LABOR

150,000 STRIKE QUE.
BUILDING TRADES

‘MONTREAL — Construction
in the province of Quebec has come
to a standstill with a call from the
Quebec Federation of Labor’s
Building Trades Council for a gen-
eral strike of its 150,000 members
to back contract demands.

Negotiations with the construc-
tion industry broke off more than

_ two weeks ago and none are plan-

ned for the future as yet. The strike
call came after the Trades Council
rejected the terms of a provincial
conciliator’s report.

Key issues in the strike relate to
matters of union security such as

_ the operation of union hiring halls,

the shop steward system and dues

- checkoff. Management sources say

that they are prepared for a long
strike rather than improving on
union security.

_LABOR BACKS
POLICE REFORM

TORONTO — The Metro-
politan Toronto Labor Council
has thrown its support to the
“Morand Report’ recommen-
dations on police practises which,
it says, is a ‘‘severe indictment of

_ those charged with the responsi-

bility of supervising and training
the Toronto police force.’’ Such

_ an indictment, the MTLC com-

mented ‘‘should not be a great
surprise to organized labor.”’
The Labor Council drew atten-
tion to one particular recommen-
dation of the report which stated
that ‘“‘police training and super-
vision must emphasize that the
function of a police officer is that
of peacekeeping, prevention of
crime and law enforcement and
that it does not extend to acting as
judge and jury in the administra-
tion of punishment of suspects.”

NEWEST.UNION
SUPPORTS OCT. 14

OTTAWA — Canada’s newest
union, the National Union of Pro-
vincial Government Employees,
“supports the CLC’s call for a day
of protest October 14,” says union
president Bill Ridgeway.

’ Noting that provincial govern-
ments had the option to stay out of
the control program, Ridgeway
said that the ‘“‘provinces almost
without exception, practically
tripped over themselves and each
other in climbing on the Trudeau
bandwagon ... the Day of Protest
will allows provincial public em-
ployees to voice strong opposition

me»

to the unfairness of wage control
legislation.’

NUPGE represents 94,000
workers in B.C., Alberta, Sas-
katchewan, Manitoba and Prince
Edward Island.

UAW WORKERS
WANT CONTRACT
IN CANADA

WINDSOR — Locals 444 and
240 of the United Auto Workers
(UAW). both of whom represent
Chrysler workers, are consider-
ing pulling out of the international
agreement with the big car com-
pany. Whereas workers at Ford
and General Motors have sepa-
rate agreements for Canadian
workers, there is only one inter-
national agreement at Chrysler
Corporation. Thishas resulted in
the current contract being
negotiated at Highland Park,
Michigan. Whereas local bargain-
ing units in the U.S. can strike
over local issues, Ontario’s labor
laws prohibit strike action during
the contract period.

PSSRB CALLED
TOOL OF GOV'T

OTTAWA — A request by the
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
for review of the separate certi-
fication for Railway Mail Clerks
has been summarily rejected by
the Public Service Staff Relations
Board. i

There are only about 100 postal
employees who carry the title of
‘railway mail clerk’? but union
president Jean Parrot says that the
numbers are not important, rather
it is a matter of principle. ‘‘They do
the work of postal clerks,”’ he said,
‘cand union certification should be
determined on that basis.

“What the PSSRB decision
means is that the Treasury Board
can use its powers of classification
to carve up a union any way it
wants to and when the PSSRB ac-
cepts this, it reveals itself as a tool
of the Treasury Board.’’

PROFESSIONALS
GO UNION IN U.S.

NEW YORK — More, and
more white collar and profes-
sional groups are coming to re-
gard themselves as working class.
This is shown by a report from the
United States which states that
40% of all salaried, non-manage-
ment professionals in the USA
have unionized and are covered
by collective bargaining.

THE TORONTO STAR, SATURDAY, AUGUST 38, 1976

Bankers’ eyes are smilin

by

Ope hl
sa s Dyfi Lisyr—
Outline for a new Bank Act has plenty they like, little they don’t =
-- foreigners get official en ts not much fighting room.

Ae
; THE TORONTO STAR, Thurs, August 96,1976 C11 m™

3M of €anada

. am
' to raise prices

to be sought by Bell
through rate increase

TORONTO, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1976
Ottawa's aim more jobs, investment

Profit controls on
business eased

Don’t let anybody kid you that Trudeau’s controls aren’t working. AIB Czar Jean-Luc Pepin wasn’t
joking when he said he would ‘administer rough justice”. a
The banks, trusts, corporations and other assorted legal thieves are having a field day. On the

3 light bulb makes
convicted in plot
to monopolize field

The

manufactur.

