Powell River teachers in last Thursdays one-day strike Teachers to fight education formula A major campaign against the Socred government’s unpopular education finance formula was assured this week when the B.C. Teachers Federation decided to ask the provinces 20,000 teachers to contribute a day’s pay each to fight the formula. This action came from the Federation’s policy-making body— the 54 member representative assembly — as it met to consider the growing crisis in education in B.C. Charles Ovans, federation secretary said, ‘‘The fund will be used to fight the provincial education formula and- to help teachers in times of crisis.” The part of the formula which comes under particular sharp fire from teachers, the PTA and other groups, is the part which provides that a school district budget exceeding the provincial average budget by more than 10 percent must gain municipal council approval for the extra spending or win 60 percent approval in a referendum. Ovens said: ‘This formula provides for standardized, mediocre edu-' cation. We have to get rid of this formula to get quality education.” The action of the B.C. Teachers Federation was spurred by the one-day protest strike of Powell River’s 220 teachers last Thursday as they took the day off _to protest the Socred govern- ment’s ‘finance formula. The Powell River teachers took to the streets and homes carrying placards to explain the formula. Addressing a rally of the teachers Charles Ovans said the Powell River situation was merely a manifestation of a provincial problem. He charged the Socred government with trying to keep the lid on education costs without considering education as an investment in human growth and development. The education finance formula was established by a 1968 amendment to the Public Schools Act. Under it forty districts have had to cut their education budgets. In nine school districts where referendums were held only two gained the necessary 60 percent approval. The crisis in Powell River schools results from the formula which requires cutting out the services of at least 16 full time teachers next year and 27- members of non-teaching staff with the school population “growing. LABOR SCENE: The flat refusal to date by Forest Industrial Relations (FIR) to give serious heed to the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) demand for a reopening of the 1968 wage contract and a 12 percent interim wage increase to meet spiralling prices and living costs, has had a direct effect on IWA workers on the job. In the Courtenay area over half the 3,500 members of IWA Local 1-363 stayed off the job Monday of this week, angered by the refusal of the operators to open the Coast IWA agreement. Following a disclosure in the “Menzies Bay Camp Bulletin’ that Crown Zellerback - had turned the IWA proposal down and that CZ personal manager “Jocko”’ Caldwell had told crew members that any worker stopping work to attend his local union meeting ‘‘can consider himself fired,’ resulted in some 2,000 ‘‘staying at home.”’ Indicating the rising temper of IWA members, these union members informed CZ’s spokesman that ‘‘how we run the unions is none of your damn business. Why don’t you try threatening workers with the gas chamber. It worked for Hitler for awhile.”’ Meantime striking Kelsey Bay loggers employed by MacMillan- Bloedel won a settlement of their grievance against working overtime. In many IWA camps and mills the campaign against working overtime, and a stricter ‘‘work- to-rule’’ as per the coast master agreement is rapidly gaining ‘momentum. A report from Campbell River IWA Local 1-363 with over 700 members in attendance this week adopted a number of important decisions: - That a _work-to-rule be carried out, viz, that ‘‘we. work an 8-hour day 40-hour week only : the only overtime permissible is to maintain the 8- hour day 40-hour week. . .” Angry IWA workers back ‘reopen con - That. management be given until June 15 to bring all contractors, sub-contractors or Owner operators under the terms of the master agreement: failing that, the union will declare all logs produced by these contractors as ‘‘hot products’, and the membership will refuse to handle them. - That in the event the contractor and sub-contractor should work on Saturdays or Sundays, that the Local will put up a picket line to inform the contractor of the ‘‘work-to-rule”’ policy. . That no more agreements be signed requiring workers to do two jobs or double-up. (This important meeting in Campbell River was held on a working day when there was no strike, illustrating the fighting temper of IWA membership. ) An IWA staff conference last Thursday affirmed support for the union’s fight to reopen the agreement. em! 2B In the strike settlement won last week by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) covering the municipalities of Vancouver, Burnaby and Richmond, a significant ‘‘first’’ was recorded; viz, that the CUPE local unions involved were the first preferred targets of the Mediation Commission (Bill 33) to try out its act’ demand compulsory arbitration up? and the CUPE locals involv the dispute were the mee refuse to appear before Prem Bennett’s ball-and-chain squa® A noteworthy first indeed. RK if Now in its second week, a strike of the Oil, Chemical 0 Atomic Workers ee (OCAWU) involving six Meer oil distributing companies B.C., faces an old hazar