LABOR

CAW gears up for

new negotiations

By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORONTO — Auto workers emerged from their legislative and bargaining convention, April 24, united around a program to make significant job and in- come security gains.

The 500 Canadian Auto Workers dele- gates unanimously endorsed a bargaining strategy targeting on improved pensions with built-in protection against inflation; wage and COLA increases geared to maintaining purchasing power as well as increasing living standards; and firm con- trols against contracting out and out- sourcing of union jobs.

As the three day convention drew to a close, CAW president Bob White counted some 149 delegates who had taken the floor to debate the draft bar- gaining and legislative program, titled **We’re building a future together.’’ De- legates and CAW leaders agreed that the intensity and high level of discussion around the document reflected the dele- gates’ commitment to a decision-making process over which they had full control, unlike previous similar assemblies which tended to rubber stamp a bargaining strategy hammered out in Detroit.

Inescapably, Canadian autonomy loomed large over this CAW convention as Newfoundland fishermen’s union president Richard Cashin explained why his organization bolted from the Wash- ington-based United Food and Commer-

_.. cial Workers to join the CAW, and White pledged the union's financial support for the fishermen’s campaign to recertify their union in the Maritimes under the

autoworkers’ banner.

Both the leaders defended the admis- sion of the 14,000 member fishermen’s union into the CAW as a necessary re- sponse to the absence of a structure within the Canadian Labor Congress to ensure the integrity of Canadian sections of international unions who can’t achieve their autonomy within those structures.

Cashin said. the internationals’ resis-

tance to Canadian autonomy demands.

were a Violation of the Canadian labor movement’s militant values of struggle against the global corporate offensive on living standards and the trade union movement itself.

Rejecting charges that the move was a CAW raid, as ‘‘patronizing’’ toward east coast Canadians, Cashin drew a standing ovation as he thundered: ‘‘That’s not what this labor movement is all about, and if there are those who think it is, then it’s about goddam time we had a re- vival.”

Alongside legislative demands like effective plant closure laws, the CAW program projects other demands includ- ing reduced work time, improved child- care benefits, paid maternity and pater- nity leave and protection against the arbi- trary introduction of tech change.

A critical note on shorter work time was sounded by aircraft worker Nick De Carlo, Local 1967 McDonnell-Douglas. De Carlo said the document didn’t prop- erly relate the impact of tech change on the elimination of jobs and the reduction of work hours.

“It seems to me that we should be

‘looking at the principle that with the

increasing introduction of technological changes and rising productivity, hours of work should be proportionally re- duced,” he said.

Massive corporate profits, the CAW .

says, makes 1987 a time for substantial advances, especially on pensions. Gen- eral Motors raked in $418-million on world wide profit of $2.95-billion last year; Ford Canada realized $104-million on a total of $3.29-billion; and Chrysler’s $193.3-million on a global tally of $1.4- billion is a 40 per cent increase.

The figures reinforce the union’s firm rejection of lump sum payments and conditional wages, like profit sharing, and the bargaining program affirms the CAW’s intention to fight for negotiated wage increases, and a pattern settlement for the three corporations. The Cana- dians’ rejection of corporate demands for lump sum payments instead of wage in- creases in the last contract was at the centre of the union’s autonomy conflict with the UAW, expressed in a parting of ways between the two organizations on the issue of|concessions. <

With GM and other corporations threatening to pull its business out of On- tario if indexed pensions are legislated, and the’ corporations’ general drive for concessions, and fatter profits through contracting out and outsourcing CAW delegates repeatedly called for maximum unity from top to bottom in confronting the corporations.

A sign of the leadership’s commitment to that unity was seen in the passage of

Chrysler strike over the Parity Gap. The CAW is now gearing up for a new bargain- — ing strategy. :

aresolution from Local 303 delegate Bob — Ryan providing for local unions to elect health and safety representatives if they — so choose. The reps are currently ap- pointed by White in consultation with the

’ locals.

Ryan and others criticized a process they saw as undemocratic and out of step — with the general CAW practice of elect- — ing all other local union reps.

Setting aside procedural formalities, White put the amendment to a vote — immediately after the debate, rather than — referring it to the National Executive Board.

