Friday, July 29, 1977

Gay td
Vol. 39, No. 30
—_——

bee

iS Top photo Miguel Moya, below, Bill McLeod
a Nday’s giant march as it winds on to the Granville bridge (above) and as it passes the crest of the bridge
mee Members of city council and other elected bodies, trade unions, community organizations and political

rties marched to save the VRB. They will all be out again August 13 ina “Day of Support” for the VRB.

Urge militant policy

Wore Canadian Union of Postal
is €rs, meeting in convention
sha Week in Halifax, has directed
..'P Criticism at the three-way
plows sions being held with em-
Yers and the government by the
lcers of the Canadian Labor
Tigress.
Tanding tripartism as ‘‘a
patel of the principles of the
ae movement,’’ the
ele lve board report _to
hay pees protested the talks which
Jo been going on in secret.
eam, retiring CUPW
22.009 nt told delegates to the
that ‘member union convention,
the decks are stacked against
“been, in any such arrangement
s Use business and the Liberal
Ee ement have similar in-
a: He charged that the
“fy €rs of the CLC have moved
Sy om confrontation to
Pitulation.”
: the ac said in his address to
con eates that the CUPW must
eg ‘nue to operate within the CLC
eee its opposition to some
NEress policies. He said the

bet

union must guard against
becoming isolated from the rest of
the labor movement. Instead, he
said, it must take every Op-
portunity to explain its position
against three-way consultation to
other unions.

The retiring union leader said
that “only strong and militant
unions can represent their
members and fight for their rights
and needs.” Delegates cheered
Davidson when he criticized the
Congress for accepting a $10
million grant from the federal
government. He said labor should
“fling the $10 million Liberal hush
money back in their faces.”

As the convention opened
Monday a new crisis was develop-
ing in the postal services. The last
contract between the Post Office
and CUPW expired June 30 and
contract talks for a new agreement
lasted only one hour. Federal
postal officials are continuing the
same hard line anti-union stand in
current relations with CUPW as
they have for many years.

Posties hit tripartism

Last Thursday the 1,600-member
Ottawa local of CUPW began a
walkout to protest the use of non-
union casual labor. The post office
is seeking a federal court in-
junction to force an end to the
walkout.

Thousands turned out to last
Sunday’s march and rally in
Vancouver to protest Bill 65 — the
Socred legislation aimed at wiping
out the Vancouver Resources
Boardand reducing social services
in the city of Vancouver.

The march and rally was the
fifth protest against Bill 65 in a

_ month, but before it ended march

organizers, the Save the VRB Joint
Committee, announced that the
biggest protest yet will happen on
August 13 with a ‘‘Day of Support
for the VRB.” The day will see
petitioners on every major inter-
section throughout the city
collecting names demanding the
withdrawal of Bill 65.

Even as the giant banner with
the words ‘‘Save the VRB — with-
draw Bill 65’? emblazoned across
it, rose over the crest of the
Granville bridge, the im-
pressiveness of Sunday’s
demonstration was evident.

More than 2,500 people followed
the banner down the Granville
Mall and filled the Orpheum
theatre. The stage was crowded by
representatives of some 60. Van-
couver organizations, and the
speeches from Vancouver city
council, the parks board, the school
board, the B.C. Federation of
Labor, the Liberal, Conservative
and New Democratic Parties,

Mark Hiroshima Day

Hiroshima Day — the 32nd anniversary of the dropping of the
atomic bomb on Hiroshima — will be commemorated on Saturday,
August 6 by six Vancouver peace groups with a gathering in Maple
Tree Square, Gastown at 12 noon.

Speakers will include the Reverend Kenneth Wotherspoon, senior
minister at’ Canadian Memorial United Church, Vancouver and

alderman Darlene Marzari.

Focus of the meeting will be on the necessity for nuclear disarma-
ment and it is planned to ask the public to sign postcards asking

' prime minister Pierre Trudeau to press for a ban on all nuclear arms
and to protest the nuclear submarine Trident base at Bangor,

_ Washington.

Organizers of the meeting point out that $1 billion every day is
spent on armaments which could go to raise living standards and
help wipe out poverty and disease in the world. (See story pg. 7)

Participants will carry signs reading: End the Arms Race — Not
the Human Race. Stop the Trident. No Shelter from Nuclear War. No
More Hiroshimas. No Neutron Bomb.

‘Day of support’
set for Aug. 13

social workers, welfare recipients,

the B.C. Federation of Women, the

community resource boards the

VRB itself and others went on for
See PETITION, pg. 8

Fed protests
plant closure

The provincial and federal
governments came under sharp
fire this week by the B.C.
Federation of Labor for failing to
prevent the closure of the Railwest
car manufacturing plant in
Squamish.

Last week B.C. Railway an-
nounced it will close its plant in
mid-August when the current order
for 100 ballast cars is completed.

Len Guy, BCFL secretary-
treasurer, said that ‘“‘hundreds of
millions of dollars every year are
poured into short-term make-work
projects for Canada’s unemployed
in form of LEAP and now Canada
Works, and yet nothing is done by
these same governments to ensure
that workers do not become
unemployed and an industry is not
lost.”

“When B.C. already has an
unemployment situation of
frightening proportions, the
government shows criminal
neglect towards the 260 Railwest
employees, their families, and the
town of Squamish by allowing the
closure at this time of the Railwest
plant.’’

Inside:

Cancer and the meat
industry, pg 5

Pablo Neruda, pg 2
Cuba, pg 3
Siberia, pg 4

Hungary, pg 6