Friday, Feb. 19, 1982

40°

6a 18
=

Vol. 44, No. 7

No wage cuts,’ say forest unions

ae

CRTC DEMONSTRATION . .

_ more than 100 marched to protest rate hike and urge nationalization.

No. 4/82

LABOUR RELATIONS BOARD OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

COMINCO LTD.
~and-

CANADIAN ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRIAL,
MECHANICAL AND ALLIED WORKERS
LOCALS 23, 24 AND 27

~and-

UNITED STEELWORKERS OF AMERICA
LOCALS 480, 651, 8320, 9672 AND 9705

PANEL: STEPHEN KELLEHER, CHAIRMAN
HERBERT FRITZ, MEMBER
NORA PATON, MEMBER

HEARING: JANUARY 18, 19 AND 20, 1982

DECISION: FEBRUARY 11, 1982
FOR COMINCO: T. D. TUTTI

FOR CAIMAW: IAN DONALD

FOR THE STEELWORKERS: JOHN BAIGENT AND DAVID BLAIR

| Protest demonstration, interventions
| demand CRTC deny B.C. Tel rate hike

: They protested in a variety of
| ”ays — from demonstrations
| Outside in near-freezing weather,
Ough formal presentations and

th errilla theatre — but citizens of
an © Lower Mainland were virtual-
. Unanimous in their opposition
|'OB.C. Tel’s proposed rate hikes,
a CRTC public hearings Feb. 10.
About 100 demonstrators,
chanting, “Hang up on B.C.
/ ay ” marched outside the Plaza
rr Hotel in Vancouver before
lh hg in with others to speak
fore the Canadian Radio-

television and Tele-
communications Commission's
hearing into the U.S.-owned
monopoly’s application to hike
phone rates 27 percent for in-
dividuals and 28 to 37 percent for
businesses.

Formal hearings, called to hear
interventions, present evidence
and cross-examine witnesses, are
to run Feb. 17 to 24. x

The demonstrators, a coalition
of tenant, political, ethnic and
community groups, ironically
named the CRTC — the Com-

mittee to Rollback Telephone
Charges — expressed the feelings
of many intervenors when they
protested the real CRTC’s deci-
sion to allow B.C. Tel an interim
hike of 13 percent without
reference to public hearings.
Speaker after speaker testified
that the increases, the largest in
B.C. Tel’s history, would place an
additional burden on workers,
the working poor, single parents,
pensioners and other low-income
earners, and many demanded the
nationalization of the phone

company, which they called an
“essential service.”

While B.C. Tel officials looked
on from a side table, B.C. Com-
munist Party leader Maurice
Rush told chairperson John
Lawrence, a CRTC. vice-
president, that his party conclud-
ed the corporation wanted the in-
terim increase because “‘the in-
crease sought by B.C. Tel is so
large and sweeping that it was
considered advisable to dish it out
to the public in instalments.”

See CRTC page 2

TRIBUNE PHOTO— DAN KEETON

CAIMAW

bid for
Trail vote

rejected
— page 8 —

The province’s three wood
unions have all given a resounding
‘no’? to the recent suggestions by
employers’ representatives that
wood and pulp workers accept
wage cuts to alleviate the crisis in
the forest industry.

The unanimous response
follows weekend announcements
by officials of both Forest In-
dustrial Relations and the Pulp and
Paper Industrial Relations Bureau
that the major corporations in the
industry were considering asking
for a deferral of the 13 percent
wage increase slated to go into ef-
fect in June.

Inapress conference Feb. 15, In-
ternational Woodworkers regional
president Jack Munro stated that
there was ‘‘no room’’ for
negotiating a wage cut, a sentiment
shared by Canadian Paperworkers
regional vice-president Art Grunt-
man as well as Angus McPhee and
Jim Sloan, respectively president
and vice-president of the Pulp,
Paper and Woodworkers of
Canada. Together the three unions
represent 65,000 workers in the
forest industry.

Some union leaders have called
the statements, which made front-
page headlines in the daily papers,
‘“‘srandstanding’’ by. the com-
panies designed to place the blame
for the problems of the forest in-
dustry on workers’ wages, and
have stated that wage cuts will do
nothing to help the ailing in-
dustries. They also point to the
companies’ history of refusing to
reopen contracts for the benefit of
workers during years of record
profits.

Union leaders and observers say
wages have nothing to do with the
slump that has caused thousands of
layoffs. in the wood industry.
Decreasing housing starts in the
United States and high interest
rates have been cited as the causes
of the lumber industry’s crisis.

Sloan denied the industry is fac-
ing a serious crisis and accused the
employers of trying to lump the
two sections of the industry, pulp
and wood, together to make the
financial picture look bleak. ‘‘The

See CRISIS page 8

~ Central American pa

ct an ‘arm of U.S.’

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