BRITISH COLUMBIA

Taking time out from.a busy schedule of concerts in Vancouver last week,
members of the world-acclaimed Red Army Chorus joined members of Branch
20 of the Army, Navy and Air Force veterans to lay a wreath honoring Canada’s
war dead at Victory Square Cenotaph Sunday. Members of the chorus were

_ later hosted at the ANAF hall where they toasted their wartime alliance and
affirmed the need for more exchanges between their two countries.

Arms race ‘greatest

obstacle for women

Continued from page 1

The institute was started by a former
associate of Dr. Werner Von Braun, the
German scientist who surrendered to the
U.S. at the end of World War II. Von Braun
during his research work for the military
and various aerospace corporations began
to realize the movement towards militariz-
ing outer space and he pushed the idea of
the peaceful use of outer space.

His ideas convinced other professionals
in the aerospace industry to commit them-
selves to start the institute which has played
an important role in urging governments
and corporations to examine the alterna-
tives to an arms race in space.

“More and more people have realized
that the SDI program is absurd but they
need a better understanding of the alterna-

Joint institute stirs controversy

Arguing that the labor movement needs
to explore joint efforts on job creation and
to “change the perception that labor and
Management are always fighting’’, the B.C.
Federation of Labor took the controversial
Step March 6 of formal co-operation with
the Business Council of B.C. in establishing
the Pacific Institute of Industrial Policy.

B.C. Fed president Ken Georgetti told a
Press conference Friday that the new insti-
tute was a joint project of the federation, the
Business Council, representing the provin-
ce’s major corporations, and the Vancouver
Board of Trade. The institute’s board of
directors will have 12 members, six each
from labor and business.

“The federation, the Business Council
and the Board of Trade have been working
on this initiative for two months,” Georgetti
Said in a statement. “The governing bodies
of all three organizations have now ratified
the proposal in what we believe is a first for
British Columbia.”

The press conference followed a lengthy
debate in the federation’s executive council
which met for the first time since its election
at the B.C. Fed convention in December.
Georgetti agreed that the decision to sit
down with the province’s employers was
controversial, telling reporters, “Our memb-
€fS were somewhat nervous about the
Sincerity of management in this regard.”

__ The federation has participated in var-

10us boards and committees with the Busi-

hess Council before but has never launched
4 joint initiative of this kind.
Although Georgetti downplayed them as
a primary motivation, the impending
changes to the province’s Labor Code were
Clearly a central factor in establishing the
Mstitute — based on the idea that if labor
and business were seen to be co-operating, it
might head off anti-labor legislation.
We have to change the perception that
labor and management are always fight-
ing,” he said. “And the government will
Play a significant role in determining how
Much attention we can pay to this initiative
Tough the changes to the labor legislation.
It will be darn hard for us to convince
anyone that the climate has changed and
© mood of confrontation is gone if the
povernment comes down with draconian
eeeton that will cause us to react,” he

* In fact, the Business Council is one of
veral employer groups which has sought
ee to the Labor Code to restrict pick-
inter? to expand the scope of employer
tion once in certification and decertifica-
for awd to give employers the right to sue
Labo. 28° in strikes ruled illegal by the
Expece Relations Board. It is widely
Cece that any changes which restrict
Made pehts will follow the suggestions
Th Y business groups.
© Vancouver Board of Trade has also

been the most outspoken opponent of the
Longshoremen’s Union’s “container clause”
which gives ILWU members the right to
unload containers destined for more than
one recipient. The clause is currently before
arbitrator Paul Weiler as part of the con-
tract settlement imposed by the federal
goverhment last year.

Georgetti acknowledged the Board of
Trade’s position but noted, “If they
(employers) want a co-operative spirit from
labor, they will have to show us that they’re
sincere and have a respect for labor in this
province.”

Fred Wilson, page 12

show us that they’re sincere and have a
respect for labor in this province.”

The federation president stressed the role
of the institute in promoting secondary
manufacturing and import substitution as
the main means of job creation in the pro-
vince. He also emphasized the value of a
port committee which would study ways to
“market container traffic through the po
of Vancouver.” .

Ironically, the Business Council and the
Board of Trade have talked little of job
creation initiatives in their public statements

on the issue — but they have talked about
changing the container clause. Business
Council president Jim Matkin told the
Vancouver Sun March 7 that the institute
had “tackled the longshore problem” and
was “supporting the idea (of) a change to
the destuffing clause.”

ILWU president Don Garcia said Mon-
day that his members were “pretty upset”
when they saw the news report. But he
emphasized that Georgetti had assured him
by letter that the container clause was not
being discussed. The federation also backed
the ILWU in its brief to Weiler, he said.

