“and Do

By MIKE PHILLIPS TORONTO — Delegates to the last meeting of the Metro Toronto bor Council Oct. 21 seized a Tare opportunity to get some of their own back from one of the food Monopoly’s representatives. 1€ Occasion was a panel dis- Cussion and educational meeting by the Council’s Consumer Af- fairs and Union Label Committee

On UPC, or the ‘‘Universal Pric-

Ing Code.”’

. The panel consisted of provin- cial NDP consumer affairs critic Donald Macdonald, Dick Rooney director of the retail division of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters Union, Janice Scanlon of the Con- Sumer’s Association of Canada, ug Stewart, a spokesman for Steinbergs Ltd. and the focal Point of much angry criticism from the delegates.

In effect the UPC will eliminate the individual pricing of com- Modities, robbing the consumer Of the basis for price comparison and eliminating a lot workers who formerly had the job of pricing and stocking the commodities.

The Consumer Affairs Com-

“Ottawa has a plan to avoid lay- offs: so read the first line of a tWo-line headline in the Toronto

tar, Friday, October 22. My Opes began to rise. They rose €ven higher after reading the sec- Ond line: “‘Shorter work week, no in pay”. Who would have thought . . .? I began to\say to my- Self. This is progress! Just what € Communist Party and or- 8anized labor have been saying Or a long time now. One of the Very first steps toward a policy of

4 €mployment in this country is 4 shorter work week without any Oss in pay. Take as an example a

our work week for 40-hours’ Pay in all basic industries.

Most unfortunately, my hopes Were soon to turn to anger, when Teading further what the Hon.

-S.G. Cullen, Minister of Man- Power and Immigration had in fact told the House of Commons at Ottawa. To put it as the paper actually reported it: ‘The federal 80vernment will set up an ex- Perimental work-sharing program Next fall that would use unem- Ployment insurance funds to keep People at work who would other- Wise be laid off’’, and this to be a Part of a 5-year employment Strategy as planned by the gov- €mment. (emphasis added)

Not a Serious Effort Here’s how the ‘Cullen Plan’

_ Would work:

‘For instance, instead of laying Off 25% of the workers, a com- Pany and its employees would Agree that the available work will

Shared, and all of them will Work a 30-hour week instead of a hour week.’’

“The government would pay Unemployment insurance benefits

Or a quarter of the week to all Workers, instead of paying for the

week to one-quarter of the Workers.”

mittee reported to council that the estimated reduction of store em- ployees as a result of UPC could be as high as 45%, and called on the Council to present a brief on the subject to the provincial gov- ernment through the Ontario Federation of Labor, and on the Canadian Labor Congress to con- tinue to press for protective legis- lation at the federal level. The re- port was endorsed by Council. Who will control

Art Jenkyn of the United Elec- trical workers (UE) placed the workers’ position before Stein- bergs’ Stewart; ‘‘we aren’t about to take axes to the computers in an effort to stop progress as you suggest. The central question that is open for debate,” he said ‘‘is who is eventually going to take these computers over, and in whose interest will they be operated.”

In hfs speech Stewart had suggested that the source of labor’s opposition to the UPC system was a child-like fear of the unknown and of change, and that Steinbergs in particular was

introducing the new technology

According to the Hon. J.S.G, Cullen, the $350-million a year plan to create jobs fot the next five years ‘‘will be funded through savings made by tightening the unemployment insurance sys- tem.’’ (emphasis added)

As officials explained later to the press, a man earning the maximum insurable wage of $200 a week would be paid $150 by his employer and $33.30 by the UIC. (A man earning $400 a week would receive $300 from his em- ployer and the maximum $33.30 from the UIC.) .

Asked what level of employ- |

ment the program would achieve, Cullen is reported as having re- plied: ‘‘I hope we get to the point where everyone who wants a job has one.”’ : So this, then, is the magnanim- ous full employment program planned by the government to

come into effect sometime next’

year. The largest single element of the plan is to be called Canada Works — a. year-round job- creating program costing about $200-million and providing work for about 61,000 in 1977-78. It is to be concentrated in high unem- ployment areas.

This is not a meaningful or seri- ous effort to create jobs, or even to keep those presently with a job to go to, secure in the knowledge that they will not loose that job.

Lower Standard.

This is a diabolical scheme to con- demn all permanently or partially unemployed to hopelessness and starvation while putting growing numbers of employed workers on a dole at a lower standard of income so as to guarantee super-profits for the monopolies.

This is being done in a country that is the second largest in the world in area, tremendously rich in natural resources, with modern technology and a skilled labor

Government to subsidize employers through UIC

to, improve its service to the people. He even presumed to speak on behalf of the union and management at Steinbergs in de- manding an apology from fellow panelist Donald Macdonald for suggesting that the introduction of the technology was ‘“‘clearly very profitable’’ for the retail chains. Stewart said he “‘resented the imputation that Steinbergs and the Canadian Food and Allied Workers Union were trying to con people’’ to make a profit.

force which if fully employed could produce an abundance of goods and services.

