Salutes

&

The Right to Strike

1979

UAS 1/-79

Nadine Hunt re-elected

Militancy demanded by SFL

By GORD MASSIE

SASKATOON — Workers’
grass roots demand for greater
labor militancy by their leaders
against the big-business govern-
ment attack dominated the annual
Saskatchewan Federation of
Labor (SFL) convention, Oct.
25-27.

This, and the demand by dele-
gates for the SFL to give its af-
filiates’ needs priority over the
federation’s support to the New
Democratic Party and the
Saskatchewan NDP government
held the interest of the more than
400 delegates during the three-day
labor meet.

More than 300 resolutions were
submitted from local affiliates and
the SFL executive for the con-
vention’s consideration.

This year’s meeting saw a tight
race for the leadership of the
SFL. Outgoing president Nadine
Hunt of the Canadian Union of
Public Employees (CUPE), rep-
resented those forces which fa-

- Social policy, national question
_ main focus of QFL convention

Debt a i Dt ET |
Dna <

ene os ae al

By HERVE FUYET
MONTREAL — At the end of
November, in Quebec City, the
largest, and most important labor
Central, and the one most rooted

_ 0 basic industry will be holding

tts annual convention.
Even though preliminary

~GOcuments won't be released to

delegates until the eve of the con-
Vention, the Quebec Federation

‘of Labor (QFL) has hinted in its
Monthly publication Labor’s

World (Le Monde Ouvrier) that
€ two major debates which will
Ominate the convention are “‘the

S0cial program we want to build in

Quebec, and
question.”’
It is to be hoped that the QFL,
Which to date hasn’t Officially re-
acted to Cabinet minister Land-

the national

Ye Plan *‘to build Quebec” to the

Ory of French Canadian free
“nterprise and the U.S. multi-
Nationals, will use the opportunity:
© Teject the government plan.

¢ Parti Quebecois (PQ) plan
©Onsists in effect of using the
gatkers’ taxes, their collective
Frings and low wages to build up

Tench Canadian monopoly
sc ade be sas coe

n mono in Englis
oe monopoly gli

th The QFL could renew its posi-
ns summed up in the 1972

UMent of “‘the state (as) the
Stor of our exploitation”, which

better than the ‘‘Immediate Prog-

: "of 1977 identified the big
*Pitalist monopolies and the
ti-nationals as the principal

‘nemy and the state as an instru-

‘Ment of monopoly capital.

e: Back To Basics
t is clear now to a growing

“Umber of workers that the PQ is

ching More than a lesser evil
ang nated: to the Liberal Party,
ire that it won't do the job as an
ty. “Ment for social change for
Ctitionn Aes: Continuing to give
bea ca. UPPort to the PQ then will
ig to ous error in orientation. It
OFL be hoped therefore that the
Mal Will go back to basics and
a nw» ts contribution to building

_*W political formation which

would truly be a workers party.

QFL members recall that in
1967 the QFL convention man-
dated its new executive to con-
vene all the representatives of the
true left in Quebec (which ought
to exclude the Maoist and
Trotskyist ‘‘leftists’’ who in ef-
fect work hand in hand with the
big business parties) to draft a
common program for a mass fed-
erated party of labor.

' It is amusing to remember now
how one delegate refused to vote
for such:a resolution if the Com-
munist Party of Quebec wasn’t
left out of such a grouping. His
amendment didn’t even get a
seconder.
‘In 1968, the Parti Quebecois
was founded with the results
we’re now aware of including
holding back the launching of a
real labor party.

Mass Party Supported — :

At its own special convention
in June 1979, the Confederation of
National Trade Unions,
(CNTU/CSN) declared itself
clearly once more for the forma-
tion of such a party, and the
Quebec Teachers Union (CEQ)
also houses a strong movement
favoring such a party _being
created. The situation is ripe for
breaking the deadlock and trans-
lating nice speeches into action.

It is clear that it isn’t with the
PQ’s pious vows of ‘social
peace”’ that workers will be given
jobs, or that conditions for the
people will be improved. It is the
working people of Quebec who
will bring Quebec out of the
impasse. :

For this to happen, their neces-
sary tool adapted to Quebec con-
ditions will be a common front of
the trade union and_ political
forces who are ready to stand up
to monopoly capital whether
U.S.-owned, English Canadian or
French Canadian."

The struggle against these big
monopolies is intimately linked to
the solution of the national ques-
tion in Quebec. Everything indi-
cates the workers of Quebec
aren’t ready to give the PQ exclu-

sive taxation and legislative pow-
ers so they can dole our money
out to favour the development of
French Canadian big business.

Equality, Unity Wanted
All the opinion polls, including

the one commissioned by the

government itself, clearly show
the Quebec people don’t want
sovereignty association (as de-_
fined by the last PQ Congress),
which is nothing more than inde-
pendence without using the term.
They want even less the national
oppression of the current con-
stitutional status quo.

