LABOR :

Continued from page 1
demanded the repeal of legislation such as
Section 98 of the Criminal Code which
was being used to suppress dissent.

“Prime Minister Bennett rejected the
delegation’s requests outright with red-
baiting attacks and insults. He gave his
answer to the trekkers and to Canadians a
few days later. On July 1, 1935, Dominion
Day —Canada’s birthday — a peaceful
meeting of Regina citizens and trekkers on
Regina’s Market Square was brutally
attacked by city police and RCMP armed
with clubs, tear gas and guns. In the ensu-
ing police-instigated riot, hundreds were
wounded and injured, over over hundred
were arrested, including the leaders of the
trek, and one plainclothes detective was
killed.

“But this attempt to smash the Relief
Camp Workers Union and to end citizen
support for their demands failed. In the
federal election a few months later, the
Bennett government went down to a well-
deserved defeat. The newly-elected Liberal
government was compelled to carry out its
promises to abolish the relief camps and to
repeal the repressive Section 98 of the
Criminal Code.

“Now, fifty years later, Canada appears

to be on the verge of a re-run of the
‘Hungry Thirties’. We have two million
unemployed across our country. Even ina
period of so-called economic recovery,
hundreds of thousands of our youth again
face a future without hope. Powerful cor-
porate groups, such as the Business Coun-
cil on National Issues, are demanding that
Canada’s youth be conscripted into mil-
itary camps. ~

“That is why we are before you
today. ..as a delegation representing the

survivors of the On-to-Ottawa trek, the
unemployed youth and the trade union
movement. We would like your assurance,
Mr. Prime Minister, that there will be no
repetition of the ‘““Hungry Thirties.” We
would like that assurance backed up with
an official apology for the shameful and
brutal attack on the striking relief camp
workers and the citizens of Regina com-
mitted by the 1935 Bennett government on
July 1.

“The working people built Canada. We
want to continue building The responsibil-
ity for current recessions and continuing
high unemployment does not rest with
working people nor the trade union
movement. It rests with those who own,
control and manage our economy. :

“e@ End your restraint program of
layoffs and cuts of social programs and
services. Reducing living standards of
Canadians won’t bring propserity or more

jobs — just the opposite. You can cut the .

deficit by ending the special tax conces-
sions to big corporations and by diverting
military expenditures to socially useful
projects and by such means strengthen
Canada’s contribution to the cause of
world peace.

“@ Guarantee at least a minimum
income to people unable to find work by
(a) using your authority to ensure that
welfare rates are raised to at least the pov-
erty level through the Canada Assistance
plan, and (b) keeping the hands of your
administration off Unemployment Insu-

With our rich natural resources and our highly-
skilled labor force, there is no justification for
unemployment or hunger in our land.

“Working people refuse to shoulder the
whole burden of difficult economic times,
to tighten their belts and to make sacrifices
while the profits of those who control the
economy continue to go up. We believe it
is the responsibility of government to pro-
tect the living standards of our people. To
that end, Mr. Prime Minister, we respect-
fully urge you to take the following steps:

“@ Carry out your promise to provide
“Jobs, Jobs, Jobs” by measures such as an
extensive capital works program, re-
forestation, salmon enhancement, massive
housing programs. Build a Canadian mer-
chant marine, a pure water project for
prairie cities and a legislated shorter work
week with the same take-home pay.

rance and ending all attempts to reduce
benefits or its availability to unemployed
Canadians. Instead, extend benefits to the
unemployed by increasing the percentage
of their take-home benefits and covering
the entire period of a person’s unemploy-
ment, with special criteria for the young
people and those first-time employed.

“@ We are in full agreement that the
unemployed should never be used as a
weapon against the employed. In that
vein, we want your government to ensh-
rine the rights of free collective bargaining
to all workers in all matters concerning
their working conditions, including mat-
ters arising out of technological change
and automation, no impediment when

Build housing, public works, trekkers demand

workers exercise their desire to_ organize
into trade unions; and no use of injunc-
tions in labor disputes as a heavy-handed
way of disuading workers from achieving

their goals. As citizens of this country, we -

believe it is the government’s responsibility
to enshrine the rights to meaningful
employment for all and the right to full
equality for men and women in work
opportunity, wages and conditions.

“In the long term, Canada’s economic
health can be fully restored and full
employment provided only if your
government will:

“@ Undertake to build secondary man-
ufacturing industries in Canada and end
our reliance on the export of our natural
resources;

“@ Expand the public sctor. Everything
that is happening today proves that the
private sector is unable or unwilling to
take the necessary steps to provide jobs
and raise incomes. What we need today is
not less government intervention in the
economy, but more intervention that will
benefit all Canadians and not just a
wealthy few.

“With our rich natural resources and —

our highly-skilled labor force, there is no

justification for unemployement or hunget —
in our land. We can and should have the —

highest living standards in the world. Your
government has the opportunity and the
responsibility to provide leadership and
direction to ensure that our economy and
the way it is managed will serve the needs
and aspirations of all Canadians.

- “In 1935, the On-to-Ottawa trekkers
demanded ‘work and wages.’

the present government. It is the most
urgent demand.”

