LABOR

_Metalworkers federation could
move labor ahead: UAW’s White

PORT ELGIN — Within a year, as many as a
quarter of a million to 300,000 Canadian workers in
the metals industries could be united within a pro-
Posed Canadian Metalworkers Federation.

The proposal by United Auto Workers (UAW)

anadian director Bob White won overwhelming
approval from the delegates to the union’s Cana-
dian Council meeting, June 25-26.

Ina press conference June 27, White said he was

- excited by the propects of the formation of such an

Umbrella group of unions in the metal working

Industries. The benefits to such intraunion co-

Operation would be enormous for the whole labor
Movement, he said.

White said the proposed federation opens up the
Possibility of co-ordinated bargaining. The UAW
Presently negotiates with some 40 companies that

ave contracts with other unions.

Included as potential members of the Canadian

etalworkers Federation, White suggested, could

Unions such as the International Association of

achinists, the Moulders’ union, the United

teelworkers, the UAW, the United Rubber
orkers and others.
he Council’s support for White’s proposal au-
thorizes him to contact the leaders of unions that
Would be prospective federation members. White
Suggested that a possible scenario for its formation,
Which he feels could take place within a year,
Would be discussions with various unions in-
Volved, preparatory meetings and eventually a
founding convention.

Other benefits the federation could bring to
Member unions he indicated, include the pooling of
Information, research, organization and other
Union services, co-ordinated political action and
legislative affairs and a higher international profile
°r industrial unions. He pointed out there are no
Corresponding Canadian structures for unions to

link up with metalworkers organizations in other
countries, particularly in Europe.

Representing a quarter of a million workers,
such a federation would carry considerable more
clout with governments than the various unions
presently wield as individuals, White pointed out.

The proposed federation shouldn’t be seen in
opposition to the existing international unions, the
UAW leader said. ‘‘Down the road, perhaps our
relations with International unions will change
with looser affiliation structure. But once again
that should be regarded as a positive development,
not a negative one.”’

It would be structured, like similar trade and
industrial bodies in the AFL-CIO, within the struc-
ture of the Canadian Labor Congress. “‘I think it
could play a good role in moving the CLC ahead”’,
White said.

While no union leaders had yet been contacted,
Ontario Steelworkers union leader Dave Patterson
welcomed the news from the Canadian UAW
Council and voiced his approval of the proposal.

Among other decisions, the Canadian council:
launched its campaign for federal Canadian con-
tent legislation; supported the fight against Bill
C-157; endorsed the legalization of free-standing
clinics for medically-insured abortions and profes-
sional. counselling; and urged the federal govern-
ment to implement the Hall Commission Report as
a guideline for a new Canada Health Act, which
among other recommendations calls for a ban on
user fees and extra billing by doctors.

White also complimented UAW locals active in
the anti-Cruise campaign, urging them to keep up
the education of their members. The issues of ba-
lanced nuclear disarmament and world peace in
general will continue to have a high priority
throughout the 80s, he said.

Canadian content
laws urged by UAW

TORONTO — Federal
Trade Minister Gerald Regan’s
June 27 announcement that
this year’s Japanese auto im-
ports will be set at 153,000
units with no requirement on
the producers to provide any
Canadian jobs for the privilege
of selling cars here, has only
stiffened the United Auto
Workers’ resolve to pursue its
campaign for Canadian con-
tent laws.

At a press conference fol-
lowing Regan’s announce-
ment, UAW director for
Canada Bob White said the
deal between Ottawa and the Japanese auto industry ‘‘only con-
firms the need for Canadian content legislation on this country.”’

White pointed out that the deal still gives Japan about 20 per
cent of the Canadian auto market, a portion that is larger than
either Ford’s or Chrysler’s share. Under the terms of the
Canada-U.S. Auto Pact, inadequate as it is, these companies
have to provide some 25,000 jobs in Canada as a result of their
market shares.

The Japanese, however, have not been required by federal
government negotiators to make any such commitment. White
criticized federal negotiators for not using the recent auto indus-
try task force' recommendations as a lever to squeeze job
commitments out of the Japanese in return for the right to sell
their autos in Canada. :

The UAW leader said he hoped that the decision taken at the
UAW Canadian Council to campaign for content laws will put
enough pressure on the. government by September to make it
implement content proposals recommended to the feds in the
task force which White co-chaired.

The UAW estimates that if Canadian content laws were in
effect some 80,000 direct manufacturing jobs would be created in
the industry over the next five years.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS

BOB WHITE

second is the argument that there really is nothing

Sagas of the membership. They have

Beware of the ‘hidden agenda’

__ The Pacific Tribune recently published a letter to its
editor from John Fryer, Chairman of the Commission
on Constitutional change, Canadian Labor Congress,
Presently hearing representations for changes to the
CLC constitution.

