OCTOBER-NOVEMBER,1977 THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER LIKE KAISER’S FLEET CORPORATIONS TOO IMPORTANT? By JOHN COBBS In the years before World War I, Germany invested so heavily in battleships that, ' when the war came, it did not dare let them fight. As the U.S. economy slides deeper into recession, the federal govern- ment finds itself in a similar position. The huge U.S. cor- porations have become such important centers of jobs and incomes that it dare not let one of them shut down or go out of business. It is compelled, therefore, to shape national. policy in terms of protecting the great corporations instead of letting the economy make deflationary adjustments. As many scholars have pointed out, the corporation is the institution that the capitalist nations have chosen to translate rapidly increasing scientific knowledge into jobs, goods, incomes, and consump- tion. Adolph A. Berle, Jr., lawyer, teacher, businessman, and part-time politician, perhaps said it best in his thoughtful little book The 20th Century Revolution, published just over 20 years ago. His theme was that the corporation was doing for the U.S. and other advanced countries what the Russians were trying to achieve with Communism. PRIMITIVE NATIONS Primitive nations such as Russia, said Berle, had to choose Communism as ‘an instrument by which a vast backward country could be mauled into industrialization.” But ‘‘the capitalist revolution in which the United States was the leader found apter, more efficient, and more flexible means through collectivizing capital in corporations.” The past two decades have confirmed Berle’s argument that ‘it is justifiable to con- sider the American corpora- tion not as a business device but as a social institution in the context of a revolutionary century.” In the last five years, however, something has gone badly wrong. Caught in an explosive inflation and wracked by two painful reces- sions, an increasing number of giant corporations can no longer claim either flexibility or efficiency. They have lost control of their costs, lost their access -to capital, misjudged their markets, and diversified into lines of business they do not understand. In desperation they turn to Washington for help, and if they are big enough and shaky enough, they get it. Neither the Administration nor Congress dares allow a major employer to go down the drain — any more than the Kaiser dared risk one of his expensive battleships. NUMBER OF BAILOUTS The mounting number of bailouts -— loans, tariffs, im- port quotas, and tax cuts — blurs the distinction between the capitalist revolution and the Marxist version. A visitor from Mars might see little difference between the govern- ment and the ailing corpora- tion it is propping up. More important, the willing- ness of the government to shelter a big corperation from the pain of retrenchment takes the flexibility out of the system. A game in which there are no losers puts no premium on good management or good economic policy. This is one reason the U.S. has developed a chronic inflationary bias. In the days when there were several hundred ambitious auto producers, it did not hurt the economy greatly if a Stutz or a Franklin dropped out. The market could ruthlessly penalize bad judgment, and the system emerged stronger than ever. There are still industries — electronics is one — where competition can prune out the weak operators and force the strong ones to hustle. But each dropout increases the relative importance of the surviving companies, and in the end, each producer will be so im- portant that its collapse would be an economic disaster. LOCKHEED LOST CONTROL When Lockheed Aircraft lost control of its costs and teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, Congress saved it with a $250- million loan guarantee. And when the bankrupt Eastern railroads ran out of cash and threatened to stop running trains, the government bank- rolled a federal corporation to take over their essential operations And now the auto industry — reduced to three huge com- - panies and one small one — is stuck with acres of cars that the public does not want. It is following the well-trodden path to Washington. It suggests re- ing emissions and safety re- quirements, and vigorous stimulation of the economy: Chrysler has called for a cut in income taxes and easier credit for car buyers. A bad year for autos is a bad year for everyone, But if the government guarantees a no- lose game for autos, it will have to provide some other mechanism by which the economy can correct the mis- takes of management and government alike. When a big company brings out a bad product, or when it yields to a powerful union and writes an inflationary wage contract, its management should not end up just as well off as good management. If it does, the economy will have no built-in discipline, no way of confirm- ing good decisions and revising bad ones. The answer of the dedicated antitrusters is to break up the big companies, but the U.S. probably has gone far beyond the point where that could be done without paralyzing the economy. The real problem, therefore,- is to make big corporations more resilient, more capable of correcting mistakes. Ideas for achieving this result are strangely scarce. Perhaps the trouble is that Berle’s forecast was wrong in another respect. ‘There is solid ground,” he said in 1954, “for the expectation that 20 years from now the men of greatest renown in the United States will be the spiritual, philosophical, and intellectual leaders for the sufficient reason that they will be needed more than any other type of men. Society still tends both to produce and to honor the kinds of men it needs most.” He was an optimist. “MAGIC OF ST. ATIST ICS” Does the Anti- Inflation Board control food prices? You bet it does. Thanks to the magic of statistics, the AIB can pretend there’s no increase in the price of food, even when there is. According to the AIB, food prices ‘‘moderated con- siderably’’ during the month of July — defying any attempt by Statistics Canada to tell them otherwise. The AJB said food prices increased by only 0.5%, while Statistics Canada blamed a 2.1% rise in food costs — the highest in two years — for a soaring 8.4% annual inflation rate in July. The AJB assures us that “food prices for the balance of 1977 are expected to show little increase.’ That’s a bit like the i Pee oe es SG) captain of the Titanic saying - his ship was unsinkable. “It should be noted,’ says the AIB, ‘‘that the food survey is subject to revision based on technical improvements that will not be available until next month.” We bet. Are you a Canadian travelling abroad? If you should need blood, you can re- ceive it at no cost because of reciprocal agreements bet- ween Canada and the nations of Great Britain, the Philip- pines, India, Thailand, Mexico, Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Finland, Belgium, Ireland and the United States. By JUDY Y WASYLYCIA-LEIS The unfair treatment of Iris Murdoch by the Supreme Court of Canada probably did more to advance the cause of equal rights among women than any- thing else in the last 30 years. Iris Murdoch was the wife of an Alberta rancher. After their stormy 25-year marriage ended, the first main action that Mrs. Murdoch launched against her husband, which ultimately made it to the Su- preme Court of Canada, was a property action. She claimed a one-half partnership interest in her husband’s business which included land, buildings, cattle and other farm assets. Mrs. Murdoch, not unlike many farmers’ wives, had made_a substantial contribu- tion to the business by her phy- sical labour. Her labour con- sisted of haying, driving trucks, transporting cattle, vaccinating, branding, and- just about everything that has to be done. She also assumed the full burden of running the ranch for five months of every year that the husband was away. After nine years of bitter litigation, Mrs. Murdoch lost her appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Four of the five judges ruled against the wife on the grounds that she had done the ordinary work of a rancher’s wife and that she had made no direct substantial financial contribution to the business. The only dissident opinion came from Chief Justice Bora Laskin who stated that to deny the wife’s claim would result in the ‘‘unjust enrichment of her husband” and ‘‘equate - her strenuous labours with mere housekeeping chores.” The case jolted many women into the realization that the concept of marriage as a part- nership of equals has no basis in law. They became aware of the fact that a housewife’s con- tribution is not recognized fi- nancially and that a woman can work as an equal to her husband all her married life but receive no recognition for this upon the dissolution of the marriage. The case has also become a rallying point for pressure to amend archaic laws of proper- ty and support and, no doubt, it helped to move provinces like British Columbia, Ontario, and Manitoba toward family law reform. However, in many prov- inces, laws governing marriages have not changed since the 1800s. It is conceiv- ~able that there are many married women in Canada who, according to Toronto lawyer Rosalie Abella, “Jegally own nothing but the clothes on their backs and some kitchenware’’. Under these laws, any allowance that a housewife gets from her hus- band, any money that she saves from a household allow- ance, or any property that she purchases with it, is legally held to be her husband’s. The full-time homemaker is not considered to be spending money she has earned. The working wife is not much better off. If she does not have adequate proof that she earned the money which she put into the household, the law pre- sumes that she is spending her husband’s money, and that she has no legal claim to the property. As well, a woman must prove that she made a direct finan- cial contribution to the pur- chase of a farm or other busi- ness before she cann make a legal ownership ° claim. Twenty-five years of strenuous labour, of being everything from a farmhand to an ac- countant to a homemaker, does not constitute a legal claim. Co-ownership is never pre- sumed in law, it is determined clearly by title. Several provincial govern- ments have begun to treat the review of family property law as a priority. British Columbia and Ontario, for example, have made changes | to their matri- monial property law. However, both avoid the concept of co- ownership. Only at a marriage breakdown can a claim be made and then it is subject to judicial discretion. The model for progressive family law comes from Manitoba. The legislation, given final reading on June 18, 1977, states that all property which is acquired during marriage or with marriage in mind that is not income pro- ducing will be owned equally by the couple during marriage. This includes the family home, homestead, furniture, family ‘ear, cottage and camper- trailer. Furthermore, all prop- erty which is income producing acquired during marriage or with marriage in mind will be shared equally on separation. Women will never attain equal rights in Canada until marriage and property laws are changed and until all prov- inces have followed the lead of Manitoba. Mrs. Murdoch shows only too clearly that the concepts of partnership and equality in marriage are meaningless without being en- trenched in the legal system. EVE: PROTECTION Eye protection equipment now being worn by Canadian workers may be inadequate, according to a recent study conducted by the Canadian Standards Association, the Canada Safety Council and the Construction Safety Association of Ontario. Of the 2,701 respondents to a questionnaire, all of whom had eye injuries, 1,138 or 42% were wearing eye protection at the time of their injury. Of these, 10.5% had the object or particle that damaged the eye penetrate the lens or body of the protector. Despite industrial safety programs to which most workers are exposed, injury rates remain significant, the survey reveals. The survey was taken in connection with the Conference on Protective Equipment, slated for Toronto, January 23- 25, 1978, under joint spon- sorship of the three organizations.