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Job Mart’s

owner linked
to rip-off
rental agency

___ By SEAN GRIFFIN
Job Mart, the Australian-based company

_ Whose sale of dubious job vacancy listings

he sparked anger from unemployed
Tganizations, is slated to go before an
Ployment Standards Branch hearing
y 31 at 10a.m. °
fone later, on June 14, at 7:30p.m.,
ES Mart is to appear before Vancouver city
ore to show cause why its licence should
f be revoked. The hearing was postponed
hoe Apr. 26 pending the appearance before
€ Employment Standards Branch.
76 Issue immediately is whether Section
1) of the Employment Standards Act,
ce ch prohibits charging a fee for procuring
ployment, is‘applicable.
_ But what may also ’become an issue, par-
Cularly in the city council hearing is the in-

? Volvement of Job Mart’s creator, Trevor

a5 dren, in another similar business opera-

N whose name for several months was

‘ynonomous with questionable business

Practices — the rental agency, Canadian
Omelocators.

: And that record of involvement is reveal-

Mgindeed.

V. Soon after Job Mart opened its office in

aNcouver earlier this year, the Tribune ap-

Proached the local manager Glenn
amilton, seeking an interview. Hamilton

_ Tefused, referring us instead to the Winnipeg

€ad office and the president of the firm,
Tévor Maddren, whose name Hamilton

Scribbled on a business card.
Trevor Maddren is also listed with the
Tta registrar of companies as the presi-

ent and sole shareholder of Trevor Mad-

€n Holdings Ltd., an extra-provincial

Ompany which is based in Manitoba.

Trevor Maddren Holdings Ltd. was in
whic listed as one of the two companies to
is Ich Calgary city hall’s licencing depart-

€nt issued a business licence in 1979, to

_ °Perate a rental agency.

Cayhe, business that Calgary licenced was

adian Homelocators.

nicisted with Maddren on the licence ap-
Cation was Gerald Dank Enterprises Ltd.

of ald Dank, in turn, is listed as the owner

res G. D. Canadian Homelocators,
€lstered with the B.C. provincial govern-
€nt in May, 1978.

kno companies were part of a chain

offen as Homelocators International with

.ilces elsewhere in the country as well as
Australia,

off adian Homelocators operated two
Ices in the Lower Mainland during the

W :
+ Ist years of rental accommodation shor-

these at the end of the ’70s and beginning of

. Like other agencies, it charged a fee

~ Usually $40 to $50 — for a list of rental

dupiw’s most of which were out of date or

ti Dlicated those listed in newspaper adver-
Sements,

© Vancouver office eventually closed

own after city council adopted a limiting

pew, but it was not before Homelocators

become notorious for its attempt to do
Th Tun ‘around the bylaw.

ba € New city bylaw limited the initial fee

ifn Oleto $5, with a further fee payable only

"client obtained rental accommodation.

the Omelocators outwardly complied with

ie fee as stipulated. But in order to ob-

Wen a list of vacancies, prospective clients

. forced to buy a compulsory “‘kit’’ —
Went with a $35 price tag.

city € kit consisted a T-shirt, a map of the
» Anotebook and a pencil.

bro Inally, in 1980, Homelocators was

Ught before a ‘“‘show-cause” hearing of

a Couver city council and the licence was

Oked shortly afterward.
Ut the company, like other rental agen-
®S Which moved just outside Vancouver ci-

. unemployed
pressing to have it closed permanently.

JOB MART DOOR .

ty boundaries following passage of the
bylaw, continued to operate in Burnaby.
The agencies only disappeared last year as
business slumped.

Although Maddren’s name does not ap-
pear on the licences issued to the offices
which used his company’s name, he did play
apart in the management, according to Tom
Lalonde who recalled dealing with Maddren
when, as president of the Greater Vancouver
Renters’ Association, he campaigned for
curbs on rental agencies.

