BCGEU rallies target concessions

— page 712

Wednesday, February 19, 1986
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Vol. 49, No. 6

Newsstand Price 40°

RiBUN

a.

Gov't education budgets
mean ‘disastrous cuts’

—__

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Still waiting for shipyard jobs

The release Friday of the Socred
government’s preliminary school budgets
has drawn expressions of anger, shock and
disbelief from leaders in the education
community.

The budgets for the province’s 75 school
districts, which arrived more than two
months past the usual November deadline,
promise further disastrous cuts for B.C.’s
public education, teachers and trustee lead-
ers have warned.

The figures, which the B.C. Teachers
Federation in a preliminary assessment
estimated would force boards to chop $40
million to $45 million in services and cause
the elimination of up to 1,100 teachers’ jobs,
contain no salary increases for school staff
and barely cover operating inflationary
increases, school leaders say.

““We can’t believe what this government
is doing. We think it must be a scare tactic, a
gambit before negotiations (over teachers’
salaries) to get boards to adopt a cut and
slash position. Otherwise, it’s really fright-
ening,” said BCTF first vice-president Elsie
McMurphy.

The effect of the government’s fiscal
framework has varied for school districts,
with some receiving budget cuts while oth-
ers have received miniscule increases that
were dismissed as ineffectual by school
board officials.

The situation was viewed as grave, with
Eric Buckley, president of the B.C. School
Trustees Association meeting with Premier
Bill Bennett Feb. 14 to discuss school offi-
cial’s concerns. At press time, school board
chairmen were calling for an emergency
meeting to deal with the budgets.

The release of the fiscal frameworks for
the districts eclipsed earlier news last week
of the government’s announced $110-
million “excellence” fund for public and
post-secondary education.

That fund, which now appears to have
been an attempt to soften opposition to the

see VSB page 2

More than 50 laid-off Bel-Aire ship-
yard workers, together with their union
president showed up at the yard’s gate

Monday for what was to be the promised

re-opening of the shipyard — but the

_ lock never did come off the gate.

Paul Pigeon, secretary of Pinecorp

Resources Group Ltd. which took over

the shipyard last fall as part of a scheme
to make use of federal income tax credits,
stated last week that the shipyard, closed
completely since Jan. 31, would re-open
Monday morning.

With that, Marine Workers and Boi-
lermakers Union president John Fitzpat-

ick, who represents the 130 workers laid
off at the yard, said he would be there at
the gate with the unemployed union
members, seeking to get their jobs back.

But Pigeon never did show up. A law-
yer called the guard’s gate office later in
the morning to state that Pigeon would
not be coming.

General manager Al Horner, himself
laid off as a result of the financial col-
Ipase of Pinecorp, showed up briefly to
speak to the men but left soon after.

Pigeon’s promise to re-open the yard
and his subsequent reneging on the
arrangement, is typical of Pinecorp itself

which has run its varied operations in
much the same way over the past two
years.

Created on the sale of the now-
discredited Scientific Research Tax Cred-
its in 1984, Pinecorp has since created a
network of some 14, mainly paper, com-
panies to take advantage of a variety of
tax credit and government incentive
schemes. Virtually none of the compan-
ies has done anything except make pur-
chases and rack up debts.

Last month, Revenue Canada moved
in to seize Pinecorp assets and since that
time, a receiver has been appointed to

oversee Pinecorp’s debts which report-
edly exceed $30 million.

All that has left shipyard workers with
little hope that the yard will actually
open. And even if it does, Fitzpatrick
noted, there is no work because of the
Conservative government’s failure to
make good on its pre-election pledge to
assist in developing a “viable shipbuild-
ing industry.”

The 50 unemployed Bel-Aire workers
later marched into North Vancouver-
Burnaby Conservative MP Chuck Cook’s

see WE WANT page 3