In his letter, aside from taking issue with a factual
error in a recent Labor in Action column on the issue
of ‘bloc voting’ debates in the CLC conventions, Mr.
Fryer defended the proposal to come back to the issue
of restrictive constitutional change in the CLC con-
Stitution on the grounds that a clear majority had
favored such changes in each of the three times it had
come before them — 1976-78-80. Failure to carry the
issue lay in the requirement for a two-thirds majority
needed to amend the constitution, he argued.

The purpose of the two-thirds requirement for
amendments to constitution, common to the labor
Movement, lies in the theory that constitutions need
to be entrenched and not subject to whim and fancy
for amendment. They are invariably the product of
long and agonizing consideration initially and need to

seen as a whole, not in a fractured mechanism,
which is usually the case when amendments are con-
Sidered.
_ The main purpose ofa constitution is to set forth the
aims and objectives of the organization, establish
Tules of conduct consistent with these objectives and

Protect the integrity of the organization from pernici- |

0us harmful and willful violations of its mandate from
Within.
Two-Thirds Rule Essential
Since history knows more than one instance of
leadership trying to use its authority to strengthen and
Perpetuate its office and its policy by arbitrary rather
persuasive means, it has been deemed wise to
Protect the aims of the majority from attempts to
amend constitutions to protect against such in-
cursions.
tis not difficult for leaderships, confronted by the
difficult problems of office, to come to see the need for
‘streamlining”’ the organization, often with the best

of intentions, even though the net effect would curtail
i at their dis-

Labor in action

William Stewart

posal enormous powers of persuasion, typical to their
office, which load the results in their favor. Thus the
two-thirds majority rule has a very substantial
rationale.

It is a specious argument therefore for the CLEto
advance for coming back again and again to this ques-
tion of changing in one way or another the very basis
of representation to CLC conventions. _

The insistence of the leadership to continue press-
ing this issue, the range of arguments raised in the
three attempts made to introduce Constitutional
changes aimed at changing representation to the con-
ventions, present the membership witha clear picture
of the leadership’s views on CLC structure.

76 Changes Most Obnoxious

The most obnoxious changes were proposed in
1976, which had they been passed, would have gutted
the CLC of its democratic character. These views
were pressed largely by the building trades whose
predilection for undemocratic structures is well
known. That the leadership of the CLC would have
supported such changes surely says something about
their attitude to membership in local union roles in the
CLC. It also has something to say about the two-
thirds majority rule.

It is noteworthy that each time the leadership
comes back with a new proposal for constitutional
change, they drop the ante to the point where the last ;
proposed change, and the one they are likely to bring
in again in 1984, even gives the immediate appearance
of not being a proposal for bloc-voting.

However, if you put three things together you are
given a very good reason for believing that nothing
much has changed since 1976.

The first thing is that you are dealing with essen-
tially the same leadership over the entire period. The

wrong with the proposals except that they couldn’t
muster the necessary two-thirds majority. The third is
that the present proposal, if passed, would allow the
introduction of a voting procedure which, if invoked,
would have ensured the passage of all three of the
proposed changes in 1976-78-80.

Beware “Hidden Agenda”

What the membership of the CLC has every reason
to be suspicious of is the ‘“‘hidden agenda’’, which lies
behind the proposals likely to come up in the next
CLC convention.

We were impréssed by the arguments made before
the commission by the Edmonton Letter Carriers
Union, which they were kind enough to forward to us.
In their concluding paragraph they appeal to the CLC
to take strong steps to bring the Building Trades union
back into the CLC. They go on to say however ‘‘We
must not allow our desire for unity of the entire trade
union movement cause us to seek the affiliation of
unions with less autonomy and democracy under their
terms’’.

The union goes on to say that in these critical times
when the big corporations are plotting to weaken the

_ trade union movement we should not weaken the rank

and file character of the Congress which has such a
key role to play in the struggles of the Canadian
people. 3

Our wish is that the Commission should listen care-
fully to such cogent arguments. It should recommend
to the CLC leadership that they stick with the con-
stitution which has served the movement well.

If they failed to do this our second wish is that the
Executive of the Canadian Labor Congress, in its
wisdom, should reject the proposals of the Com-
mission on structure and get on with the job of mobil-
izing its mighty membership for the critical fightback
against monopoly and monopoly-controlled govern-
ments.

Our third wish is, if both the commission and the
executive fail to do this, that the convention delegates
defeat the proposal overwhelmingly and put the ques-
tion to rest once and for all.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 8, 1983—Page 3

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