“We worked for two years to get Burnaby
and other municipalities to enact bylaws like
that in Vancouver,” Lalonde said in an in-
terview, adding that, as long as there was no
bylaw, rental agencies like Homelocators
were able to prey on tenants desperate for
housing. 5.

A petition to Burnaby council in May,
1980 from the GVRA prompted an ap-
pearance by the other Homelocator ex-
ecutive Gerald Dank, who went on television
to defend the company and eventually
helped thwart the campaign for the bylaw.

Ironically, Dank disappeared from the
scene shortly afterward. But according to
Lalonde, who spent considerable time and
made numerous phone calls in an effort to
trace him, he turned up in Melbourne,
Australia.

Significantly, it was in Australia that Job
Mart later began operations.

Just as with his Vancouver Homelocators

~ operation, Maddren’s Job Mart business is

operating under questionable legality.

Neither Job Mart nor the other name the
firm uses, Jobmart Publications, is
registered in Victoria, according to the
registrar of companies.

More to the point, however, is that Job
Mart, by selling the unemployed a list of job
vacancies for $50, may be contravening Sec-

tion 76(1) of the Employment Standards Ae

Act.
The section states:

“‘No person shall request, demand,

charge or receive, directly or indirectly, a
payment from a person seeking employment
a) for giving employment to, or procuring
employment for him; or b) for providing in-
formation to him respecting employers seek-
ing employees.” ;

Job Mart insists that it is only selling a
“subscription” to its job listings — hence the
name Jobmart Publications.

That legitimacy of those legal semantics
will likely be determined before either the
employment standards branch or city coun-
= But in the meantime, Job Mart, like the
rental agencies which precededit, is continu-
ing to profit on the plight of the desperate.
This time is is jobs that are stake and the
vacancies are even fewer and farther bet-
ween than those for housing two and three
years ago. ees

Finding Maddren to answer for it all is
also reminiscent of the days of
Homelocators. When we tried the number
given to us by the Vancouver office for Mad-
dren, we were told that the phone ’‘has been
disconnected.’ And according to the Union
of Unemployed Workers in Winnipeg, Job
Mart has closed its office and is no longer in
business. é

That should be its fate all across the coun-
try — and the sooner the better.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

NDP vote enhanced
where issues debated

Continued from page 1
loss was picked up entirely by the Socreds
demonstrating once again the alliance
between the federal Conservative Party
and the provincial Social Credit Party.

The Liberals, sensing a Socred defeat,
ran more than 50 candidates in the hope
of re-establishing itself as the big business
alternative to replace the Socred coali-
tion. Its popular vote went up from less
than half of one per cent in 1979 to three
per cent this year.

Much of that increase came from run-
ning more candidates but Liberals did
nevertheless take votes away from the
NDP.

The loss of some NDP votes to the
Liberals demonstrated the weakness of
the Barrett campaign. To a much greater
extent than in 1979, the Barrett leadership
had sought to move the party to the
pelitical centre, downplaying labor
issues, making a truce with the Mining
Association, in an effort to woo Liberal
and middle-of-the-road voters.

The strategy had a double weakness. It
failed to take into account the Liberal
campaign and left hundreds of trade
unionists without any enthusiasm for the
campaign since their votes were taken for
granted and their issues were buried.

In a sense, some of the shape of the
May 5 vote was already apparent as far
back as February, 1982 when the Socreds
first announced their restraint program
that figured so prominently in the elec-
tion. :

Had that program been challenged and
fought then — on the basis that it forced

working people to pay the cost of
economic crisis through curtailed social _

services and reduced wages — the out-
come on May 5 might have been very dif-
ferent.

But the leadership of the NDP under
Barrett — succumbing to public opinion
polls which suggested that wage controls
weren’t unpopular — decided not to
challenge the program. Instead, it sought
to emphasize popular resentment over
Socred cutbacks, hoping that that resent-
ment would ultimately translate into pro-
test votes for the NDP.

