Remembering
Rosenbergs
— page 7 —

June 19, 1989
50°

Vol. 52, No. 23

‘Crabgrass hits Ottawa

By KERRY McCUAIG

It has been dubbed the “crabgrass” coali-
tion, a feisty band of protesters who
boarded trains in early June to take their
anti-budget message across the country and
dump it on the Conservatives’ lap in
Ottawa.

It’s a name the participants don’t mind.
“We're a crabgrass movement because we
intend to spread far and wide. And we
won't go away,” said Lynn Kaye, president
of the National Action Committee on the
Status of Women, as she stepped off the
train in Ottawa June 12.

NAC, which initiated the campaign at its

annual meeting in mid-May, pulled off the
event in record time, gathering support
from over 35 national organizations and
countless local groups, politicians and
community leaders, as it whistle-stopped
into towns and cities along routes from
Vancouver, B.C. to Sydney, Nova Scotia.

The group was gathering support for its
statement, “Breaking the Social Contract,”
a condemnation of the Tories’ April 27
budget which contained a mass of tax hikes
and social program cuts.

“The combined impact of the Wilson
budget and the Free Trade Agreement will
destroy the investment of past generations

Nurses picket Vancouver General Hospital Wednesday.

British Columbia nurses escalated their
strike action to 21 of the province’s hospi-
tals Thursday, calling on the provincial
government to “put patients before pave-
ment” and provide the necessary funding
that would give nurses back the purchas-
ing power eroded through years of wage
restraint.

The B.C Nurses Union launched the -

strike at 12 hospitals Wednesday and
emphasized that more hospitals could
soon be behind picket lines, an echo of the
militance that saw nurses register an
unprecedented 94 per cent strike vote last
month. It is the first time that nurses have
struck acute care hospitals.

As the nurses began setting up picket

lines Wednesday morning, Hospital Em-
ployees Union secretary-business manager
Sean O’Flynn declared the union’s full
support for the strike, charging that the
dispute was entirely the fault of the
employers, Health Labour Relations
Association (HLRA). HEU has itself
issued 72-hour strike notice at 13 hospi-
tals.

The nurses had been in mediation talks
with private mediator John Kinzie but
they broke down Tuesday as the HLRA
remained adamant in its final offer, esti-
mated by the nurses to be 5.5 per cent, 6
and 6.5 per cent in each of three years.

Nurses on the picket line at Vancouver
General Hospital Wednesday said the

in developing a uniquely Canadian social
contract on which we have been building
our national future,” it reads.

Most famous of the riders was Bobby
Jackson, a 75-year-old Vancouver veteran
of the 1935 On to Ottawa Trek. It was
actually Jackson’s third trek to Ottawa. He
was back in 1985 to mark the 50th anniver-
sary of the Thirties protest which was
crushed by an RCMP attack in Regina.

“Work or wages was our demand then
and it still holds,” said Jackson. “Unem-
ployment insurance, decent wages, com-
pensation for injured workers . . . we fought
and won these program and now some
character is telling us we have too much. It’s
all part of the level-playing field of free
trade. We’re being told we have to go down
to the U.S. level, meaning we are going to
lose what we have unless we fight like hell.”

Wearing green ribbons, marking the
arrival of spring and hope for a better
future, protesters gathered petitions, state-
ments and testimony on the budget from
people who greeted them at stops along the
way.

The group also picked up crates of coo-
kies baked by women’s groups and child

“care advocates as part of their protest
against the government backing down on
its promise for a nationally funded child
care program. About a dozen crates of coo-
kies were presented to finance minister
Michael Wilson’s office June 12.

“We've held our final bake sale,” said
Sue Colley of the NAC child care commit-
tee, referring to the countless money raising
events day cares hold to keep operating.
“From now on, Mr. Wilson can hold the
sales and send us the money and we'll
administer a national, quality, affordable
child care system.”

Angela Krotowski emerged from the
train in Ottawa with a full sized quilt, carry-
ing the “Get the budget on track” message.
Krotowski, who boarded in Vancouver,
sewed the quilt using blocks that had been
prepared by women in each province
depicting how the budget would affect their
area.

After getting a hero’s welcome as they
stepped off the train in Ottawa, the riders
were whisked by bus to Parliament Hill
where they joined 3,000 members of the
Assembly of First Nations, who journeyed
to Ottawa for the week, to press the
government to live up to its treaty and abo-
riginal rights agreements.

see BUDGET page 6

offer was completely unacceptable. The
BCNU is pressing for a 22 per cent hike in
the first year, followed by two further
annual increases of seven per cent, neces-
sary, the union argues, to bring wages up
to the point that more people can be
attracted to the profession to relieve the
acute nursing shortage.

HLRA has applied to the Industrial
Relations Council for a final offer vote,
utilizing the provisions of Bill 19.

BCNU president Pat Savage said that
the nurses had moved considerably from
their initial demand for a 33 per cent
increase in the first year.

“What we’ve had from the employer is
a one-and-only offer and they're now

-of nurses — and we simply won’t stand

attempting to shove that down the throats

for it,” she told reporters on the picket line.

Members of the other unions at the
hospitals, the HEU, Health Sciences
Association and the Operating Engineers
are respecting nurses’ picket lines although
essential services are being maintained in
line with agreements worked out earlier
with the various hospitals which include
VGH, Lions Gate Hospital in North Van-
couver, Peace Arch Hospital in White
Rock, Royal Inland in Kamloops, Mills
Memorial in Terrace, Prince George
Regional, Royal Jubilee in Victoria, Trail
Regional and Cowichan District Hospital.

see STRIKE page 12