avsire, with tie) joins UAW picketers outside GM in Detroit.

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Canadian GM strikers:

Been pushed around too much for too long”

By MEL DOIG

“This is one time money’s im- Portant, make no mistake. But dignity is important—to walk on the job like a man, not like a Mouse!” That’s how Bob Chap- Man, picket marshal of the 4,500 auto workers of General Motors’ umber 2 plant in St. Catharines told it to the Canadian Tribune On the picketline.

Local 199 UAW covers all Beno workers in both GM St. ~atharines plants. The picketline Mterviews were with plant rium- - 2 engine and foundry work- ‘she The picketers fires were al- any burning in the cool even- ng ‘by the time we arrived.

. Chapman is typical of the ma- tity of workers in his plant. *€S 27 years of age and mar- Ned. Ross Hicks, the picket cap- 4In with him in the bus that

‘Serves as plant 2 picket head-:

Quarters, is 25, married with two Children.

se Over 40% of the men in the Ngine and foundry plant, they

‘Old me, are under 25, while in

the whole of Local 199 the great- Majority of workers have only

iVe to eight years’ seniority. To

this Ross Hicks added, “I don’t

Ink the younger guys are going x Put up with what the older hes have had to take!”

Pond that, expressed in many Bs by young and older work-

Son the picketline that night, Was the puts of all they told

geout their strike: “Money, yes meet 2?

pune “but” was speedup and °rking conditions.

i “We want more time off that ne,” said Bob Chapman. He SPoke of the fact that 56% of drugs prescribed for GM vorkers in Canada are for ner- Us disorders. “This is the big

Problem—the same monotonous 8rind.”

He talked facts. He works in an engine test stand area. “The fumes are real bad. There’s nau- sea and nosebleeds. But the boss says, ‘It won't kill you. How easy it would be to correct this situation,” Bob exclaimed. “A hood over the engine being test- ed. But the damned ‘boss won’t hear of this. It costs too much — it’s not feasible!”

- The picket captain, Ross Hicks described what he thought of the assembly line after he’d worked on it for a short period: “The completely worst job I’ve ever seen. That line is number one to them. GM will spend any kind of money if there’s a line break- down—but for human _break- down caused by speedup? Shove it!”

In the bus shelter one of the picketers put it this way: “If you’d -worked on the assembly line you’d be in the- rubber room!” (No argument there.)

Chapman and Hicks spoke of other principal issues at. stake for the auto workers in their strike against GM: SUB (supple- mentary unemployment benefits fund), “the fund should be un- limited, the waiting period elim- inated”; overtime — “the guys don’t like being penalized when they refuse it. We want the right to refuse to work overtime. Overtime’s going to be a big one.” They spoke of pensions and ‘30 and out”; of parity... “parity has got to be just that and nothing less.”

But it was “working condi- tions” that came through most persistently in these picketline interviews.

“It’s almost to the point of one. finger, two fingers,” declar- ed Chapman. “I don’t know what an eight-year old kid would say if his dad had to tell him he has to ask to go to the washroom.”

Over where the picketers on duty were gathered round their

rT one | 1 tit Aen

By Communist Party Auto Bureau: UAY ’

Put entire labor muscle into GM strike solidarity’

Canadian trade unions to- day are in the forefront of the growing confrontation be- tween monopoly and the peo- ple. Every successive wage struggle is visibly connected with questions such as the ownership and control of the country’s resources, its econ- omy and government policy.

Two opposite policies are being advanced:

(1) Employer - government policy is responsible for: the credit squeeze; high interest rates; unused production ca- pacity; reduced social service costs, such as housing, edu- “cation and health; reduced la- bor income; profits for the monopolies, like the GM and others like it.

(2) Working people are seeking: a policy of more jobs and economic expansion; an end to mass unemployment; an increased use of productive capacity and: the creation of new industry; provisions for all social needs and a higher standard of living; an end to poverty, want and exploita- tion; a greater participation by the working people in de- termination of the country’s destiny. All of this involves a struggle against both em- ployers and government poli- cies and opens the way; if resolutely pursued, to the fight for working class power and socialism.

