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The Canadian Labor Congress
Convention marked somewhat of
a shift to the left by the Canadian
trade-union movement.

Confronted with a determined
campaign by U.S. imperialism to
move politics to the right, rein-
camate the cold war and Te-
establish its role as world bully,
the CLC rejected cold war and
cold war politics.

It called instead for an inde-

pendant Canadian foreign policy
designed to further detente, peace
and disarmament. :
: Ina report delivered by its pres-
ident, Dennis McDermott, the
Congress speculated that U.S.
cold war moves were motivated
as much by domestic politics (the
U.S. elections) as by any altrustic
concern about Afghanistan. It
wrote Canadian trade unionists
out of such schemes on two
counts. First because any global
conflict that might arise out of
such policies would bring un-
speakable grief to all working
people, and second because the
economic costs of the accom-
panying arms race would weigh
heavily on the shoulders of work-
ers. Canadians, said McDermott,
must be masters in their own
house.

Flowing logically from a rejec-
tion of cold war policies, the CLC
faced into the struggle against
monopoly with a document titled,
“‘The Battle of The 80s: Trade
Union Rights Vs. Corporate
Power’.

‘*Trade unions’’ says the re-
port, ‘“‘must not be confused
about the nature and source of
these attacks against them. When
we are talking about high interest
rates, cutbacks in social housing
programs, less government regu-
Jation of business, unemployment
insurance cutbacks, privatization
of crown corporations, more gov-
ernment handouts to business,
union bashing and right to work
movements, we must remember
that all of these attacks stem from
a common source — the rise of
neo-conservatism promoted by
corporations and their suppor-
ters.

“‘The rise of conservatism is
global in nature. It seeks to de-
stroy the programs, policies and
fundamental individual and col-
lective rights and freedoms of
workers and the trade unions
which represent them. It is part of
a strategy to allow corporations to
extend their own brand of dic-
tatorship over the economty and
the workers. It is a growing chal-
lenge in the western industrial
world that must be challenged and
defeated.”

Full Employment
Calling for policies of full
employment the Congress put
forth a wide ranging program of
investment policies, expanded
public Ownership, new manpower
policies, increased processing of

raw resources, purchasing
policies, reform of the tax system
trade policy.

The last part of the document
issues a strong call for the moboli-
zation of the ‘trade union move-
ment, with the words, “‘Nothing
short of a fundamental restructur-
ing Of the social economic and
political system will resolve
Canada’s difficulties”’.

Key attention is devoted to the
struggle for shorter hours, for an
extension of the CLC parallel

political action campaign with the
NDP and the stepped up building
of coalitions with church. com-
munity and other groups around
specific issues.

A call to bring our energy
sources and distribution under
public ownership and control was
made in a wide ranging energy
paper examining the many sided
problems of energy in the market
place and the home.

A parallel document called a
Report on the Economic and Pol-
icy Committee demands a gov-
ernment policy of full employ-
ment to be the nation’s number
one committment.

The ambivilance of the Con-
gress on the key question of pub-
lic ownership is to be seen in the
way it is dealt with in these two
papers. In the Battle of the 80s’,
document the matter is dealt with
in the following words ‘‘what is
really needed is a move forward
to an economic planning system
under public rather than corpo-
rate leadership. Again, the central
issue is over whether corporate
power will be accountable to pub-
lic authority rather than to itself’.

In the Document Report of the
Economic Policy Committee it
comes out rather different.
‘Therefore be it resolved that this
Canadian Labor Congress
strongly support the control of the
resource sector and of our key in-
dustries as essential to the general
public interests, and be it further
resolved that public ownership be
supported as a positive and fun-
damental instrument in our in-
dustrial strategy and economic
planning program’’.

Contradictions :

One can sense, in the con-
tradictary way the question of
ownership is dealt with through-
out Congress documents, a strug-
gle between what the president’s
report has to say about fundamen-
tab change, and the restrictions of
right wing social democratic
dogma which contemplates estab-
lishing socialism in the social
superstructure, while leaving the
monopoly capitalist base intact.

Nonetheless the positions
reflect a considerable step for-
ward in that they identify’ the
enemy, the big corporations, and
put forward the need for strong
collective action, not just of the
Congress but in coalition with a
wide range of other groups.

In a period in which the media
is trying to whip up hysteria anti-
Sovietism and the cold war, there
was hardly mention of such divi-
sive matters at the convention. It
remained for the ultra-left and for
NDP Leader Broadbent to intro-
duce anti-Sovietism into the
gathering.

