LABOR

By MIKE PHILLIPS TORONTO — The economy and aid to the Third World were high on the agenda at the Canadian Steelworkers Policy Conference, May 29-31 but the leadership of the country’s largest indus-

_ ~ trial union had little to offer their 160,000

members in the way of any alternative to the crisis.

Highlighting the opening sessions Were the decision to establish a union- tun Humanity Fund for Third World fam- Ine relief, and an economic policy paper Which focussed on ‘‘collective bargain- Ing (as) the key instrument in Canada for €conomic justice.”’

The delegates unanimously adopted the resolution setting up the Humanity Fund and outlining possible language which the union wants locals to negotiate Into their collective agreements. It pro-

‘Poses a payroll deduction of one cent per

member per week and invites-the em- Ployers to follow suit or match union unds.

Canadian UN Ambassador Stephen

€wis, who prefaced his remarks to the delegates by saying it felt good to be an- SWering to the trade union movement rather than the federal Tories, outlined the UN’s work in organizing famine re- lief and praised the Steelworkers’ de- Cision.

Charles Nixon,_a Toronto area dele- Sate, joined in the praise but drew the Conference’s attention to the economic Causes for hunger and starvation in the world and the responsibility the transna- tional corporations and the governments which serve them have to bear.

The very cash crops produced in some developing countries are dictated by the Market and industrial needs of trans- Nationals, he said, and pointed out that Western capitalist governments only trade with many of these countries in Western, not domestic, currencies, thus

Stopping them from acquiring the ma-

terials, fertilizers and equipment they need to develop their agriculture.

‘‘These kinds of political economic factors are also relevant and I think that when we are discussing some of the rea- sons behind starvation in some parts of the world we may get to ... these points as well and we will be educating our- selves as to some of the reasons for star- vation,’ Nixon said.

The economic paper sketched the cri- sis which is gripping the economy, par- ticularly the mining industry, where it was reported that USWA membership dropped 33.1 per cent in coal, 44.7 per cent in nickel and 47.7 per cent in iron mining between 1980-84.

Economy of Numbers

The total union membership between mid-1980 and the end of 1984 fell from 187,924 to 147,179, though vigorous or- ganizing in the past two years has bol- stered the union’s ranks back up to about 160,000 members.

The paper hit out at the current Tory federal budget for its attack on univer- sality by de-indexing Old Age Security pensions, and shifting the tax burden even more away from corporations to individual Canadians.

The Tory strategy, the Steelworkers’ paper charged, ‘“‘will ... reduce pur- chasing power, lower overall employ- ment and reduce standards of living ... The ‘economy of numbers’ will slide into a more and more polarized society, where corporations get tax giveaways and workers get a downward spiral of wage-bashing and ‘victim competition’ for scarce jobs.”

It also attacked the free traders by pointing out “‘that ‘free trade’ means put- ting our economic future into the hands of the transnational corporations’’ and pointed out that 70 per cent of Canada’s current trade, “‘is merely transfers within transnational corporations, as sub- sidiaries of a conglomerate pass items back and forth.”

Yet, the only conclusions drawn by the policy document focussed on more membership education, more union-

employer conferences like the recent Canadian Steel Trade Conference jointly sponsored by USWA Canadian Director Gerard Docquier and the president of Algoma Steel, better co-ordination at the bargaining table on such items as tech change and contracting out, and contin- ued support for the NDP.

Fightback Urged

Peter Liebowitz, local 1005, called himself ‘‘a casualty of the crisis’? who has been laid off several times at Stelco over the past four years. He called for a campaign by the trade union movement spearheaded by powerful unions like the auto workers and the Steelworkers for a shorter work week to tackle the unem- ployment crisis.

Local 8030 president Larry Arsenault praised the paper’s analysis of the crisis but urged more dynamic conclusions to

Good analysis by Steel, but no action

include demands for an end to plant clo- sures, no free trade with the U.S., stop- ping governments from selling off Crown Corporations, developing a Canadian machine-tool industry, slashing the arms budget, and launching a massive national housing program to create shelter for working people and create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

‘*‘What the labor movement must do — the CLC leadership and particularly the Steelworkers as this country’s larg- est industrial union — is to start a fightback by Canadian workers and the Canadian public to get at all the things that have to be changed in Canada to provide jobs and security during our in- fancy, our educational years, our work- ing lives and in our retirement’ ’, he said.

