SASKATCHEWAN HOSPITAL STRIKE OUTLAWED

NDP loses labor support

Special to the Tribune

REGINA — ‘“‘Little Al the workers’ pal’’ taught
Canadians a valuable lesson, March 26, when Sas-
Katchewan’s New Democrat government out-
lawed the 16-day-old strike by 5,000 non-medical
hospital workers.

By legislating an end to the hospital workers’
strike and beginning strikes in so-called “‘essen-
tial’’ services during the provincial election cam-
Paign, provincial premier Allan Blakeney de-
Monstrated to workers throughout Canada that
electing an NDP government to power doesn’t
automatically guarantee that basic working-class
Tights, such as the right to free collective bargaining
and the right to strike, will be ensured.

Blakeney’s decision sent shock waves through-
Out the labor movement right up to the top leader-

Ship of Canada’s largest union, the 270,000-mem-

ber Canadian Union of Public Employees,
(CUPE), and the 2.3-million member Canadian

r Congress itself.

The Moose Jaw labor council, was angry enough ~
_ tocall for a province-wide general strike to protest

the NDP government’s anti-union action.

Nadine Hunt, president of the 62,000-member
Saskatchewan Federation of Labor denounced the
government for its reactionary law which commits

_the workers to binding arbitration unless a settle-

ment with the Saskatchewan Hospitals Associa-
tion is reached within eight days of the law’s pas-
Sage.

‘The government has done this deliberately”’,

Hunt said March 26, following the unanimous de-

Cision of the SFL’s executive council meeting in
Saskatchewan to criticize the government’s ac-
tion. ‘‘Organized labor in this province will not
take this offense lightly’, she promised.

_ The CUPE statement observed that “‘in one
Sweeping cynical move the Saskatchewan NDP
destroyed any integrity the party ever had.”’
Shirley Carr, executive vice-president of the
CLC, condemned the Saskatchewan Govern-

Ment’s actions and said it should have ordered the

SHA to settle the dispute on the basis of the union’s

- demands, since both parties were reportedly only

One-half of a percentage point apart.

The Blakeney government’s move is seen by
Many workers throughout Saskatchewan and the
rest of the country as a cynical bid to pick up a few
More rural votes at the expense of the labor move-

ment which the government perceives as not hav-
ing any alternative to vote for. Long held out by
social democrats in the labor movement as the
model of practical socialism in Canada, Sas-
katchewan’s NDP government will suffer in the
workers’ eyes and this episode, not the first in
which an NDP government has turned its back on
the labor movement, may encourage workers to
start looking for a more progressive working-class
alternative. ;

Such’an alternative is being presented in the
April 26 elections, at least for the voters in Regina
Centre where Communist Party candidate Gordon
Massie is running on a program of defending the
right to strike, opposing all forms of wage controls,
retention of the Crow Rate, and a plan to industrial-
ize Saskatchewan on the basis of nationalization
under democratic control.

Hunt also charged that the legislation only deals
with the workers, completely letting the SHA off
the hook.

On March 29 the executive of the Saskatchewan
division of CUPE voted unanimously to withhold
money, campaign workers and support from NDP
candidates running in the April 26 provincial elec-
tions. They also hinted the union may field its own
candidates in selected ridings, and promised to
campaign agianst the legislation with leaflet dis-
tributions and information pickets at campaign
events. One of the first such confrontations took
place last week in Saskatoon when Blakeney was
jostled by a crowd of angry CUPE members chant-
ing ‘NDP — No Damn Principles.”

But, the most significant protest came ina joint
statement released March 30 by CUPE national
president Grace Hartman and secretary treasurer
Kealy Cummings. It called the Blakeney govern-
ment’s law ‘‘a hypocritical move that will have
far-reaching implications for the union’s traditional
support of the NDP across the country.’’ Noting
the CUPE Saskatchewan division's decision to
withold support, Hartman and Cummings pre-
dicted other labor organizations and CUPE divi-
sions would likely be taking the same position
against the NDP and promised that ‘‘when they do,
they can be sure of having our support.”

Cummings, who is also a federal NDP vice-
president said he felt personally betrayed by the
Saskatchewan Government's decision and that he
would raise the matter at.the next NDP federal
executive meeting.

SFL HEAD NADINE HUNT ... labor will have some hard political deci-
sions facing them.

f oon
LAID OFF MINERS DEMAND JOBS

SUDBURY — Twenty-five of the 189 Inco workers laid off, March
29, stormed the bargaining session between the company and Local
United Steelworkers the next day demanding, ‘‘we want our jobs

ack”’. :

The protest took place after demonstrators picketted Inco’s Copper
Cliff offices that morning demanding an audience with Inco Metals
Ontario Division president Winton Newman. Later, a group of the
demonstrators drove into Sudbury, walked into the negotiations,
blocked the company’s bargaining team from leaving the room and
read a statement demanding Inco rescind the layoffs.

