iTWAS YOUR IDEA TO ROB BANKS... (WANTED TO 60 INTO 7g THE FOOD BUSINESS’ | AMEN AN Food prices rise again Higher food prices were again given as the reason this week for a sharp rise in the wholesale price index announced by Statis- tics Canada for the 12 months ending January. During that period the index jumped 12.3 percent. An example of how high food costs. which hit working people and pensioners hardest, is the major factor forcing the cost of living index up, is seen in the following facts. During the 12 months under review vegetable products showed a wholesale price increase of 18.7 percent. Animal products rose 16.6 percent. According to the index it costs $33.64 to buy in January what $10 bought before the Second World War. Or to bring it closer. you need $33.64 to buy in Janu- ary this year what you could have brought for $29.96 in Janu- ary, 1972. Food prices are continuing their sharp rise while the hearing in Ottawa goes on end- lessly without any action to bring down food prices. Almost every day new increases are announc- ed. This week Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island con- sumers were faced with another two-cent increase in the price of milk, this despite a jump in milk prices only last month. Denny’s dispute points up need for labor act changes By ALD. HARRY RANKIN Employers are still using the anti-labor legislation and atti- tudes developed by the Social Credit government during its 20 year rule of our province as an umbrella to fire workers who protest about unreasonable conditions on the job and to break strikes by securing injunc- tions against picketing. What happened at Denny's res- taurant No. 1 at 1296 West Broad- way is a good example. Their wages are $2.10 per hour. just 10c above the minimum wage. The 45 employees do not belong to any union. Their grievances had been mounting and they were unable to secure any redress from management. The employees were ordered to kick out any customers who order coffee and stay more than 20 minutes. Management would call three- hour-long staff meetings on the employees’ time. To fail to attend would be to risk losing their jobs. Employees did not dare to refuse to come in when called up for work on their days off, and this happened often. Unable to even raise their Hearings set on city wards Vancouver city council will hold public hearings on changes in the city’s electoral system. including the introduction of 2 ward system. during April. May and June. A schedule of hearings announced last week are: City Hall. April 5: Killarney school. April 12: Lord Byng school May 3: Eric Hamber school. May 17% Britannia school, May 31: King George school, June 7: and City Hall, June 21. All hearings are at 7:30 p.m. Considerable interest sur- rounds the upcoming hearings. The demand for a ward system in Vancouver has become louder each year, finally com- pelling city hall to hold the pub- lic hearings. grievances with management the day shift in desperation decided to walk off the job. The other shifts followed suit. It was a spontaneous action by working people who couldn't any longer stand being treated as dirt. The manager of Denny's. instead of meeting with his employees and trying to settle the issue, fired all those who had walked off the job. Then when picketing began to hurt the business, he applied for and secured a court injunction barring all picketing by the employees. What it all amounts to is this: Unorganized workers who take action against intolerable condi- tions can be fired and can be barred from picketing unfair employers. They have no protec- tion under law. The employer can. do what he wants. Employees have to either take it or quit. Andif they quit, they will “likely be refused unemployment insurance. The law is all on the side of the employers. This unequal situation in which employees find~them- selves was fostered by the Social Credit government in collusion with the employers. It can and should be changed by the NDP government. The Labor Relations Act must be overhauled to allow unorgan- ized workers to take action to correct their grievances without being fired. Employees must be allowed to join a union without being threatened with dis- missal. Phe warning that the “Little Rebel” William Lyon T Mackenzie gave to Canadians over a century ago during the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837 still holds good today, ‘Never trifle with your rights.” Seemingly we do just the opposite. Just recently the _ Unemployment Insurance Commission ‘ UIC) published a small booklet ‘explaining the new regulations and the new UIC benefits. all under the grandiose title. “a right of canadians. ” ae This trifling balderdash published in French and English is presumed to be the “history.” “evolution.” the “changes” and “new look” of UIC. . . a “guide” to the uninitiated in political trifling. or better still. just pure bellyrobbing a la parlia- mentary edict. The process is simple and direct: that of denying a Canadian worker a basic right to