That position was echoed in the trade
union movement, particularly among the

leaders of the B.C. Federation of

Labor, who insisted right up to election
day that they would not confront the
government over wage controls or other
labor issues in order, as one federation
spokesman put it,’’ not to be suckered in-
’ to a fight with Social Credit.”’ The
message was simply: vote NDP.

Over the long haul, the result was that
notion of restraint, unchallenged, gained
acceptance among some working people.

Worse, the reluctance to take up labor

_ issues at a time when both employers and
the Socreds were mounting an attack on
trade union rights and conditions,
disarmed many workers and left others
feeling isolated.

What particularly impelled the Socreds
to their increased majority was that they
tied the restraint program firmly to the
issue of jobs. At the same time they
created fear that if the restraint program
were dismantled the existing jobs would
disappear.

Ina phony but slick ad campaign, Ben-
nett peddled the notion that his govern-
ment had already established hundreds of
jobs through its megaprojects and if only
people would accept the restraint “‘and
take a little less through these hard
times’’, their future could be assured with
Social Credit.

As long as the restraint program went
unchallenged, that notion has a certain
appeal to many unemployed, to uncom-
mitted voters, even to many workers.

- around issues was a factor, the NDP

The NDP also singled out jobs as the
issue but its major program was the $500
“municipal works program to be financed
by an advance on the future profits of the
B.C. Petroleum Corporation.

Countering it, the Socreds successfully
exploited fears that “throwing more
money at unemployment’’ would only
make problems worse.

Significantly, in these areas where
public participation and organized action

often increased its margin of victory.
That was the case in Vancouver Centre,
one of only a few ridings in which there
were a number of all-candidate meetings
and public discussion of issues, as well as
in North Island and Alberni where the
unemployed organizations had a high
profile.

A factor of some importance in
Vancouver-Centre and East as well as
Alberni-was the role of Communist can-
didates in focussing an attack on Social
Credit and posing strong alternative
policies. 28

Significantly, missing from the NDP
campaign were policies that figured in
earlier campaigns such as defence of
trade union rights, and public ownership
including nationalization of B.C. Tel.
The NDP leadership had distanced itself
from such policies in its quest for a
“moderate” image. _

But the result was to rob the party of
the clear alternative policies that were
necessary to counter the Socreds’ total
dependence of free enterprise and the
private sector. And in distancing itself
from left policies, the NDP leadership
made right wing policies appear more
popular and acceptable.

Despite the increased majority for the
Socreds, the way ahead won’t be smooth
for the government even though it has
already laid out its route.

It still must face the fact that 50,percent
of the population opposes its policies.
And all of the slick ads in the world will
not change the economic reality which,
even by the government’s own study, in-
cludes continuing high unemployment
and a continuing crisis in a provincial
economy already too dependent on
resource extraction.

But certainly Bennett will interpret the
results as a mandate for greater restraint
and for new restrictions on trade union
rights. In fact, government ministers
have already begun preparing the way for
both with their public statements.

We can expect that the Socreds will
also seek to carry through their other pro-
grams on behalf of big business including
assistance to union-free high technology
industry and further cuts in the public ser-
vices and health care to provide the
necessary funds.

But that course by the government
must compel a serious policy debate both
within the NDP and within the trade
union movement.

For the trade union movement the
debate is particularly critical since a con-
tinuation of the present course of ‘‘don’t _
fight, wait and vote NDP”’ has little
relevance given the present government’
mandate. :

On the other hand, if there is con-
certed, organized action by the trade
union movement, the unemployed and
other people’s organizations, it could
diminish considerably the ability of the
government to carry out its restraint —
policies — the more so if the NDP op-
position takes up the issues on their
behalf in the legislature.

For many, the outcome May 5 was
neither the result they wanted nor ex- -
pected. But it can be made a turning
point.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 13, 1983—Page 3