WE WE

OR

rT -

east

UFAWU DEMONSTRATION,
1977...loss of shore jobs ac-
Sélerating.

\ “38 ¥

} © NUCLEAR POWER:

| Pictures, reports. from
the massive anti-
nuclear demonstra-
tions at Darlington,
Ont. last weekend,
Pages 6,7.

® IMMIGRANT WO-
MEN: They are textile
workers, domes tic
workers, f ar mwork-
ers. They are among
the most exploited of
Canadian workers,
Page 7.

* HOUSING: The rela-
tive cost of housing
has doubled in only a
Seneration, and unless
SOmething is done,
the bubble will burst.
6e@ Economic Facts,

\ Page 10.

The United Fishermen and Allied
Workers’ Union will lobby the pro-
vincial government this Wednesday
to demand action to stop the export
of shoreworkers’ jobs in this sum-
mer’s salmon fishery.

The union claims that a massive
influx of Japanese capital into the
B.C. salmon industry is diverting
salmon away from the traditional
domestic cannery market into the
rapidly expanding frozen export
market. The export of raw, whole
frozen salmon will cause the loss of
hundreds of shoreworker jobs on
the coast.

The large scale invasion of the in-
dustry by Japanese financial in-
terests has been met with a relaxa-
tion of export controls from the
federal government, the UFAWU
charges. Previously only a high
quality of fish could be exported
whole, but new regulations remove
quality control to the point where
almost unlimited exports are allow-
ed.

The union also warns that
Japanese buyers will create havoc in
the salmon industry this summer in
a similar way to last winter’s roe
herring fisher when prices were ar-

y, UFAWU warns of havoc in salmon industry

Lobby to fight export of jobs

tificially inflated to record levels.
The Japanese buyers are already
pushing prices way up, the
fishermen warn, which could result
in small-fish companies being put
out of business and the price of
salmon in B.C. being hiked beyond
the reach of most working people.

The decision to take their case to
Victoria was made last weekend by
the UFAWU’s general executive
board which adopted a program of
action to restore order in the in-
dustry and to save shoreworkers’
jobs.

The main points in the program

include:

e An immediate halt to the licensing
of new processing facilities. The in-
dustry has seen an explosion of
new, small non-union processing

plants backed by foreign capital:

which are taking ~ fish—and
jobs—away from the established
union plants.

e Compulsory full disclosure of all
details of corporate ownership to
allow a full analysis of the extent of
foreign control of the fishing in-
dustry. ,

e An immediate halt to the con-

See ACTION page 2

New wage
re-opener

added to
ILWU pact

Members of the International
Longshoremen and Warehouse-
men’s Union in locals throughout
the province were voting this week
on a new contract addition—a wage
re-opener clause—that was ex-
pected to end the week-long dock
strike.

Voting in the last of the locals
was to be completed on Wednesday
although the ballots were not to be
counted until Thursday.

The details of the new provision
were not to be released until after
the vote but sources indicated that
the re-opener clause would give the
ILWU the right to re-open wage
negotiations in the third year if the

see WAGE pg. 2

Country-wide protest mounted by the Galindo Madrid Defence Committee won an eleventh

hour stay of deportation Wednesday for the Chilean refugee — but not before the bizarre
chain of events leading to the stay revealed the complicity between the Canadian and
Chilean authorities. After obtaining a passport to enable him to apply to go to a third coun-
try, Madrid was suddenly ordered Tuesday to appear at Vancouver airport June 14 for depor-
tation. Immigration authorities later admitted that the intention was to take him back to the
same Chilean ship, the Star Pride, which he fled two years ago. The stay of deportation — for one
month — was announced at 2 p.m. Wednesday but pressure is being mounted to allow Madrid to re-

main in Canada.

—Sean Griffin photo

Fryer terms 3 percent offer ‘insult’

Gov't could force BCGEU strike

B.C. Government Employees
Union general secretary John Fryer
told about 300 delegates to the
union’s convention last weekend to
expect a strike this fall against the
provincial government.

“I believe that this year we will
have to strike,’’ Fryer stated bluntly
to delegates Saturday. The govern-
ment knows that the union can get a
big strike vote from the member-
ship, he explained, and they will
have to go further to win a settle-
ment.

In 1977 the Socreds were surpris-
ed at the 92 percent strike vote and
it was a major factor in winning a
settlement, he said, but this year the
government seems determined not
to grant a wage increase anywhere
near the cost of living and also
wants rollbacks in other areas of the
master agreement.

‘*Any fool can negotiate a three.

percent increase,’ Fryer said in
reference to the rumored goven-
ment offer, ‘‘But that is not good
enough and would be an insult to
our membership and their leaders.”

Fryer’s address was met with a
standing ovation from the delegates
to the two day convention at the
University of B.C., and was im-

mediately followed by spokesmen
from two of the union components
who announced transfers of
$140,000 to the union’s strike fund.
Earlier the treasurer’s report had
received an enthusiastic response
for is recommendation 1.0 transfer

$1 million from general funds to the
strike fund.

A considerable portion of the
convention was devoted to prepara-
tions for a possible strike with
discussion around a union strategy
paper, ‘‘effective work stoppages in

the public sector.’ The paper up-

dated the strike strategy worked out

in 1977 which would see target

groups selected for strike strike ac-

tion rather than a general pull out

of all 37,000 BCGEU members. In
See BCGEU page 2

Eight critical days

This is the final week of the fi-
nancial drive — and as the figures
on page 11 show, we’re still an
alarming $20,000 short of our tar-
get of $60,000. With only eight
days left until the drive’s end, we
have one-third of the total yet to
raise.

We can’t emphasize enough the
urgency of that situation. In pre-
vious years, as we have gone into
the final week, we could look —
although always with fingers
crossed — at the realization of the
drive target. This year we have no
such assurances. We can only
hope that our supporters who
have sustained us through some
pretty tough times over the last 42
years will do everything — and
even more — to see us reach that

$60,000. s

Without it, we'll face even
tougher times. In our budget
there’s no room for cuts. We’ve
already counted every expense and
pared every cost. It’s a constant
struggle to keep up with the infla-
tion with which big business has
saddled all working people. And
the critical part of that struggle, to
keep British Columbia’s only la-
bor weekly fighting, will take
place over the next eight days.

Those eight days will determine
whether the Tribune will continue
to reach, as it has done over the
past months, hundreds of new
readers. They will determine
whether the paper will maintain
and expand the position it has
won in the labor movement.

We ask every one of our sup-
porters, urgently: If you haven’t
made a donation, do it now —
and perhaps add a few dollars to
what you were going to give. If,
like hundreds of others, you’ve al-
ready made a contribution, try
and make another.

See that your press club pulls
beyond its target. If we throw
everything we’ve got into the next
eight days, if we mobilize every
dollar from our readers and sup-
porters, we can raise that $20,000
by the time of the victory banquet
June 23. We think we can make
that objective of $60,000.

There’s more than 40 years of
tradition — and the future —
riding on it.

—Sean Griffin, Editor

q

TMT