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in B DBURY — With nickel prices soar- Gene $7 a pound and the prospects of alta Profits to be made, Inco Ltd. an €d a strike by some 6,950 miners and “iter workers here and in Port Colborne Y agreeing to a ground-breaking contract Ba give all current and future retirees €ir spouses lifetime indexed pensions. =atly ratification votes May 31 showed j a Steelworkers members accepting the 1.700 year contract by a vote of 3,599 to pane Gerard, the union’s Ontario direc- peed the pact “the most significant i ever negotiated” by the Steel- Ris €ts, and was quick to pledge that the a N will try to achieve the same pension standard for the rest of its 165,000 members Mm the province. € next big confrontation comes up in

- {WO years time when basic steel contracts

lien” and Gerard has stated that indexed Me pensions will be a strike issue. = € union saw the emphasis on pensions Means of coming to grips with an indus- tty that has cut its labour force drastically Over the past six years. Inco’s Sudbury ©Perations, which once employed more than 10,000 workers, now maintains pro- duction with only 6,300 employees. Because of the hundreds who have been id off during the recent period, the work force.is also aging. The retired proportion of the Sudbury population in general is grow- ing due to natural processes and increased Pressure on older workers to take early Tetirement in the wake of the mining com- Panies’ restructuring and the reduction of the work force due to fluctuating metal market prices and the introduction of new technology.

Nr.

— Inco Steelworkers Jains

LEO GERARD

Inco has emerged from the six-year slump in world nickel prices and its own internal restructuring with a $125.9-million profit in the first quarter of 1988. The workers haven’t fared so well, with hundreds laid off during the same period.

In addition to increasing pensions by almost 50 per cent immediately and wages by 21.8 per cent over the next three years, a cost of living allowance was negotiated which the union estimates will add another 76 cents an hour to the hourly wage. By June, 1990, according to the union, miners’ wages will rise from $15.58 to $18.99 an hour.

The contract also provides for workers with 30 years service to retire early ona full pension. A $1-million fund for those

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

spouses who have survived deceased Inco workers retiring before 1972 without pen- sion, was set up. The union added that the pension indexing will be funded from the $48-million surplus in the company’s pen- sion fund.

Gerard said the pension protection will cover about 80 per cent of the inflation rate. With inflation between one and two per cent, pension benefits will increase by one per cent. From here there is a sliding scale of increases as inflation rises, with a cut-off point at seven per cent inflation when benef- its will increase five per cent.

A pensioner with 30 years service and collecting $1,300 a month in company and government pensions will get an extra $52 added to his/her pension, assuming a five per cent inflation rate.

Gerard said the plan was unique in Can- ada in that it was negotiated as a lifetime plan that won’t have to be re-negotiated. The other major contract breathrough on pensions, negotiated by the Canadian Auto Workers with the Big Three auto corpora- tions last year, won partial indexing, but current retirees weren’t included in the con- tract and the pension plan will have to-be re-negotiated with the companies at the end of six years.

The Steelworkers breakthrough comes at a time when pension indexing is up for public discussion. Ontario Treasurer Robert Nixon is supposed to unveil government plans for pension legislation later this summer, but a government task force, chaired by Toronto law professor Martin Friedland, is already trying to dampen the growing demand for indexing.

His report suggested companies would find indexing too costly and should try to escape by either withdrawing pensions or slashing wages. ;

The labour movement counters this claim by pointing out there is enough money in pension plan surpluses, if corpo- rations don’t dip into them, to index all pensions in the province.

Labour is already demanding that the government use the Steelworkers-Inco pen- sion deal as a model for its new pension law.

June 12 actions will be decisive

Clear the decks for June 12. That’s one Sunday where the most important item on every worker’s agenda should be making sure you get your friends, neighbours, fam- ily and union sisters/brothers to join you in one of the dozens of actions that will take Place across Canada to give the Mulroney Tories a clear message:

As you can see elsewhere in the paper, the Pro-Canada Network’s country-wide Day of Action Against Free Trade and its call for an immediate election on the issue is being Picked up by various broad-based coali- tions and organizations the length and breadth of Canada. :

Labour in Action

Mike Phillips

The various border demonstrations, pic- nics, rallies, cultural and educational events can make a liar out of Free Trade Minister John Crosbie, who’s been frantically criss- crossing the country making the claim that the Tory sell-out is inevitable and there’s nothing any provincial premier, never mind we humble Canadians, can do to stop it.

