LABOR

In exactly one week — on
June 5 — a delegation of 11
men and women will set off
from Vancouver to symboli-
cally complete the On-to-
Ottawa Trek of a half a cen-
tury ago — and to most of
them it seems as if Conserva-
tive governments have
changed little in 50 years.

In 1935, the Conservative
government of R.B. Bennett
ignored the demands of the
unemployed until they decided to go to Ottawa
themselves.

TERRY
HANLEY

Fifty years later, the unemployed and former
trekkers on the On-to-Ottawa Trek committee are
still waiting for Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to
reply to their request for a meeting — two letters,
one telegram and two months later.

But whether Mulroney agrees to a meeting or not,
the delegation will be going to Ottawa. And if the
symbolic trek is nothing of the scale it was in 1935, it
has already captured country-wide attention.

Three former trekkers — Bob “Doc” Savage,
Bob Jackson and Jack Geddes — will highlight the
delegation of 11 which includes Frank Kennedy,
secretary of the Vancouver and District Labor
Council; Jean Shiels, co-author of Work and Wages
and the daughter of trek leader Art Evans; and Tom
Hawken, labor singer and a member of the Inde-
pendent Canadian Transit Union.

| A major focus of the 1985 trek will be the five
- unemployed members of the delegation: Larry Jack-
+s son, an unemployed member of the International

Tory gov't still silent
as 1985 trek set to go

Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the sun of
Bob Jackson; Kim Zander, co-ordinator of the Van-
couver Unemployed Action Centre; Judy Hamaluk,
unemployed teacher and chair of the political action
committee of the B.C. Teachers Federation Unem-
ployed Action Centre; Larry Pavolo, an unemployed
member of CAIMAW; and Terry Hanley, commit-
tee co-ordinator and former business agent for the
International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

The trek will stop in Calgary, where they will visit
the site of the campground where trekkers stayed for
the night in 1935 and in Regina before proceeding to
Ottawa. Several more trekkers and unemployed will
join the delegation in Regina. —

Hanley said the Regina itinerary includes a walk
around the area where the riot took place on July 1,

1935 following the police attack on the open air
meeting. As they go, the delegation will be accom-
panied by Regina police dressed in 1935 uniforms.

A reception with the mayor and council of Regina
is planned as well as a banquet June 7.

Events in Ottawa include a specially-staged per-
formance by the Great Canadian Threatre Com-
pany of Buffalo Jump, a play based on the On-to-
Ottawa Trek, as well as meetings with unionists and
the Unemployment Action Centre.

The meeting with Mulroney has been requested
for Monday, June 10 but the committee is still wait-
ing for word from the prime minister’s office.
Although the first letter was sent Mar. 20, “he still
hasn’t even acknowledged it,” Hanley said.

However, the New Democratic Party caucus has
agreed to meet with the delegation and NDP
members will take part in a press conference.

ATTENDANTS VOTING ON STRIKE
_ AS CALEA SIGNS CONTRACT

CALGARY — As Air Canada’s striking ticket agents tenta-
tively settled their three-week contract dispute, the govern-
ment-owned airline’s flight attendants were taking a strike vote to
back their contract demands.

Members of the Canadian Air Line Flight Attendants Associa-

tion (CALFA), their contract expires in late August. They expect

to have the country-wide vote completed on June 7.

Talks between the union and Air Canada have broken down
over wages, which are the main contract issue. Air Canada wants

to bring in a two-tier wage system which the union says amounts —

to a five dollar an hour wage cut for flight attendants because of
the maximum number of hours they work per month.

The company is also proposing lump sum wage payments
rather than wage increases over the term of the agreement.

At CP Air, 1,200 flight attendants have already voted 93 per
cent in favor of strike action after rejecting the same kind of

contract offer. :

Meanwhile, in Toronto, Air Canada was pushed back on some
of its main concession demands by the Canadian Air Line
Employees Association, May 19, and a tentative two-year
agreement was reached. Air Canada got none of the changes it
wanted in work jurisdiction rules allowing other workers to do

CALEA work.

Instead of the lump sum payments the company wanted, the

workers got a 4 per cent wage hike effective next October and a _
$1,000 signing bonus. On the major strike issue — Air Canada’s

demand that part-time-to-full-time work ratios be increased from —

20 to 40 per cent — the union moved from its bargaining position
of 30 per cent to 35 per cent.
And, on the company’s demand to extend the time in which

_ new employees achieve the full wage rate, from the current four

years to six, CALEA accepted a six-month addition to the cur-
rent requirement.

In the final days of the talks, at the union’s request, United
Auto Workers leader Bob White took part in the negotiations.
CALEA at its most recent convention earlier this year voted to
conduct a membership referendum on merging with the UAW.

One problem,two approaches

Having recently travelled to Alberta and Manitoba,
I came away with some interesting impressions of the
labor movement garnered in discussions with scores
of trade unionists.

