Racism rampant at Consumers’

__ TORONTO — After a battle of _ More than a year John Persaud is finally getting a glimpse of motion in his fight for justice.

Persaud, a sole-support parent h three kids, has been fighting ice May of 1984 against being ‘Unjustly fired by management at ‘\onsumer Distributing Ltd.’s Malton warehouse.

In all this time he’s not yet had grievance heard. Instead the mpany has filed a preliminary jection to the arbitration even ng heard, because it claims ‘ersaud agreed to a $50,000 cash ‘Settlement in Jan. °85 ending the dispute.

N fact, under what his suppor- ters describe as extreme pressure

a battery of lawyers, Per- Saud did sign an agreement, but he immediately repudiated it and Was successful in convincing the ntario Human Rights Com- ISsion not to ratify it.

Hearings Scheduled

. Effectively, he reconsidered 'S decision and chose to continue € arbitration route.

Last week, even the _arbit- Tator’s patience seemed to be Wearing thin over the company’s Stalling tactics. Professor R.B. 4\aynor informed counsel for both Sides that they could give their _Summations on the preliminary bjection Dec. 16. Should he find there is no basis to the company’s ection he would begin hearing

early January.

Meanwhile Persaud’s friends Supporters are marshalling latever help they can from “00r, community groups and ‘ntl-racism activists, because his Was just the tip of an ugly tuation at Consumers Distribut-

erits of Persaud’s grievance.

ing where it appears racism runs rampant with little or no resis- tance from management.

Immediately after Persaud was fired, the majority of his work- mates in the warehouse circulated a petition calling on the provincial labor minister to investigate the circumstances of the firing.

History of Racism

His supporters at work and in the support committee that’s been formed to help him achieve justice say he was fired because he was a dedicated and conscientious chief steward and was an active participant in the fight against racism in the work- place.

There was a long history of ra- cism in the place. Workers recall how the company would hire il- legal immigrants for a day’s work then have immigration officials pick them up before they could collect their pay.

Persaud was even taken from work in 1976 and interrogated by immigration officials until he proved that he was a landed im- migrant. He’s since become a Canadian citizen.

Pressure from the workers and complaints on the situation to the human rights commission forced the company to clean up its act a

bit and at least end the exploita- .

tion of the illegal immigrants. A few visible minority workers were promoted to supervisory jobs but in the recent period the company has either fired most of them or offered cash settlements for them to leave.

Over the past two years the company has openly ignored a contract provision ensuring that

_Fired worker seeks justice

workers be selected for training and promotion on the basis of seniority, making it impossible for management to bypass senior and experienced minority workers in

favor of white workers hired from .

outside the company.

In fact the workers at Consum- ers complain of a double standard in the treatment of white and visi- ble minority workers. They com- plain of one worker in particular who openly boasts of being able to get any worker fired that he wants; who is able to verbally and physically harass visible minority workers with impunity and who on one occasion beat up a worker so badly he needed to be hospital- ized.

Yet management hasn’t taken”

any disciplinary action against its employee.

Unsavory Reputation

Consumers Distributing doesn’t exactly have the most savory reputation. Charges of il- legal stock manipulation by the company’s president in 1979 still

-haven’t been dealt with.

Last year, while the company was trying to grind Persaud down on his grievance, the press was filled with reports of kickback and payoffs to former Local 419 busi- ness agent Sean Floyd in order to secure ‘“‘labor peace.”

The local has since been put under trusteeship, and Floyd res- igned with a luxurious cash pay- ment from the Teamsters.

Persaud and his supporters have also called on Labor Minis- ter Bill Wrye to look into the situation, and the minister’ s office has promised to meet with Per- saud later this month, before Christmas.

TRIBUNE PHOTO —JOSE KAUFMAN

ok. : Massive solidarity is needed behind the Burlington’Northern strikers in their fight for a first agreement.

Labor solidarity on Northern line

MALTON — It was a time for solidarity, Nov. 29 as Toronto- area workers responded to a call by Local 91 International Typo- graphical Union to demonstrate their support for 30 locked out workers at Burlington Northern Air Freight. 3

The workers have been locked out by the subsidiary of the mammoth Pittston Corporation since May 8. Pittston, a U.S. transnational, also owns the Brinks Company, a notorious anti-union armored car company.

- The company has been using scab drivers to keep their busi- ness moving. True to form the Peel Regional Police have been living up to their anti-union image by harassing the pickets.

Pickets are being arrested on nuisance charges and ITU members’ homes have even been raided.

The Peel police came under fire from the trade union move- ment at last month’s Ontario Federation of Labor convention.

The Communications Workers of Canada (CWO), has said it intends to ask Ontario Solicitor General Ken Keyes to investigate the Peel force. CWC members have been the butt of racially-con- nected police harassment in a Mississauga strike involving a largely East Indian and immigrant workforce at Super Plastics.