The Tories are more than a little worried, | though it’s clear they intend to do anything, even sacrifice a second term in office, to do the job in Parliament that corporate Can- ada and the U.S. transnationals are

_ demanding of them.

_ After blowing $30 million of our dollars

to convince us, there are fewer Canadians supporting free trade than when the Tories launched their disinformation campaign. Representatives of the anti-free trade movement, such as the Pro-Canada Net- work and the 28 organizations which lob- bied the Parliamentary opposition last week, report new forces joining the cam- paign, contacts spreading into previously inactive regions, and a renewed commit- ment to the fight by the core groups in the coalitions, including labour, the women’s movement, the churches and others.

That’s also why Bill C-130, the package of laws introduced to Parliament May 24 to implement the free trade agreement, is such a devious gambit to shade the real impact the deal will have on Canada.

As if walking through a mine field toward the Jan. 1, 1989 deadline for imple- menting the deal, the Tories assembled the bare minimum of legal amendments in order to avoid taking on the provinces, municipal governments, as well as critical sectors of the economy and the public.

Nevertheless, C-130 would allow the free trade pact to override and be paramount to all current and future Canadian laws. Cabinet, not the elected Parliament of Can- ada, would have the power to amend any Canadian laws that are found to be, or become, inconsistent with the pact. And, the cabinet would be empowered to review any social or economic legislation to make sure it complies with the free trade deal.

It also shows that the Tories have made major concessions to the Americans. Not only have they surrendered our right to set lower domestic prices for our own resour- ces, but the government will be empowered to decree and enforce proportional sharing

of our resources, including water, with the U.S. during shortages.

Controls on the investment and removal of capital by U.S. firms would be effectively eliminated. The Americans would be able to.charge us for the television programs they broadcast our way, and the domestic maga- zine industry would be shafted with Income Tax Act amendments that no longer require that Canadian publications be printed in this country for advertisers to get a tax deduction.

And that’s only the beginning. According to the Pro-Canada Network, the American Senate has identified at least three major objectives in its ongoing trade negotiations with Canada. They want even more access to our cultural and energy industries. They want a complete level playing field in the provision of services, and they want to elim- inate completely any screening of invest- ments, technology transfer requirements, performance requirements, local resident requirements and what they call “subsidy trade distortions.”

The corporate vision of what the Cana- dian Labour Congress described at its recent convention as “the lean and mean,

- dog-eat-dog, lowest common denominator

world of the North American right wing” is already upon us. The Pro-Canada Net- work’s plea to the opposition New Demo- crats and the Liberals to shut down Parliament if need be to block the Mulroney sell out is one important side of the fight for an election on free trade.

But far more decisive will be the kinds of actions undertaken by the largest possible number of Canadians on June 12, and action days that must and will follow, right up to election day.

Cleaners — _win pact remains on — contracting

TORONTO — The Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Cana- _ da’s Capital Building Services signed _ anewcontract with Canada Post here _ May 18 on behalf the cleaners at the South Central postal facility, but — there’s nothing to stop the Crown corporation from tendering the clean- ing contract to a “low-ball” bidder paying the minimum wage with no benefits. : e two-year contract will bring © _ wages for light duty cleaners to $8.50- _an-hour and $9.50 for heavy duty | add four additional paid to the collective agreement, _ provide for the company to pay full hi insurance plan premiums; and — ive the cleaners a’ $2-a-day travel —

only the cleaners’ second con- th the company. The first was _

after a bitter five-month

in 1987. The new pact was rati- _fied May 19 with a 100 per cent affir- mative vote on an executive recom-_

_ mendation to accept. . _ Andre Kolompar, CUPW’s Tor- . resident, said it had ta

only able to achieve this t determination of our membership,” Kolompar said in a_ May 27 union statement. os No one in Canada can accept the blatant exploitation and degradation | of immigrant women and men.” They _ make up the majority of postal clean- at South Central. See But the cleaners aren’t “out of the vi yet,” and the Toronto local has _ served notice on the corporation tha’ union will use the “‘strongest pos- methods” if Canada Post tries poverty level wages on the

through the tendering pro-

problem, Kolompar points : Ontario labour law lets _

Pacific Tribune, June 8, 1988 « 7

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