From afar, one might think that everything in Al-
berta, with Peter Lougheed’s most right wing
government, is all darkness, while in Manitoba with
an NDP government headed by Howard Pawley, all is
sweetness and light.

To be sure, the Manitoba government is the least
offensive from the labor point of view, and the Tory
machine in Alberta is clearly playing rght-centre
field.

However, close examination reveals that the struc-
tural crisis of capitalism is having a devastating impact
on both provinces, leaving plant shut downs, unem-
ployment, concessions, and other disastrous con-
sequences in its wake. And in both provinces the
working class is showing signs of fight back, however
uneven.

In Alberta, with a raw materials-extraction econ-
omy most vulnerable to the export market, unem-
ployment stands at 15 per cent and growing, with the
result that the trade union movement has taken it on
the chin.

When the oil companies went on strike a couple of
years ago, corporate Alberta decided that the time
was ripe to begin gutting trade union rights and condi-
tions.

The building trades unions have been reduced to
shadows of their former selves. Meat processing
companies came at the unions in the province with the
demand for wholesale concessions. Other employers
followed suit.

“Dandelions” and Fightback

The government found it unnecessary to launch the
wholesale attack characteristic of British Columbia,
but generally allowed the ‘‘market forces’ to go to
work on the trade unions.

The Alberta Federation of Labor convention last
February developed a comprehensive strategy for
dealing with the current situation. Entitled: ‘‘Forjobs
and recovery — reduced work time, no loss in take-
home pay’’, it calls on the AFL’s affiliates, the labor
councils and other organizations in the province to
“develop a co-ordinated bargaining and _ political

agenda.”

Labor in action

George Hewison

A major conference of affiliates will be held this fall
to deal with implementation of this advanced eco-
nomic and political program. In the meantime the
trade union movement has shown signs of going from
concessions over to the offense on the bargaining
front.

Strikes by foodworkers, bartenders, brewery
workers and others are popping up like dandelions all
over Alberta.

Speaking of which, a new feature of the Alberta
political landscape are *‘dandelions’’ — unemployed
building trades and other workers — who, like their
fioral namesakes, pop up most unexpectedly at major
political events to dog elected officials on the lack of
employment in one of Canada’s richest provinces.

Some 600 swelled the Edmonton May Day march to
almost 3,000, establishing that city as the May Day
capital of Canada for 1985.

Surrendering Right to Strike

In Manitoba things stand somewhat differently.
Unemployment officially runs at 7.5 per cent in an
economy described by one report as the third most
diversified in Canada, after Ontario and Ouebec.

Frustration with the government is tempered by the
knowledge that the Tories are lurking in the wings.
Current opinion polls place the NDP trailing the To-
ries by some 25 percentage points, with the Tories
opportunistically capitalizing on the French language
debate and government fumbling of the Morgantaler
issue. :

The Conservatives are even behind the motorcycle
helmet law protest, (which they’ve introduced in
every other province) as they exploit every issue to
bring the government down.

So far labor’s strategy in Manitoba, like the disastr-

ous strategy of labor In B.C. in the past two provincial
elections, has been to softpeddle the issues: “don't
rock the boat — don’t go on the offensive.”

Such a strategy is fraught with danger as the B.C.
experience clearly proves.

But worse, the leadership of the trade union move-
ment, in an effort not to make demands on the
government which it helps to elect, has now tabled a
proposal which would begin to shackle the labor
movement. ze

This proposal, known as final offer selection (FOS),
would reduce collective bargaining to binding arbitra-
tion,.a play normally emanating from the boss and
which the labor movement has struggled against for
decades.

FOS, its advocates argue, could only be evoked by
labor. However, going down this road disarms the
trade union movement, leaving only the stroke of a
Rony pen to give the employer the key to shackling

abor.

They Fought and Won

FOS will never stop the workers from struggling for
what is legitimately theirs. But it will eventually cause
them to have to wrestle with their bosses in infinitely
more difficult circumstances.

The way for labor in Manitoba to prevent the Tories
from taking power in the next election, is for it to
come out swinging in its own defence and in the_
interests of the people of Manitoba.

An economic program which takes on plant clo-

sures, unemployment concessions and the power of
monopolies and the banks, combined with mobi-
lization of the people is the key to success.
_ The winning of people to mass action, over the long
haul between elections, is the surest guarantee of
exposing Toryism in a short election campaign with
millions of dollars of advertising thrown at us.

Certainly that was the experience of the COPE-
Unity civic victory in Vancouver, in a straight left-
right contest. COPE-Unity in that case did not lay
low and wait for the right wing to self-destruct.

They did not abandon their true friends in the trade

union movement, the women’s movement, etc., but |

actively campaigned against restraint, for unions, for -
the people and for jobs and a real alternative — and
won! ;

12¢ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 29, 1985

Mabie Se