The struggle of Canadian auto workers for a_ larger share of the fruits of their production, and for “dignity” on the job, is at the centre of this struggle today.

Increased wages and better working conditions for Can- ada’s more than 50,000 auto workers will add to the well- being of everyone except the small minority who live off the exploitation of these workers. It will also help to stimulate the. struggles of all Canadian producers of wealth for better living standards and against poverty.

The striking Canadian auto- mobile workers deserve the support of all Canadians and first and foremost the active

solidarity and assistance of organized labor, in the van of whose struggle it now finds itself.

General Motors, the kingpin of the world auto industry and the second largest corpor- ation in the world, is deter- mined to teach its U.S. and Canadian workers a lesson, and in the process set an ex- ample to be followed by all monopolies.

The Trudeau government has joined hands with the colossal auto monopolies to keep the gains of the workers .to a minimum and the profits of the companies to a maxi- mum. This policy is detrimen- tal not only to the auto work- ers but to the entire commun- ity.

Canadian auto workers for their part have drafted a set of conditions which they have taken to the bargaining table. The 25,000 GM workers who are out on strike are deter- mined not to reenergize the production lines in Oshawa, St. Catharines, Windsor, To- ronto and Ste. Therese, Que- bec until the main thrust of its demands: a_ substantial wage increase, (GM assembly line workers averaged less than $6,500 before taxes in 1969. After taxes it would average out at not much more than $5,500.) 30 and out pen- sion, ($500 a month after 30 years service), improvements in SUB, health, welfare and accident benefit changes, eli- mination. of compulsory over- time, improved grievance pro- cedure, and an improvement of in-plant conditions; are met.

Not least is the insistence that whatever agreement is signed will continue the wage parity now existing between Canadian and U.S. auto work- ers.

The entire membership and leadership of the United Auto- workers are united in the struggle to win these legiti- mate demands. But the kind of action to bring the strike to an early conclusion in fav- or of the workers, cannot be

fire, I asked what was the “big one” in this strike. Basil Bruce didn’t hesitate: ‘As I see it, working conditions.” Ernie Crete, who still speaks some of his parent’s French, said, “They’re mean in the plant. Now — we're going to be pretty damned mean on this_ picket- line!”

They and other picketers maintained the strikers came out “ready for a long one.” They are sore with GM. They’ve had it — “been pushed around too much for too long!”

Crete reported how the day .

before 400 Hayes-Dana workers in nearby Thorold had been laid off their jobs, making frames for GM. “They came over here and shook hands with the picketers,” he said. “They told our boys: ‘What you win, we’ll also get. Count on us!”

Related directly to speedup

and in-plant working conditions, health and safety provisions are

a vital issue for the St. Cathar- ines GM workers, and both Bob Chapman and Ross Hicks ex- plained why: The company kas only one safety man. The work- ers have no right, Chapman said, to call him down on the job, but must go through the foreman.

“There are company signs all over the plant saying ‘Safety First’,” Hicks interjected. “But it all boils down to their motto: Production first, safety second!”

“Our demand,” declared Chap- man, “is that the union must have a health and safety man with the authority to shut down the job—and that’s going to be won!”

The Plant 2 picket marshal re- ported how that day the strike committee had endorsed the

October 14 Queen’s Park demon- stration against Bill 167, and proposed to the local’s executive that busloads of .St. Catharines auto strikers take part in it.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1970-—-PAGE7

restricted to the actions of the UAW.

The Trudeau government, aware of the implications of the strike has thrown its full weight behind the auto com- panies. The labor movement and all working people and their organizations must

throw their weight behind the , Striking GM workers. :

Solidarity resolutions, con- tributions to the strike fund, offers of whatever other as- sistance needed should pour into the GM workers from unions and labor councils across the country. The Cana- dian Labor Congress should stand ready to convene a na- tional emergency conference of unions, if necessary to bring the entire muscle of Canadian labor into the fight. An appeal should go out from the CLC calling for the mobil- ization of Canada-wide ac- tions with the striking GM workers.

This is what is needed to win for GM Canadian auto workers and for all Canadian labor against the arrogant ac- tions of monopoly, and its Trudeau spokesmen.

—Issued by The Auto Bureau of the Com- munist Party.