Rigged
elections
in Guyana)

Interview
with
Cheddi Jagan

— page 7 — |

CLC would ‘open vdoe

to construction |

Se RGAE

PASTOR VALLE-GARAY .

In perhaps the greatest educa-
tional project in history, some
180,000 people, mostly young
and some only 10 and 11 years oa
age themselves, left Managua
earlier this year and went to the
countryside to teach the liberated
people of Nicaragua to read and
write.

The literacy campaign, one of
the major objectives of the
revolutionary Sandinista govern-
ment after the victory over
Somoza last year, has been hailed
around the world.

In less than one year, an il-
literacy rate of as high as 96 per-
cent in the countryside and of 54
percent inthe cities has been
reduced to less than 12 percent.

Pastor Valle-Garay,
Nicaragua’s charges d’affaires in

ASOCIACIO os l

Canadian solidarity Dee |
to Nicaragua literacy drive |

Canada was in Vancouver last
week to bring the news of the suc-
cess, and to thank the British Col-
umbians who donated generously
to the international solidarity ef-
fort in support of the campaign.

“We had the intentions, the
people and the will — but we
needed money,” Valle-Garay
told a press conference last Friday
at NDP provincial headquarters.
“The money which we received
from Canada was crucial.’’

Of less than $5 million in inter-
national aid for the literacy cam-
paign, three quarters of a million
came from Canada, he said.
Almost all of that was from
solidarity groups, trade unions
and teachers’ associations. In this
province the B.C. Teachers
Federation donated over $30,000.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — FRED WILSON

. Nicaragua government representative in Canada brought thanike '
for solidarity effort in this provinasl :

H

meme a

Other assistance came from |
Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba —
which sent hundreds of experts |
trained in their own massive }
literacy campaign — and other
socialist countries.

“I¢ was a heroic campaign.
Many in the U.S. thought and
hoped we would fai

When the “young
Brigadistas”’, as the teachers have
been named, returned to
Managua last month, 600,000
people turned out to greet themin
Revolution Square, he said.

Valle-Garay addressed a
benefit rally at the Con-Lab hall
in Vancouver Saturday night to
wind up the campaign of the B.C.
Support Committee. Other
speakers included NDP MP
Pauline Jewett and BCTF presi-
dent Al Blakey. :

ocals

The president of the Canadian
Labor Congress said Monday that
if the CLC was not able to come to
any agreement with the interna-
tional ieadership of the building
trades now withholding per capita
payment from the Congress, then
the executive council would “‘open
its doors’? to directly chartered
Canadian locals.

In a BCTV interview. with Jack
Webster, Dennis McDermott add-
ed that he would ‘‘make every good
effort to try and work it out on an
amicable basis.

fei if we’re not able to work it

”” he said, ‘‘then I’m going to
pers the doors and let them in.
And the building trades will have to
understand the repercussions of
that.”’

McDermott’s statements were
the first public declaration of the
Congress’ preparedness to grant
direct charters to locals which want
to remain in the CLC, rather than
yield to the pressure exerted by the
building trades internationals per
capita ‘‘strike’’.

For several months international
offices of the building trades
unions — representing some
400,000 members in Canada —
have been withholding the per
capita tax from the CLC in an at-

tempt to force the Congress to ac-
cept the position of the building
trades on three main issues.

They are: the inability so far to
resolve the jurisdictional dispute
over construction work between
the industrial unions and the
building trades; the action of the
Quebec Federation of Labor in

granting direct charters to two elec-
trical workers locals; and the de-

See CONGRESS page 12

Stacy's:
bringing
the ‘bad

days’ back

— page 3 —

The Labor Relations Board }
| decision on the Whistler Moun-
| tain dispute, brought down }
| Monday by LRB vice-chairman |

Ron Bone was condemned
Tuesday as a ‘‘precedent-setting
decision which sanctions the
open shop” as building trades
| members and other unionists

| declared their intention to press |

| for reconsideration of the rul-

Delegates to the Vancouver

| and District Labor Council led |
} the first wave of protest, voting }
+ unanimously to co-ordinate ef- |
forts with the B.C. Federation }
of Labor and the B.C. and}
Yukon Building Trades Council |

to

“take whatever steps |

necessary to have the LRB}

reconsider the decision.”’

Tuesday’s meeting also in- }

! structed the council to send a

telegram to LRB chairman Don |}
Monroe protesting ‘‘the Labor }
Relations Board’s sanction of |

| the open shop concept.”

| Ron Bone, acting as a one- }
| man panel, brought down his |
| contentious ruling Monday |
| after conducting eight days of }
| formal hearings on the dispute }
| which centred on contractors’ |
| use of non-union tradesmen on |
}_ the luxury resort site, north of |

| Vancouver.

members invoked the ‘ ‘reserva- |
} tion” clauses in their collective |
| agreements and walked off the |
} job at the Whistler site and the }
| adjacent Blackcomb Mountain }
i} See REVERSAL page 12

Building trades union}

'

Naan bern te 8

Thomson
Southam
carv ee
blasted

more on
page 5 —

_ industry created by the
Thompson and Southam

The Vancouver and
District Labor Council
Tuesday voiced its con-
demnation of the shut-
down of two newspapers
and the increased monopoili-
zation of the newspaper

ed “in. taking aielbede:
steps gomt ooh to fight
any layoffs