Steel must face issues head on

|

That
demand is the same one we place’ before’

The recent Canadian Policy Conference of the
United Steelworkers of America was a real yawner.

While Canadian steelworkers are faced with plant
shut downs, layoffs, contracting out, massive tech-
nological change, compulsory overtime, speed up,
and now a new Tory government hell-bent for closer
economic integration with the U.S. and a massive
attack on workers’ living standards, certain leaders in
the steel union see matters as business as usual.

But its not business as usual for the employers or
the 160,000 Canadians who belong to the USWA.
Stelco for example, watched 25,000 employees in
1980 produce two billion dollars worth of products. By
1985, they’d cut the workforce to 20,000 and the di-
minished crew increased Stelco sales to two and a half
billion dollars, while Stelco would argue that everyone
knows that through bookeeping ‘‘smoke and mirrors’”’
they coverted ‘‘losses’’ into increased assets — from
$2.4 billion to $2.8 billion.

Both Algoma Steel and Cominco, the darlings of
their parent, Canadian Pacific Enterprises, had even
more spectacular growth, all the while steelworkers
were relegated to U.I.C., welfare or threatened with
layoff and thus compelled. to intensify their pro-
duction.

All kinds of new schemes have popped up by
Management across the country to help stimulate
worker productivity. Regretably, these schemes and
the worsened state of Canadian steelworkers did not
warrant the attention of the union leadership at the
Canadian policy conference.

Discredited School

Instead the membership was exhorted to “‘initiate
events like the Canadian Steel Trade Conference and
labor submissions’’ to the Macdonald Commission.
Sitting down with the president of Algoma Steel, and
with the Macdonald Commission, as one leading steel
union leader has been doing, has produced nothing for
Canadian steelworkers except more misery and less
fightback.

To be fair, the particular leader did take the oppor-
tunity of the Policy Conference to publicly disagree
with the Macdonald Commission on its feeble efforts
to eliminate unemployment; its advocacy of free
trade; its attacks on the Unemployment Insurance

Labor in action

George Hewison

program; and some (unspecified) ‘‘recommendations
on labor-management relations.”’

We note that this is a rather expensive way to learn
that big-business and big-business commissions are in
disagreement with labor on the direction of the
country.

This multi-million dollar extravaganza only reveals
what we already knew: that most of Canadian big-
business wants free trade; wants to gut the U.I.C.
program; and, isn’t the slightest bit interested in
resolving the crisis of unemployment, much less listen
to what labor has to say.

Does our “‘responsible”’ labor representative now
graduate from the discredited school of tri-partism
and in his valedictory address state that labor will go
out and mobilize its troops and guarantee that labor’s
position his heard and implemented?

End the Games

No, he says he wants to go back to the same school
and declares that labor is going to continue to ap-
proach government and business with ‘‘capin hand’.

The matter would not be so serious except that the
failed student is a leader of Canada’s largest industrial
union— a union which occupies a strategic spot in the
Canadian labor movement.

What Canadian steelworkers have a right to expect
in the period ahead is an end to the games being played
with the boss and his governments. That means:

e Acampaign must be mobilized to legislate an end
to layoffs and shutdowns.

e A made-in-Canada industrial strategy is needed
which uses Canadian steel and other metals to pro-
duce machinery and goods and services for the Cana-
dian home market, to upgrade our railways and rapid
transit in major towns and cities, develop a Canadian

merchant marine, a massive public low-rental housing
program, construction of hospitals, schools and day
care facilities, foster a Canadian machine tool indus-
try, a Canadian aircraft industry, and an all-Canadian
energy grid and east-west pipeline.

e The shorter work week with no loss in take home
pay must be won to combat the unemployment crisis
and cope with the effects of new technology.

e A co-ordinated bargaining strategy must be de-
veloped within steel and within the labor movement to
guarantee success in the fight against concessions and
for shorter work time, earlier retirement, and better
pensions.

e A major campaign must be undertaken for steel
and labor’s legislative program as opposed to the
crisis policies of big-business.

Tackle ‘‘Divine Right’’

e It must lead the rest of Canadian labor in the fight
against the federal Tory budget, against tax hikes and
to save our social programs like family allowances,
pensions, unemployment insurance, and for better
labor and health and safety legislation.

e Steelworkers must join the rest of the labor
movement in the campaign to stop free trade and to
build an independent Canada with an independent
economy and foreign policy for peace. This means
speaking out against Star Wars and in favor of Canada
becoming a nuclear weapons free zone.

e A major struggle has to be waged against em-
ployer-inspired Quality of Work Life programs, or
other similar schemes to increase productivity at
worker expense.

e The large multi-national corporations must be
nationalized and brought under democratic control
and the fantastic wealth being created by the workers
must be used for the benefit of all the people of Cana-
da.

Steelworkers, in short, will have to tackle the ‘‘di-
vine right’’ of corporations to extract profits at the
expense of the workers and of the country.

' That issue needs to be taken up, not at tea, or
cocktail parties, but at the bargaining table and on the
picket line, if need be, in the community and by
masses of Canadian working people on Parliament
Hill.

12 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 12, 1985