carry more news and analysis.

carry,on labor’s fight in 1978.

we intend to do it again.

TRIBUNE

When the next edition of this paper rolls off the press, we will be
on the eve of a two month campaign to keep the Tribune going.

On April 1, our annual financial drive will be on again. It is the
time each year when we call on our readers to pool their energy,
talents and resourcefulness — and their dollars — to help us raise
enough money to maintain operations for another year.

The clock will run out on our drive about 7 p.m. June 24; our
obective is to meet that hour with a minimum of $54,000.

Our objective is a minimum one if we are to maintain the size,
quality and regularity of our press. Already in the past year we
have reduced staff and at times trimmed the number of pages in
our editions. Even so, the inflationary spiral that our paper faces is
unending; it costs more this year to produce the same as last, and
more again if we are to boost production and print more papers and

That’s, why we have coined the slogan for ourselves: ‘$54,000 to
fight.” If our drive is successful we will have the ammunition to

We know it won’t be easy. Many of our supporters are unem-
ployed'and those that aren’t habe had their income frozen by wage
controls. Students and pensioners have less this year as well. But
every year for the last 43, we’ve made our objective, and this year

It all begins in one week. Press.club targets will be printed in that
issue, fund raising tickets and cards will be circulated, the coming
events column will fill up with a host of public events the press
builder, honor press builder and club awards will go up for grabs
and other will sign up for the ‘‘400 club”. Here in the Tribune office,
drive manager Pat O’Connor will put up the master board that will
record each dollar on our way to the victory banquet.
\__ Please, join our drive. It’s $54,000 to fight!

a

Attacks on jobless mount

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Have you noticed that the at-
tacks on the unemployed have been
rising in direct proportion to the
rise in the number of unemployed?

People who are older than I am
tell me that the same thing hap-
pened during the great depression
of the Hungry Thirties.

The propaganda line is this: The
unemployed themselves are to
blame if they are unemployed.
They don’t want to work, they’re
too lazy to work, they’re not
looking for work, they’re refusing
to take the jobs that are available.
They would rather be on welfare or
unemployment insurance than
work; many are cheating and
drawing welfare and unem-
ployment insurance fraudulently.

This is the line being paddled by
the spokesmen for both the federal
and provincial governments and
by the corporation-owned media.

The ads you see on T.V. warning
people not to cheat on unem-
ployment insurance is_ one
example. Ottawa is spending
$1,000,000 of our money on those
ads. These ads won’t cut down on
the incidence of cheating — which

Civic workers challenge Kamloops
city council over contracting out

KAMLOOPS — Cupe Local 900
and Kamloops city council ex-
changed. words,,.last, week..in..a
heated debate over job security for
municipal employees.

The right wing Kamloops council
overruled recommendations from
the city’s engineering department
and called for tenders to contract
out the collection of commercial
garbage, a move that prompted a
quick response from CUPE. -

Municipal employees packed
council chambers last week as
union business agent Bill Ferguson
placed the union’s arguments
against contracting out. The
council was “‘ambushed by their

onths ago, when the B.C. Federatign of Labor began the

own brief’’, one Kamloops paper
stated, as Ferguson made public
the: previously. covered up
recommendations of the

engineering department against -

contracting out.

The CUPE brief struck a raw

nerve among some of the coun-

cillors and set off a display of
anger that saw one alderman hurl
the brief into the garbage in front
of the union members, and mayor.
Mike Latta yell threats at
Ferguson. Only alerman Nelson
Reese stood up for the municipal
employees.

The contracting out of com-

merical garbage will only affect a

few workers but it is ‘‘the thin edge
of the wedge,’’ Ferguson told the
Tribune this week, ‘‘They want to
use contracting out to get CUPE in
the Okanagan.”

Ever since Local 900 successfully
concluded a collective agreement
for Kamloops school board em-
ployees that included a _pace-
setting ‘‘no layoff’’ clause,
Kamloops mayor Mike. Latta has
conducted a stepped up campaign
to roll back conditions for
Kamloops municipal employees,
which rate among the best in
Canada.

PEOPLE AND ISSUES

is small in any case — but they will
help them create the impression
that many people are cheating and
that anyone on unemployment
insurance should be looked at with
a certain amount of suspicion.

The gum-shoe squad that the
minister of inhuman resources in
B.C. has looking for welfare fraud
is another example. This squad
costs a lot more than it is worth.
The amount of fraud they have
uncovered doesn’t equal their
salaries and expenses. But the
minister and the media give a lot of
publicity to every fraud case that is
uncovered and so the general
impression is created that many
people are drawing welfare
fraudulently. And it fits right in
with the minister’s personal at-
tacks on the unemployed and
people on welfare and his demand
that welfare expenditures be
curbed.

Nothing is said by the govern-
ment or the media, of course, about
the corporate welfare bums, the
big corporations who get con-
cessions and grants annually that
run not into the millions but the
billions — the oil and gas com-

panies, mining companies, CPR

and so on. These corporate welfare
bums have been an expense to the
taxpayers year after year, but you
don’t see anyone investigating
them. By means of a cute little
item called ‘‘deferred income
tax’’, they are even exempted from
paying their full income taxes.

What is the purpose of all this
propaganda?

One reason, of course, is to take
governments off the hook. They
are responsible for devising
policies that will provide full
employment and they are doing
nothing to bring insuch policies.
It’s very convenient for them if the
unemployed themselves can be
blamed for being unemployed
instead of blaming it on’ the lack of
government action to deal with the
unemployment crisis.

