Youth demonstrate for jobs

as McKeough reads new budget ©

TORONTO — A delegation of

‘Ontario’s youth presently being.

Crunched by the current un-
employment crisis, protested out-
Side the Ontario legislature
budget night (April 19) to demand
government action to create jobs
for young workers at decent
Wages.

Organized by the Young Com-
Munist League, the de-
Monstrators picketed Queen’s

k with signs proclaiming “‘un-
employment isn’t working;
Wanted 400,000 jobs; jobs or in-
Come now; and, is there any place

you'd rather be — than un-

employed.”’

Ina leaflet circulated on the
legislature’ s steps, the YCL accu-
Tately predicted the Tories would

ignore the problems of Ontario’s
One-third of a million unemploye-
d,”’ or ‘‘atbest . . . only offer afew
Crumbs.”

Mike Gidora, general secretary
of the YCL, outlined a four-point
Program which the provincial
government could enact, disprov-
ing the Tories’ monotonous claim
that nothing can be done to re-
verse the unemployment crisis,
and which could go a long way
toward solving the ‘‘criminal”’
Jobless tragedy in so wealthy a
Province as Ontario.

‘The YCL demands:

ea crash summer jobs: pro-
gram at union pay rates in public
works projects initiated to replace
the puny ‘‘Experience-77”’

scheme for 10,000 jobs, described

by the YCL as ‘‘only a drop in a
very large bucket:”’

Demonstrator carries giant screw in YCL jobs demonstration at

s

Queens Park.

e nationalization of Ontario’s
rich natural resources and the
creation of secondary manufac-

turing industry to process these -

resources would provide

thousands of new jobs.

e launching of a massive
government-financed and con-
trolled housing construction pro-
gram to create jobs while helping
to solve the acute housing shor-
tage among low and middle in-
come earners in the province, at
the rate of 20,000 housing comple-
tions per year for the next five
years.

e provincial government pres-
sure on federal authorities to ex-
tend, rather than restrict un-
employment insurance benefits to

the full duration of the period of
unemployment at 90% of average
earnings. :
Gidora told: the Tribune,
‘“‘we’re serving notice on this
Tory government that Ontario’s
youth is not content to put up with
the monopoly-engineered un-
employment crisis, and that we
are going to keep coming back in

larger and larger numbers until

this, or some other government
takes meaningful action to put an
end to the problem.”’

As he distributed the YCL lea-
‘flets, Gidora added: ‘“‘If these
guys (Tory government) refuse to
take effective action to solve the
problem, then they will have to
make way for a government that
will.”

UAW supports two nation state

_TORONTO — The Canadian
district council of the United Auto
Workers (UAW), met here April
16-17 and adopted a resolution

implicitly supporting the right of

€ French Canadian nation to
Self-determination, and at the
Same time heard a report of plans

by the Canadian Labor Congress -

to mobilize the unemployed.
The resolution endorsed by the
delegates pledged the UAW’s
Support of “negotiations between
ebec and the rest of Canada on
an equal basis to determine the
New relationship between the two
Ounding peoples of our coun-
tty,” and also pledged support for
the right of Quebecois ‘‘to demo-
poly determine their own fu-

__ rhe resolution also urged that

the ties of solidarity between
English- and French- (speaking)
Workers must continue to grow in
Order to fight (their) enemies’ re-
8ardless of the outcome of the

Uebecois’ decision and the
Course of negotiations.

The UAW also affirmed total
Commitment ‘‘to work toward the
Social and economic recovery of
(Canada)"’ and extended the

hand of friendship and under-
Standing to other men and women
Of good will ina cooperative effort

tO achieve once and for all full
_ Justice, equity and equality of op-

Portunity to all Canadians regard-
€ss of their ethnic origin in a

_ Partnership that will serve as an

€Xxample to mankind.”’
Possible CLC Plans
The news concerning possible
Plans by the CLC was contained
M the verbal report presented to

the council by Canadian UAW
district director Dennis McDer-
mott who reportedly suggested
the Canadian Labor Congress
was considering a call to all its
affiliates, labor councils and pro-
vincial labor federations to begin
to “systematically organize and
mobilize’ the unemployed within
the unions affiliated to the CLC.

CLC spokesmen told the
Tribune last week that the matter
had been discussed at the last
CLC executive council meeting
but that no concrete plans had as
yet been formalized.

-The UAW ‘‘Two Founding
Nations’’, resolution noted that
for more than a century equality
has been denied to both the
French-speaking majority in
Quebec and the French-speaking
minority everywhere else. ‘‘The
rejection of the reactionary
Bourassa government and the
election of the PQ signaled a new
stage in the development of
Quebec politics and the Quebec

~ people”’, it said.

_ The resolution also warned,
“whatever the outcome of the
current debate (on the confedera-
tion crisis) there can be no return
to the status quo in Quebec.”

Writing in a recent magazine ar-

ticle, Dennis McDermott called
on English-speaking Canada to
recognize ‘‘once and for all that
Quebec has legitimate griev-
ances”’ and that the rejection of
the idea of trying to maintain the
status quo, through bargaining
with Quebec over its grievances Is
the only way to prevent separa-
tion.

