eo ee | | Te |

—Fisherman photo
HOMER STEVENS, UFAWU leader, is shown being welcomed home by
Harvey Murphy of the Steel Workers Union at last Friday’s “Open
House” at the Fisherman’s Hall. Stevens was released from Mount
Thurston Camp last Wednesday after serving 333 days of the one year
sentence imposed on him for contempt arising out of the Prince Rupert
dispute last year.

Coquitlam parents
rap Socred policy

Cont'd from pg. 1
referendums presented to take
care of the need, however
Victoria demanded all so called
“frills” such as gyms, band
rooms, libraries and activity
rooms be dispensed with. Even
then the government has
refused to release the $6,000,000
which would provide only the
barest necessities. Coquitlam is
short 71 classrooms.

Shifts comprise such hours as
7:45 to 12, 1 to 5:45. Extended
day means 2 or 3 sessions at
school with an hour or two
between sessions. At one school
there are even three
kindergarten shifts per day.

Because of the fantastic
growth of the district, the school
board is now preparing for
another multi-million dollar
referendum which they must
~place before the voters this year,
if we are to meet the needs in 2
or 3 years time.

DERELICTION OF DUTY

The School Act specifies five
hours instruction per day. Shift
classes get four and this amounts
to a loss of an equivalent of 36
school days a year.

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| PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 4, 1968—Page 12

Doug Grant, Principal of
Winslow said, ‘‘It is an
escalating problem — libraries
and gyms are severely over
taxed, all extra-curricular
activities are curtailed and these
are the things that help make
better human beings of our kids.
What is wrong in this ‘debt free
dynamic society that we cannot
have proper facilities.”’

Dave King, Principal of
Viscount Alexander said, ‘‘Under
these circumstances the school
functions as an education mill,
rather than a social unit, a poor
atmosphere for students and
teachers.”

In the home the problems are
manifold. There are cases of 3 or
more kids in a family on 3
different shifts at 3 different
schools. Children of 13 and under
coming home from school after
dark in the winter.

Disruptions of music lessons,
sports activities, paper routes,
not to mention the family unit
and meals.

A resolution moved from the
floor and unimously adopted
demanded the Provincial govern-
ment release the money
immediately for essential

‘classroom facilities and if no

satisfactory answer is received
by Oct. 9, another public meeting
be held to take further action. A
committee was struck to deal
with the motion.

Numerous other proposals
were aired including a student
boycott of classes and motion
that building permits: for
dwelling units be related directly
to the availability of classrooms,
the latter being ruled out of
order.

The mood of the meeting
struck this reporter as a very
heart-warming display of
concern and initiative on the part
of the teachers, students and
parents of this school district.

Now we need government
action.

LABOR SCENE:

UFAWU demands fishery
minister clarify stand

The United Fisherman and
Allied Workers Union has called
on federal fisheries minister
Jack Davis to clarify allegations
made on September 30 during the
course of a speech dealing with
his department’s proposals for
licence limitation in the B.C.
salmon fishery.

Speaking to Vancouver Board
of Trade, Davis expressed
concern ‘‘about the extent of our
federal subsidy to the fishing
industry on the West Coast’’ and
said he could ‘‘see little sense in
giving one dollar’s worth of
assistance to the industry for

‘every three dollars worth of

salmon caught by our com-
mercial fishermen.”

The UFAWU noted the
minister had not elaborated on
the nature of alleged ‘‘federal
subsidy’ nor on what effect, if
any, his licensing proposals will
have on the current expendi-
tures aimed at conservation and
rehabilitation of the renewable
salmon resource.

UFAWU business agent, Jack
Nichol commented that the
minister, rather than deal: in
facts, ‘‘appeared to have set upa
smokescreen to obscure the real
nature of a licensing scheme
which fishermen look on as a gift
to the province’s fishing monop-
olies.””

Nichol also criticized Davis’
contention that the Union’s own
proposals for licence limitation
were aimed at creating a ‘‘closed

shop’? where few entrants
‘‘would have to be screened by
the Union itself.”

Such comments, while
calculated to find favor before an
audience of businessmen, have
no basis in fact, Nichol said. The
‘closed shop” has never been a
Union demand, he said, although
the UFAWU has urged, as part of
its own licensing proposals,
creation of an impartial board of
review made up of
representatives from all trade
unions, co-operatives and vessel
owners groups in the industry, as
well as government appointees
from the fisheries department
and university personnel.

