a rich and the corporations. Coalitions are springing up throughout the é (VA Z C While 1 d country around the fight for jobs, economic /: Z Dy) Zo Z ule mass Unemployment anc poverty - reform and a wide assortment of issues. TSS > Se* settle in as permanent features of life in our ( Loe SAA re free enterprise economy, the Tories exercise When it was suggested to the Canadian [ AZ ey | a : their smug and arrogant majority in Parli- | Labor Congress-sponsored Dialogue 86 SI aaa ament to plough more of our country’s ~ that Canadians ought to unite and fight for 3 a = wealth and resources into the hands of big _a_people’s budget for jobs, higher wages, MC : business. - shorter hours, extended, universal social ‘ By the end of 1987, for every dollar the | programs and a war on poverty, the Sara government raises in corporate taxes, ordi- response was good. mY to? We nary Canadians will have shelled out four This suggests the time is at hand for the aR & Profiteer of the w : through their income taxes. CLC leadership to put labor at the centre of men 77 KAN Wilson hides behind the deficit to justify a people’s coalition movement to counter a pa eee eee ae EDITORIAL The latest Wilson budget not only extended but deepened the Tory govern- ment’s vicious attack against Canadians’ living standards, the universality of our social benefits and the social programs themselves. Labor and its allies have been unanimous in describing it as the second wave of the assault launched in last year’s reactionary budget and the prelude to more wealth being lifted from our pockets to feed the the government’s naked program of rob- The budget fightback tion in Ontario against free trade and in defence of medicare. Other actions across the country, includ- ing the peace movement’s battle to keep Canada out of Star Wars, have blocked the government from moving as fast as it would have liked to integrate Canada military and economically with the U.S. What is equally clear is that Canadians are ready, willing and able to fight back. and defeat the Tory majority in Ottawa. WIL oN. GOES FoR A Our award of the week goes to John Walton, chairman and pf dent of Placer Development Ltd., of Vancouver. Mr. Walton pects his oil and gas production 'to grow about 35 per cent 4 year. He’s not even concerned by the recent 2cent drop in a litr, gasoline. “Our oil interests are not at risk due to recent p decreases,” Walton told the Globe and Mail. Must be nice. bing Canadians to fatten the corporations and the rich. But Canadians know that if the tax breaks, loopholes and other favors Two years ago, the CLC adopted an action program aimed at mobilizing Cana- dians from Victoria to St. John’s to fight for gic CIID DCN Published weekly at 2681 East He tags Ste bly short of success. front outside of Parliament to block the big SLT aire ots 125 ke Not that there haven’t been important business majority inside, and lay the foun- Subscription Rate Canada $14 one year $B six Ka victories, such as the pensioners’ fight, or dation for replacing the Tories with a peo- Serta a : #5 Mkts ook 7.4 = eCONd ClaSS Mau reGistrahion Nurmbderr 19H the Tories bestow on their corporate backers were stopped, and the wasteful mil- itary budget slashed, the deficit could be wiped out. What’s become clear since the Tories won their majority in Ottawa is that the current strategy by the forces opposing the corporate juggernaut has fallen considera- timely initiatives, including the mass coali- an economic recovery program and hold a “March for Jobs.” At the centre of that action plan was a commitment to help develop coalitions of broad, democratic forces at all levels throughout Canada. Putting that commitment to work is what is needed now to open up a second ple’s majority on the next ballot. — Rete Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK Graphics — ANGELA KENYON eaders looking back four years ago last December will have little diffi- culty recalling the torrent‘of media cover- age deploring the banning of Solidarnosc in Poland and the declaration of martial law in that country on Dec. 13, 1981. | Scores of right wing commentators, who cared about as much for trade union rights as they did free milk programs, suddenly i the Solidarity activists and their leader Lech Walesa. Of course, those same commentators don’t seem to notice here and now when union bargaining rights have been dismissed by restraint programs and anti-labor legislation, and thousands of workers have been stripped of the most fundamental of. workers’ rights — the right to a job — by mass unemployment. Nor, as we and a number of trade union papers noted at the time, did most of the media pay any attention when martial law was declared, a trade union central banned and its leaders put on trial for their lives in another country — Turkey. It’s ironic, as we look back now, to see how much has changed — and yet how little. In Poland, notwithstanding some still formidable problems of production and housing, the situation is dramatically dif- ferent from what it was in 1981-82, and the new trade union centre, the National Trade Union Alliance of Poland, has grown in size and influence. That fact has People and Issues necessarily reduced the coverage of Poland in media reports, but press and television, both here and in the U.S., still regularly follow the travels of Lech Walesa and give substantial coverage to the trials of former Solidarity leaders. But the media is still silent about Tur- key. And yet events in that country, if anything, have grown more alarming since 1981. In fact, it’s a story of trade union repression on a massive scale that should attract the interest of the news vendors even by virtue of the sheer number of trade unionists involved and the legnth of their trial. But it hasn’t — Turkey, after all, isa NATO ally. ’ Unlike the commercial media, which has its news bureau and high speed wire services (which either ignores the story or are, in turned, ignored when the reports reach the U.S. and Canada), we are dependent on the mails to bring us Flashes from the Trades Unions put out by the World Federation of Trade Unions.The story it relates, although brief, is startling. The trial of the Turkish unionists, members of the trade union federation DISK, began just after the declaration of ‘martial law on Dec. 24, 1981, with 52 people charged, all facing the death sent- ence. The trial has_proceeded virtually con- tinuously since that day but the number of accused has grown to 1,477, of whom 78 intiallly faced the death sentence. DISK itself has been banned since the military coup Sept. 12, 1980 and i its funds and property seized. Such was the campaign against the unionists that’ the charges ran to 864 pages — they ultimately covered 3,000 pages — and took four months of court proceedings for prosecutors to read them! The charges are based on Article 141 of the Turkish penal code which was taken from Mussolini’s 1936 code. In the years since the trial began, the charges of “terrorism” levelled against DISK — on which the death penalty has been based — have fallen apart. But as Flashes points out, the trial has become a political trial and, although the threat of death sentences has apparently been removed, 781 people still face prison sent- ences ranging from six to 20 years. The defence was set to present its case — finally — on Feb. 25. Meanwhile the WFTU was. urging unionists around the world to call on the Turkish regime to drop the charges, restore the rights and property of DISK and re-establish trade union rights. ' out that he usually prefers something you For further information, we’ll have ' wait for a subsequent edition of For the media, it seems, a Turkish trial hundreds of unionists isn’t a newsworth event. ‘ ee P Ithough a good many people com across our office threshold in th course of a week, it’s not often that we g a visit from a well-known Canadian artis much less benefit from that visit. But week, Toronto-based cartoonist > Constable, whose work has appeared places as varied as the Financial Post, host of trade union papers and a num! of art galleries, was in town and droppe by the Trib. We sat down and kicked around a cou, ple of ideas over coffee — Mike pointed put in the fridge, not on the stove — by the time he left a couple of days late! there were three cartoons on the table, demonstrating his inimitable wit and as a caricaturist. Readers will have alrea seen two of them in the last issue and third, featuring a not-so-endearing Ernie, appears this week on page 2. Readers may also know that Mike one of the guiding forces bheind Union Service whose cartoons often run in th Tribune. For those and particularly fo Mike’s offerings last week, our thanks. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 12, 1986