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October 2, 1989
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Vol. 52, No.35

Copper mine workers

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Posing with their Christmas tree, Mike Atkins (I to r) Bernie Proznick, Russell Gapp and

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Ray Pinard do picket duty at Highland Valley Copper’s main gate Sept. 22.

Dump opponents Paula Rubinson (I) and Hilda Bechler at rally Wednesd.

The Greater Vancouver Regional Dis-
trict spends a pittance on waste recycling
while granting millions of dollars to pri-
vately run environmentally ruinous incin-
erators, speakers told a rally against the
Cache Creek landfill Sept. 27.

Environmentalists, trade unionists and
Natives from the Interior and the Lower
Mainland staged a noon-hour rally out-
side the GVRD offices in Burnaby to back
demands for a moratorium on the landfill
and public input into waste recycling prac-
tices.

THE AU
i

Blair Redlin of the Canadian Union of
Public Employees said the district has
spent about $600,000 on a waste recycling
program that will see household refuse
reduced by only 20 per cent. Meanwhile, it

CACHE CREEK CAMPAIGN, page 2

has spent $75 million on toxic waste incin-
erators that pollute the environment, he
noted.

“This isn’t democracy, this is privatiza-

By SEAN GRIFFIN

LOGAN LAKE — Outside the
picket shack, mine truck driver Rus-
sell Gapp shoves his hands in his
pockets against the cold that is start-
ing to seep down from the carved-out
hills that loom over the valley. He
speaks quickly but his tone is quiet,
determined: “I'll give up everything,
I'll sell whatever I have — but I’m
not going back till we get what we
want.”

Across the picnic bench that serves
as a card table, shovel operator Mike
Atkins nods in agreement: “You see
that Christmas tree over there?” he
says pointing to the decorated fir that
stands beside the shack. “We put that
up because we thought we would be
out at least that long. We’ll stay out till
next Christmas if that’s what it takes.
But we’re not going to accept
contracting-out — no way.”

It’s been that way for nearly three
months, here at Highland Valley
Copper (HVC), the massive, terraced
wall of open-pit mountainside which,
until the United Steelworkers went on
strike in July, pumped over $1.5 mil-
lion a day into the coffers of its corpo-
rate owners.

Created in 1986 when two mining
companies merged their adjacent
properties in the copper-rich moun-
tains of the valley, the current owners
include some of the biggest multi-
national names in mining: Cominco,
and Lornex, itself owned by Teck, Rio
Algom and the West German con-
glomerate, Metallgesellschaft. Teck
became a direct partner in 1988 when
it merged its Highmont Mine into the
company.

The 1,180 members of Local 7619
of the Steelworkers walked off the job
July 6 and although the three-month
old strike has hardly caused a ripple in
the media outside the valley, it is a

see COPPER page 3

ay. A daily picket of GVRD officesis being organized.

tion of garbage,” said Dave Pritchett of
the Vancouver and District Labour
Council’s transport and hazardous goods
committee.

Vancouver Ald. Libby Davies called
private companies “sharks who see gar-
bage as money, garbage as profit.”

She said Greater- Vancouver residents
have to press the various member munici-
pal councils to reject the region’s waste
management plan and privatized resource
recovery plants, and to implement multi-
material curbside recycling .

Trib drive
with a
difference

With this issue, the Tribune
launches its annual readership
drive — but this year it’s a drive
with a difference.

As we have in the past, we’re
hoping to add 250 new readers to
our subscription list and to get those
already on the list to sign on for
another year or longer. But this year
we want something more.

This year, we want readers to
make the paper their voice.

We want the Tribune to become
a forum for debate and dialogue, a
place to reflect the activities of
popular movements around the
province, a medium for the
organizations that make up those

see YOUR PAPER page 11