Another reason is to force people
to work for low wages, for the
minimum wage or less. Our
millionaire minister of human
resources for example, operates a

as unemployment rises

business where wages for some
jobs are only $3.50 an_ hour.
Keeping wages at the poverty level
means more profits, and can also
be used against efforts of
organized labor to keep up its
wages with the rising rate of in-
flation.

Still another reason is to cut back
on unemployment insurance,
unemployment insurance which is
paid for by workers themselves,
started off as a program to tide
over people while they are
unemployed. Every year the
federal government has brought in —
legislation restricting the number
of people who can draw unem-
ployment insurance and the length —
of time they can draw it. Gradually
the original purpose of unem-
ployment insurance has been
undermined. And today voices are
being raised demanding that
unemployment insurance by
provided only on a means test
basis.

What it all adds up to is this:
We're in the midst of an economic
recession that shows no signs of
recovery. Big business in this
country is determined that its
profits will not only be maintained
but increased, in spite of the
economic depression. One of the
main sources of profit is contracts
and tax concessions from the
federal treasury. If the budget is
used to provide job programs and ~
to increase purchasing power for
working people, there will be less
left for hand-outs to the corporate
welfare bums. It’s as simple as
that.

The living standards of working
people are now under attack right
and left. The role of unions in
leading the fight for decent living:
standards and labor’s rights are

\

now more decisive than ever. The .

fight for jobs, which is a political
fight for new government policies,
is a key question today for the
whole labor movement. Municipal
councils too must be drawn into
this fight and it is important for
labor to get into municipal politics,
to. promote candidates that

represent the needs of labor and all
working people.

Ls

mammoth task of organizing transportation to take
hundreds of people to Victoria for the Citizens’ Lobby for
Jobs, it probably anticipated that the Social Credit’
government and the Crown company, the B.C. Ferries
Corporation, would do whatever they could to frustrate
Federation plans for moving people from the mainland to
Vancouver Island. —

“That, of course, has happened. According to lobby
organizers, the Ferry Corporation has effectively blocked
the attempts by the Federation to have a special ferry
scheduled in order to transport demonstrators.

But now it seems that the Ferry Corporation’s reasons for
not scheduling the special ferry — that it would be an un-
precedented move — is about as phoney as the Bennett’s
claims about the state of the economy.

In fact, a special ferry has been scheduled before, lobby
organizers have discovered — but for a rather different
kind of event. Last year, the Ferry Corporation put on a
special sailing on the day of the opening of the Legislature
to bring over a crowd of special guests — the Socred party
faithful among them — to attend a tea party and general
get-together following the opening ceremonies in the House.

Perhaps the lobbyists should say that they’re all car
dealers — and only on their way to the Empress for tea and
crumpets.

ee ee &

hen the Vancouver Labor Council, COPE, the B.C.
Students Federation, the Downtown Eastside Residents
Association and a new organization of the unemployed
brought the matter of unemployment to Vancouver city
council last week, they successfully pressured the city into
endorsing the March 30 jobs lobby and agreeing to look at
how the city can create jobs.
The attention focused on the unemployment debate,
however, overshadowed another decision by city council

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 24, 1978—Page 2

that day, to create more unemployment by cutting the
annual grant of the Downtown Eastside Residents’
Association to $12,000 from last year’s $36,000.

The TEAM and NPA councillors have an acute case of
paranoia that they may be seeing a lot more of one or
possibly all three of DERA’s officers, depending on the
outcome of November’s civic election. By cutting DERA’s
grant, they cut its staff from three to one, and, they hope,
DERA’s effectiveness by the same ratio.

But Bruce Eriksen, Libby Davies and Jean Swanson
aren’t about to draw lots on the available job yet. DERA
will appeal the decision and will be back at council in April
to try and win another $24,000, although this year it will be
tougher.

The appeal has, in fact, already started. You can lend a
hand by calling TEAM and NPA aldermen and the mayor
and letting them know what you think about their vindictive
attitude towards an organization that is a credit to Van-
couver.

eek k &

ith MPs falling over each other in their haste to put the

final legislative touches on the Alcan pipeline sellout,
plans for grandiose port expansions up and down the B.C.
coast being dangled like carrots on a stick, and word of
another Chretien mini-budget coming in April, one doesn’t
have to be much of a handicapper to put the odds on a -
summer federal election.

The Ottawa strategists will no doubt be surprised to find
out, though, that, at least in this province, it’s the Com-
munist Party that is well prepared, at this point, for the
impending campaign. :

Last week, 12 CP candidates and their campaign
managers got together to consider the new election act and
exchange experiences gathered so far.

If the word of the communist campaign hasn’t travelled
too far yet, however, it’s not entirely the party’s fault.

ne of the 12 CP c

Wilson who doubles as a Tribune staff writer when he’s not
out debating with Art Lee and Margaret Mitchell in Van-

-couver East.

Nominated last December, Fred had made his candidacy
farely well known in the constituency by early February
when he received a call from a Vancouver Province
reporter to interview him about the election contest in
Vancouver East.

After about a fifteen minute conversation with the
Province, he looked forward to seeing some of his views in
print. Sure enough, a few days later a page five profile of
the constituency appeared, but, not unexpectedly, the
Province reported only two candidates in the running — Art
Lee and Margaret Mitchell.

He fired a letter to the editor, correcting the false image
the story portrayed and noting the omission of his can-
didacy.

Now eight weeks later, his letter hasn’t appeared either,
which, we assume, would normally be a courtesy afforded
to a candidate for public office who was blacked out of a
story.

“They have proved my point,” Fred says, ‘but the
problem is, nobody knows about it.”’

RiBsUuUNeE

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186

Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4,50 for six months;

All other countries, $10.00 one year
Second class mail registration number 1560

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