a

_LABOUR

Buck scabs, cops, courts, media

-Westfair workers score win

WINNIPEG — Grocery store
Workers employed by Westfair
Foods in Manitoba have defeated
Company efforts to break their
Union. About 560 members of
Local 832 of the Manitoba Food
and Commercial Workers union
Voted 98 per cent, Oct. 6, on a
New three-year contract, ending a
four-month old walk-out.

The predominantly part-time
Workforce, employed at Super-

valu, Economart and Shopeasy
Stores in Winnipeg, Brandon,

Omson and Dauphin, faced a
formidable line-up of scabs, the
Courts and police as well as con-

Media.

Westfair Dropped Demand

The settlement came after the
Company, part of the giant Wes-
fon Food Empire, dropped its
Proposal that there be no strike or
Ock-out during negotiations for
the next contract. The company
assault on the union was blunted

Slant sniping from the local.

by mass picket line pressure and
by strong support for strikers
from the labour movement.

Into the third month of the
strike a country-wide boycott was
called against Westfair, but even
before that, the union estimates
that the number of customers
refusing to cross their pickets cost
the chains about $50-million in
sales.

The new contract covers the
union’s main demands since the
strike began — a guarantee of 12
hours work per week for new
part-time employees along with
maintaining the guarantees of 24,
21 and 18 hours for three more
senior classifications of part-
timers.

Previously some newer work-
ers were being called in for as little
as four hours per week, making it
very difficult for them to reach
higher classifications.

The union also won a 30-cent-
per-hour raise in the first year, for
part-time workers, and a $150

lump sum payment in the second
year. All new outlets opened
by Westfair in the future will be
unionized automatically.

Firings Arbitrated

The company also dropped its
demand to fire 16 workers
charged with various picket line
offenses. All cases.will now go to
arbitration.

During negotiations the com-

pany demanded that union accept
an arbitration process for the next
contract which would exclude a
strike or a lockout.
The new contract does include
an arbitration process very simi-
lar to the province’s new final
offer selection legislation. But
union president Bernard Christ-
ophe said the right to strike and
lockout was still maintained.

About 500 of the original 1,600
in the union crossed the lines dur-
ing the strike. They were not
allowed to vote on the contract
and the union is discussing their
status.

Labour in action

GEORGE HEWISON

Special to the Tribune

In order to receive a full and accurate picture of
Canada Posts’s recruitment and workin g tactics dur-
ing the strike, the Tribune had one of its supporters
answer the corporation’s advertisement for strike-
breakers. The following article is based on informa-
tion gathered.

Life is no rose garden for those hired by
Canada Post to replace its striking inside-work-
ers. The work is dirty, noisy, strenuous, some-
times wet and cold and possibly dangerous.
That’s if you get inside the plant. Otherwise it’s
Just uncomfortable and boring. :

The making of a Canada Post scab begins in
the basement of the Lakeshore Inn. To get
there, one avoids the entreaties of members of
the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and
Crosses their information picket. Once inside
She is handed a number, then hangs out with the
hundreds of others who have answered the cor-
Poration’s advertising, waiting until one of the
String of 80 interviewers is free.

__ Name, social insurance number, and other
Personal and work related information is taken.
Following a comprehensive list of questions, the
Interviewer establishes that the position is tem-
Porary — only in the event of a ‘‘labour disrup-
tion’’; requires crossing a picket line; neces-
Sitates being on call seven days a week and
"porting to work on two hours’ notice.

A nay to any of the above and the interview
€nds abruptly. The candidate is promised $10 an

ur, plus $3.25 premium. Overtime and statu-
tory holidays are paid at time and a half. Twelve

urs pay is guaranteed for just showing up
When calied. If she reports to work each time
She is asked, a $200 bonus is in the offing at the
€nd of the first week.
__ The candidate is acquainted with the three
Positions open: sorters, handlers and coders.

I require some skill in handling either com-
Puters or heavy machinery. She is warned that

Te is ‘‘some noise and dust’’ in the plants and
Mail handlers should wear ‘‘protective rain or
Weather gear.”

_ Canada Post wants its applicants in good phy-
Sical condition since the work requires “repe-
Ve physical activities such as lifting, pulling,
Pushing, carrying, stretching and bending.

Oders ‘‘must possess a general geographic
Knowledge of Canada, have a high level of man-

dexterity and have the ability to perform

1,800 keystrokes per hour with a 99 per cent

Uuracy rate.’

- Aday in the life of ascab_

TRIBUNE PHOTO — KIMBALL CARIOU

SS

Security guard photographs pickets out the Re-
gina postal station.

postal workers have one of the highest rates of
repetitive stress injuries in the country. :

Applicants are then briefed in picket line eti-
quette. ‘‘Remain calm; do not become aggres-
sive or talk back; report incidents to your super-
visor immediately.’’ She is given a 24-hour
emergency number — 973-4064 — and assured
that both management personnel and the police
will be on the line to protect her.

