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*““l-got to admit my inflation hes — cured.”

B.C. eavidce
opens March 17

Premier Bill Bennett announced
last Friday that the new Social
Credit government’s first
legislative session will open in
Victoria on Wednesday, March 17
at 3 p.m. He also announced that
the government would bring down
its first budget on Friday, March
26.

The premier’s announcement
came at a press conference in
Victoria at which he avoided
questions as to whether the new
budget will introduce extensive
cutbacks in services to people.
Instead of answering directly,
Bennett replied the new budget
hasn’t been completed yet.

However, he left no doubt what
general direction the government
has in mind. He told the press
conference that “‘it is quite obvious
that in the fiscal year we are
currently in, the government won’t
have sufficient revenue to cover its
expenditures. I anticipate we’ll be
short of funds.”

The government’s action on
ICBC rates, its move to drastically
cut back on hospital costs which it

has so far attempted to keep under -

wraps, and announcements of
likely cutbacks in education costs,
indicate that premier Bennett

intends to bring down a budget
which will further attack services
to the public.

Premier Bennett said that he
expected a fairly long session, but
would give no indication, outside of
his comments on the budget, what
legislation the government intends
to bring down. One measure ex-
pected to be introduced is the
elimination of mining royalties,
which the Socred mines minister
has already promised. It’s also
certain that the issue of ICBC rates
will play a large part in the debate
in the legislature.

Vietnam

vote April 25

North and South Vietnam will go
to the polls April 25 to elect a joint
national assembly. The assembly
will govern a reunified Vietnam.

The election date and
reunification plans were approved
by the Consultative Conference on
Reunification, being held in
Saigon, and were endorsed by
government officials in the north
and south.

FED BLASTS WAGE CONTROLS

Labor rejects meeting |

with federal cabinet

In a strongly-worded letter
condemning the federal govern-
ment’s wage control program, the
B.C. Federation of Labor declined
an invitation this week to meet
with prime minister Trudeau and
members of the cabinet during
their visit to Vancouver.

Rejecting the invitation to meet
with the cabinet to discuss current
issues, the B.C. Federation of
Labor letter, signed by Len Guy,
secretary-treasurer, on behalf of
the officers of the Federation,

condemned the move to meet with ,

local labor officials as an attempt
to circumvent the national
Canadian Labor Congress and
“seeks to divide and demoralize
the trade union movement. Our
Federation wants no part of any
attempt to create division among
Canadian trade unionists,’ says
the letter.

Labor’s statement was un-
doubtedly decided on at a meeting
of the BCFL executive which met
last Friday. In the letter, the B.C.
Fed repeats that it “wholehear-

tedly endorses the position of the’

Canadian Labor Congress. with
respect to wage controls and
rejects any attempts by your
government to circumvent the
proper spokesmen for the trade
union movement in Canada.”

Calling the government’s wage
control program the overriding
issue, the BCFL letter states:

*.. .Your wage control program
is a misguided and ineffective
attempt to combat inflation by
placing a heavy burden on the
shoulders of working men and
women, particularly those in the
lower income categories. When so
many Canadians, including those
in high office in government and
industry, enjoy standards of living
and luxuries far beyond the hopes
of any working people, we believe
it is totally hypocritical to ask the

- mass of working Canadians to

tighten their belts when the end
result is simply to widen the gap
between the privileged few and the
millions of Canadians who have a
weekly struggle making ends
meet. ;

“Already the CLC’s predictions
that living costs would continue to
soar,- while weekly incomes. of
working people were held in check,
have proven to be true. We are
particularly conscious of this fact
in British Columbia, where
thousands of citizens are faced

China, $. Africa bolster Chile

South Africa and Chile will offer
Chile a total of a half-billion dollars
in loans, according to reports from
the Soviet new agency TASS.

Quoting ‘‘Latin American
delegations at the United Nations,”’
the agency said China intends to
grant the fascist military junta in
Chile a loan of $100 million. Chilean
sources have indicated that South
Africa will offer the junta a loan of
$400 million.

The two loans were believed to
be made at the urging of the US.
State Department, in an attempt to
shore up the badly sagging
Pinochet regime in Chile. Last
year Chile had the highest inflation
rate in the world — 340 per cent.

The combination of Washington,
Peking and Pretoria linked
together with the Pinochet regime
confirms charges of American,

South African and Chinese
collaboration which were recently
made in the Cuban press.

