* =e at
The popular Surrey ensemble, Bargain at % The Price, (above) under

:
= dl
SARS
a % ved

the musical direction of Steve Gidora, comes to Vancouver again this
week, joining the choral group Union Train, conducted by Karl
Kobylansky, in headlining COPE’s folk son “night, scheduled for this

Saturday, February 15 at 8 p.m. in the

lasonic Hall at ist and

SE

Commercial.

Both groups, along with several other performers will

also be featured at the Tribune's 40th anniversary concerts, slated for
April 6 in the Surrey Arts Centre and April 13 at the OE Playhouse in

Vancouver. (Details next week). -

Two delegates from Spain, one of
them a woman, will bein B.C. from |
March 20-24 to address a series of |
public meetings. They will be here |
as part of a national tour to bring to |
Canadians the truth about events |

in Spain.
Their tour is sponsored by the
Canadian Committee for

Democratic Spain. Watch the PT
for details of their tour in B.C.

Meanwhile, it is reported from |
Madrid, that the Garabanchel 10 |
were scheduled to go before a
Spanish fascist appeals tribunal
this week — Feb. 11. World wide
protests have been urged to be sent
to: Chairman of the Supreme
Tribunal, Plaza de Las Salesas,
Madrid, Spain, demanding their
release.

The Carabanchel 10 had been
sentenced by a fascist court on
Dec. 20, 1973, to a total of 162 years |
for the alleged ‘‘crime’’ of holding |
a meeting of the illegal trade |
unions in Spain. :

CUPE TALKS

Cont'd from pg. 1
Burton declared that the Em-
ployers Council was made up of
“self-avowed spokesmen for the
very biggest interests in the

province’ and told the press
conference: ‘‘There is a definite
conflict of interest here. The

elected representatives of the
entire population, including the
working people of Greater Van-
couver, are being represented at
the bargaining table by a man who,
in actual fact, speaks only for a
tiny but immensely powerful
elite’’.

Burton also pointed out that “‘this
sort of abdication of respon-
sibility” has led to five strikes over
ten years, ‘forced on municipal
employees who are simply
demanding fair and equitable
wages, comparable with those paid
to employees of the provincial
government, B.C. Hydro and B.C.
Hospitals.”

Wages for municipal workers
doing comparable .work range
from two to three dollars an hour
or $200 to $300 a month less than
workers receive from B.C. Hydro
or the provincial government.

Burton added that should there
be a strike, ‘‘the responsibility will
rest on the shoulders of people like
mayor Art Phillips and other
council members who voted
themselves a 66% increase while
offering their employees a mere

~~ SIT-IN

Cont'd from pg. 1
since the company was going to
complete the closure and board up
the plant.

Bremner pointed out that the
union had had -to consider . the
possibility of the plant’s being
boarded up as the announcement
had come from management
personnel but added that, since
there was no substantiation of the
rumor, he could only assume that
the foreman had simply acted on
his own.

Bremner also stated that~ the
morale among the workers in the
plant was “very high” and said
they were determined to continue
their sit-in until some company —
public or private — was prepared
to take over operation of the plant.

The B.C. Federation of Labor.

had earlier called on the provincial
government to take over the
processing company and operate it
as part of the publicly-owned
Panco Poultry, but agriculture
minister Dave Stupich virtually
ruled out that possibility last week.

The possibility of provincial -

government financing for a private
buyer was not ruled out, however,
and the CFAWU is hopeful that
something can be worked out.

B.C; herring fishermen,
represented by both the UFAWU
and the Native Brotherhood, voted
96% this week to reject the latest
Fisheries Association offer making
strike action on February 16 vir-
tually inevitable.

The Association offer — $75 a ton
for seine crews and $150 a ton for
gillnetters — represented cuts of
43% for seiners and 40% for
gillnetters compared to 1974
prices.

“Rejection of this offer means
there will be no fishing by union
and Brotherhood members when
the roe season starts,” the UFAWU
stated in a release.

Although faced . with sharply
increased living and operating
costs, herring fishermen had made
substantial compromises in an
effort to get a price agreement.

Negotiators were prepared to
recommend settlement on the
basis of 1974 prices plus a 14.24%
cost of living increase — removing

the demand for an additional 10%
originally sought.
“This move by our. joint com-

mittee brought no further response .

or offer from the Association,”
UFAWU president Homer Stevens
said in a letter sent to all fisher-
men’s locals.

The committee’s demand, with
the 14.24% increase over 1974
prices, represented $150.25 for
seine crews and $285.60 a ton for
gillnetters.

A further meeting was also
scheduled for Wednesday this
week but it was not .expected to
bring any changes in the Fisheries
Association offer.

BRAZIL PRICES SOAR

The cost of living rose 33.8
percent in Brazil during ‘1974,
reported the semi-official Getulio
Vargas Foundation. The most
marked increase was in food,
where prices soared by 41.4 per-
cent.

COPE annual meeting to
hear Rankin, Thompson

The annual meeting of the Committee of Progressive Electors
will be held Saturday, February 22, commencing at10 a.m.

The meeting will take place at the Downtown Eastside Residents’
Association Hall at 616 East Cordova Street.

Featured speaker will be Alderman Harry Rankin, who will give
a report of the activities of the new City Council. Syd Thompson,
President of the Vancouver Labor Council, will also speak to the
meeting on the recent housing study commissioned by the Council
and its related program of action.

