General Hospital Wednesday.

“We've talked a lot about unity in the
labour movement — but we’ve expe-
rienced it. We must cherish it and build on
it — and if we do, we will win,” B.C.
Nurses Vancouver chairperson Deborah
McPherson told some 3,000 cheering,
clapping nurses and hospital workers at a
spirited strike rally outside Vancouver
General Hospital Wednesday.

And if there is one thing that has been
evident during the strike by the B.C.
Nurses’ Union, the first ever at acute care
hospitals, it is unity.

They demonstrated it Wednesday as
some 3,000 health care workers, from the
BCNU, Hospital Employees Union and
Health Sciences Association joined the

Members of the B.C. Nurses Union, Hospital Employees Union and Health Sciences Association rally outside Vancouver

march and rally at VGH, shouting the
word “Contract!” with one powerful voice
as Mike Barker, HEU unit chair at Van-
couver General, asked them from the mic-
rophone: “What do we want?”
Hundreds of motorists honked their

Editorial, page 4

horns in support as demonstrators
marched the five-block radius around the
huge hospital complex.

Members of the HEU and HSA are
continuing their support for BCNU picket
lines, as the nurses’ strike enters its second
week with no immediate end in sight. And
at Wednesday’s rally, HEU and HSA

Ld]
B.C,
NURSES’

leaders joined B.C. Federation of Labour
president Ken Georgetti in pledging their
full support to health care workers in their
demand for substantial wage increases.

“The strike has no immediate signs of
ending,” BCNU president Pat Savage told
the crowd. “But I know that we that we
stand firm in our resolve — that we’re
prepared to stay here on strike as long as it
takes to get a decent collective agreement
for health care workers.”

The BCNU altered its strike strategy
this week, bringing down pickets at some
institutions and putting them up at others
to focus the dispute on the larger hospitals,
while continuing to maintain essential ser-

see PUT page 3

June 26, 1989
508

Vol. 52, No.24

Drive at$75,000
with 2 days left

Our readers and supporters have
responded in spades to our earlier
appeals, enabling us to pick up the
pace in the press drive and bring us
within range of our drive target.

At Tribune press time — two days
before the drive’s end — we had
$75,000 in. But that still leaves with
$7,000 to go — money that is criti-
cally needed.

With this issue goes our final
appeal to readers, even though most
will receive this paper after June 24.
Please give us a hand to ensure that we
go over the top.

t
4.

School bus
contract
change

protested
— page 2 —

Passion,
polemic
at USSR

Congress

— page 6 —