_EDITORIAL

The outstanding issue:

After 15 long, bitter months without a
collective agreement, the Telecommunica-
tions Workers have a collective agreement
which union members will be voting on
this week. There is every indication that
the agreement will be accepted, thus end-
ing a dispute that had captured national
attention as the TWU had been compelled
to try practically every tactic in the book
in an effort to try and wrest a new con-

tract from an intransigent, multinational -

employer.

That the agreement was worked out on
the eve of the B.C. Federation of Labor’s
second regional strike set for the Koote-
nays made it amply clear that it was the
collective strength of the labor movement
and the coordinating work of the central
labor body which brought the dispute to a
successful conclusion.

But if the dispute itself is settled, there
is still one outstanding issue — govern-
ment action to end the control of British
Columbia’s vital telephone utility by this
arrogant, U.S.-owned employer, B.C.
Tel.

~ Nationalize B.C. Tel

The TWU has spoken decisively on the
issue with its campaign to ‘‘nationalize
B.C. Tel now,” a campaign which it has
pledged to continue. And citizens all over
the province — who have endured years

of bad service and ever-increasing rates —
need to speak out to demand that govern-

ment carry it out.

The time is long overdue to put B.C.
Tel under public ownership and if anyone
in Victoria or Ottawa needs proof of that,
they need only look at B.C. Tel’s brazen

- action last month when it demanded that

the CRTC be dragged to the bargaining
table and forced to agree to higher rates
before any new contract was signed. That
left no doubt — as long as it is in com-

mand, B.C. Tel will keep its labor rela- |

tions in the 19th century and its telephone
rates in the 21st.

International Woodworkers president
Jack Munro put its most succinctly at a
rally last month: ‘‘There is no reason
whatsoever for this company to remain in
private hands a single day longer.’’

Nationalize B.C. Tel — now. —

Cheers to the demonstrators
who took message to Reagan

The most positive feature of U.S.
President Reagan’s visit to Ottawa,
March 10-11, perhaps the only positive
feature, was the expression of the Cana-
dian people’s opposition to the dirty an-
tics of U.S. imperialism. The large
demonstrations which took place in vari-
ous cities, as well as face to face with
Reagan on Parliament Hill, justifiably
denounced the joint ventures of the U.S.
military-industrial complex — the
multi-nationals, the armed forces. and
the rightist Reagan administration. ~

It's not a question of friendship be-
tween the Canadian and United States
people. It’s not a question of
“atmospherics and perception”, as. Gen.
Haig, U.S. secretary of state, said. Surely
it is not the foolish state of being
“absolutely delighted”, as Canada’s for-
eign affairs minister claimed to be,
though unable to point to a single con-
crete reason for it.

The questions to be answered revolve
around Canadian sovereignty, putting
an end to the exploitation of Canada and
Canadians by the U.S. multi-nationals,
Canadianizing our energy industry as
one step toward nationalizing it, and
extricating Canada from the ruinous
and suicidal war preparations dictated
by Washington.

It will be a job well done if the demon-
strators’ actions helped to stiffen the
backbones of Canadian government
members — those who had any to start
with. We are told nothing was settled.

Well, let's see, some things were settled
in advance. The Reagan regime had an-
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 20, 1981—Page 4

nounced that any place in the world
which has resources, or is strategic to
anti-Soviet military moves, falls under
U.S. “interests”. He had begun to revive
gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean and
Central America. More recently Reagan
had scrapped the draft Atlantic fishing
treaty for Canada and the USA, worked
out Over many years; and had called for
revisions in Law of Sea agreements bear-
ing on our 200-mile limit. The Garrison
Project, denounced by Canada and
particularly Manitoba which will receive

lluted waters into its rivers and lakes,
got a $4-million boost from Reagan as he
stepped aboard the plane to come to
Canada. On the question of U.S. acid
rain, wiping out Ontario lakes by the
hundreds — killing them — we get an
innuendo trom a Reagan man that
Canada is faking its protest, hoping to
replace U.S. coal burning by selling them
Canadian gas. ;
_ If such moves are not rude inter-
ference on the eve ofa state visit or at any
other time, then one could go on and talk
about the Auto Pact, the plant closures
by U.S. companies, and the pressure on
this country to sign up for U.S. war
adventures.

There should be three cheers for the

people who got out there and laid it on.

the line for Reagan; they are the ones
who expressed Canada’s real interests.
As for pipsqueak ministers who are
“absolutely delighted” by this array of
U.S. insolence, they need a lesson from
the same people who told Reagan the
facts of life.

YT TT
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HAVING TROUBLE
UNDERSTANDING
MY POLICY OF

Flashbacks

25 years ago... 50 years ago...

MEN FORCED TO

SLEEP ON STREETS

HAMILTON — With brutal

frankness the city politicians and
City Council have closed their
eyes to a pressing necessity: the
need for nightly shelter for the
scores of unemployed and
homeless men.
_ In no other Canadian city this
size are the conditions so bad.
While it is true that shelter is
provided for the men in the day-
time, either at the rest room or at
the unemployed bureau, all are
driven out at closing time.

The Salvation Army offers no
help unless you have the money

‘to pay. The police and courts are
even less help. They delight in

trailing and hunting down the

homeless men. :
The Worker,
March 14, 1931

KA

CANADIAN ACTORS
BARRED FROM U.S.

American actors can come to —
Canada as often as they want —

and get top-fee contracts at the
CNE and on television.

But Canadian actors are now
being barred from the United
States by an interpretation of the
McCarran Act, originally de-
signed to prevent left-wing trade
union officials from entering the
US.

The issue comes to light last

week when Robert Christie and
William Shatner were refused
permission to take parts in New
York television productions.
The Canadian Branch of Actors’

Equity and U.S. actors affiliated

to the AFL-CIO is protesting the
discrimination.

Tribune,
March 12, 1956

Trimac Ltd., Calgary, busies itself with a lot of the expediting jobs of
the oil business, and in 1980 kept an after-tax profit of $26,828,000. The

' previous year it was $15,069,000. Trimac is in pipelines, equipment

leasing, transportation services, management, and all that. Gives one a
nice feeling knowing Imperialdoesn’t get all our oll dollars — or does it?

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

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