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