Instead of waiting passively for
the PQ Referrendum question,
the workers and democratic
movements ought to press the
government so that Quebecers
can say yes to what the majority
wants — equality and unity of
English-speaking and French
Canada. This requires a new
constitution recognizing Cana-
da’s two nations, with the right to
secession if the majority of one or
the other nations desires.

Workers in the QFL, like all the
other working people in Quebec,
neither need Claude Ryan’s
clammy hand nor Levesque’s to
move forward. It is the workers

_themselves with their trade union

organizations and: with the crea- ~
tion of a mass-federated party of
the working people including the
Communist Party of Quebec, who
will lead Quebec out of the
economic, political and national
impasse we are presently living
dn

vored continuing with the status
quo. Her slate took all nine execu-
tive board seats in the elections on
the convention’s last day, but as
one local newspaper put it, this
may have been a ‘“‘pyrthic vic-
tory’’.

Representing the reform
forces, Larry Brown, executive
secretary of the Saskatchewan
Government Employees Associa-
tion, (SGEA), considered to have
a good chance in the presidential
race withdrew before the voting
took place. SGEA is the prov-
ince’s largest union.

Close Race

Brown, was among those who
opted for placing the federation’s
priority on the needs of the trade
union movement over blanket
endorsation of the NDP. He
withdrew from the presidential
race, when the convention, after
much procedural wrangling,
voted to switch from a part-time
to a full-time president. Brown
was unable to take the job on a
full-time basis, and a secret ballot
vote decided in favor ofa full-time
president by 217 to 189.

Bonnie Pearson, a left New
Democrat and CUPE member,
challenged Hunt for the presi-
dency, losing by 18 votes. The
results were 213 to 195 for Hunt.
The races for the four vice-presi-
dencies were equally close.

‘ Public sector workers who
have to negotiate with the NDP
government as employers were
the main critics of the SFL
leadership’s relationship with the
government at the expense of
bargaining demands. These
unions, supported by the smaller
industrial unions and sections of
the larger industrial unions led the
fight for a more independent and
militant stand by the SFL.

SGEA delegates pointed out
that the NDP government has
only offered a 4% wage increase
in present negotiations, and
pointed to the wages lost under
wage controls, which the Sas-
katchewan NDP government
supported. '

Positive International Policy

A resolution, submitted by the
Grain Services Union on political
support was divided into two by
the convention’s resolutions
committee. The first part of the
resolution calling for the SFL to
develop an independent program
for labor was carried with the de-
letion of the word independent.

The second part, calling on the
federation to refrain from giving
blanket support to any political
party was given non-concurrence
because the committee main-
tained it was already SFL policy.
The non-concurrence was carried
with about a 60%40% margin.
Two attempts to refer the motion
with instructions to bring it back
to the convention in its original
form were carried but the resolu-

tions committee refused to go
along with the demand.

Delegates gave overwhelming
support to three resolutions sub-
mitted by the outgoing executive
dealing with international ques-
tions. On the situation in Zim-
babwe, the convention resolved
*‘that the SFL support the Patrio-
tic Front in its struggle to create a
democratic and independent
Zimbabwe.”’

Another resolution pledged the
federation’s active support for
‘‘Operation Solidarity’ in
Nicaragua. And, a third was
adopted supporting the campaign
for the United Nations to adopt
‘the Convention on the Rights of
the Child. It also called on the
Canadian government to both
support this Convention and live
up to its principles.

CUPW Support Unanimous

A position paper on affirmative
action to end discrimination
against Native Peoples, women
and the disabled in employment
and services was passed contain-
ing provisions for safeguards to
ensure employers don’t use it as
an excuse to erode present
clauses in collective agreements.
A stand committee was estab-
lished to monitor application of
this policy.

Delegates unanimously
adopted a resolution demanding
an unconditional discharge for
Jean Claude Parrot and the drop-
ping of all charges against Cana-
dian Union of Postal Workers’
leaders.

On the convention’s first day a
bitter debate erupted over the
raiding dispute between the
United Food and Commercial
Workers (UFCW) and the Retail
Wholesale and Department Store
Union (RWDSU).

After attempts to resolve this

_ dispute through merger and reaf-
filiation with the Canadian Labor

Congress (CLC) failed, the
UFCW started raiding RWDSU.
This union replied with counter
raids against UFCW. :

One resolution, giving blanket
support to the RWDSU position
was defeated. Another, which
had the sympathy of most of the
delegates, called for the SFL to
“cease endorsing the supporting
raids and instead work in what-
ever way possible to prevent raids
occurring.’’ The resolutions
committee amended it to read not
support raids and instead work to
avoid them among affiliates, and
this carried.

Delegates pointed out there
were all kinds of places to or-
ganize the unorganized without
raiding each other’s members.

A standing committee of af-
filiated public sector unions was
established to develop a strategy
and coordinate action against
government attacks on these
unions.

VRS 11-7? me

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 16, 1979 — Page 5