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Friday, May 16, 1975

Vol. 37, No. 20

enol sixty shoreworkers in
Ofino , B.C., members of the
AWU, have been laid off for
refusing to load 250 tons of frozen
-C. herring on to trucks bound for
Ncenada, Mexico for processing.
The workers were laid off after
€ir refusal to load the fish which
ty said was tantamount to
.©Xporting our own jobs’’. A picket
ine was set up and is being
Manned 24 hours per day. $90,000
Worth of herring roe remains in the
Plant but will not be moved, nor

~ Will the workers return to work, the

Union says, until Tofino Fisheries
sg » agrees that all processing will
done in B.C.
pono Fisheries had agreed to
nd the herring to Mexico where it
Would be processed by a Japanese
rm, Taiyo America, and then

_€xported to Japan. UFAWU wages

average $4.50 per hour in Tofino,

ut the unorganized Mexican plant
Pays $1.20 per hour.

2 Chief shop steward at the Tofino

plant, Larry Wells, told the
UFAWU newspaper, the Fisher-
man, ‘We had a meeting and the
feeling was unanimous to refuse to
load because it would be like
putting ourselves out of work. We
see no reason why we, as
Canadians, should be put out of
work while the raw materials are
exported.” -  -

Wells added that previous
agreements allowed for exporting
of 25 percent of herring catches,
but extensive government sub-
sidies to the fish companies had
allowed them to expand storage
facilities, and that there was no
longer any justification for this
practice.

A side issue to the strike, but
important to the Tofino workers, is
the $27,000 in unpaid wages. While
Tofino Fisheries and a Vancouver
broker firm, Shafer-Haggart,
haggle over prices — the locked out
shoreworkers are without their
legally due pay.

By SEAN GRIFFIN

The Duplessis-style attacks by
the Bourassa government against
the Quebec labor movement
reached a brutal climax early
Tuesday morning as police moved
in with clubs and tear gas against
57 workers occupying. part of
United Aircraft’s Plant No. 2 at
Longeuil, Quebec.

More than 100 heavily armed
police stormed the plant just after
2a.m., ignoring a prior agreement
by the workers to vacate
peacefully.

An undetermined number of
people were injured as police,
questioned by Quebec newsmen
after the attack, refused to divulge
any information on the injured,
stating only that four police of-
ficers had been hurt.

The workers had gone into the
plant in the early evening on
Monday following a Quebec
Federation of Labor rally held
nearby to protest the government-
appointed Cliche Commission and
the repressive labor legislation
presently before the Quebec
legislature.

They had taken several people
into the plant with them including
one reporter for radio station CK-
VL who continued to make
broadcasts even during the police
action.

They were demanding set-
tlement of the bitter strike at
United Aircraft, now forced into its

B.C. Indians won a major victory last Thursday when the
negotiations with the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs on land claims. Human resources minister Norm Levi
announced the government will meet with the Native Indian chiefs in late June to lay the ground rules for
negotiations. Up until now the B.C. government has claimed it was a federal issue. Photo above shows the

sixteenth month by the huge
multinational company.

During the occupation several
trade union leaders, including
Quebec Federation of Labor

‘president Louis Laberge, had

attempted to contact Quebec
premier Henri Bourassa, labor
minister Jean Cournoyer and the
justice minister as well as officials
of the company but all were
deliberately incommunicado.

Jean-Marie Gonthier secretary
of Local 510 of the United Auto
Workers on strike at the plant told
the occupants by radio that at-
tempts to contact officials had
been unsuccessful and advised
them to vacate since a solution
could not be found in the short time
demanded.

In reply, the occupants declared

that they had already waited 16

months for a solution to their

strike. Warned, however, that a
police attack was imminent they
agreed to vacate peacefully and
asked for safe conduct from the
factory.

Two minutes later, the attack
came.

“The occupiers tried to
surrender and offered no
resistance but the police

massacred them,” radio reporter

Jacques Ledoux stated as police

moved in on the building.

“They are being rounded up like
cattle...there are people
writhing in pain, people with
broken skulls just piled into cor-
ners and left there.

See QUEBEC, pg. 12

Trident base threatens
escalation to total war

warn U.S. Congressmen 2

—SEE PG. 12

;

Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs at the recent 7th General Assembly.

me

HS

ASSEMBLY

NDP government decided to move toward”

—Carey Robson photo —

GENERAL

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