ie addition to a highly concenifa ; oil monopoly, that of the ne parte court injunction, desig” to render the union’s Tg Fits strike and picket in support? , economic demands, into cynical farce. Tuesday of this week es new court injunctions Hee slapped against the oil woe union, prohibiting ee ‘il activities on sea and land al. oil outlet points where “hot t products are put on the marke So far organized labor 11 a 1 especially through the me a : the B.C. Federation of La ing have as yet had little or noth! to say regarding this alas rise in employer use ° ak courts to weaken or Drea strikes. An affiliate union stall conference was held Tuesday i this week with some 150 os representatives present, 5P i sored by the BCFL parent Ba to discuss BCFL policy reat assistance to the OCAWU strlk™ While oil union strike strates? based itself on declaring 1g products of all six oil compan’ Ait “hot’’, the BCFL policy center” primarily on declaring % company ‘‘hot’’ as a startel, its issue on which the BCFL and ‘id Oil Workers affiliate have ie differences, even prior t0 eS current strike, — Following a _wide-ranginé discussion the BCFL positi® was approved, as was greale! solidarity with the striking 2 workers. Price gouge also hits fis By H.K. WARREN So the Great Price Gouge Is On! If the price gouge was confined to meat prices alone, then we might be able to live with it, as we would have poultry, fish and variants to fall back on. But, it would appear the price gouge is invading all facets of the cost of living. Let us discuss fish. I learned that the halibut boats were unloading at the foot of Gore Ave., and that they were getting 30 cents for chicks and 39 cents for medium and large. I was curious, so I stuck around and tried to learn something of the fisherman’s problem. I was in# the mood, anyway for fresh ‘halibut, so, I went down to one of the large departmental outlets to buy a piece my size. A tail piece of about one and one quarter pounds cost me 95 cents. Quoted, according to the price ticket as 89 cents per pound! I later phoned the skipper to learn a few halibut facts. His boat was 75 feet long. Cost to build was $140,000, and he told me that it could not be built today for under $200,000. He carried approximately $8,000 of gear, and he could lose up to 50% of this on a bad trip. Sometimes he was lucky and did not lose any gear. He took that chance. He carries a crew of 8. The run is about 1,200 miles to the Gulf of Alaska. 5-6 days to get there and the same to come back. A complete trip is about 14 days. He brought back about 80,000 pounds of fish. Both he and his crew were happy. The price was good and the catch was more than average. However, while he had sailed that distance to get 39 cents per pound, the retailer had only sailed a few blocks with a cheap truck to be able to charge me almost three times the price he had paid! PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 6, 1969—Page 12 One of the shiploads I enquired into showed that he received 39 cents for the bulk of his load. He had only 1,000 lbs. of chicken at 30 cents per pound. He is paid on the catch with the heads off and the fish gutted. His crew unloads the fish. So the packer or processor is not paying for labor costs in unloading. Further, the crew cut off the heads before weighing. The heads are sloughed off on processor premises. These-heads are then taken by the processor and are filletted for the cheeks. The rest of the head is used for fertilizer. The fisherman gets nothing for this loss. Halibut cheek fillets are sold on the open retail market at 85 cents to 90 cents per pound. There are some buyers who want the halibut with heads on. When they call for heads on, they deduct 14% from the price. If the price, then, is 39 cents per pound, -buying public 4 this would reduce the price to 35.54 per pound. So, the fisherman is in exactly the same ‘position as the beef producer he has no say in the price he receives, other than that negotiated by his union — if he has one. Otherwise he has no. control or voice, nor does he get value for the by-products of his produce. This writer walked from Georgia and Granville all the way down Hastings to Main and along Main to 28th Avenue, calling into almost every meat and fish retail outlet on the way, and, the story was the same. The lowest price quoted was more than double the price paid to the producer. What was more and of great concern to this writer, was the general arrogance and don’t-give- a-damned attitude of the average retailer. “‘If you don’t like the price, don’t buy.” This writer would suggest that the large! super market outlets are taking full advantage of the lock-0¥ They know what the genera trend will be. Prices W!} skyrocket, and, when they come back on the market, they will be able, by a small reduction of thé established high price, to con thé public into thinking that they 4!© the price reducers, but, will sit be getting far above the C05 spread price. This writer would like suggest that not only are thé large supermarket outlets usiNé every means to beat the meatcutters into accepting thel! terms, but, that they are usiNé the occasion to entren¢ themselves in a new price gous® that is bound to catch the worke! and the consumer in a perfec bind. They must be chortling like the — imps in Hades at the opportunity — that has been placed at thei! disposal.