EDITORIAL

_ An offer we can't accept

Mikhail Gorbachev warned the Reagan adminis-
tration June 26 not to use the Geneva talks “as a
decoy, as a cover for military preparations”, aimed at
attaining military superiority over the USSR.

It’s a timely and serious warning Washington
would do well to heed. The Soviet leader’s remarks
were made in a nationally-televised speech and came
just days after the U.S. House of Representatives
approved $2.5 billion for the president’s Star Wars
scheme.

We should recall a key point: when the U.S. and
USSR agreed to the Geneva talks last January, they
agreed the talks would cover not only intercontinental
and medium-range missiles, but the urgent issue of the
militarization of space as well.

‘No sooner did the two sides sit at the table than the
U.S. announced that the Reagan Star Wars “research
project” was non-negotiable. It has been given top
priority and, to add insult to injury, Washington also
approved-a multi-million dollar expenditure for the
long-range, multi-warhead MX missile as the talks
proceeded.

“Far from having made serious proposals at Gen-
eva on folding up the arms race,” said Gorbachev,
“the Americans are taking steps which make this
process impossible. What I mean is the Star Wars

program, the development of attack space weapons.

“Talk about its ‘defensive character’ is a tale for the
naive,” he continued. ““The plan is to try to neutralize
Soviet strategic weapons and to secure a possibility to
deliver a nuclear strike against our country. This is the
crux of the matter...”

_ Canada is one of the so-called “friendly” states
Reagan has invited to take part in Star Wars. Several
have so far declined his siren call, showing a marked
sense of self-survival.

Based onthe commitment by External Affairs Min-
ister Joe Clark that Canadians will be fully consulted,
the NDP and Liberals have agreed to sit on the Senate
Foreign Affairs Committee on Foreign Policy which
will examine Reagan’s “offer”.

But more, much more, is needed. Canadians in their
majority, the majority who oppose involvement in
Washington’s adventures, must insist on being part of
this review.

Mobilization is well underway across Canada
against the scheme with big days for peace planned for
August 6 and October 26. We want no more secret
deals like cruise testing which was rammed through
when Parliament was adjourned.

This is surely a matter of survival.

The whole budget must go

On June 27, in face of a groundswell of opposition
to de-indexing of pensions proposed in its first budget,
the Tory government was forced to back down. It was
an epic victory for Canada’s seniors, who mobilized as
never before, and for all Canadians.

While greeting this people’s achievement, the cen-
tral executive of the Communist Party in a June 28
press statement called for ever more pressure on the
Tories in Ottawa to “throw out the whole pro-
corporation budget.” The CPC stated:

“Mass public pressure , particularly from pension-
ers has forced the Tory government to retreat and
reinstate full indexation of pensions.

“Tt shows what can be accomplished by an aroused
people.

“However, out of spite, the Mulroney government
is placing the major cost of indexation on the people
instead of on the corporations. Canadians will be
called on to pay one cent per litre gasoline tax over and
above the two cents per litre tax Wilson and Carney
have given to\the U.S.-owned oil corporations in Can-
ada. :

“The battle over who is to pay must be continued as
part of the struggle to defeat the entire budget which

takes from the people and gives to the corporations.
“Canada needs a budget which places people before
the corporations and puts Canadians back to work.
“De-indexation of family allowances must be
defeated. The capital gains exemption tax must be
defeated. Increased prices on energy must be defeated.
Additional taxes on working people must be defeated.

“Tn short, all the regressive measures contained in
the Wilson budget must be thrown out.

“If they make up their minds, the Canadian people
can do this.

“The debate around pensions showed that an
aroused majority outside Parliament can check and
defeat a Tory majority inside Parliament.

“With this in mind, the Liberals and NDP must be
pressed to continue the struggle inside Parliament
while the organized labor movement takes the initia-
tive in helping to bring together a people’s majority
outside Parliament. The people’s majority is
there —in the women’s movement, the youth,
farmers, unemployed, the poor, the pensioners. Uni-
ted they can defeat the pro-corporation budget and
press for new policies in the interests of the people.”

This week’s award goes to Canadian senior managers as a
whole, who are pocketing base salary increases of 7.2 per cent in
1985. Although not stingy with themselves, these men at the top
held unions negotiating new collective agreements to an average
3.2 per cent increase in the first quarter of this year.

__ IRIBUNE

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON

Business & Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Graphics — ANGELA KENYON

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Second class mail registration number 1560

ince we’re listed in any number of

business directories across the coun-

; try, we often get a real collection of mail

| from other businesses, including appeals

| for funds, offers to buy dubious products

that promise to “streamline your small
business” and so on. But the letter that
came in the mail last week was not exactly
your regular junk mail.