While considerable credit is _

due the Congress leadership for
the kind of resolutions brought
before the convention, the main
credit goes to the 2.3-million

members it represents. If one

goes through the 593 resolutions
sent in by local unions, labor
councils and affiliates, it is clear
that the policy statments accu-
rately reflect the demands of the
membership who see the need for
new militant class strugglé
policies to confront the offensive
of monopoly.
Bloc-voting Defeated

This showed up in the defeat of
a modified bloc-voting proposal
which the Congress executive
tried to get through the conven-

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tion. It was defeated quite handily
showing that the workers see the
value of the Congress as a grass

roots organization giving the
workers an opportunity to ‘‘ride

herd’’ on the leadership in this

‘stormy period and to gather in

labor’s Parliament as often as
possible to update their programs.

It also showed up in the elec-
tion, where George Hewison,
running for the position of Secret-
ary Treasurer, polled 774 votes,
almost one third of the total voting
delegates. Hewison made it clear
in his statement to the convention
that he was not an ‘opposition’
candidate to the Congress leader-
ship, but was running on the slo-
gan that the Congress needed
people such as him to put the good

Struggle for class policies at CLC —

policies they had adopted into
practice.

It was this attitude that divided
the cynics, from the right and left,
from the real militants and left at
the convention. Whether or not
the policies adopted by the con-
vention get off the paper cannot
ever be left to the ‘leadership’. It
now is the task for unions, union
locals, provincial federations,
labor councils and the left and all
militant trade unionists to make
sure that in the battle of the 80s
against corporate-power, the
working people come out on top.

The CLC leadership responded to the demands of workers across Canada, whose 593 resolutions to the
convention expressed the need for labor to advance militant class struggle policies to fight the big business.

Back-to-work laws threaten
trade union rights in Sask.

REGINA — One day after ‘‘re-
affirming its commitment to a
negotiated settlement’ the Sas-
katchewan New Democratic
Party government introduced
legislation ordering 820 Dairy
Workers back to work after a
two-and-a-half day strike.

The legislation, which received
all party support in the legislature,
was passed and given royal assent
in less than two hours late in the
afternoon May 16, In a telegram
to Premier Blakeney before the
legislation was passed the Sas-
katchewan Committee of the
Communist Party ‘‘urged that the
legislation be immediately with-
drawn as:it undermined the prin-
ciples of free collective bar-

gaining. : x
Bill 111 required employees of

the two dairies — Dairy Produc-
ers Cooperative and Palm Dairies
— to return to work immediately
and ordered union officials to de-
clare the strike ended. In an effort
to sugar coat the poison pill the
bill provides for a $100 a month
interim wage increase during a 60

day ‘“‘cooling off’ period, after
which if no agreement is reached
compulsory binding arbitration
will be imposed.

In 1975 the: NDP government
also introduced similar legislation
ordering 1,200 employees of the

-Saskatchewan Power Corpora-

tion back to work.

Obviously anticipating back to
work legislation management did
not go out of its way to reach a
negotiated settlement. This was
indicated by management
spokesman, Gunnar Pederson’s,
statement during the negotiations
‘‘this will probably end up in the
legislature today (May 16) possi-
bly as emergency legislation.”’

Management also used the
legitimate concerns of the pro-
ducers for their own ends and are
teaming up for a more permanent
form of legislation restricting
strikes in the industry. Pederson
said producers at meetings felt
they must have a guarantee
another strike won't happen
again, adding they ‘‘won’t toler-
ate’’ another strike. If the respon-

sible provincial cabinet ministers
don’t believe this there will be an
‘“‘exodus’’ of dairy farmers out of
Saskatchewan, he said.

Bitter strikers have returned to
work in an angry mood. The
strikers, members of hte United
Food and Commercial Workers,
the Retail Wholesale and De-
partment Store Union and the
Teamsters Union had offered to
deliver essential supplies to hos-
pitals, nursing homes and senior
citizens homes in their own time.
As one union spokesman said,
“‘we don’t believe the best situa-
tion for both sides can ever be
imposed. We believe in collective
bargaining.

‘*T think we would have had an
agreement today if the company
had been more flexible, and we
had not been forced back to
work.”’

This latest action adds to the
growing concern, in the Sas-
katchewan labor movement, as to
the direction the government is
going in its relations to organized
labor.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 30, 1980—Page &