SCENE

By BRUCE MAGNUSON

Organized labor is being at-
tacked vigorously by the kept
mass media of the money bags,
the big corporate interests and the
bankers. They do not like it when
organized labor unites and fights
back. That is what they are
deathly afraid of. They cannot
reconcile themselves to the fact
that the Canadian Labor Con-
gress enjoys more and more
prestige for its fighting stance and
that support is gathering from
natural allies of labor for the Oc-
tober 14 National Day of Protest.

A group of such allies is the
growing number of retirees, Can-
ada’s senior citizens who are
condemned to a life of want and
misery, which is the lot of the
great majority who have no other
income than the old age security
pension, plus supplementary
allowance and the Canada Pen-
-sion for some of them.

It is often written by the anti-
labor and mischievous editorial
commentators of the capitalist
press that organized labor is
selfish and does not give a tinker’s
god-damn about anyone else —
such as the unorganized, the poor
and the pensioners. This flat
assertion is continuously re-
peated with great regularity in
order to force people into: be-
lieving that wage increases
granted to. organized workers
somehow or other rob the un-
organized, the poor and those on
inadequate pensions. Never will
these apologists for big business
allude to monopoly price fixing,
astronomical rents, interest and
profits as being part of the picture.

Battle for Pensions

Fortunately people are not as
gullible as these paid bourgeois
hacks think they are. Pensioners
in their majority are quite well
aware of the fact that rolling back
workers’ wages increases the
profits of the employers but will

by assorted government heavies like John Munro.
All good arguments for a full turn-out Oct. 14th.

LABOR | A growing
group of allies

not add one lousy cent to their
inadequate pensions. But
monopoly prices will continue to
rise unchecked. :

The plain fact of the matter is
that without the struggle of or-
ganized labor there would not be
any pensions at all. The record
shows that the Old Age Pension
Act did not come into being until
1927, providing at that time for a
pension of $20 per month. This
was: gradually raised by hard
struggle to $25 in August 1943, to
$30 in May 1947 and to $40 by
May 1949. All this time the trade
union movement was in.the fore-
front of the battle to raise the old
age pension.

Recommendations Gather Dust

Big business and governments
did not bring this about without a
fierce and persistent campaign by
labor. That is how the Old Age
Security Act came into being in
1952 and the Guaranteed Income
Supplement in January 1967.

All the way down the line the
provinces were resisting. Only

British Columbia commenced ©

benefits in 1927; Sask. and Man.
in 1928; Northwest Territories,
Alberta and Ontario in 1929;
P.E.I., Nova. Scotia and New
Brunswick in 1933-34 and 36;
Quebec in 1936; and Yukon and
Newfoundland in 1949.

The political battle to improve ©

the lot of our senior citizens has
been long and difficult and has a
long way to go. For example: a
Senate Committee on Aging made
92 recommendations in 1966; an

-Ontario Legislature Select Com-

mittee on Aging made 44 recom-
mendations; the Ontario Welfare
Council set Ten Goals for the
1970’s;.and the Social Planning
Council of Metropolitan Toronto
has produced a study on The
Aging. But many of these reports
and recommendations are still
gathering dust in the archives.

|

other side workers’ real incomes are dropping and, on top of that, organized labor Is being threatened ]
4

4

That is why the Ontario
Federation of Labor established a
task force on the problems’ of

senior citizens in the spring of

1973 with the purpose of support-
ing a year-long campaign of assis-
tance to senior citizens at that
time undertaken by the Canadian
Labor Congress. The purpose
was to gather information and
provide solutions to the problems
faced by a tremendous number of
elderly people living on starvation
budgets and, as David Archer,
OFL president, said, were ‘‘exist-
ing on fixed incomes in an infla-
tionary economy.”

Not Concerned with People ‘

The task force, headed by
Moses McKay, was commis-
sioned to hold hearings with
senior citizens’ groups and in-
dividuals in 18 locations through-
out Ontario. Its terms of reference
covered the areas of: income;
health and welfare; housing;
recreation; entertainment; re-
tirement and pre-retirement pro-
grams.

An object of organized labor
has always been earlier retire-
ment and better pensions as
productivity improves, thus
shortening the time in active in-

‘dustrial employment and pro-

viding opportunities for our youth
to jobs and advancement. This
kind of rising expectation has al-
ways been resisted by big
business which is not concerned
with people and their lives but
only monopoly drives for maxi-
mum profit. It is this monopoly
drive for profits which results in
mass unemployment and inflation
— the twin evils of the capitalist
private profit system.

It is precisely this fact which
will find our senior citizens adding
their support to the October 14
National Day of Protest called by
the Canadian Labor Congress
against wage controls.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 17, 1976—Page 5