It was from one Dolly Foran, the
secretary-treasurer of Arlington Crane
| Service Ltd. in Hamilton, Ontario. And
| the opening paragraph tells it all: “I am in
the process,” she writes, “of fighting for
‘freedom of choice’ concerning compul-
sory union membership, payment of dues
and exclusive bargaining by unions. All
three are unconstitutional under the Char-
ter of Rights.”

Foran has apparently been busy can-
vassing small businesses across the coun-
try, asking for donations to help her
pursue her case which is to have the union
tights that have been gained in over a
century of struggle ruled unconstitutional
under the new Charter of Rights.

What’s particularly ominous about the
letter is that it coincides with a press con-
ference in Toronto at which the right wing,
big business National Citizen’s Coalition
(it has about as much to do with citizens as
Hitler’s National Socialists had to do with
socialism) announced it was sponsoring a
new group called “Freedom of Choice” to
launch a court. challenge of union shop
and dues checkoff provisions in labor leg-
islation.

People and Issues

The case is of no small significance since
the NCC, which represents important sec-
tions of the corporate establishment, not-
ably the big insurance companies, has
obviously given its full financial backing,
enabling “Freedom of Choice” to hire one
of the country’s top constitutional law-
yers, Morris Manning (who, ironically,
has defended Dr. Henry Morgentaler).

Foran, who was at the Toronto press
conference, is clearly the centrepiece of the
group. She has been gnawing away at the
issue ever since she was thwarted by the
Ontario Labor Relations Board in her
attempt to circumvent a union contract
with the Operating Engineers and now she
has provided the NCC with a convenient
front, a small crane rental business. She
assures would-be supporters in her letter
that she will “not lose (her) courage and
stamina no matter how rough it gets...”

Of course, those at the press conference
vehemently protested how they really
weren’t anti-union. But Foran’s letter
speaks for itself: “Unions must be made
voluntary if our free enterprise system is to
survive. This will make the union bosses
responsible not only to their members but
to the companies who employ their
members. Blackmail, coercion, violence
and crippling work stoppages will become
a thing of the past.”

The right-wing group’s challenge of

labor legislation is only one action in a
long history of attacks on union rights that
began virtually immediately after the
repeal of the old British Combination
Acts. Trade unionists in this province may

recall, for example, the infamous Myron »

Kuzych challenge of the union shop that
was appealed by the Marine Workers and
Boilermakers Union right up to the Privy
Council before union rights were finally
upheld.

What the outcome of the latest chal-
lenge will be is a question mark but there is
no question that if union rights are
deemed unconstitutional under the Char-
ter, it would make a mockery not only of
the Charter but also of a century of labor
history.

ee Sa

(pak who didn’t get their fill of pro-

gressive entertainment at our Burke
Mountain Labor Festival last month —
and we’d have to admit that, by compari-
son, the pickings were pretty slim — can
look forward this month to the 8th annual
Vancouver Folk Music Festival.

Held at its usual location in Jericho
Beach Park July 19-21, this year’s festival
feature acts such as Eric Bogle (author of
the anti-war classic, “The Band Played
Waltzing Matilda”), Guyanese native singer
David Campbell, ex- Weaver Ronnie Gilbert,
United Mineworkers organizer and song-

writer Si Kahn, and several locals, such as
Vancouver poet Tom Wayman’s Working
Poets and Katari Taiko, the Japanese-
Canadian drum group.

Back again is the “Little Folks Music
Festival,” a continuous stage for children.
Tickets, available for the day or for the
entire weekend, are cheaper before July
19, at the festival office, 3271 Main Street,
phone 879-2391.

* * *

a e’s often been recognized for his out-
standing work for international
solidarity, as vice-chairman of the Cana-
dian Aid to Vietnamese Civilians and pres-
ident of the B.C. Peace Council. And now
Dr. James Foulks has been honored for his
activities in his “other life” — that as a
professor, now retired, of pharmacology
at the University of B.C.

Jim Foulks is the 1985 recipient of the
Milner Memorial Award, presented to
members of the Canadian Association of
University Teachers for their efforts to pro-
tect and advance academic freedom for
university faculty members.

The award, named for the past chair of
the CAUT’s Academic Freedom and
Tenure Committee, was presented to Jim
for “his commitment to upholding princi-
ples of openness and: fairness in advising
and representing faculty members. . .he was
able to challenge successfully heads, deans
and presidents who had been party to slip-
shod methods of convenient decisions.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 10, 1985 e 3