According to TASS, the $100

million Maoist loan will be in two
parts: $50 million in freely-
convertible, hard currency, and
the other $50 million in the form of
a trade credit for Chilean pur-
chases of Chinese goods. Last year,
following a Chilean trade mission
to China, rumors flew that China
was prepared to give Chile a $58
million loan. for the purposes of
purchasing Chinese arms and
ammunition for the junta.
Though the loan. never
materialized at that time, one
result of the Chilean mission was
the sale of large quantities of
Chilean nitrates to China for use in
fertilizers. The nitrate region in
northern Chile was the scene of
mass murders of Communists,
Socialists and other democrats
during the 1973 fascist coup.
South Africa has long been at-
tempting to build up an array of
alliances in the southern
hemisphere, particularly at the
urging of the Pentagon and NATO.

. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 13, 1976—Page 12

.

The loans to the financially
devastated Chile are seen as a
continuation of this long term
strategy, leading up the creation of
a South Atlantic alliance along the
lines of NATO.

In the 1960s South Africa made
overtures to Brazil and Argentine
(then under military rule) to
create such a pact. ~

The |
represent. the first time South
Africa and China have
collaborated at the behest of the
United States military. On January
11 of this year, South African
troops invaded Angola and fought
alongside Chinese and American
backed forces in an effort to defeat
the popular liberation forces of

’ Angola.

As is becoming evident now, the
so-called ‘‘pro-western” forces are
being routed from Angola, and the
Pentagon and its allies, including
South Africa, and now apparently,
China have had to look elsewhere
to bolster its unholy alliance.

loans to Chile do not

with staggering increases in the
cost of automobile insurance in-
creases which will lead to a real
reduction in living standards for
many families. The effects of the
callousness of both the federal and
provincial governments are
creating an ever-growing anger on
the part of a great many citizens.

“As you have been told before,
the proper course of action is to
place the primary burden for
fighting inflation on the giant
corporations in this country. Any
meaningful program to more
equitably share. Canada’s
economic burden would inevitably
lead to voluntary restraint on the
part of most working people.
Neither voluntary restraint nor co-
operation in a wage control
program can be expected as long
as there are no efforts being made
to reduce the great disparities in
income and living standards
between the wealthy and the
majority of Canadians.”’

The. BCFL letter concludes by
pointing to the ‘‘obvious failures of
your program,” and urges that the
federal government ‘look once
again at the proposals .submitted
by the Canadian Labor Congress,
since we believe that those

proposals offer valuable guidance.

for” conducting ‘an effective fight
against inflation in this country.”

Meanwhile, Joe Morris,
president of the Canadian Labor
Congress, said in a recent issue of
the Toronto Globe and Mail that
employers are applying the
guidelines in all negotiations now
under way and that the bosses have
become ‘‘an extension of the policy
of the state and a tool of the state in
extending its control over another
institution — the free trade union
movement.” Morris said collective

-bargaining has been effectively

destroyed by the anti-inflation
program.

‘For all intents and. purposes
there will no longer be the right to
bargain collectively in the near
future. The total cost of labor has
been established by legislative

* resist;
-resistance that they can maintaill)

the

enactment and it will be controlled
by the state, with the aid of thé
employing community.’ Morris)
said employers have readily ac)
cepted this method of bargaining;
for in each set of negotiations th
now apply the ‘‘rule of law,” with
the “corporate interest” being thé
“national interest” and merging t@
establish conditions conducive 0
the corporate state in Canada. —

Pointing out that the Canadial
Labor Congress believes ‘“‘it has
other option but to resist with a
the strength at its command, ev
to the point where it must eve
tually defy the government,
Morris said ‘“‘the only protecti
trade union members now have is 4
movement with the capacity - tO
for it is only in that

their democratic rights and a voig ce
in the politics of this nation.” —
Morris’ warning, that collective
bargaining has been destroyed by
‘federal government §
guidelines, was echoed in Vai
couver last weekend by industri
inquiry commissioner _ Cli
McKee in his report on the Lowél
Mainland supermarket workers
demands. McKee: went out of
way in the report to state that sin
the program of wage and _ pri
controls was announced last
tober 13, ‘‘collective bargaini
. has ceased to exist — at lea
as it was previously known an@
practised.” He added that undef
Bill C-73 (the wage freeze.
legislation) ‘‘freedom to negotiate)
has been effectively removed.” —
Meanwhile, final settlement fol
thousands of B.C. workers — i
cluding supermarket worker
pulp workers, truck drivers, suga!
refinery workers, and others, ar
being held up because wage set)
tlements, although in some case*
below what was offered before, aré

- still above the federal guidelines)

B.C. Sugar Refinery workers havé
said if the federal anti-inflatio!
board rejects their settlement they
will continue to remain on |
picket line.

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