COPE’s electoral policy for the next election will be adopted, a
program of between election activity decided, preliminary plans to
run alarge number of candidates discussed, along with the election
of officers.

Invitations to attend the meeting have been sent to a large
number of citizen groups in the city, including all trade unions,
pensioner organizations, tenants and the executive committees of
all Vancouver NDP constituency committees.

Cont'd from pg. 1 forestall any such agreement.

Salmon treaty protested

¢

Gov't should reconsider
cutbacks in education

EDITORIAL |

The NDP government should reconsider its decision to cut back
on funds to school districts for the purpose of reducing the pupil-
teacher ratio in B.C. schools. In our opinion this is one of the most
unfortunate decisions made by the government in recent months.

Speaking in the legislature last year, education minister Eileen
Dailly said the government intended to reduce the ratio by 1.5 per
cent for the next three years. Accordingly, the government gave
school boards $21 million to help hire additional teachers. This
action was hailed by the public as a welcome and long overdue step,
since B.C. schools have one of the highest ratios in Canada.

Recently the education minister reneged on the three year.
promise, and informed a delegation of school trustees and teachers
that the government could not repeat the program this year. Her
announcement has shocked school boards and teachers, who were
proceeding on the three-year program promised by the govern-
ment.

Last year school boards hired extra teachers and many teachers
have gone to considerable expense in training and adjusting their
lives on the strength of a government committment that there will
be a three-year program of expansion. Now these teachers, as well
as school boards, are left in the lurch by Mrs. Dailly’s an-
nouncement.

Many school boards have already announced that they are
cutting back on the number of teachers to be hired for the coming
year on the strength of the government’s announcement. The B.C,
Teachers’ Federation has urged local school boards to budget for
the hiring of additional teachers to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio,
which means they will have to increase municipal taxes. How
many school boards will respond to the BCTF appeal is uncertain.

Education for our children is too important a question to be left
up in the air in this manner. If there is to be an organized, province-
wide program of reducing class sizes it can only be done through
provincial government grants to all school boards. :

The NDP government would be well advised to rescind its
decision, and carry out its original pledge.

That exception came in May,
1973 when the negotiators, Ccon-
fronted with demands from the
U.S. for fishing rights on the
Fraser River ‘‘in perpetuity’,
delivered an ultimatum to the
effect that special measures to
protect Canada’s fishing interests
would be taken in sixty days. if the
U.S. persisted in its demands.
Chief Canadian negotiators, C. R.
Levelton added at the time that an
agreement could only have been
reached ‘‘if we had sold out our
national interests.”

The threat never materialized,
however, as Canada _ retreated
again, this time putting forward
compromise proposals for a treaty
which violated all the principles
agreed to in June, 1971 and vir-
tually guaranteed that imbalances
of salmon interceptions would be
perpetuated in favor of the U.S.

Determined to avert the sellout
proposals, the UFAWU moved
quickly to condemn the plan and
also secured a meeting with the
House of Commons standing
committee of fisheries and forestry
and with the provincial minister
responsible- for commercial
fisheries, Jack Radford. Both
meetings upheld the UFAWU
claims that the impending
agreement was a Sellout and urged

' the federal government to take

measures to ensure an equitable
treaty with the U.S.

Despite a campaign of
vilification directed at the UFAWU
by the then federal fisheries
minister, Jack Davis, the union
was successful in its efforts to

‘worst treaties ever foisted ont0)

INT. WOMEN’S YEAR

GENEVA — The January issue
of the World Health Organizations
monthly magazine released Jan. 16
was written entirely by women to
mark the start of International
Women’s Year.

But the meeting December 17, | ©
1974 of Canadian advisors starte'
once more down the road to}
betrayal. a

“The situation appears that the}
sellout is very much a possibility,”
the officers of the UFAWU said of
the December meeting. ‘“They
have resurrected the latest|
Canadian proposal, as bad as it iS; |
and they are saying that we need |
an agreement . . at all costs. They |
openly say that equity in terms of |”
salmon intercepted with the U.S: |
should be abandoned.

“We stand to have one of the

Canadian fishermen,” the officers |
report declared to the union com
vention. ‘Canada’s prospects wil
continue grim until pressure #§
mounted to convince the gover! |
ment that the stakes are suf]
ficiently high to warrant a change |
in policy.”

-The union added that Canadia?
fishermen face a possible loss of 2 |
1/2 million salmon in 1975.

In order to secure an equitable
treaty, the UFAWU has suggest
several steps that could be taken @
respond to U.S: pressure:

@ Unilaterally develop thé
Fraser River (without U.S. funds):

e Expand: Canada’s salmo?
fisheries to resolve the imbalanc® |
in interception unilaterally. :

o Establish a fisheries in thé
Alaska Panhandle streams }
order to intercept U.S.-boun™
salmon and further resolve im¥
balances. >

® Keep U.S. trawlers and othel|
fishermen outside of Canada
closing lines and 12-mile limit.

The UFAWU hopes in the cure?!)
campaign to bring about widel
public knowledge of the issu!
involved and to demonstrate !
vital importance as ‘‘a question.°
Canada’s national interests.”

pe

Fee |

2. GA

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1975—Page 2