BRITISH COLUMBIA 101st year anniversary May Day greetings Port Alberni & District Labor Council What we desire for ourselves we wish for all. May Day Greetings from Gun ages BC Provincial — Council of Carpenters “What we desire for ourselves we wish for all.” MAY DAY GREETINGS to all our friends in the labor movement. International Longshoremen’s & Warehousemen’s Union Vancouver Local 500 Greetings to our brothers and sisters <\-~. on May Day 2 «Foes Oe ue ‘» — Solidarity in the acer fight for jobs So none will live in poverty. So all will live with dignity. ANS 7 Vancouver Unemployed Action Centre #300-146 East Broadway, Van., B.C. VST 1V9 Telephone: 875-8616 Rally slams ‘phoney’ social services forum / CANADIAN. FARMWORKERS im: | Provincial . government hearings into B.C.’s social services were denounced as a “sham” and a “smokescreen” by trade unions and community groups April 24. At a rally outside the hearings in the Italian Cultural Centre in Vancouver, labor and community speakers and a city alder- man said the Cabinet Committee on Social Policy Forum would mirror in intent the hearings that preceded Bill 19, the Social Credit government’s infamous replacement for the provincial labor code. “The Socreds are already drawing up social services policy, just like they did with the labor code changes,” Ald. Libby Davies of the Committee of Progressive Electors charged. “We don’t want another phoney consul- tation session, another travelling road show,” she asserted to some 200 demonstra- tors. The rally was jointly organized by End Legislated Poverty, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, the Tenants Rights Action Centre and the Vancouver and Dis- trict Labor Council — not all which were eligible to address the Vancouver hearings. A ruling from the committee barred groups not resident in east Vancouver from presenting briefs. That left out TRAC, which has offices in west downtown Van- couver, and more than 100 other organiza- tions. The arbitrariness of the unprecedented ruling was also the target of criticism at the rally. Twenty-five groups were on hand to present briefs to the Vancouver session. Almost all urged greater funding for wel- fare, the minimum wage program, medical 101 YEAR CELEBRATION UNITED WE STAND Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1004 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 29, 1987 RALLY AT SOCIAL SERVICES HEARING ... “sham” process charged. programs, job creation, low-cost housing and the other facets of social services. Key among the demands were repeat calls to raise GAIN rates to the nationally established poverty level, hike the minimu™ wage to $6 per hour and to create jobs thal pay livable wages. A curious feature of the hearings was the inclusion of government ministry responses in the package of reproduced briefs availa ble to the press (briefs had to be submitted in advance of the hearing date). Most responses sidestepped the issue: For instance, a complaint from the Cana- dian Federation of Students (Pacific Region) and the Communist Party of Can ada concerning the abolition of the grant portion of student financial aid netted this reply: “An advisory committee ‘struck by the Honorable Stanley B. Hagan recon mended changes to the Student Financial Assistance Program ...The changes will limit debt, improve access to post secondary education for students with financial need, and provide increased levels of assistance.” In its brief, the Communist Party charged: “With hearings being held afte! the government has brought in a budget which cuts social services that are in already dismal shape, it infers that the government is not really serious about listening to publi¢ opinion, and carrying on a valid process © democracy.” The hearings are a “smokescreen” fot regressive changes already planned, charg CFS regional chair Robb Clift, who cited cases of Simon Fraser University student living in the woods adjacent to, and in thé halls of, the university. “Everything they’ve done will make uS poorer — that’s the ‘fresh start’ the Socreds are talking about,” charged ELP speaket Jean Swanson. Seniors representative Jo Arland hit the new user fees and increased deductible imposed on Pharmacare users. Davies, in a reference to other city coun cil members, told the rally that instead 0 attending the lunch provided by the cabinet committee, “I made a decision to be outsidé at this rally because this is where the r people of British Columbia are.” She said the reality today is that there af “two B.C.s — a B.C. of super-profits fot forest companies, free trade deals, politi appointments for Socred friends ...an another B.C. of poverty, low wages, a de moralized education system .... “We want economic development that meets social objectives. We want justice, no! charity,” Davies asserted.