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Reports bare facts about school cuts

Wednesday, September 19, 1984

Vol. 47, No. 36

Brighton.

Striking | | ‘
British = =

to get
£10,000
CLC aid

— page 11 —

Miners demonstrate outside TUC convention in

miners | (eee Le

Drivers force
back but fight
‘still not over’

U.o. foe in Gn

ale

Wet CHILE
win DEMAND
Pe EMOCR!

i i i in Vancouver Sept. 11 in one of several
More than 100 people, many of them Chilean-Canadians, march outside the U.S. consular offices in :
actions noting the 11th anniversary of the fascist coup in Chile, and to support the fightback actions that took place in the country ee
week. Chileans from left wing and labor forces over to the Christian Democrats of the centre-right have been Lea ays Sita
police attacks, against the regime of Augusto Pincohet, installed with the help of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency .

1973. Also in Vancouver, the Women’s Committee of the Democratic Chile Committee held a day-long fast combined with a telephone

Aare ; ve j : ; i Quena coffee house Sept. 11 anda
conference linking several Canadian cities with Santiago, Chile on Sept. 8. A Chilean song night at La ,

premiere showing Sept. 16 of the award-winning film “Chile, | don’t Invoke your Name in Vain” also focused attention on the coup and
the continuing struggle in Chile.

— page 3

sah ste

Faced with the prospect of mass firings
reminiscent of U.S. President Reagan’s
action against air traffic controllers, or the
decertification of their union if they defied
back-to-work legislation, the 2,600 members
of the Independent Canadian Transit
Union voted to obey Bill 34 and return to
work Sept. 17.

But as they voted, they also vowed to
fight on — against the Metro Transit oper-
ating company which has stonewalled
negotiations for nearly two years and
against the Socred government which has
striven from the beginning to turn the tran-
sit dispute into a forum for attacking trade
union rights.

“They can legislate us back to work but
they can’t legislate co-operation,” declared
ICTU president Colin Kelly, echoing the
statement he had made prior to the intro-
duction of the government’s strikebreaking
legislation.

Leaders of ICTU had met with the B.C.
Federation of Labor officers Sept. 14 and
received a pledge of support if the union
determined to continue the strike in
defiance of the legislation. ICTU is affiliated
to the Confederation of Canadian Unions
and outside the federation.

But the very real threat that the govern-
ment would move as Reagan did against
PATCO in the U.S. — and that the inde-
pendent union would become the whipping
boy in a renewed Socred offensive against
the labor movement — prompted the
executive to recommend compliance with
the legislation. :

Bill 34, dubbed the Metro Transit Collec-
tive Bargaining Assistance Act, introduced
into a special sitting of the legislature Sept.
13, ordered the transit workers to return to
their jobs within 72 hours.

The bill was passed 28-16 with the NDP
voting against it.

It provides for extension of the current
collective agreement — expired since Mar.
30, 1983 — and gives Labor Minister Bob
McClelland power “to amend the last col-
lective agreement and (to make) orders
directing the employer, the trade union and
the employees to resume and continue
operations in the manner and at the times
directed by the minister, notwithstanding
any terms of the collective agreement or
working practice to the contrary.”

see MORRIS page 12