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eT eee tr etinent

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COPE picks candidates

to launch ‘86 campaign

/ 3 o
E e ‘.. i bs

COPE city council candidates (left, fro

Carole Walker, Libby Davies, Bruce E

Nomination meeting Sept. 10.

if Organization is the deciding factor in
the Noy. 15 civic election in Vancouver,
ton the Committee of Progressive Elec-
®rs has won it, hands down.
embers of the labor and community
»aCked civic alliance gave repeated stand-
2 ovations to COPE mayoral candidate,
C d. Harry Rankin, and the rest of the
OPE slate for city council and school
“Nd parks boards, at a nomination meet-
28 Sept. 10.
ne ith no one contesting the nominees
C those slates recommended by the
OPE executive — and with members
the oving the recommendation to leave
€€ council seats open to Ald. Bill Yee
two running mates — COPE mem-
Uy, TS set the stage for another solid COPE-
Aity campaign this fall.
he overwhelming sense of unity and
Mmitment at the COPE nomination

Tally in the Vancouver East Cultural

etre wii
—which also saw COPE staff
a oe

m COPE president Jim Quai
riksen and Bruce Yorke ple

members receive ovations — stood in
stark contrast to the scene that was to
unfold at the right-wing Non-Partisan
Association meeting on Saturday.

The plans of the revamped, business
bankrolled organization to unseat the
progressive alliance that has run city
council for the past four years were dealt a
serious blow with the unceremonious
dumping of the NPA’s trump card,
broadcaster Carole Taylor.

Taylor was cut from the ballot, along
with education activist Chris Taulu, when
supporters of businessman Gim Huey
packed the meeting and gave their candi-
date, a contender not approved by the
NPA brass, an easy win. He joins eight
other NPA candidates for a slate that
leaves a seat open for the remaining
member of The Electors Action Move-
ment, Marguerite Ford.

_ Aside from revealing the deep divisions
within the NPA ranks and leaving NPA

;

H

ate

hailed Lyle: \

1) Pauline Weinstein, Jean Swanson, Frank Kennedy,
dged fight for jobs, services and public housing at

electoral strategy in tatters, Huey’s upset
victory constitutes an embarrassment for
the association. It has been running, for
the past three months, television ads feat-
uring Taylor, who had the solid backing of
NPA mayoral candidate Gordon Camp-
bell.

That development gave new meaning to
the words of Rankin, COPE’s senior
alderman and an 18-year veteran of city
council, when he told the nomination
meeting that the NPA is known for its
“unprincipled politics.

“The NPA has a flexible conscience that
allows them to be all things to all
people — that’s what we call political dis-
honesty,” said Rankin.

He was referring to the opposition of
council’s right-winger to the four-year capi-
tal plan that had passed through council the
preceding day. While NPA and TEAM for-

see WEINSTEIN page 2

September 17,
1986
40°

Vol. 49, No. 33

Don’timpose
90 days,
IWA tells

Vander Zalm

NANAIMO — Intemational Wood-

workers regional president Jack
Munro Monday, called on Premier
Bill Vander Zalm not to intervene in
the forest industry dispute by impos-
ing a 90-day cooling off period, warn-
ing that it would be unfair to force
IWA members to make a decision
between defying the law or risk losing
their jobs to contracted-out “share-
croppers.

“This is the 55th day of the strike
and I want to say to the premier —
this is not the situation for a 90-day
cooling off period,” Munro told the
opening session of the [WA conven-
tion at the Coast Bastion Inn. “The
issue is just too basic for that.

“We're talking about the survival
of our union and the survival of our
membership. Benefits of years of
organization will be lost if the
employers win this issue,” he said.

The IWA leader emphasized that
many of the pulp mills were running
out of chips and may soon be com-
pelled to shut down, putting further
economic pressure on the major forest
companies to settle. But if a 90-day
cooling off period were imposed, and
striking IWA members ordered back
to work, it would allow those com-
panies to rebuild their stockpiles.

“Tt would be unfair of the govern-
ment to say to workers that they'll

Labor role crucial, page 12
IWA independence, page 3
Unity can win, page 7

have to choose between obeying a
possible: law which will probably
mean that they won’t have a job, that
they’ll lose their homes and end up
standing in a goddamn food line
watching a sharecropper go to work
to do their job,” Munro said.

“We can’t walk away from this
strike and let the-pulp mills restore
their stockpiles to do this all over
again 90 days from now.”

Munro’s comments came during a
vehement opening speech to the con-
vention in which he assailed the forest
companies for seeking to become the
landlords of British Columbia’s forests
and to force workers to become
sharecroppers through the contracting-
out of IWA work.

“This strike is about the chief exec-
utive officers of the major forest com-
panies wanting to become the land-
lords of the forest industry ... with us
as the sharecroppers,” he said. “And
if it continues any further, we'll be
walking around saying ‘yes sir’ and
sO Sil. &

Munro’s attack on the companies”
bargaining stand won _ repeated
applause from the 150 delegates,
demonstrating that the determination
with which IWA members entered the
strike has not abated. despite eight
weeks on the picket line.

The four-day meeting is the first

see MUNRO page 3

oe TTT,