WfJRIlERS 1II1NfitJIIRIJ 251 No. 28 :--:-_:~,: X·S23 14 September 1973 As Woodcock-Fraser Pre~are Sellout- Foran International Industry. Wide Auto Strike! SEPTE11BER lO-As negotiations be­ seven days a week for more than ;:;IX tween the UA Wand the Big Three months to meet Chrysler's production approach the September 14 deadline, schedules. the Woodcock bureaucracy is making The smoldering resentment of auto Rail strikers storm Parliament Building in Ottawa. its class -collaborationist s t I' ate g y workers erupted in a series of wildcat clear for all to see. Fearing a wave strikes and sitdowns in the Detroit of strike militancy that could threat­ area, the most important of which oc­ en their pOSition, union officials pre­ curred in three Chrysler plants in late pared for the talks with the companies July and August. These actions threat­ Government Breaks by pursuing a conscious policy of ened to interrupt the carefully planned demoralizing the ranks. T his has preparations of the Woodcock bureauc­ ranged from permitting isolated strikes racy, Vv'hile it was temporarily able to at Norwood and Lordstown to drag dampen militancy through a mass mo­ Canadian Rail Strike on into oblivion in order to destroy bilization of union officials against the the morale of the workers, to tol­ action at the Mack Ave. plant, the Twice in recent Elemory the r<?d<?ral erating 8Th.t 2ven en C 0 u rag in g the bureaucracy's extreme fragility and La hor Toos 110'"1.' to :>'nverfn.:~>::·n~ ~-, ... !..s d(r:er:i d~1-E(~~~, t_Jbre~tk ~ \:l; ;'l~-,-~/ ~L.Ull .)1 ~:,-~i,tllU...tl lL~ij:lrl!.-:"S L.. l.....:.~). ')1 rt....:~l l'~~.:k- ,;.r:.d-··filc ;:;ilH)nort \;:3.S major strikes. In I~66 the Ottawa in several plants across the country made clear to alL A nti-Strike Law government ordered striking rail em­ (Fremont, CaliL GM; Mahwah, .\'.cT. ployees back to wor~ and met little Ford) am! most recently the open TOROl\ 10, :':2ptlCr!1ller 4-C:l n:1 d a's The UAW Bureaucracy: 1'esistalwe from the unions. Only last strikebreaking by UAW officials at ten-day-old nationwide rail strike was Agents of the Bosses summel the Ottawa government in­ Chrysler'::; Mack Aveo Stamping Plant. effectively broken by the Llberal Tru·· ,erv2ned to break the strike of Cana­ Essentially the same purpose is to be deau government last weekend, d(:sl)ite The c hoi c e of Chrysler as the dian dock vwrkers. The pattern of state served by such gimmicks as 3.nnouncing several thousand wo,--L,rs' surging i;}to "target company" only a few days intervention was so clearly established this year's target, Chrysler, sever~l the Parliament building in Ottawa to after the IVlack Ave. incident was not that when negotiations broke down in days earlier than usual so as to pro­ protest the stnkebreaking bill. The surprising. Selecting GM would have July the Toyonto G lobe and Mail could vide extra time to publiCIze to the ranks leadership of all but one of the strik­ clearly revealed the immense gap be­ speculate in an editorial (July 26) that in the bourgeois press evidence of ing unions promptly accepted the gov­ tween the bureaucracy's min i 111 a 1 perhaps the "strike weapon was a their "hard bargaining," ,crnmental edict, although Parliament­ preparations to mobilize the rank and fiction n for Canadian rail \vorkers, Despite this ambitious campaign it i:1:,> Isei ter'1lS were no hetter than file anci its pretensions tu the role CauiSht between a militant fClnk and has proven extremely difficult to build of hard-headed, "practical" ne:!;otia­ LH..J.3(" l't-j e('tt~ d b~; thE: uj~ions \vet.:k~ file and a solid government company a C:lse tur lalJor peace. ThIS has bCt:r; tors. Secretary-Treasurer Emil Mazt-y cifllcf l~l~:k·l' t~!~. l)rt:'ssure (JI l"u.rl- front, the rail\\'ay union lead2l"s called a boom ~;E;,ll' for the auto "stllllateel that the C c\ \\ would han' (IL .\ _t.' ~'l1J~ii:.I)n, tr:·-· },'),"v·f·rLnl~ ::t i~ !(jr r:~Jt,nin:~ strlK0S b:.~ ;:2J~()~r:tphi(:3.1 \\'ith IJ'rcllits uni,,'el Jt re'c()rd s rike fund of unly ~50 11111110E u+-;:-ri:l~ tll(' ~,;,L~~< i~' l<~ 11':='_lrt_',~il' .,rE::-_i.;::-:. TLc.2.5t" st;--:l>_...: ~1(i,j ~~.:t: ~~t;-,:t'_l \"-,::,:,:::7.C ,l~, .-:\"2' (-,-,1':;,=-,_t ~:: -'l't: !r:'):'.t:~, l!l (:ptenlber 1,';. The C:-d~iY ,stl';'~\.t" Ll +!.:::" !" \.::.: - ~ l : I~ r""- l'~ ~- • I ~, :1 '-.. ,,: !!ll:-- :::-' .. 11 ;,.::1 S' 7e .~~: ~-Ll ~~5~ ~ fit-' '.~,i~illl G':\1 ).. ~-:: 1/ .~ .') .1 .... .:.. 11 ~.:. ~,~ ~:l' :}~il~.':1. -':v'Ld ;-.i.,' ·t~~l .• l::;i,.~,-- ,,'- '., ,)1 ,-. ,,' ~ nt~ ... i; .} '--: ~- : -=- ':: -r>- s, :. .- !t -:-t ~ 19 "1-::: '~(;; : '.-I ~> . - ~j .