After warning about not bringing any bags or
purses into the plants or destroying or stealing
the mails, she is asked to sign a waiver which
allows the RCMP to do a security check.

Photographed and issued with a number and
badge, she is to phone Canada Post at 362-1795
twice a day, or immediately if she hears of a
‘“abour disruption’ in the Metro area.

A work call comes four days later. She has an
hour and a half to get toa named street corner
for bus pick up. She’s on time, but the bus is
three hours late. The driver makes a few more
stops, then parks in an industrial lot down by the
waterfront. :

On board are 36 others, mainly women and
recent immigrants. Conversation is subdued, a
few inquiries to no one in particular wondering if
all this might turn into permanent employment;
a hope that getting through the picket line will
not be too difficult. There’s no bathroom in
sight, nowhere to get a drink or a sandwich and
the seats on the school bus are getting uncom-

ble. .
Suh hours pass, a call comes over the radio:

= the Toronto local is sitting tight tonight — they
i insi home.
\ The job descriptions alone explain why inside can all go }

Canada at the
crossroads

The moment of truth for Canada has arrived.

In 1947, Finance Minister Abbott, on behalf of corporate
Canada, answered the Truman Doctrine serenade for American
domination of the world, and set this country on the path of
continental economic. integration.

Tim Buck, leader of the Labour Progressive Party (the name
for the CPC at the time) said at the time:

‘Now the battle for Canadian independence does have to be
fought again, but against a new form of servitude ...We are
threatened with complete national enslavement to a foreign pow-
er, but that power is not, at least yet, imposing its control by force
of arms. Canada is being sold into United States control by ‘her
own’ ruling class; the parasitic speculative, Canadian manipula-
tors of stock market deals, politics and government concessions,
who are enriching themselves by trading the national future of
Canada ...”’

40 Years of Plunder

For the corporations, the past 40 years have meant fabulous
wealth as they tied their fortunes to their more powerful Ameri-
can cousins.

For the Canadian people, these years have meant a constant
struggle for sovereignty and independence.

Despite these struggles, Canada has become more closely
enmeshed militarily, politically and culturally to the whims of
U.S. financial capital. Canadian ruling circles, over the years,
have gingerly played with alternately cozying up to, then distanc-
ing themselves from various U.S. administrations.

Prime Minister Trudeau was the last Canadian leader to try the
delicate juggling act with his ‘‘two track”’ policy on peace, FIRA,
and the National Energy Policy.

Now the veneer is gone and it becomes abundantly clear to all
that Canada is in trouble.

Labour was correct to regard Mulroney’s opposition to free
trade during the election campaign in the same manner as it |
viewed his ‘‘jobs, jobs, jobs’’ pledge — as delusory.

But the proposed Free Trade Agreement is more than part of a
historical process of integration; if successful, it caps the process
and makes a reversal for Canada nigh impossible. Up until now,
Canada has had the economic option to turn itself around, no
matter how difficult such a reversal may be. It retained control of
powerful levers with which to exercise sovereignty.

Most of these levers are surrendered in the current deal
negotiated by Mulroney.

So while the proposed free trade agreement may be about jobs
and the economy, it is also much more fundaemental.

It is about the kind of Canada which Canadians want to build.

Do we want a Canada as an inexhaustible supply of human and
natural resources to the madmen in the Pentagon who would lead
the world down the path to nuclear war? Are these the jobs
Mulroney has in mind?

Do we want to share Oliver North’s mercenary vision of Ame-
rica? Do we want any part of his kind of jobs?

Canada is faced with two choices: integration with the U.S. or
the path to independence. There is no middle choice.

The labour movement of Canada has chosen independence and
must now come to the fore with its vision for the land between the
49th parallel and the Arctic. By virtue of its place in Canadian
society, labour is the natural leader of all patriotic Canadians,
who when all the facts are known, constitute the overwhelming
majority of the population.

Election Call important
Labour is correct to demand an election before any free trade
deal is negotiated with the U.S. But sucha demand, by itself, may
be inadequate given the stakes, and the desperation of Brian
Mulroney.
What is required is nothing short of the biggest campaign in
Canadian history involving all of the broad anti-free trade forces

. to smash the treacherous plans of the federal Tories to surrender

Canadian sovereignty. Big business will be pouring millions into
selling the virtues of an empty bucket. Labour and patriotic
seca must be mobilized to effectively and successfully re-
spond.

Part of labour’s unique contribution to this campaign will be to
offer an alternative economic policy of independence to Cana-
dians. Such a policy must involve expanding the home market,
development of secondary manufacturing, a national industrial
Strategy, new tax policies, expanded services to people, and most
important — expanded diversified trade, including with countries
of the socialist world.

In short, the fight is on for a new economic strategy of peace
and independence by and for the Canadian people.

The fight for Canada is on!

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, OCTOBER 14, 1987 ¢ 5