 14th National Day of Pro- —

test is so important in rallying working class and democratic forces in a common front as the only effective means of counter-

acting monopoly power, forcing

the government to take note of majority popular opinion, shift the balance of foces in favor of the working class and democracy and to curb monopoly power.

For an end to both inflation and unemployment, all-out on Oct. 14th!

times”’,

support it,”’ she said. *‘It seems to me that if it’s such a great pro-

‘gram, it shouldn’t need all of that

advertising, nor all of that money.’

The’ CUPE president also charged that beside the economic hardships that it imposed on the Canadian working people, the

-Wage-cutting program is also

eroding the democratic rights of Canadians.

Hartman, a veteran labor ac- tivist reminded the delegates that in the process of building the col- lective bargaining system, which the AIB is now destroying, labor ‘*had to ignore the laws ... we had to have illegal strikes — we had to take all kinds of action.

***We ignored the laws of those she said, ‘‘in order that we could build a movement and make our workers first class citizens.

“On Oct. 14,” Hartman de- clared, ‘‘we have a chance to let all Canadians know that we be- lieve in Democracy; that we still believe in our democratic right to dissent.

‘‘What Oct. 14 is all about,” Hartman concluded, ‘‘is democ- racy, and freedom, and our future as trade unionists and workers able to freely negotiate collective agreements and to retain our right of freedom to dissent.”

Dan Heap, a Toronto alderman and a delegate from the Canadian Paperworkers Union followed the guest speakers and said that the Day of Protest was fully justified

~ and pone of how the recent BEpY:

incial cut-backs in social services inspired by the federal wage- cutting program are designed to benefit the corporations. Speak- ing on behalf of the ‘Reform .Caucus”” in the Toronto City Council he assured the: delegates ‘that the civic workers would get their all out support on Oct. 14”’.

United Auto Workers delegate Bill Devine quoted from a docu- ment recently adopted at the latest UAW District Council meeting entitled ‘‘The UAW Will Be. There’’. The document showed how since the AIB’s im- plementation, the board has rolled back wages of $175 million negotiated with their bosses.”

Neil Young of the United Elec- trical ‘Workers (U.E.), and an executive board member of the labor council, reported to the delegates that the support for the protest is growing and that to date over 100,000 affiliated members have committed them- selves to the “‘Day’’.

DOCS GO OUT OCT. 14

Doctors will join with workers in protesting the anti-inflation program on October 14. The Greater Niagara Medical Society voted to close their offices on the Day-of Protest to show their dis- pleasure. over Trudeau’s re- marks about doctor’s incomes.

“You have to be bloody naive to think doctor’s are the cause of inflation,” says their spokesman Dr. William Cooper.

Fleven new contract gouges by Board

The Anti-Inflation Board gouged into the living standards of workers at 11 more sites in Canada last week by ordering roll backs in democratically nego- tiated settlements.

- Members of the United Steel- workers of America at three Quebec plants of Canadian In- dustries Ltd. were among the hardest hit with raises of 15.27% for the first year of their contract rolled back to 10%.

The AIB’s axe swung into the Northwest Territories and chopped salary increases for 1,500 civic workers from 12% to 9.6%, but it reserved most of its

clout for the prairies, notably ~ Manitoba. Some 1,200 transit.

workers in Winnipeg saw their 16.3% increased lopped in half to only 8.8%. Teachers at St.

James-Assiniboia, Manitoba got’

similar treatment with their 15%

. Salary increase rolled by to 10%.

The Board then turned. its at- tention to supermarket workers on the prairies and promptly turned the screws on their wage settlements by reducing increases by as much as 15%. The workers are employed at Safeway in Sas- katchewan and Manitoba, at OK Economy Stores in Alberta and Saskatchewan and Horne and Pitfield in Alberta. .

The other rollbacks were for 150 miners at Falconbridge Nickel in Manibridge, Manitoba who -were chopped down to

14.7% pay increase from a nego-

tiated 18% and at four separate

plants of Abitibi Paper Company _

in Ontario and Manitoba. Alto- gether 850 paperworkers are affected by the decision and will lose a 19.8% settlement that they fought for, to be replaced by a 14.4 increase.

The AIB seems undaunted by a pending general strike and protest

aimed at the elimination of the

board and its wage-cutting ac-

_ tivities. A number more conttacts

will be placed on the block this week.

Unanimous support for protest day

REGINA — The Saskatche- wan Federation of Labor an- nounced Sept. 8 the unanimous endorsation of the October 14 Day of Protest by the executive of the Saskatchewan Joint Board of the Retail, Wholesale, Depart- ment Store Union. RWDSU rep-

resents some.5,000 workers in the-

manufacturing, service and retail industries in the province.

The Joint Board executive has recommended that all RWDSU locals participate in regional ac- tivities on Oct. 14. They will be meeting with the locals over the

next few weeks to work out the

details of that participation.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 1, 1976—Page 5