Wednesday, October 16, 1985 ens Newsstand Price 40° Vol. 48, No. 38 Policies vital as B.C. vote nears — page 3 Disenchantment growing over ‘tripartite program for total wage control’ By SEAN GRIFFIN The Australian “labor accord” among Australian trade unions, employers and the government of Prime Minister Robert Hawke may have found admirers among the New Democratic Party caucus and some trade union leaders — but it is encountering the first signs of disenchantment among Australian trade unions. And rather than being a vehicle for social progress, it is more and more becoming a “tripartite instrument of total wage control,” with few benefits in jobs and social programs according to Australian trade union and social- ist leaders contacted by the Tribune. A delegation headed by B.C. NDP leader Robert Skelly and including IWA president Jack Munro, B.C. Federation of Labor president Art Kube, Building Trades president Roy Gautier and lawyer John. Laxton, left for Australia Oct. 4 to study the accord and, as Skelly stated, “to see how a country should be run.” The delegation was expected to return to Vancouver Oct. 12. “We want to look at what can be done when a government works together with the trade union move- ment and the business community to implement economic planning,” he told the IWA convention Oct. 3, just before the group’s departure. “We want to look at their record and see what successes can be transplanted here.” He later told reporters: “I don’t think any government in this province can win the confidence of the electo- rate if voters feel it will give the store away to organized labor. We want to have an accord with labor to show this won’t be the case.” If the experience after only two years of the Hawke government’s accord is an indication, trade unio- nists in this province should be wary of entering any similar pacts here. The first Australian Prices and Incomes Accord was put together in February, 1983 in meetings with the Labor Party, led by Robert Hawke, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and representatives of employers. It provided for regular indexation of wages, the increase to be set by an arbitration commission on the basis of the Consumer Price Index. In the accord, the Labor Party also Promised to make changes in taxa- tion, provide money for social hous- ing and increase social spending on health, social welfare and pensions. Two weeks after the accord was Teached, Hawke’s Labor Party was SWept into office, defeating the reac- see WAGE SHARE page 12 Won't accept wage freeze, says BC Vigil hits Guatemala a Canada should back its words with deeds and cease support for the mil- itary junta that rules Guatemala and kills thousands of its citizens. That was the sentiment expressed by Carmen Camey of the Guatelman Human Rights Commission, in Van- couver last weekend during a speaking tour of several Canadian cities. Camey, who had to flee her Central American homeland to take residence in neighboring Nicaragua, said Canada has supported petitions calling for an end to military rule in Guatemala. But, she told the Tribune during a demonstration outside the Guatema- lan consulate on Granville Street Oct. 11, Canada still does business with the junta, some of which directly aids the military waging genocidal attacks on the country’s largely Native popula- tion. There are “‘elections’’ coming up in Guatemala, but “there is no represen- tation of the peoples’ interest. All the parties serve the ruling class,” said Camey. “Unless the economic structures change in our country, there is no way of changing the political situation to democracy,’’ she asserted. A brutal military dictatorship has ruled Guatemala for most of the period since 1954, when a ClA-backed coup ousted the country’s elected president. Guatemala is known as home base for the U.S. United Fruit Company. Each month the multi-denomi- national Christian Task Force on Cen- tral America, supported by local Gaute- malan refugees, holds a vigil outside the consulate for the thousands who have been killed or “‘disappeared’’ by the Guatemalan regime.