““We are entitled to that. We've worked for it. Why should they take it away from us?”’

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The long-awaited Wilson budget is not a job crea- tion budget. It is not a progressive budget. It is a big-business budget, which takes away from the workers and the poor to give to the rich.

It is a budget which strikes at indexing and univer- Sality of family allowances and pensions. It increases taxes on those least able to pay while increasing loop- holes to expand the numbers of rich corporations and Individuals who pay little or no taxes. ;

It is a budget which increases arms expenditures while cutting social programs. It hands over Crown

Orporations to private enterprises.

Private Sector — No Engine

The budget is sold by the Tories on the discredited theory that the private sector is the engine of job creation, when in reality the private sector (and in Particular the large transnationals who dominate our economy), invests where it can make the most profit, not where it can create jobs.

Bulging corporate and bank profits over the past Couple of years, contrasted with more than two mil- lion unemployed, is stark evidence that the private Sector is not the engine of growth.

Often, big business lugs its ill-gotten gains ob- tained from Canadian workers or from the Canadian budgetary trough, outside the country where capital €arns a higher rate of profit.

It has been estimated that every billion dollars which government spends, has a multiplier effect as it Works its way through the economy two-and-a-half times. This means that every billion dollars in 80Vernment spending adds two-and-a-half billion to the economy.

Similarly, one billion dollars taken from govern- Ment spending means a subtraction of two-and-one- half billion.

Stop the Wilson budget— labor must

Labor in action |

500,000 Jobs Lost

In the next two years the Wilson budget will shrink the Canadian economy by ten billion dollars. Now, if (as the economists “‘constructively”’ predict), every billion dollars expended adds fifty thousand jobs to the economy, and a billion dollars removed from the economy causes the loss of 50,000 jobs, then the Tories are budgeting the loss of half a million jobs in the next two years, despite their hopes for the private sector to pick up the slack.

Rather than ‘‘jobs, jobs, jobs’’, promised by Brian Mulroney in the last election, Canadians are going to see the reality that, ‘“Tory times are tough times’’.

But the worst is yet to come unless the Tories are stopped now. Michael Wilson is prescribing even tougher medicine in future years.

While he didn’t tamper further with UIC benefits, he has frozen U.I. premiums awaiting the outcome of astudy which is the justification for a wholesale attack on Unemployment Insurance as we have come to know it.

Furthering his theory that the private sector is the motor of growth, Wilson also proposes a second major study which will reduce corporate taxes even further.

Labor Must Lead

The combined strength of the Liberals and the NDP within the House of Commons is insufficient to stop

the massive Tory majority. But combine the opposi- tion within the House to a massive extra-parlia- mentary struggle of all Canadians affected by this budget, and the Tories can be compelled to retreat or face the wrath of an aroused and united population who are getting a lesson in Tory duplicity.

This is where labor comes in. By virtue of its size, (Canada’s predominant people’s organization), in- fluence, organization and position in society, the Canadian Labor Congress, in co-operation with the other labor centrals such as the CNTU, CEQ, CCU etc., can and should be pulling the forces together to launch an all-out fight against the Wilson budget and the legislation which surrounds it.

This is the essence of the Nine-Point Action Plan adopted last year in Montreal by the CLC. Women, seniors, students and youth, the churches, welfare recipients, small business, the unemployed, single

_parents, tenants, and all others adversely affected by

the budget can be mobilized against it, to force Mul- roney to retreat.

Finally, to maintain the credibility of labor among its rank and file and its allies, Brother Baldwin, the CLC representative, should resign from the federal task force chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Erik Nielson.

How many times do we have to sit down with Tories and the representative of big business before it sinks in that their interest in labor is for us to seek better ways for labor to slit its own throat.

Similarly, if participation in the Government- CLC-sponsored National Productivity Centre ever had any merit (which it never did), now would be a good time to bow out.

The Government, having labor participate in dis- cussions on productivity, manpower requirements and competitiveness, is like the cannibal having the missionary over for dinner.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 5, 1985 e 7