—- TTNO TY ATO TTT Jobless crisis ile ‘a social renovation’, Victoria rally told Continued from page 1 Massey pointed to that demonstration, on Apr. 5 last year, recalling that “last year there were only 300 of us.” But if our members have increased Massey said, ‘“‘the Socred government still doesn’t seem to care about the unemployed. “‘We walked into the premier’s office on Thursday to present our 14-point program for jobs and we were told that they hadn’t even received our letter,” he said to a chorus of boos. ‘“‘We were sent down to (labor minister Bob) McClelland’s office where they acknowledged that they had our letter: but told us they couldn’t do anything for us. “When you get a response like that, I don’t think I need to tell you what we should do to that government on May 5,’’ hesaid to cheers and applause. Massey paid tribute to the Malahat Indian Band which had put up the group of trekkers in a band community hall the two nights earlier, calling the action ‘the kind of unity we're going to need if we’re going to win.” And that same kind of unity between the trade union movement and the unemployed _is vital, he emphasized, linking unionists? battle against wage concessions to the cam- _ paign for jobs. Noting that his own union, the IWA, would be ‘‘right on the firing line” in con- tract negotiations later this summer, he call- ed on union members to “turn back the tide of attacks on us. “We hope the trade union movement will be strong and united enough to stand against the demands of the employers,’’ he said, gue if it gives in we will never find jobs.” He warned that the Bennett government had led the assault on labor and told the ral- ly: “I hope when the election is over that he is defeated and an NDP government is in of- fice. “But I want to issue a challenge to Dave Barrett and the NDP,”’ he added, quoting the UN charter on human rights and the right to a job and security. FATHER JIM ROBERTS. . . ‘we need a whole renovation of society.’ “That right is what the unemployment movement is all about. And we need a government that is committed to begin mak- ing progress towards achieving it — towards creating safe, decent jobs at union rates.”’ B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Council president Roy Gautier welcomed the unemployed rally, calling it ‘‘a start to what we must do on an increasing scale if we areto get action.” : The Building Trades are no strangers to unemployment, he noted, citing figures showing an unemployment rate of 55 per- cent among construction workers across the province. But the first step to ending unemploy- ment, he argued, striking a note that was repeated by speakers throughout the rally, JOY LANGAN ... Bennett.’ “fs to get rid of the Bill Bennett government.”’ Victoria NDP MLA Gordon Hansen echoed Gautier’s comments, calling on par- ticipants ‘‘to roll up their sleeves and help open up the legislature which has not been working for months.’’ He welcomed the unemployed trekkers to Victoria and told the rally that their action “‘symbilizes the desperation of thousands of people on UIC and welfare.”’ He pledged that if the NDP were elected, it would seek to end the confrontation bet- ween teachers and the government, between nurses and other groups and the govern- ment. On jobs, he emphasizéd Dave Barrett’s $500 million program for municipal works, as well as the need for increased fish process- ing in the province and a ban of log exports. Joy Langan, a B.C. Federation of Labor vice-president and co-ordinator for the federation’s unemployed. action centres made another pledge: wherever Bill Bennett goes in the election campaign, she said, ‘’the unemployed will find him.” “More than 100 people demonstrated outside his hotel in Prince George where he was speaking to a Socred dinner,’’ she said. “They were there to remind him that while he was sitting down to a $100-a-plate dinner, those outside were going without.’ Langan noted that the Socreds are ‘‘so worried they’re only giving three days notice of his meetings. “But wherever he goes, we’ll find him,” she declared. ‘‘We’re going to haunt Bill Bennett.”’ But it was the words of Catholic priest Jim Roberts, a member of the social action committee of the Catholic Church and at- tending the rally at the request of Victoria Bishop Remi De Roo, who dramatized the mood of the rally in an impassioned address that drew sustained applause. Calling the trek to Victoria ‘‘a dramatic march,”’ he told the trekkers: ‘We are the recipients of your teaching. “We live in a world of 14 percent unemployment — which the Conference Board of Canada says will continue. “Tt is indeed a social and ethical crisis,’’ he declared, emphasizing that the gravity of the crisis had prompted the recent statement by the bishops. In a speech punctuated by quotations from Archbishop Charbonneau who sup- ported Asbestos strikers in 1949, and to assassinated Salvadoran Archbishop Romero, he warned that the crisis ‘‘is not one’’ which can be solved by loving one’s neighbor. “Tt demands a structural solution,”’ he said. ‘“We need a social renovation of socie- ty tie Roberts also echoed Massey’s call, and urged ‘‘all parties to come up with real solu- tions to the problems.”” And the first of those, he said, ‘‘is unemployment.” a ‘we will haunt Bill i B.C. farm workers are about ‘‘20 to: 30 years’’ behind their counterparts in California regarding farm safety, accor- ding to the leader of the California-based United Farm Workers. _ Cesar Chavez told audiences in Van- couver last weekend that B.C. farm- workers face similar obstacles as those overcome by his union in almost two decades of struggle for wages and safety regulations. The UFW president, who said the union is giving “‘moral and tactical” sup- port to the Canadian Farmworkers’ Union, spoke at a CFU benefit Saturday night and joined a 300-strong march pro- testing farmworkers’ exclusion from government safety regulations Sunday. Farmworkers and supporters were staging the second major demonstration since the Socred government pulled a last- minute switch three weeks ago and ex- cluded farmworkers from safety regula- tions of the Workers Compensation Board, despite a year-old promise that such regulations would apply on Apr. 4 this year. ““We have been betrayed two times by this government — once’ in 1980 and again in 1983 — it is an attack on the whole working class of B.C.,’? CFU president Raj Chouhan told the demonstrators as they rallied at Robson Square. In 1980, workers came under the protection of the Employment Standards Act, but were later excluded from several provisions by the Socred cabinet. Labor minister Bob McClelland’s move to replace regulations with a “‘safe- ty education”’ agency run by the farmers — employers in one of B.C.’s most dangerous, and least regulated, industry — was like ‘‘leaving the fox to guard the. chicken coup,”’ said Chavez at the rally. Some 300 farmworkers and supporters marched-through Vancouver streets sun as part of the escalating protest against government ‘betrayal.’ The Canadian Fa i workers Union has received support from organized labor at home and abro@ their efforts to bring workers in B.C.’s third most dangerous industry re - Workers Compensation Board regulations. The demonstration took on 4 ye election mood, with even California’s noted United Farm Workers president, Cé Chavez calling for the ouster of the Socreds. ‘Oust Socreds', Chavez urges B.C. farmworkers The Socred action has drawn mass condemnation from the labor mové- ment, civil rights activists and the oppos!- tion NDP, whose presence at the rally showed clearly that the party considers farmworkers’ exclusion from WCB pro- tection an election issue. - Norm Levi, NDP MLA fot Maillardville-Coquitlam, and humat resources minister in the former NDP government, made what amounted to an election promise that farmworkers would receive full protection under the Employ- ment Standards Act governing work hours and overtime, and WCB regula- tions “‘specifically related to occupational hazards of farmworkers.”’ Levi blasted McClelland for making “a blatant cynical grab for the farmers vote”’ by excluding farmworkers from WCB regulations, and called the labor minister and premier Bill Bennett “‘bitter, evil, anti-labor men.”’ “This (Socred) government is not 2 friend of yours and ours,’”’ said Mike Kramer, acting president of the B.C. Federation of Labor. : Farmworker safety is enshrined in California’s legislation, due to the years- long struggle of the UFW, according to Chavez, who urged his Canadian counterparts to “‘spare no sacrifice’’ in turning the anti-labor Socreds out of of- fice. All farm employers must comply with safety regulations in California, although other states lack such legislation, he told reporters afterwards. B.C. farmworkers struggle under much the same conditions as California farmworkers, Chavez noted. They are poor, are members of minority groups and “‘at the mercy of exploiters”’ such as ’ farm labor contractors. Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive, q \ Vancouver, B.C. V5L-3X9 Phone 251-1186 & ‘Name. 3.) 28) ee ee Walden, ea eames eee P y Address:i:;. se. ESA eo ae ae \ Postal Code......... EN Res OG Say oe eee ee PRE Ree, SB a dn l 1am enclosing: 1 yr. $14 2 yrs. $250 6 mo. $80 Foreign 1 year $15 0 p be Bill me later 1) Donation $............ es ; READ THE PAPER THAT FIGHTS FOR LABOR YL LI LF MEY LE ED LET LP EI EP LE LED LI EF LB EF OD. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 15, 1983—Page_