The CWC decision flows from an OFL convention resolution calling on the Solicitor General to investigate the Peel Regional Police. CWC delegates were joined by delegates from the Cana- dian Paperworkers Union and other OFL affiliates who centred on the force’s unsavory reputation as a ruthless pro-employer presence on the picket line.

__ Like the Burlington Northern pickets, and the Food and Commercial Workers who recently concluded their strike at — Galco Foods, in Mississagua, the Super Plastics workers, accord- ing to the CWC, were subjected to arrests even though scabs who recklessly injured workers as they ploughed their way through picket lines were not even charged.

Burlington Northern refuses to negotiate with the ITU. Since the May 8 lockout there has been only one meeting which the union described as ‘‘short’’ and “‘fruitless.”

World labor body

marks 40 years

‘The 206-million member World Fed- €ration of Trade Unions turned 40 in Oc- _tober. While it isn’t common knowledge to the current generation of trade union activists in this country, Canadians were Present at its birth.

_Canada was represented by delega- tions of both the Canadian Congress of Labor and the Trades and Labor Con- ress at a preparatory conference for the formation of a world federation held in ndon, England, in April, 1945. Canada was also represented on the Provisional committee that was struck off to lay the groundwork for the _WETU’s founding conference in Paris. _ The federation’s birth wasn’t painless Dy any means. Even at this early stage, Certain right wing trade union leaders, Including Canada’s Charlie Millard, rep- Tesenting the CCL, unsuccessfully tried

- But thanks to the efforts of the Ameri- can CIO’s Sidney Hillman and R.J. Thomas, along with trade union leaders m Latin America, France and the Soviet Union unanimous approval for the formation of the world federation was ‘Secured.

Historic Unity Its creation established a single, uni-

d global trade union movement for the first time in history. It expressed the

to get the WFTU’s formation postponed. —

democratic and working class unity that found its reflection within the United Na- tions, the alliance binding together the U.S., the Soviet Union, Britain, France, Canada and other countries to stop European fascism and Japanese imperialism from reaching their goal of world conquest. “When capitalism launched its cold war inst the socialist commmunity and shattered the alliance the United Nations was built on, the international union

“movement was also split by the with-

drawal from the WFTU of the trade unions from such capitalist countries as Britain, the U.S., Canada and others.

® WEFTU Unique

With the formation in 1949 of the In- ternational Confederation of Free Trade Unions, these leaders chose to line them- selves up with the global aims and policies of big business. This crystalized a split in the international labor move- ment which continues to this day, al- though today’s conditions find the two bodies increasingly undertaking parallel actions around certain issues including peace and international solidarity.

For its part, the WFTU has always sought united action by. the unions ona world scale. Through international trade union secretariates, it tries to foster co- operation and joint activities along re-

gional and sectoral lines among all willing trade union organizations regardless of their affiliation.

It remains unique among the world labor centres, not only as the largest, but because of its firm class struggle outlook. Its main focus today is on the fight for peace and disarmament, the battle for jobs and to defend workers’ living stan- dards against the vicious attacks of the crisis-ridden transnationals, and for the creation of a new, just international eco- nomic order. —

The WFTU initiated Sept. 1 as the international day for trade union peace action. Since its inception in 1984, this Peace Action Day has caught workers’ imagination in many parts of the world, prompting demonstrations, five-minute work stoppages, ‘“‘peace shifts’’ in which workers donate their day’s wages to their peace organizations and even joint trade union efforts for peace actions across international boundaries.

The federation also conducts research into peace and disarmament issues, particularly around such questions as the conversion of military economies for civilian, job-intensive and socially-useful production. :

During the 1984 British miners’ strike, the WFTU moved quickly to mobilize world solidarity behind the National

Union of Mineworkers. It was a WFTU initiative which brought a shipload of food, clothing and other necessities to the miners and their families during their

year-long battle with the Thatcher government.

Fighting Transnationals

It was also the WFTU which first turned the spotlight of world public opin- ion on the Turkish government and its persecution and prosecution of the DISK trade union leaders. The campaign it helped mobilize, along with support and parallel actions from the ICFTU and other organizations forced the Turkish authorities to release the DISK leaders.

Now the WFTU is working on the ways to encourage co-operatien among unions, regardless of their political orientation or affiliations, through the transnationals their members work for, so workers can share vital ining and health and safety ees pees com- pare strategies for dealing with their em-_ ployers and their world-wide operations.

Such exchanges on this basic working class level ought to contribute to a much-needed strengthening of interna- tional trade union solidarity in the face of very powerful transnational cor- porations who are united in their drive to extract maximum profits, from their workers around the world.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 4, 1985 « 7