Why then this belt-tightening nonsense, with periodic philosophical lectures about there only being a limited pie to share? Why not bake a bigger pie?

The answer is simply that the working people of Canada have no control over their resources, their wealth-producing machin- ery as well as accumulated capital

* already on hand. Those corporate

industrial and financial structures in whose private hands these re- sources presently reside, are re- fusing to put the capital to work unless they are guaranteed super-profits. They have gone on strike and-refuse to budge, hold- ing the country up to ransom while the economy stagnates and goes to pot. :

Last year, the five. biggest banks made a profit of $600- million dollars. This was an in- crease of 46% over the previous year. This year the same profit, plus an additional $38-million were made in the first nine months.

There is plenty of capital avail- able to put Canada to work, There is no need to rob the unemployed. Nor is there any need to put the employed workers on relief, while they are working, so as to make.a big surplus for the big bos- ses of our economy.

Bill C-73 is no answer to in- flation! The Cullen plan is no answer to unemployment!

Both of these nefarious schemes to rob the working class of this country must be scrapped.

Nationalize ‘the banks, the major industries, and our re- sources. Put these under public ownership and democratic con- trol and begin to really plan our economy for the people of the this country.

This unbridled hypocrisy pro- duced the most unified attack from the floor on an issue that this reporter has ever witnessed in the Council.

Business gouges

Alex Maclennan of the Public Service Alliance of Canada set the tone for what was to follow when he said: ‘business exists to gouge as much profit as it can at the expense of the buying public and the working people. Mono- polies can do as they please in setting prices.”’

Nat Schacher of the Amalga- mated Clothing Workers declared “you tell me you worry about me as a consumer and J say that’s garbage. Making a profit is your main objective and what I’m say- ing is that I want you to share it with me.”’

Pointing out that the food in- dustry was monopolized ‘‘from what comes out of the ground to what goes onto the shelves. and everything in between,”’ Art Jen- kyn also referred to the mterlock- ing directorships and the ways in which the food monopolies -are interconnected at the top.

“Everyone in this room knows from bitter experience in the supermarkets of this city that it’s a lie that the food companies are not fixing prices,” he said. ‘‘You should apologize to us!’’

Speeches from the gallery were permitted and Metro Toronto Communist Party Industrial or- ganizer Ed Macdonald rose to point out that over the recent

hopolies -

period advances in technological change have been very profitable for corporations but the benefits of this progress, as evidenced by the rising unemployment rates, have not been passed on to the consumer. Control Monopoly

He referred to labor’s recent Oct. 14 protest as a reflection of this problem and said that ‘‘it

highlights the need for the or-

ganized labor movement to de- mand that labor have the right to a say in the introduction of technol- ogy.”” He also called for the plac- ing of corporations like Stein- bergs under legislative controls with the end in sight of eliminating them completely.

Noting the frustration express- ed by Donald Macdonald at the impossibility of getting private members Bills through the house on topical issues, the communist Macdonald said -that this reality, “raises the need to challenge monopoly and its cohorts in Ot- tawa and Queen’s Park to enact legislation to curb monopoly, both inside and outside the vari- ous legislatures.”

He asked the NDP panelist if he could endorse the concept of bringing the food- monopolies under public control with workers having a say in the introduction of technological change.

Donald Macdonald responded saying that his party was for stric- ter controls on prices but has not called for the nationalization of the food monopolies.

Saskatchewan workers made message clear

REGINA — The Saskatche- wan Federation of Labor an- nounced Oct. 18 that their most recent count of participants in the Oct. 14 Day of Protest indicated that over 27,906 workers took part in the Canadian Labor Congress’ protest against the wage-cutting program of the Trudeau govern ment. ;

Spokesmen for the federation said.that the Oct. 14. demonstra- tion was the first time in history that a number of Saskatchewan centres were the scene of labor demonstrations. There were pro- tests in 17 different centres includ- ing Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, Estevan, Wynyard, Hudson Bay, Melfort, Meadow , Lake, LaRonge and many other centres.

Joining the labor movement in

the protest, were participants from the National Farmers Union (NFU), the Association of Metis and Non-Status Indians, senior citizens groups, teachers, stu- dents, and some un-organized workers. sae

Protest activities ranged from marches and rallies to soup kitch- ens and even included the ‘‘tar- ring and feathering” of an effigy of Trudeau in Yorkton.

The SFL noted that ‘‘Sas- katchewan has never seen an oc- curance like Oct. 14,’ and when on to’say ‘‘Saskatchewan work- ers spoke on Oct. 14, and their message was clear.”

The federation warned in con- clusion, ‘‘if our system of gov- emment still claims any legiti- macy at all that message must be heard and acted upon.”’

“Stop making a fuss about it. muzzle our shop steward for years !”

I’ve been trying to-

ee