After it was overwhelmingly endorsed — by the convention White told the dele- — gates: ‘I have no problem with changing the rules. We’re not trying to maintain a ~ bureaucracy here but to do something that’s in the best interests of the © membership.”’ wn ae

The amendment will take effect fol- — lowing the 1987 talks.

—

Ont. auto workers battle for their jobs

THOROLD — Hayes-Dana workers here are coming to a boil over the corporation’s so- called “‘new direction’’ that will decimate their jobs, dis- rupt their lives and drive a stake into the heart of their union, Local 676 Canadian Auto Workers.

‘*The productivity, quality and experience are all there. The company admits they're all there. Why dismantle some- thing that works, just so they can make bigger profits and break the union,’ Local 676 president Tim Lambert said last week.

News of the ‘‘new direc- tion’? tumbled down on the workers like a ton of bricks, March 17 when the corpora- tion brought in the plant com- mittee to inform them of its plans to downsize both Thorold plants reducing the work force from more than 900 to less than 200 in each plant.

Lambert said the loss of some 536 jobs, slated to occur this fall, will mean that workers will need a minimum of 20 years seniority to escape the axe. ‘As it is, the average age

in the plants is 44 to 46 years old, junior seniority is about 15 years,”’ he said.

The union’s mobilization against this assault on the community began with inten- sive lobbying of federal, pro- vincial and municipal politi- cians, with the result that rep- resentatives from the three parties in parliament and Queen’s Park, Lambert said, have declared their support for the workers in their fight to save their jobs.

Last week, at the union’s legislative and collective bar- gaining convention in Toronto, CAW president Bob White told the delegates of his recent meetings with Hayes-Dana management in which the lat- ter admitted the company was

profitable, and that the quality .

of production was high. In fact Chrysler Corp., had just awarded the parts company for its high standard car frames. In an interview after the convention, White said that he had warned Hayes-Dana man- agement that its actions in try- ing to eliminate the union amounted to a “‘declaration of war against us ... ~

‘*So I said just because your board of directors made that decision, we’re meeting our board of directors in another 10 days in Toronto, my guess is they're going to have some- thing to say about tha.”

He foresaw a tough fight at the local level backed by sup- port from the workers in plants that use Hayes-Dana products. ‘‘Dana workers are going to have to send a clear message to the corporation and we’re going to have to talk to the places where the parts are being sent.

“I’m not saying we’ve got the solution, but I think we have to indicate clearly we’re prepared to fight on it,’’ White said.

Convention delegates Jerry Gilligan and Jim Porter, speak- ing on the union’s legislative demands for effective plant closure legislation told of how the corporation’s chief execu- tive officer, Jerry Mitchell told a January meeting of some 2,500 business executives that he intended to drive trade unions out of Hayes-Dana.

Lambert explained how and

why Mitchell intends to try achieving this goal. ‘*They want to beat the union. If you take his statements Hayes-Dana is going to non-union shops, the smaller the better where they can have greater control over the work- ers. The employment stan- dards in this province say that when a company lays off 50 or more workers, they have to provide severance pay, one week’s wages per year of ser- Mice.

Hayes-Dana’s down sizing plans include setting up satel- lite plants in south western On- tario employing no more than 30 or 40 workers. “‘Moving 30 workers here and 30 workers there, plants can be closed down with the corporations not having to pay severance be- cause the employment levels are below the employment standards.”’ ;

The feisty local president noted how profitable Hayes- Dana workers have made the corporation. The frame plant, for example rakes in $1.3 mil- lion in profits every month,

while drive train brings in $400 thousand.

Lambert and others can see that the Hayes-Dana strategy isn’t unique. ‘‘Their strategy is one of banding together to get away from the union,’ Lam- bert said.

As that strategy sinks in to the previously quiet work- force, (the local hasn’t struck the corporation for 13 years), worker anger and indignation is bubbling to the surface.

White promised the conven- tion that outscourcing and transfer rights will be brought to the bargaining table with the big three. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler workers will go to the wall for workers like those at Hayes-Dana as they fight for their jobs.

Local 676 worker Gilligan reflected some of that anger as he told the convention his members, have a chance to show these corporate bastards that we will go to war.

‘*We will not sit back and let people with that kind of senior- ity go down the tubes like dogs with their tails between their legs.””

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 6, 1987