Like 1,600 other people last Saturday, this: man outside Vancouver
supermarket was not too impressed with store’s dubious claims of
“super save prices” and signed petition to roll back prices. The
Coordinating Committee to Roll Back Prices hit several stores in a

prelude to the national petitioning.day May 4. To volunteer for
petitioning, phone Sue Radosevic at 291-0144.

Canadian members of the United

Paperworkers International Union have.

voted overwhelmingly to set up a Canadian
union in a referendum, the results of which
were announced last Friday.

The referendum showed that 87 per cent of
the members who voted favored separation
from the International and the establish-
ment of a wholly Canadian union. Nearly
31,000 members took part in the vote.

The result of the referendum means that
the 52,000-member Canadian section of the
United Paperworkers International Union
will now proceed to hold a founding con-
vention in Toronto on June 3 to establish the
Canadian union. It will be the largest
Canadian industrial union.

The referendum was endorsed by the
union’s international executive board, and
the vote now means that the Canadian union
will proceed to work through, at its national
convention, plans for complete in-
dependence.

Hailing the result of the vote, Canadian

es

ae
UPIU director L. H. Lorrain said it W& 5

beginning of a new era for unionism ‘adi
pulp and paper industry and for Cafés,
unionism in general.’’ He said the new”
will have no formal ties with 0%
ternational in-the U.S. but will mail
informal connection for consultal :
negotiations and other matters of ©?
interest. ;
The overwhelming vote for a SOW
and independent union of Canadiall
workers will undoubtedly have @

tal

mt)
impact on the Canadian trade - ji

jon

movement and the upcoming conven
May of the Canadian Labor Congré wit

It’ demonstrates the path DY ig!
Canadian sections of International © ig
can work through arrangements to @ mai
their independence without - afl
upheavals, but through agreemeh \¢
unity. It also demonstrates from ®|
whelming sentiment of workers Be af
parts of Canada for an indepen ea
sovereign trade union movement.

Federation represented

at US Skagit

The B.C. Federation of Labor,
represented by research director
Ron Johnson and _ legislative
director Carolyn Gibbons, was
among scores of British Colum-
bians who crowded the
Bellingham, USA, courtroom
Tuesday where U.S. Federal
Power Commission hearings were
held into the proposed flooding of
the Skagit Valley.

Greenwells
honored

The Fishermen’s Hall was
hopping last Saturday night when
friends and comrades of Betty and
Donald _ (Dusty) Greenwell
gathered to celebrate their silver
(25th) wedding anniversary.

Nigel Morgan, B.C. Communist
Party leader, spoke of the great
contribution both had made to the
progressive movement in Van-
couver. Dusty is a member of the
B.C. executive of the Communist
Party, and both have been very
active in community, civic and
progressive organizations.

Ald. Harry Rankin proposed a
toast to the couple. The Greenwell
children presented their parents
with a refrigerator as an an-
niversary gift. A total of $215 was
contributed during the evening to
the PT financial drive.

RANKIN

Cont'd from pg. 2
role of management, and ad-
ministration. The policy-making
responsibility could still rest with
the Board of Directors.

(3) No Opting Out:

The GVRD should have the
power to implement the policies it
is responsible for as assigned to it
by the provincial government.
Individual municipalities should
not be able to opt out of any-par-
ticular phase as some can now on
some issues, like parks.

(4) Centralize GVRD Offices:

The offices of the GVRD should
be centralized in one building.
Today they are scattered in three
different buildings and the coor-
dination is something dreadful.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1974—-PAGE 12

hearing

The Federation, representing
some 205,000 workers, emphasized
that it had taken a position as early
as February, 1970 against the
construction of the High Ross dam
and the flooding of the Skagit

-Valley in B.C. which would result

and still maintained that position.

At the same time, the Federation
declared, ‘‘we endorse the position
taken by the Government of the
province of B.C. that this hearing
and this commission does not have
the authority or jurisdiction to deal
with this question.’”’ Both want the
International Joint Commission to
consider the question.

The High Ross Dam construction
is based on a 1942 agreement
between Canada and the USS.
based on wartime power needs —
primarily Boeing aircraft — and 25
years later, in 1967, the Social
Credit government effectively
continued the agreement by
negotiating to an annual rent of
some $35,556 for the land which
would be destroyed.

ALD. HARRY RANKIN will be
honored at a birthday party on Friday,
May 3 at the Masonic Temple, 1795 E.
Ist Ave. Sponsored by COPE, the
public is invited to the function which
will be organized along Klondike Night
theme, and you are invited to come in
Gay Nineties costumes. There will be
food, games, refreshments and songs.
Tickets are $3 and $2 for students and
unemployed. Tickets available at Co-op
Bookstore.

By DAN PALMER

Thelma Barker, national chair-
man of the United Nations
Association human rights com-
mittee and a member. of the in-
ternational affairs committee of
the Canadian Council of Churches,
was the guest speaker in Van-
couver at the April 22 meeting of
the International Committee to
Free South Vietnamese Political
Prisoners From Detention, Tor-
ture and Death.

Mrs. Barker spoke on her trip to
South Vietnam in April of 1973
when she met and interviewed
released prisoners, relatives of
captive prisoners, and Lan Van
Kay, the “third or fourth man
down the scale from President
Thieu in the Saigon government.’

Her delegation was sponsored by
the Council of Churches and in-
cluded three bishops and priests
from the U.S. and Canada, as well
as a lawyer from Quebec.

Mrs. Barker reported meeting
with Father Chan Tim, editor of a
South Vietnamese church
newspaper which had 23 of its 26
previous issues seized by the
Saigon administration.

~ The delegation met with four ex-
prisoners, released from Quan
Tron prison, living outside . of
Saigon. ‘‘The. condition of these
four men was typical of most
prisoners released from Thieu
prisons,”’ she reported. ‘“‘They had
no papers, no identification cards,
and could neither go to a hospital
or receive food allowances, even
though all four men were crippled

VERNON
ELKS HALL,

SAT., APRIL 27, 8 P.M,

JACK PHILLIPS

prominent Vancouver
trade unionist

Auspices
Vernon Club CPC

for life and suffering from their
detention and torture.”’

Asked about reports of torture in
prisons Lay Van Kay stated flatly
that when a country is at war, “law
and order must be kept.”

The Saigon official explained to
the delegation that it is difficult to
get properly trained guards and,
unfortunately, the “guards tend to
interpret the law in their own
way.”’ He failed to add, Mrs.
Barker noted, that all too often this
interpretation results in brutality,
torture and death.

Van Kay claimed to have “never
heard of children being tortured.”
When challenged by Mrs. Barker
who reported interviewing the
parents of some of the tortured
children, Van Kay asked with a
calculated naivety, ‘‘What are
their names?”

set no

Mrs. Barker, visibly ith
described the meeting sig
relatives of prisoners © ogi

spe

the most painful © #
esti

have ever had.”

In response to the 7 og /
“What we can do” she © i: f
people to write % t golf
members of Parliame”’. i
the Canadian represe? vial
United Nations and jig
not the Liberals, DY noe
servatives and the 4 jgf
letters expressing supe .
Committee to Free “68
namese Political Pom "qui

In answer to an t ju
Mrs. Barker observed het
by the situations aroun viel
such as Chile and Sow’ tat)
“more and more ‘
tatorships are apP® are Op
: e
ticularly where W nist?
protected from Comm,

United States ae

ee