| | | | } | i | } | EDITORIAL FRG workers: an example pen IG Metall union spokesman called the settlement . Ch gave West German metalworkers a 38.5-hour ie week plus a two-stage wage hike “a decisive teakthrough” in the current battle in Western indus- “nations for a shorter work time. While the agreement fell short of the 35-hour week “a the union and its 45,000 members were demanding, the | @ | ' and ecty and solidarity of the seven week strike which : Ought the FRG’s auto industry to a halt, was an xXample to all workers in the capitalist world faced with problems. What the FRG metalworkers and printers, and Bri- poh courageous coal miners, are doing is standing | against government drives to make them pay for ards €aganomics which lower workers’ living stand- and creates a massive permanent jobless army. ey Te fighting to impose a full’employment policy on an unwilling capitalist system — and doing it with the weapon of unity and solidarity. The British and West German actions show the working class will not accept a return to the 1930s. They illustrate that the fightback is underway, an example to Canada’s labor movement which is also discussing the question of shorter work time with no loss in pay. It should also be noted that these same working class forces are an integral part of West Europe’s burgeoning peace struggle. The simple notion — that the system of worker exploitation is also the system of the war danger — is breaking through. If the big corporations feel they can kick the working class around as they didin the 1930s, they will have to think again. Perhaps they have learned nothing — working people have learned something as these actions show. : : Economic ‘recovery dead te Finance Minister Marc Lalonde, while admitting the ©onomic recovery” hasn’t lived up to his February. hacdictions, was still all smiles as he told reporters he els “buoyant”, . if As he chatted, Canadian banks followed U.S. banks rene interest rates with the prime rate now over 13. cent. That’s the price Canadians pay for having our nomic life tied to the U.S. i dramatic jump in U.S. interest rates is fuelled by t country’s unprecedented deficit — running at over gan’s billion — which is the inevitable result of Rea- far: militarization program. And because his re- tap 4 of America carries a five-year $1.4-trillion price € prospects are ever rising U.S. interest rates (with 198 Ribs ace saying as high as 16.5 per cent by early Bae latest U.S. rate hike will unleash a wave of Nnkruptcies, foreclosures and layoffs; warn U.S. labor Said farm representatives. An AFL-CIO spokesman at the new increase will choke off sales of new homes, : Os and other interest-sensitive goods and warned of Fecession later this year. am experts say that family and medium size Be Mets, now facing debts of $227 billion, will face ruin Fates keep climbing. Mortgage holders on new homes _ te looking at $200-$300 per month increases in their Payments, . The Only winners are the investors and the arms Makers, Because of the inevitable fact that the U.S. will dump 4S much of the crisis on its allies, and the fact that our Untry’s economy is closely tied to that of the US., ee— Canada’s interest rates have followed the upward spiral with similar disastrous results for our economy, a blow felt most heavily by working people and those on fixed incomes. A “bouyant” Lalonde earning well over $100,000 a year plus perks, might not feel so elated should he join the ranks of Canada’s two million jobless. In his report to the Communist Party’s enlarged central executive meeting last month, party leader William Kashtan oulined the question: “The hope that the U.S. would again become the. motor of economic revival in the capitalist world is not being realized. Instead, in order to get out of its crisis and get its NATO allies to pay for its militarization program, the U.S. has undertaken to raise interest rates. Rising interest rates combined with a huge budget deficit, against a result of its militarization program, not only adds to the burdens for the working people of the U.S., it prevents the capitalist world as well as the third world, from achieving a durable recovery. “It has a particular impact on the underdeveloped countries whose debts mount to crisis proportions. These countries are faced with virtual bankruptcy. The debt crisis may lead them in turn, to default, thus adding to the growing crisis of the credit system in the advanced capitalist countries. “The capitalist world is faced with the prospect of a credit crisis similar to that of 1929. Bank failures and threats of bank failures, cyclical and structural crises on the background of a deepening of the general crisis of capitalism point to an uncertain economic and political situation in the capitalist world...” SHORTER WORKTIME. NOT ONLY MEANS MORE JOBS... 55 ; ih Y iy i cm IT MEANS MORE OF THE