~< ::.j I ': 1- d- ~_'~, --,sit :L tc ~jl~n. r 'J:' d~l'-" c;:\.] ,: ~--: :-:1;~1 '... )i tIl' xililj~~' :::.') •. ","Sc u! ~;ll:: rJ..ll .:-;t"lkt~. :.J. '.'~u. t'd': ; -i)~ 21 t' ~ _ \. '- ~"", ',)l r,~,~ l)UT :::it~lhJ::.s, r t" l.' i~' r·~t -l~) ~-- f.:-'J.~·:l !}?..: ...'1 ~ ':'-1' - ~ ~ .... x '.- J.. }<':, .' ~s ~ 1 \... ~' ........ .'!. _~(,i.Jll ~t.-Jdll".::,illlJ tG ",l~:t;l a l~li.l 'jr!l~~ r'.I.i.:.."~~·" (v::lge conlr'~Ji) r: 1.::..~'; lor the 11l'Jst ria :·t r~:..il \vorkers sin-:.­ tIle fIrst: qUd.rtel' ,)1 197J, --:.1' 5061 _'dld lt~L-,t ~tL'ug;glt;. r~,~.'r bt" L.r.r u1I. mE:l'ed as they watched government $817 million, respt:ctively, C;,rysler, 011 the other ilanel, offered and industry hold -back shipments of History of the Strike Meanwhile, auto workers have faced several advantages to the union leaders. grain in an attempt to precipitate increased speed-up, loss of jobs and Its recent financial successes, its an immediate food crisis in the event erosion of real wages. GM Assembly Negotiations began December 31 smallness and apparent vulnerability, of a national strike. Division workers in 1973 produced of last year with the termination of make it a more credible target in the The militancy boiled over first in the 250,000 more units than in the first the contract between the eight unions eyes of the rank and file. Moreover, un­ western provinces where workers re­ nine months of 1972, but with 20,000 representing the 56,000 non-operating like Ford and GM, Chrysler's Canadian fused to go back when the rotating fewer workers! At Chrysler's Forge railway workers (non-ops) and Cana­ division bargains simultaneously with strike in their area was over. The plant, scene of a recent wildcat strike, da's two railway giants, Canadian 'its American and Canadian workers. western provinces are a center of union members told WV reporters that Thus a joint settlement in Chrysler Pacific and Canadian National (a "crown union unrest and Canadian nationalism, 60 percent of the factory had worked continued on page 11 corporation" fully subsidized by the It is also in the western provinces of government), and nine smaller railway Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British companies, The unions, pointing to the Columbia that the New Democratic sharp rise in the Canadian cost of Party (NDP), a farmer-labor party with Split Momentum Mounts in USec ..... ...... 2 li ving and the falling wages of rail­ close ties to the unions, controls the way workers relative to other transport provincial governments. The NDP pro­ Leninist Tendency to Fuse with SL ........ 4 workers, demanded a 10.8% increase vincial prime ministers of course have each year for the next two years. a vested political interest in maintain­ The Stalin School of Falsification Revisited: In July, the companies accepted the ing the economy in good order in "their proposal of a government board of con­ provinces," And on a federal level the Part 6 - The Th ird Ch inese Revolu tion ..... 5 cillation which limited pay ll1creases to NDP has embraced Trudeau's minority a total of only 17.8 percent over Liberal Party government since the Trotskyist Work in the Trade Unions: two years. The unions refused to accept federal elections gave the NDP the the government/ company 0 f fer and "balance of power" between the Liberal Stalinism and Social-Patriotism ........... 6 began a series of rotating strikes that and Conservative parties. From the led to the late-August nat ion wid e early stages of the struggle the NDP Labor Department Upholds Dempsey walkout. parliamentary leaders shamelessly an­ F rom the outset negotiations took nounced t hat they would sup po r t in CWA Election Rerun .................. 12 place in an atmosphere permeated by the threat of government intervention. continued on page 10 SWP NATIONAL CONVENTION Split Momentum Mounts in USee Pressures for a split in the so­ of the once-TrotSkyist SWP, as akalei­ gades from Trotskyism, written by the called "United Secretariat" have be­ doscope of special interest groups S WP itself, expliCitly endorsed guer­ come practically irrestible. Symp­ paraded past the microphones. Fem­ rilla warfare: tomatic of the ten s e situation in inists accused the IT of being male "Along the road of a revolution begin­ this rotten bloc that poses as the Trot­ chauvinistj nationalists accus~d it of ning with simple democratic demands skyist International was the recent racism. Homosexuals wanted a tran­ and ending in the rupture of capitalist National Convention of the Socialist sitional program for gay liberation property relations, guerrilla warfare Workers Party, held last month in and a declaration that gay love is just conducted by 1 and 1 e s s peasant and Oberlin, Ohio.