Hypocritical Ravings

McDermott called on English-
speaking Canadians to “‘analyze a
little more carefully the hypocriti-
cal ravings of the after-dinner
speakers and other self-appointed
saviors of confederation’’ whose
‘clear and concise’’’ message
wasn’t ‘“‘confederation at any
price” but ‘‘status quo at any
‘DICE =<

INCO WORKERS

BACK PEACE
APPEAL

THOMPSON — The 3,500
member Inco Local 6166 United
Steelworkers have, endorsed the
Stockholm Appeal for world nuc-
lear and general disarmament, it
was recently reported. Thompson
peace activists also reported the
Thompson Constituency Commit-
tee of the New Democratic Party
has endorsed the Appeal, and is
sending a resolution to the forth-
coming NDP federal convention
this summer calling on that organi-
zation to endorse the Stockholm
Appeal.

YCL WOULD BACK
CLC JOBLESS
ACTION

TORONTO — Mike Gidora
general secretary of the Young
Communist League April 15,-in a
letter to Canadian Labor Con-
gress president Joe Morris wel-
comed the “possible develop-
ment by the CLC of a campaign
for jobs’’ for the growing numbers
of unemployed.

Gidora offered the YCL’s sup-
port and participation in any CLC
initiative designed to ‘‘win
policies of full employment and
adequate redress for the jobless.”

MORRIS BLASTS |
JOBLESS STATS.

OTTAWA — CLC president
Joe Morris responded April 13 to
the March unemployment statis-
tics released by Statistics Canada,
with a demand for an immediate

end to wage controls and a revised:

budget to stimulate the economy.

The 944,000 unemployed, the
highest in 37 years, and an increase
of 185,000 over the last year re-
flected government indifference to
the problem Morris said. He
further charged though high un-
employment was predicted in the
last budget the government refused
to do anything about it.

BRIGHT’S CANS
300 WORK:-RS

NIAGARA FALLS — Bet-
ween 250-300 seasonal canning
jobs at Brights Canning Co., here,
have been chopped as a result of
the company’s recent decision to-
discontinue its lines of Ontario
peaches and pears in favor of im-
porting these goods from the U.S.

The reason? The U.S. plants
are mechanized and employ
fewer workers so labor is
cheaper. Canning in Canada is
still manually processed.

195 JOBLESS FROM:
U.S. PLANT
CLOSURE

WINDSOR — Rather than meet
Local 195 UAW’s demands for a
new contract replacing the one
which expired Jan. 31, Rockwell
International of Canada Ltd.
closed its wheel cover plant here
ending the workers’ strike which

workers into capitalism’s rapidly
expanding ‘‘industrial reserve ar-
my” move commonly known as the
unemployed.

FORCED
BARGAINING
FIGHT GOES ON

HAMILTON — The fight by
building tradesmen at the mem-
bership level to defeat compulsory
provincial bargaining in certain
sectors of the construction industry
continues a& the ‘‘Ad hoc commit-
tee to defeat Bill 14°’ (previously
known as 176) stepped up its ac-
tivities to lobby MPP’s last week.

The committee announced April
20 the support to date in Ontario of
labor councils in Hamilton, Oak-
ville, and Brantford, as well as the .
support of building trades councils
in Sarnia and Hamilton. The
committee also recorded the sup-
port of ‘‘a multitude of local unions
in the Ontario. construction indus-
try.” :

Komsomols not allowed in Canada

For the second time in less than
one year, the Canadian govern-
ment has barred two members of
the Soviet Komsomol (Young
Communist League) from visiting
Canada as guests of the Young
Communist League. The ‘two
Komsomol members, Sergey
Chernyshov and Aleksander
Trepelko, were not given any
reason as to why the External Af-
fairs department had denied their
visa applications, the YCL said.

Jim Kilpatrick, YCL tour coor-
dinator, told the Tribune that
Trepelkov and Chenyshov were.
to begin a 10-day tour of Canada
in Toronto on April 21, and that
they were denied visas by the
Canadian Embassy in Moscow
only the day before they were to
leave for Canada.

‘Like last year, when the gov-
emment took similar action on
another invitation we had issued,
it is clear to us that the Canadian
Government is not about to
change its cold war attitude to-
ward the socialist countries, par-

ticularly the Soviet Union.

“*The denial of visas is plainly a
violation of the terms of the Hel-
sinki agreement which our Prime
Minister signed on behalf of this
country, and which specifically
guarantees exchanges of visitors
between countries,’ Kilpatrick
said.

He added. that it was “‘hypoc-
risy, pure and simple, for the
Canadian Parliament to pass re-
solutions allegedly in defence of
the Helsinki accord, and then to
ignore it in the government’s own
dealings.”

Kilpatrick said that the YCL
had arranged for an extensive
tour for the two Soviet youth, in-
cluding meetings with various

_ youth groups in Vancouver, To-

ronto and Montreal. He said that
meetings had been arranged with
student organizations in all three
areas, as well as with representa-
tives from the trade union move-
ment and visits to schools and fac-
tories.

“‘The fact that even after the

YCL made enquiries of the gov-
ernment to check on the progress
of the visas, we have yet to hear
from Ottawa that our invited
‘guests will not be allowed into
Canada, is evidence that our gov-
emment is prepared to trample on
our rights as a youth organization
and on the rights of citizens of
other countries which may be in-
vited to Canada,” Kilpatrick
charged. £

*‘One thing that Ottawa can be
sure of is that the YCL is not go-
ing to drop the matter without
protest, and that we are firm in
our intention of establishing once
and for all our right to invite
guests from other countries, par-
ticularly from the Soviet Union to
visit us here.”’ Kilpatrick said that ~
the YCL across the country, and
the many organizations with
which the two Soviet guests were
to meet will be protesting the gov-
ermnment’s cold war attitude, and
seeking a legitimate explanation
from the government for its ac-
tions.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1977—Page 15