John Labatt Ltd., and subsidiaries, are into more than beer. Their year-end (April 30) after-tax profit of $86,400,000 (up from $72,700,000 a year earlier) came also from the family grocery bill. JL manufactures and distributes packaged foods, dairy products, *flour and wine, and owns 45 per cent of the baseball Blue Jays. IRIBUNE - Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business & Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR Graphics — ANGELA KENYON Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 125 Phone (604) 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada — $14 one year; $8 six months Foreign — $20 one year; Second class mail registration number 1560 R eaders will note elsewhere in this Issue, a story on the continuing battle Y British coal miners to prevent the atcher government and the coal board “Tom closing scores of mines and laying off People and Issues surgery Wednesday and doctors are hope- ful that the operation will put him on the mend again. But it will likely be several months before he is back on his feet again: We hope it’s a full recovery in the shor- thousands of miners. But it is interesting to Rote, in an aside, an incident that has demonstrated the lengths to which the Nitish press has gone in an effort to vilify € National Union of Mineworkers and their president Arthur Scargill. The London daily, The Sun had a photo of Scargill with his right arm outstretched and planned to run it with the bold head- © “Mein Fuehrer!” in a blatant attempt Smear him. But both union typesetters and printers Tefused to run the paper with the photo 8nd headline, forcing Sun management to Tun the day’s edition with this explanation, Set in headline type on the front page: Members of all the Sun production chap- ls refused to handle the Arthur Scargill Picture and major headline on our lead Story. The Sun has decided, reluctantly, to _ Ptint the paper without either.” : The action by printers effectively turned. tive journalism into a public display of Union solidarity. What was an example of dirty, manipula- — link with a past tradition of labor representation in municipal politics was broken last month with the death of long-time Tribune supporter Floyd Hamilton. In failing health for several years, he passed away in hospital in Powell River June 16. Born in Vancouver in 1909, he lived most of his working life in Surrey and it was there, in 1942, that he was first elected . to school board as an independent backed by organized labor, the Labor-Progressive Party and the CCF. In 1944, when he ran for a second term, he was re-elected with the highest vote ever before recorded in the Fraser Valley municipality. Trustees later elected him as the chairman of the board. At the same time, he was a sawmill organizer for the International Wood- workers of America and was later named as an international representative for the union, a post he held until 1948. That year, together’ with most of the IWA members in this province, he joined the ill-fated Woodworkers Industrial Union of Canada which broke away from the IWA in a dispute with the interna- tional. He continued working as a shingle sawyer for several years after the IWA took over the WUIC certifications but like many WUIC leaders, he was barred from IWA membership. Floyd later set himself up as an inde- pendent backhoe contractor and was known to many families in the progressive movement. He was partially crippled in his later years, however, and had been retired in Powell River at the time of his death. x * * or years, Tribune press builder and CUPE Local 389 president Harry Greene had been told that he had a trou- blesome sciatic nerve. But last week, after . avisit to a specialist, he found that it was considerably more than that — in fact, one hip joint had virtually disintegrated and required urgent attention. He went in to Lions Gate Hospital for bone graft test time possible. Ironically, he is in the room — 206 — vacated by former Tribune editor Hal Griffin who was released June 30 after spending three-and-a-half weeks there being treated for injuries received when he was struck by a truck while crossing the Street. He asked us to convey his thanks to the many people who wrote and called to give their best wishes. He is at home recuperat- ing although a full-length leg cast will keep him tied down for some time yet. x *« * ot being all that familiar with the diplomatic world, we weren’t aware last month when we reported here that Elias Stavrides was a “‘press officer” with the USSR Embassy that such posts are reserved strictly for Soviet citizens assigned to the diplomatic corps. Elias pointed out the faux pas in a note to us last week. He tells us that his formal title is “photo features editor.” We'll be sure to get it right next time. ae _ PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 11, 1984 e 3 -