collect UIC benefits when. thru no fault of his own. he is deprived of the right to work, to earn a livlihood. UIC’s “new look” is first and foremost a union-busting job: to see to itthat Henry Dubb. unionmanor not. goes through the town looking for non-existent jobs. whether his union hiring hall supplies workers in bulk to emploversor not. Of course an official in UIC’s explaining department says that “unions which are the sole hiring agents for an industry are given consideration . . . etc. but that doesn't relieve Henry of providing proof of his own active searchfor work.” Hence no “proof.” no UIC benefits. The UIC requires “documentation” before the jobless worker gets a dime of his own money. Starving or poverty-ridden families are not the concern of the bureaucracy of UIC. And if UIC cannot rob Henry Dubb at one end of this vicious circle. it will do so at the other, demanding just cause’. why Henry quit his previous job. The tin-horn bureaucracy of the ‘‘new’’ UIC may not knowit, but there are almost as many “‘just causes”’ for quitting a job as there are bosses in this modern system of wage slavery. Every bos$is out to make a profit on the labor of others, and the element of justice’ seldom enters into it when the breaking point comes. Sub-standard wages are one good and ‘‘just’’ cause, not listed in UIC’s current brochures. ; The “purpose” of this UIC “‘a right of canadians’’as set forth in its “foreword” has certainly missed its objective, since its “history” section, much like the rest of it, isa mish- mash of dubious vintage. having little to do with reality or fact. But since its publication costs (and others of a like vintage) come out of UIC’s unpaid benefits to jobless workers. no doubt UIC hopes that such literary garbage will help to sell their “new look” bellyrobbing. In one short paragraph of their ““higtory”’ the UIC literati came perilously near the truth— then shied awayfromitlikea tory politician recovering from a nightmare. “Old Age pensions were introduced in 1927. but no need was vet felt for protecting the unemployed worker. The “dirty 30's changed that.” How? The brochure doesn’t say. Nary a word about half a million jobless and destitute young workers riding CPR boxcars from Halifax to Victoria searching for that elusive job: of the tens of thousands in Hunger Marches seeking food or work and wages: onthe great “On-to-Ottawa” trek that wrote indelible pages in the annals of Canadian labor history. Not a peep about the Bennett Slave Camps at 20-cents a day — the going-and coming “wage.”* Of the police brutality. the clubbings and beatings and new prisons to facilitate the capacity of the old ones. Of Section 98 of the Criminal Code to hasten the jobless out of sight. Of a Workers Unity League delegation of Canadian trade unionists to demand the gov- ~ ernment of the day provide a system of Unemployment Insurance in Canada as a guaranteed “right of canadians,”’ to substitute for that other inalienable right that the powers that be have now amply demonstrated they cannot and will not guarantee: ‘a right of canadians™ to a job. and short of that their right to the UIC benefits they found for and won' If vou cannot write history messeuirs UIC. at least vou should learntoreadit. Thenvour new look would show up for what itreally is.abarefaced piece of robbery. covered up with fine words. > Peds LMG Ad PII RY yi ea ae Ph TAGA E- ~ DACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1973-—PAGE 2 The use of injunctions ? prevent picketing must barred in labor disputes: 1, use of strike-breakers must banned by law. Labor Minky, | King’s claim that he can tml any changes in anti-labor leer lation without consulting employers first is like tell the General that he mustconsuy enemy first before taking 4 to protect his troops. These are not revolution demands. They are the many countries of Europe ab injunctions may not e against labor in labor? ment disputes in many st@ ofl the United States. They 4% 4) elementary justice a is giving the working people it province some prot asl against employers who aC this were still the Middle A The Vancouver ana = ‘i Labor Council has a give the employees of Daas its full support. Ina state declared that it ‘‘abhol . d low | treatment of, an thi sands of employees in HE “ig or worse circumstance ‘ig those at Denny's. | eno become organized into a and have the protection aust Lae c labor legislation. vive will be a better place a EUNICE PARKER School trustee to speak at cil Women’s Day 1 This year is the ear gt versary _ of Inte t will Women’s Day. The eve” yn celebrated witha tea on te March 11 at 1:30 ee Russian People’s HO Campbell Ave. : will The feature speake! ji Coquitlam — school sil Eunice Parker. whos’ rst willbe. “The Famil¥ 4 Prices Rip-off.” py tl A musical program © will’ ' of Norway mixed chor oly ' highlight of the after wh Another popular real jal the bake sale. There * artify a display of books ol pri interest to women and re rc Proceeds will go t0 hea ing of Vietnam :