Friday, February 18, 1977

VOL. 39, No._7 -

PACIFIC

RIBUN

Canadian Labor Congress
President Joe Morris this week
called on the labor movement to
‘Maintain its unity and solidarity
built over the last year and a half”
‘and to continue its pressure on the
government to scrap the controls
program.

The CLC president was speaking
to delegates to the Vancouver and
District Labor Council Tuesday
night. He was also slated to ad-
dress the annual convention of the
UFAWU this week.

Li a

Morris paid tribute to Vancouver
unionists for:their actions against

‘wage controls on October 14 but

warned that they could not con-
sider their job done even though
the government has indicated that
controls may be coming off this

ear.

. “We had a meeting with the
government last month,” he noted,
“and the prime minister and his
cabinet wanted us to agree that
controls would be removed on a
sectorial basis — that they would

come off the private sector but
would remain on the public sector.

“But we told the government:
take the controls off altogether.”

The Congress president em-
phasized that the government may
continue to try and divide the labor
movement by withdrawing the
controls selectively and may
impose new restrictions during a
period of “‘decontrols.”

“wehave a struggle ahead,”’ he

said. ‘‘We have to ensure that the
decontrols will not be even more
rigid than the controls program.
We have to make sure that any
agreements that we make uphold
the interests of the people that we
represent — the working people.
And we must ensure that controls
are withdrawn for everyone.”
One of the most disastrous
consequences of the controls
program, Morris said, was wor-
sening unemployment. ‘The
government says 7.6 percent. but

the real figure is closer to 10
percent.

“We told the government from
the beginning that the controls
would slow the economy to the
stagnation point — and our
predictions were correct,’’ he
declared.

‘‘Now if Ottawa doesn’t take
action to alleviate unemployment,
we are in for a far worse situation
than we have had for many years.”

Native groups in Vancouver
continued their protest against the
Reed Paper-sponsored art
exhibition this week as some 35
demonstrators picketed the en-
trance to the Vancouver Art
Gallery Sunday. Demonstrations
are also set for Feb. 20 and 27.
Outside the gallery doors,
Picketers, representing the
Leonard Peltier Support Group

- and the Mercury Pollution Action

Group, dramatized their case with
@ parody on the exhibition’s title
Which they had changed from
‘Changing Visions: The Canadian
Landscape” to “Changing Visions:
The Native Nightmare.”

_ Reed Paper, a British-owned
Company with extensive holdings
in Ontario has been responsible for
mercury pollution of the English-
Wabigoon River system and has

Just obtained timber rights to a
huge tract of land in northern |

ntario which, if exploited, will
Cause massive environmental
damage.

A company spokesman had:
farlier sought to argue that the

Sponsorship of -a landscape show
ao purely fortuitous but
€Monstrators quoted R. W.

lingsley, president of Reed
eee as saying, ‘“‘We believe it
Specially appropriate ... to
“ usor an exhibition as important
d : Changing Visions . . . we care

Ply about . . . the invaluable
Tage of our land.”

;
‘A

H :

=x
wh

“We have no complaint about
consultation with the govern-
ment,”’ one fisherman stormed at
federal fisheries minister Romeo
Le Blanc, “Our complaint is that
you don’t listen.”

In the following hours Le Blanc
was forced to listen as delegates to
the 32nd annual convention of the
United Fishermen and Allied
Workers’ Union lined up at
microphones to debate policy with
the minister of fisheries following
his annual speech to the UFAWU
convention.

UFAWU secretary treasurer
Jack Nichol gave voice to the mood
of the convention when he told Le
Blanc to return to Ottawa and tell
his cabinet colleagues: ‘‘The
UFAWU will not be smashed. Call
off the Combines investigation of
this organization.”

The union’s demand for an ex-

-planation of the investigation was a

clear embarassment to the federal
minister who had taken time in his
speech to laud the benefits of union
organization for fishermen. Le

W= Combines blasted
i} at UFAWU parley

Blanc evaded the issue by pleading
ignorance and said that the
combines investigation depart-
ment was independent of the
cabinet.

The day before, B.C. Federation
of Labor secretary Len Guy had
also assailed the government for
the combines raids, asserting that
the ‘‘architects of that legislation
never thought that it would be used
as strike breaking legislation.”
Guy congratulated the union on its
“courageous and _ excellent’’
position to demand that the secret
combines hearings be opened to
the public.

The UFAWU officer’s report
warned fishermen that the threat
from the combines investigation
was not over and that ‘‘vindictive
and punitive action is probable.”

Noting that the Combines in-
vestigation director Robert Ber-
trand has publicly stated that the
combines hearings will continue
“when the obstruction issue is
cleared away,”’ the officers stated

see POLICY pg. 12

The British Columbia Students

Federation has called on students

to boycott classes and join in a

rally at Queen Elizabeth plaza on

March 10 to protest planned tuition
fee increases at B.C. post secon-
dary institutes.

The rally and class boycott was
announced last week following a
meeting of student leaders from
BCSF, UBC, SFU, Capilano
College, Douglas College and

_ Vancouver Community College.

Students are facing tuition in-
creases of as high as 40 percent
when they return to: school this
September if they are unsuccessful
in forcing university ad-
ministrations to rescind the in-
creases. P

Estimates vary as to the exact
‘amounts involved but the
University of Victoria president
Howard Petch has indicated that
increases will be in the order of 25
percent. UBC president Doug

' . Kenny has told students to expect

—Sean Griffin photos :

increases of as much as 40 percent.
Student leaders have pointed out
that the increases in tuition fees by

itself is not the only, or main,
consideration of the demon-
strations. The main question is the
rapidly diminishing accessibility
to post-secondary education, a
situation that the fee increases will
aggravate.

While tuition fees are becoming a
smaller and smaller portion of
overall education costs — and now
account for only about 10 percent of
overall financing — they are being
raised substantially as one remedy
to cutbacks in education financing.
The increases at B.C.’s_ three
universities follows the provincial
government’s $10 million cut from
the minimum figure for post
secondary education
mended by the universities
council.

The result is that while having a
small impact on the budgetary
cutbacks, the tuition fee increases
have a large impact on working
class students who already rely
primarily on student financial aid
programs.

BCSF organizers are also ap-

see RESEARCH pg. 12

recom- —