SS ee eS DO HS OO AP hate eT ee eee ee OF Ps RE oe gel ES PONS gegen 2s an yet! TE gta), OFL demonstration presses TORONTO — More than 1,000 delegates to the Ontario Federation of Labor convention massed on the lawns of the On- tario Legislature to press the demand for government action on unemployment, just a week before figures released by Statistics Canada showed that the jobless had climbed in November to an unprecedented 8.4 percent. Carrying placards declaring “Full employment is a democratic right’? and deman- ding ‘First things first: Jobs,” unionists marched from the convention, in session at the Sheraton Centre in Toronto, to the Queen’s Park to press the <>" Vol. 39, No. 48 Friday, December 9, 1977 demand before the Davis govern- ment. Delegates to the four-day convention earlier heard OFL president Cliff Pilkey issue a call for the establishment of a strong manufacturing base in the province and for government job creation programs. The convention also adopted a statement on full employment outlining government measures to create jobs and to provide long range solutions to the problems of secondary industry, tran- sportation and housing. In his opening address Pilkey stressed particularly the cam- paign being waged by govern- ments and corporations alike that Canadian productivity is low and “Canadians are pricing them- selves out of world markets.” “Canadians aren’t pricing themselves out of the market,”’ he said. “They’re being flim- flammed out of the market by the multinational cartels and Canadian politicans who boot-lick the capitalist system,”’ he said. The OFL president noted that “a classic example of boot- licking’’ was the Trudeau government’s failure to curb INCO even. though the company admitted that it had less to fear by laying off workers in Sudbury rather than Indonesia. or Guatemala. “INCO knew it had tame cats to See OFL MEET pg. 8 iss \ ~ A More than 1,000 unionists marched on Queen’s Park back demands for action on jobless. last week to Bedecked with the traditional gifts of pins, B.C. Federation of Labor president George Johnston (centre) x Shares a joke with Georgi Kanayev (left), deputy director of the international department of the Ca Council of Soviet Trade Unions, at a reception in Vancouver organized by the Federation to welcome Soviet trade unionists who visited the city last weekend. Vladimir Nikitin (right) did the translating as Johnston and Kanayev addressed the reception, expressing the hope for more exchanges be € two countries. tween unionists of —Sean Griffin photo ‘Civil disobedience’ threatened Peace Dam stirs protest Twenty percent of residents in € Dawson Creek area have ‘greed to withhold payment of B.C. Hydro bills to protest plans to build third major. dam 7 the Peace iver, The campaign against the dam Project is being led by the editor of © Dawson Creek newspaper, The face River Block News, Pat Michaels, Michaels called on the 5,000 readers of his paper to send in & card indicating that they would Join the protest against Hydro if 80 Percent of Hydro customers were Committed to the action. ‘We never expected to get an 80 Percent response. Our strategy Was aimed at drawing attention to € issue,” Michaels told the Tribune in a telephone interview Tom Dawson Creek. .-€ 20 percent response is in- dicative, however, that ‘‘a Majority of the people disapprove sh, € project,’’ Michaels said, and Ould serve as a warning to Hydro ’nd the provincial govern- pent. “There could be some h Tlous civil disobedience around re if that dam goes ahead. People feel that strongly about it,” he declared. Hydro plans to build the dam at Site C, near Taylor, on the Peace River. But Dawson Creek residents say that the dam is not needed, and it will destroy valuable farm land, harming the local economy and ing up food prices. ane North fee traditionally been screwed in these matters,” Michaels said, ‘‘We pay the same rate for power as the lower mainland, but we pay much more for everything else — all we are left with is the dams.” According to Michaels, Hydro’s proposed dam will flood 19 percent of all Class 1 and Class 2 farmland — land suitable for vegetable and mixed farming — in the entire province. Farmers will be shoved off the land by the project and food See HYDRO pg. 8 COPE calls for support on rapid transit motion The Committee of Progressive Electors has called for delegations to appear before Vancouver city council when alderman Harry Rankin’s motion calling for initiatives in developing a Lower Mainland rapid’ transit system is debated in mid-January — : Among those who will be pressing the city for action will be the Vancouver and District Labor Council which outlined a program Tuesday in support of the demand for a transit system and mapped out campaign plans to press the issue before municipal councils as well as the provincial government. The exact date for the city council meeting in January is expected to be set next week. The issue of court interference in labor disputes added yet another note of contention in the bitter B.C. Tel lockout this week as the B.C. Supreme Court granted an in- junction limiting the number of pickets at the company’s Nanaimo operation to two per entrance. Telecommunications Workers Union officers also agreed to with- draw all pickets from a Port Moody bank pending the outcome of another injunction hearing, expected to be heard Monday. The union began this week to pickets the bank which has been taking payments for telephone bills. By accepting the payments, the union has argued, the bank became an allied company to B.C. Tel under the terms of the labor code. The court ruling on picketing comes only one day after federal labor minister John Munro named federal mediator Mike Collins to look into the 13-month-old dispute which has become particularly bitter in recent months because of B.C. Tel’s refusal to accept the recommendations of the Hall report, calling for retention of the present contracting out clause. The TWU had sought the direct intervention of Munro himself and had asked the company to join the union in the request but B.C.Tel ignored the appeal. In commenting on the ap- pointment of Collins as mediator, TWU president Bob Donnelly said: “We can only hope that Mr. Collins will be able to overcome the stubborn and belligerent attitude adopted by B.C. Tel toward the Hall report as the basis for resolving this dispute.” B.C. Telephone has not moved from its adamant stance on the Hall report since the full scale lockout began two weeks ago, relying instead on public reaction to a number of much-publicized incidents of vandalism. The TWU has denied any responsibility in the incidents which oceur even during normal operation. But TWU delegate Doug Harrop told the Vancouver and District Labor Council Tuesday, “The company through innuendo has ipod that the union is responsible for the vandalism.” Council president Syd Thompson also voiced concern at the bad publicity given the incidents and told the meeting that the B.C. Federation of Labor was moving to issue an information brochure clearly outlining the issues.in. the dispute. Combines set December 15 Seven members of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union are to appear in court December 15, following a further remand in the case involving charges of obstruction brought against them under the Combines Act. Although the trial is expected to be postponed again at that time, the UFAWU has already begun the coordination of a national defence campaign, spearheaded last week with the appointment of UFAWU Vancouver local members, Jim Rushton and John Stowe as national coordinators. The campaign is expected to culminate at next April’s Canadian Labor Congress convention slated to be held in Quebec city. INSIDE o HOUSING: RRAP funding being used against tenants, Page 2. o LABOR: Jack Phillips looks at the organizing drive in banks, page 8.