_LABOR Decision vindicates iob action by HEU Hospital workers who staged job actions in several Lower Mainland hospitals last month were vindicated last week when arbitrator Dalton Larson upheld his interim decision to rescind the layoff notices which had originally sparked the walkouts. In his decision brought down June 30, Larson ruled that the 600 part-time hospital employees who had been given layoff notices would continue to be employed and receive full benefits for at least six months. After that, their status will be determined by the amount of hours worked per week. The 600, all members of the Hospital Employees Union, had been given layoff notices by Hospital Labor Relations Association following an earlier arbitrators ruling — also by Larson — that after July 1, 1983, casual employees would no longer be automatically eligible for part-time status even after completing the requisite number of hours. The layoffs were seen as a deliberately punitive cost-saving measure since the 600 had either already obtained part-time status or would have before the July 1 deadline. HLRA hoped to reduce all part time workers to casual status and then re- hire them as casuals at a lower rate and without benefits. The layoffs had sparked a series of sitdown job actions in several Lower Mainland hospitals before Larson was called in as arbitrator June 18. ‘Jobless must unite’ The Canadian Catholic bishops who wrote the Ethical Reflections docu- ment had a major point to make: that the chief ‘‘social sin” is “the structure of unemployment that is built into our society,”’ said priest Jim Roberts to some 50- jobless workers at Van- couver’s unemployed action : centre June 29. JOHN FITZPATRICK ... Calling the concept of must fight Socred cut- “natural unemployment’’ as backs. touted by big business governments ‘‘an immorality,” Roberts, a noted Vancouver jobless advocate and Vancouver Community College teacher, attacked right-wing business leaders such as Employers Council of B.C. president Bill Hamilton and Fraser Institute economist Walter Block for their rejection of the bishops’ statement. Fellow guest speaker John Fitzpatrick, president of the Marineworkers and Boilerworkers Industrial Union, pointed to the Socred government’s threatened changes to the B.C. Labor Code — “‘one of the most progressive pieces of legisla- tion to come down the tube in B.C.”’ — and warned that “‘as the crisis of unemployment intensifies, so will attacks on workers, minority groups, women — you can depend on ’ that.”’ a Fitzpatrick also noted cuts to social services, the Ren- talsmen’s office and the Human Rights Commission and urg- ed “‘unity to fight these cuts — solidarity is the key for our future and our democracy.” Action centre coordinator Kim Zander said the “‘over- whelming note”’ at the recent unemployed conference in Pen- ~