Nichol also noted that Davis
had stated he would not move to
refer his department’s licensing

CUBA TOUR

The third annual tour for
the January 2nd celebra-
tions in Cuba is now in the
planning stage. For anyone
considering a trip, this is the

tenth anniversary of the estab-
lishment of socialist Cuba.

Final details for the
itinerary are not yet printed,
but further information may
be obtained by contacting the
Canadian-Cuban Friendship
Committee, 138 E. Cordova
St., Vancouver 4. The touring
party will leave Cancouver
on December 27.

Communists protest ban
by housing Task Force

The Communist Party of
Canada protested this week
against the refusal of the Task
Force on Housing, set up by the
Federal government, to hear its
submission on the housing
problem. Writing on behalf of the

HUEY NEWTON, founder of the
Black Panther movement in the
U.S., has had a verdict of ‘guilty’
brought against him on the
charge of fatally shooting a
policeman last October. The
verdict is being appealed.
Newton, 26, faces a possible two
to 15 year sentence.
Demonstrations have been held in
many parts of the U.S. to demand
his freedom. A Huey Newton
Defence Committee (P.O. Box
318, Berkeley, Calif.) has issued

an appeal for funds to carry the.

fight further.

Central Executive Committee of

the Party, Nelson Clarke said:

“The plea of Paul Hellyer that
his task force on housing has ‘no
time’ to hear opinions of over 30
Toronto organizations is an
arrogant insult to the people of
this city.

‘“‘The sharpest housing crisis in
Canada exists in Toronto.
Literally dozens of organizations
and hundreds of individual
citizens have something to say
about steps to solve it. To deny
them the opportunity to submit
their views and to be examined
on them makes a mockery of all
talk of a ‘just society’ and the
involvement of people in
government.

“Among those discriminated
against is the Communist Party
which has been fighting for
decent housing for every
Canadian for decades, and whose
public representatives in this
city were in the forefront of the
struggle to win public housing
projects in Canada 20 years ago.

“We are demanding the right
to argue before this Task Force
our case that the housing crisis
demands that housing be treated
as a public utility, and that the
federal government must take
the lead in making available
massive amounts of public funds
to end the inexcusable crisis of

bad housing that now affects the
overwhelming majority of
Canadians.

“The task force must reverse
its position, and allow time in
Toronto for every organization to
be heard.” : ee ;

year. to go — the year of the}.

proposals for consideration by a
parliamentary committee,
despite having assured Frank
Howard, M.-P. for Skeena, that

he would do so when questioned

on the matter in the House of
Commons on September 18th.
OK OK

Despite a wide range of topics
coming before this week’s —
session of the Vancouver and
District Labor council ranging
all the way from the format,
content and aims of the ‘‘Labor
Statesman’ to U.S. . turkey
dumping in Canada, the session
was somewhat “‘dull’’.

VLC delegates approved a
composite resolution to the B.C.
Federation of Labor convention
in November, aimed at
clarifying the aims, purposes
and financing of the BCFL organ,
the ‘‘Labor Statesman’’.
Considerable criticism has been
raised in the past, as recorded in
VLC minutes, on the advertising
policies and general content of

the paper and in the majority —

opinion of VLC delegates this
should be clarified at the coming
BCFL convention.

- With Christmas ‘‘just around —
the corner’’ the turkey issue is
one of more than passing interest —
to labor and farmer alike.

U.S. large-scale dumping of
processed turkeys on the B.C.
and Canadian market,
particularly in those periods
(Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.)
when turkey consumption is at
its high peak, is literally putting
the turkey grower in Canada out
of business.

A visitor from Vancouver
Island told VLC delegates that
during the past year five large
turkey farms in the Brannon
Lake area have been driven out
of business as a result of U.S.
dumping in B.C. ‘‘This was big
turkey producing area,”’ said the
speaker, ‘‘but none exist today”.

On motion, the VLC decided to
get in touch with the Depart-
ment of Agriculture and farm
organizations, prepatory to doing
something about U.S. turkey
dumping in B.C.

TENANTS
ORGANIZE

Spurred by the success of the
work of the Vancouver Tenants
Organization Committee two
new tenants associations were
formed last weekend with
meetings already having been
called in three other apartment
blocks for the first week in
October.

This was announced by the
tenants committee this week.
Plans are also underway to call
public meetings in the five main
apartment areas in the city —
West End, Kitsilano, Marpole,
Vancouver East and. South-
Granville Oak. An office is
shortly to be opened by the
committee.

The committee will appear
again before the city council’s
rental committee within the
next ten days. Meanwhile, plans
are going ahead to present a
brief to the Task Force on
Housing which will be holding its —
hearings in Vancouver in early

_ November. ges