The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.47           December 28, 1998 
 
 
4,000 Garment Workers Set Up Pickets In Response To Lockout In Montreal  

BY CARLOS CORNEJO
MONTREAL - Nearly 4,000 men's clothing workers, members of the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE), began picketing 25 factories in Montreal and the surrounding region December 14.

"We aren't machines, we are human beings;" "Dignity, justice;" and "Together we will win," their placards read. At SFI Apparel factory, located on a busy street, many truckers honk their horns to show support. The mood is combative, and the workers have stopped delivery trucks.

The picket lines went up Monday morning after garment bosses declared a lockout at the end of the working day Friday, December 11. It was an effort to take the initiative away from the UNITE members, who had shown increasing determination in their contract fight over the preceding days. Two thousand workers met at the Convention Palace in Montreal December 10, on the eve of the lockout, and rejected the union negotiating committee's proposal to accept the employers' final offer with 70 percent opposed.

The struggle of these unionists will have a big impact on the 100,000 garment workers in Quebec, 88 percent of whom are not unionized. Approximately 80 percent of all workers in the industry are women, and three-quarters are immigrants.

Workers are defending themselves against the clothing bosses' attempt to lower wages throughout the industry. The employers have asked the Quebec government to abolish a decree regulating garment workers' wages in both union and nonunion shops. The decree is scheduled to end June 1, 1999.

Employers negotiating with UNITE are refusing to incorporate into the master union contract the base wages set by this decree, wages the union has won over the years. The master contract expired November 30. For nonunion workers, abolition of the decree would mean that the minimum wage would become the basic wage.

The bosses want the new contract to institute lower wages for workers hired after the decree is abolished. In some cases, the difference in wages for the same job under such a two-tier system would be up to CAN$2 per hour (CAN$1 = US$0.65). The basic wage of a presser would be reduced from CAN$8.40 to CAN$7.30 per hour. The minimum wage in Quebec is CAN$6.90.

"First they will hire workers with lower wages, then they will try to get rid of those with more seniority," said Enel Saint-Louis, who has worked as a presser at Golden Brand for 11 years.

"There are no more secure jobs," commented Pierrette Allard, a machine operator at SFI Apparel.

"The bosses are trying to lower their production costs in order to be more competitive against their rivals, mainly in the United States," explained Giordani Jean-Richard, a 23-year- old Haitian worker employed as a clerk at SFI Apparel. "They want to reduce our wages to raise their profits. They take it out on us because we are their main obstacle in achieving this."

To sweeten the pill, the bosses offered to raise wages by CAN$0.65 per hour over three years. They also claim that wages of present employees will not be lowered during the next three years. However, many workers never saw the last contract raises because the bosses gave them only to hourly paid workers or to piece workers who could meet production quotas.

Union militancy before lockout
Two weeks before the lockout, 600 workers at Jack Victor Company and 900 at Golden Brand stopped work December 1 after supervisors distributed a leaflet inviting them to accept the bosses' offer and vote against a strike. Later that day, a first general assembly, attended by 3,000 workers, rejected the bosses' first offer by a 90 percent margin.

A few days later, union officials accepted the bosses' "final offer." They attempted to get the contract approved by taking the vote factory by factory, during working hours. But delegates and workers from several shops succeeded in having a general assembly called, which rejected the bosses' offer after a broad discussion. The assembly was an opportunity for collective discussion of the real impact the offer would have on the wages of union and nonunion workers.

The contract would no doubt have been approved "if separate votes had been organized in each factory," complained Louise Béchamp, spokesperson for the Men's Clothing Manufacturers' Association.

Many workers thought they should have gone on strike after the December 10 meeting. "Slowdowns and even work stoppages took place on Friday in some factories," Béchamp acknowledged.

"The bosses knew that some of us were not going to come to work on Monday. We had already decided to stay outside the plant gate and encourage others to do the same," explained Rima, a sewing-machine operator at SFI Apparel for five years.

The locked-out workers will receive CAN$75.00 per week in union benefits after the second week of the lockout. Recently, some have been working only three or four days a week because of cutbacks in production and temporary layoffs.

"We would rather have a hard time for a while than look forward to a minimum wage for the rest of our lives," said Tony Sanchez, a presser at Jack Victor.

Carlos Cornejo is a member of UNITE locked out at SFI Apparel. Michel Dugré and Sebastien Desautels, also members of UNITE at SFI, contributed to this article.

 
 
 
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