FRIDAY, CANADA'S CHOICE: Million new jobs or million unemployed —SEE PAGE 3 SEPTEMBER 25, 1970 Vol. 31, No. 39 URGENTLY NEEDED: CRASH PROGRAM FOR JOBS NOW By MABEL RICHARDS Worst rate of jobless since 1961 predicted! Economy at a standstill! Construction stays slumped! B.C. jobless rate worst in Canada! These recent headlines are not from the radical press, but from the daily papers which helped sell us Prime Minister Trudeau’s just society and Premier Bennett's dynamic one — remember? Unemployed plumbers, electricians, carpenters, boilermakers, machinists and other trades are LIVING those headlines. They have been jobless not for weeks, but months, and in some cases years. In August, B.C. had a jobless rate of 9.2 percent, -or 64,000 persons. In August of last year there were a ‘‘mere’’ 33,000 unemployed, which means that despite the end of lockouts, and new settlements, the jobless rate has almost doubled within the twelve-month. ‘Fire Pollution By MAURICE RUSH Board A major battle is shaping up in B.C. between anti-pollution forces on the one hand and the Utah Construction and Mining Co., the Pollution Control Board and Socred 80vernment on the other. At issue is whether the giant -S. corporation will be granted a permit by the provincial §0vernment board to dump 9.3 Million gallons of-effluent daily Into Rupert Inlet from its copper and molybdenum mine near Port Hardy. Utah is seeking permission to dump waste from its concentra- tor which will include quantities Of cyanide, zinc and chemical re- agents used in the mining and milling operation. The U.S. corporation has acquired a rich mining deposit and has a contract with the Mitsui monopoly grouping for Shipment of about 400 million tons of copper concentrates to Japan. A “public’’ hearing was set to take place on September 16. The “public’’ which the Pollution Control Board was going to allow to appear before it consisted of four citizens. Even the Society for Pollution and Environ- Mental Control (SPEC), who have fought the application from the start, were to be denied 4 hearing before the Board. The hearing was set to take place at Port Hardy — a very isolated and expensive place to get to. This led anti-pollution leaders to charge that the projected hearing was a ‘“‘hoax.”’ Faced with mounting pressure against the arbitrary stand of pollution control director W.N. Venables and his Board — which smelt very much as if the Board and the Government wanted to push through the permit as quickly as possible — the Board called off the September 16th hearing at the last minute. The excuse given for the postponement was that Venables had a sore throat. But no new date has been set for the hearing and it has now been in- definitely postponed again. Undoubtedly the reason for the. postponement was political. The government and Board obviously felt that they had the hearing all set to go the way they wanted it — with a minimum of public participation and far from any centre of population. They didn’t expect the public outcry which has now forced a further delay. Its obvious the Board and the Socred government have not given up. They will try again. They have been trying for eleven months to push through the permit for the giant U.S. monopoly. See POLLUTION, pg. 12 UTAH MINING COMPANY OPERATION AT PORT HARDY. . Electricians in the IBEW and the UEW see near half their membership without jobs this month— a number reaching over the thousand mark. In Vancouver and New West- minster, more than 1,000 members of the Carpenters’ union are unemployed. Figures for plumbers and some other groups within the building trades are not readily available, but it is known: that many have been hit by the economic squeeze. Teamsters on cement hauls are victims of the sharp slowdowns in construction, as well as being victims of what their president Ed Lawson admits is an ‘‘awful’’ settlement brought about by the Mediation Commission. There are at least 250 experienced welders on the lists of the Marine and Boilermakers union without work, as well as allied fitters and helpers. Last week union spokesman Jeff Powers informed Welfare Minister Gaglardi these men were available for some of those 10,000 jobs the minister has up his sleeve, but to date there has been no reply, says Mr. Powers. Forward looking trade union leaders know the propaganda put out by politicians, press and media that strikes and lockouts account for the depressed economic situation is sheer, unadulterated idiocy. They know that construction of housing which accounts for one- third in Canada, was down nearly 20 percent this year. Not because of strikes, but, as the Vancouver Province pointed out in the issue of August 20, because ‘‘Governments have been delaying new schools and hospitals in an effort to curb their spending. Businessmen are postponing new projects because of the profit squeeze and the unfavorable economic outlook.”’ ACTION FOR-JOBS Workers are no longer prepared to accept this bland acceptance of economic stagnation on the part of free- enterprise business and govern- ment. More and_ more responsible unions are gearing for action. in a demand for jobs, and jobs now! The IBEW, supported by the Marine and Boilermakers Union have shown the lead through their plan to present a demand for a crash program for housing, school and hospital construction to the city, provincial and federal governments. Other unions will doubtless follow suit in the demand that action be taken now to alleviate the unemployment problem. It is unfortunate that in the Officer’s Report handed down at the recent regional convention of the IWA this demand was not dealt with as sharply as it might have been. While the report admitted that the leadership will have to provide new initiatives and new programs for the “many disadvantaged groups” See JOBS, pg. 12 . where major anti-pollution fight is shaping up.