Garcia did express concern about the
step towards formal co-operation with the
Business Council. ““You’re on pretty dan-
gerous ground when you walk in that direc-
tion,” he said.

Georgetti said that no specific projects
had yet been initiated by the institute
although a number of ideas, including local

_ investment of union pension funds as well

research into a local furniture industry, were
being considered. As for funding, he said he
was confident that money could be
obtained to do the necessary research. “I’m
not worried about funding at all,” he said.

VAN PRAET KAMENETSKAYA
tives,” Van Praet said. “People have to
know the argument that the arms race is
providing jobs is not a valid argument. Less
people not more can work on exotic wea-
pons technology.

“In the U.S. and Canada people have to
lift their heads above a whole cloud of pro-
paganda,” she said.

“We have to start disarming the myths
that separate us. The threat is not coming
fromthe Soviet Union, it is coming from an
unmanageable situation of overkill wea-
pons,” she said to applause.

Kamenetskaya who in her tour across
Canada had encountered many of the
myths about her country hoped that she
had made “‘a small contribution to dispell-

‘ing those myths. We just can’t afford to let
these misunderstandings continue. We
must challenge them in a public way.

“If you look at a map you will see that
Canada is like a bridge between the Soviet
Union and the United States and and I hope
that you will help us to have a better mutual
understanding,” she said.

Vancouver alderman Libby Davies
stressed that the arms race is now the grea-
test obstacle to achieving equality for all
women in the world.

“We are painfully aware that the diver-
sion of all the human potential into the
creation of nuclear weaponry is at the
expense of the women, children and men of
the world who still live in abject poverty,
without education, health care, food, fresh
water, housing and hope,” she said.

Davies also wished success to all partici-
pants in the World Congress of Women in
June 1987.

REGINA — A major cross Canada
campaign to make peace a central issue in
the next federal election was agreed to by
peace groups from across Canada at a
meeting held here last weekend. __

“We're going to change the politician’s
minds or else change the politicians,” said
David Kraft of the Toronto Disarmament
Network at a news conference at the con-
clusion of the three day meeting.

“The Canadian Peace Pledge — Voting
Canada Out Of The Arms Race” cam-
paign aims to work between now and the
next federal election to build political and
public support for the following goals:

e Stop all Canadian involvement in, and
support for, Star Wars — work for the
peaceful use of space.

@ Make Canada Nuclear Weapons Free:
end cruise missile testing, bar nuclear
armed warships from Canadian waters,
end low flight testing and training and end
production of nuclear weapons compo-
© work for the U.S., USSR and other
nuclear powers to end all nuclear weapons
testing. Canada should participate and
support international verification arran-

S. . ue

soatiie Dufay of the Regina Coalition
for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament said
the campaign would include a “Peace

Peace to be made election issue

Pledge Card” which voters sign pledging
to support only those candidates who
would work for the above demands. “The
majority of the public support these goals.
We must now work to see that this support
turns into votes for peace during the next
election” she said.

Locally, peace groups will gather
pledges to prove to candidates that there is
a significant peace vote to be won or lost in
their constituency. Public events, all can-
didates meetings on peace, and a questi-
onnaire to politicians will be undertaken
to convince local candidates to declare
their support for the campaign goals.

Perry opens conference

Dr. Tom Perry, one of several
prominent Canadians who attended
the International Forum for a
Nuclear-Free World, will be the fea-
tured speaker at the B.C. Peace
Council’s provincial conference, sche-
duled for March 14 and 15. The con-
ference opens March 14, 9:30 a.m.at
the Langara campus of Vancouver
City College, with registration begin-
ning at9 a.m. —

National strategies planned include:
political lobbying, advocacy advertising,
working for a national political debate on
peace issues and co-ordinated cross-
Canada events.

The campaign was launched after
extensive discussion by peace groups from
across Canada. The outline of the cam-
paign was decided last November at the
convention of the Canadian Peace
Alliance and referred back to participating
groups for further debate. Final agree-
ment on campaign details was hammered
out during the Regina meeting of the
CPA Steering Committee this weekend.
Present at the meeting were representative
delegates from 22 regional and 12 national
groups from across Canada.

“This will be one of the largest coordi-
nated efforts ever undertaken by the peace
movement in Canada,” said Leyla
Raphael from the Montral-based La Con-
ference Mondial des Religions Pour la
Paix.

Hundreds of local and national groups
are expected to become the sponsoring
organizations of the campaign.

The campaign will be facilitated nation-
ally by the Canadian Peace Alliance which
is an association of 350 Canadian peace
related organizations.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH.11, 1987 e 3