CUPW REJECTS “PRODUCTIVITY” CON

OTTAWA — The 23,000-member Canadian Union of Postal Work-
ers said a flat ‘‘no’’ to a proposal from Post Office tsar Michael Warren,
for so-called ‘‘productivity bargaining’’. It’s a system where labor
agrees to water down its working conditions, job protections and
accept speed-up in favor of supposed wage and benefits gains.

‘Any analysis of productivity bargaining’’, CUPW president Jean
Claude Parrot said March 30, clearly shows that it would be against the
interests of postal workers to agree to this concept during future
negotiations.”

He added that he didn’t oppose management’s efforts to improve
efficiency in the Post office, but they should try to achieve it without
speeding up productivity or taking away acquired rights. _

Ae

Wages.

Prime Minister Trudeau scowled at Canadian working
people from last week’s Toronto Star, informing them
that they would have to accept lower wages Te &.
Was going to pull out of the present slump. Other coun-
tries, according to Mr. Trudeau, are already looking at
the light at the end of the tunnel. Canada will remain in

_ the dark because we are not competitive due to our high

anada

~ Substituting our bottom line for PM’s

= wf |

: / | William Stewart

mS

All of which prompts workers to ask our millioniare

Labor in action

We know you are interested in the coming negotia-
tions in the automobile industry, that you have been
exerting great pressure on the UAW in Canada to accept
the same concessions which the U.S. union leadership
has helped foist on the workers in the U.S. We know
your arguments in favor of this path and we must hasten
to inform you that we reject them.

You propose concessions and cutbacks because you
think there is no solution other than General Motors’

prime minister: What is your bottom line, Pierre?

We note from figures published by the Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
that Canada now ranks as 17th in the world in its stan-
dard of living. We trail behind almost all European coun-
tries as well as Iceland. This contrasts with being in the
top three a decade ago. ;

During this period when our wages and social services
have slid year by year, behind workers in other advanced
capitalist countries, have these countries somehow, de-
Spite increased living standards, become more competi-
tive than us? ‘

How did this happen Mr. Prime Minister? Surely if
lower wages help our competitive position, we should
have seen a marked improvement as a result of the
absolute cut which has taken place in our incomes, and
the absolute increase in theirs!

But this does not seem to be the case. They are much
More competitive, you tell us, and we face further belt
tightening. ;

I gather from the press of most European countries

‘that their press and governments are telling workers that

they are not competitive enough, that they will have to
accept some belt tightening as well. This would require
still a couple more notches of tightening in our belts?
And soon...

The point we’re making, sir, is that it doesn’t seem to
make much sense to us to set up unions in our country to

help us bargain collectively, to overcome, as much as
possible, competition between working people for work
and wages, and then become involved in such competi-
tion with our brothers and sisters in other countries.

We know that this is the law for capital; national and
international competition, the strong get stronger and the
weak are eliminated. But for working people it makes no
sense. ;

We can’t stop capitalism from being capitalism, Mr.
Trudeau, but we can refuse as workers to lend ourselves
to its ceaseless cannibalism. As a matter of fact we
have to refuse because they not only eat each other, they
eat us in the process.

We have been listening very carefully lately to your
speeches, and those of Minister of Finance MacEachen.
We hear a constant theme in both your recent utter-
ances. Controls are necessary, controls on workers’
wages. Mr. MacEachen doesn’t even mention prices,
nor do-you. He is appealing to business to control wages,
you are appealing to governments to do the same.

We agree with the necessity of controls, Mr. Prime
Minister, but: we are convinced you are aiming your
shots at the wrong target. What is needed is controls over
the big monopolies in this country. Controls over their
right to export our surplus labor to other cheap labor
countries and then have it revisit us in the form of de-
mands that we compete with them in low wages and
cut rate social services.

solutions to the present crisis inCanada. We reject them,
because we are convinced that the General Motors solu-
tions will solve things for General Motors all nght, but
will make things even worse for Canada and the real
producers of its wealth.

Several years ago you made a statement which earned
you the immediate anger and invective of the big busi-
ness community and the Canadian media. You said, in
effect, that free enterprise had ceased to be the major
factor in deciding the economic direction of our country,
that big monopoly corporations now directed the traffic,
and that the role of government in the economic and
social life of Canada must increase.

Ever since the attack on you for that remark you have
been trying to prove you didn’t mean it, quite success-
fully it seems to us. However, working people are com-
ing to see the need to bring about fundamental changes in
our country, and governments such as yours really do
not represent the people who elect them, but the big
corporations who have established a stranglehold over
our economic and social lives.

So for your bottom line we substitute our own. Not
cutbacks and concessions, not wage freezes but new
policies of economic and social expansion. People’s con-
trol rather than monopoly control. Not competition be-
tween workers of different countries, but international
working-class solidarity for a bigger share of our produc-
tion, for controls over the giant multi-nationals.

ee

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 9, 1982— Page 7