January 30, 1989 SOF Vol. 52, No. 3 Hold-up of mergers sought ge Me Oy a Ca Me a ce Spokesperson Joy Thompson of the B.C. Coalition for Abortion Clinics stands outside the Everywoman’s Health Centre in ie ie 5 4 ode is : ae & ees Vancouver. The recently founded clinic held a media o2n house Thursday to counter the campaign waged by Operation Rescue, the U.S.-based, anti-choice group that staged two blockades at the facility most recently last Saturday. A demonstration marking the first anniversary of the Supreme Court of Canada decision striking abortion from the Criminal Code was set for noon Saturday, Jan. 28, at the north side of the Vancouver Art Gallery. Story on the struggle with Operation Rescue, page 6. UFAWU poised for job action to save fish processing jobs The United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union declared this week that the union is prepared to take job action to protect industry jobs and Canada’s right to conserve its fisheries. The vow came after UFAWU president Jack Nichol and other industry advisors walked out of Canada-U.S. talks in Washington Jan. 18. The talks had been convened to discuss new salmon and herring landing requirements which were to replace export regulations ruled unfair last year by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The walkout was sparked by the Cana- dian negotiators’ capitulation to U.S. demands that any landing requirements on Canadian fish be scrapped and that Canada move immediately to implement the 1988 GATT panel ruling. In bowing to the U.S., the negotiators were acting on instructions from International Trade Minister John Crosbie, who had the back- ing of cabinet, Nichol said. In an article in the Jan. 25 edition of The - Fisherman, Nichol charged that the fed- eral government, in seeking to protect the East Coast fishery from any U.S. retalia- tion, “has thrown the B.C. salmon and herring fisheries and its valuable process- ing sector to the wolves.” For the past several months, Nichol has been part of an industry working group devising new landing requirements to replace the GATT-prohibited export regu- lations. The previous regulations required that all herring and most species of salmon be processed in Canada before being exported. But ina ruling last year, a GATT panel ruled thema violation of GATT rules. The complaint had been initiated by U.S. pro- cessors. Nichol said that new regulations had been worked out, stipulating that all herring and salmon caught in B.C. waters be landed at a B.C.-licensed or federally approved plant where they would be weighed, counted, sorted, inspected and biologically examined. The fish would also be eviscerated as part of the grading pro- cess. “The grading requirement was not sup- ported by Crosbie,’ Nichol reported. “Canadian negotiators were instructed to advance the grading proposal and to withdraw and scrap it if there was strong U.S. objection. Predictably, the U.S. see PROTECT page 12 Hearings by tribunal urged By SEAN GRIFFIN The flurry of mergers over the past week and the job losses announced in their wake has dramatized the economic upheaval that comes from torporate re-structuring and free trade — and underscores the need for government action to protect workers’ and consumers’ interests, labour and political leaders declared this week. The announcement of layoffs and work force reductions were swift in coming fol- lowing the shifts in the corporate landscape as Imperial Oil took over Texaco Canada, Molson Breweries merged with Carling- O’Keefe and Canadian Air Lines Interna- tional took over Wardair. Brewery workers were given the bad news in a meeting Wednesday with com- pany executives who confirmed that seven Carling-O’Keefe and Molson’s breweries across the country would close over the next two years. With them will go some 1,400 jobs, although brewery workers’ union representatives say that the number has been understated and will probably be closer to 2,000. The full number of jobs to be cut in British Columbia has not been stated but Most monopolized, page 12 managers did acknowledge that some 100 of them will be direct layoffs as the new company, which will dominate the brewing industry in Canada, closes down the Carling-O’Keefe plant in Vancouver. Unions at Canadian Air Lines have yet to be told the extent of cuts in the work force but Max Ward, the chairman of Wardair who will personally gain some $70 million from the sale of the company, predicted that some 1,500 of the 4,500 jobs at the airline would be cut. Texaco has claimed it will keep all its employees for two years but that commit- ment does not include the attendants and others at Texaco service stations, including some 500 in this province. Consumer advo- cates have also warned that the takeover will result in higher prices for gasoline and other petroleum products. Significantly, only days after the an- nouncement of the takeover, both Imperial and Texaco announced increases in the wholesale price of light crude oil, the benchmark product on which gasoline and other prices are based. But it is the impact on jobs and commun- ities that the corporate re-structuring will have that has most prompted demands for action to hold up the mergers until the issues of unemployment and plant closures are addressed. B.C. Federation of Labour president Ken Georgetti warned that the “damage to the economy and the social structure is almost immediate” as a result of the merger see MERGER page 12