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Top: Grace Hartman, national president of CUPE, accused June
Menzies of “betraying’’ the women’s movement. Menzies appointment
as vice-chairwoman of the AIB is “an interruption on the march of

equality,” Hartman says.

Bottom: Part of the children’s choir

conducted by Neil Bryson and accompanied by Tom Hawken that
performed at the annual Women’s Day celebration.

-CUPE leader challenges Menzies

Hartman charges controls
harm fight for equality

“As the women’s movement

becomes more effective, so too do

government policies become more
sophisticated in the methods they
use to restrict equality.

“The women’s movement must
also become sophisticated. It is
time that the women’s movement
made some distinctions.”’

The distinctions that need to be
made was the International
Women’s Day message of Grace
Hartman, the trade union leader
who has been in the forefront of the
women’s movement for more than
a decade.

And as national president of the
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees, representing 125,000
organized women across Canada,
the line between equality and the
status quo that she drew separated
out those for and against free
collective bargaining and the
rights of all working people.

Two women who fell on the
wrong side of the line are former
vice-chairwoman of the Anti-
Inflation Board, Beryl Plumptre,
and her replacement, June
Menzies. Hartman had words to
say about both.

The CUPE president was the
keynote speaker at Vancouver’s
annual International Women’s Day
celebration. About 300 men and
women turned out March 6 to the
Queen Elizabeth Playhouse to hear
Hartman and Eunice Parker,
Coquitlam school board member
and vice-president of the B.C.
chapter of the Congress of

Universities face more

cutbacks in 1978-79

Even after saddling students
with a 25 per cent increase in
tuition fees, British Columbia’s
three universities will still be short
of required funds to operate the
1977-1978 year, and that will mean
further cutbacks in staff, facilities
and courses offered as university
education in B.C. continues its
downhill slide.

“Tam asking each vice-president
to prepare recommendations for
Meeting the deficit,”’
President Pauline Jewett an-
nounced last week. ‘‘This means a
Slowdown in hiring, less heat in
buildings and looking hard at all
new positions to see if they can be
Justified.

“All areas of the University will

affected by the economies we
must put in place.”

The source of the problem is
€ducation minister Pat McGeer
and the Social Credit government
Which slashed nearly $10 million
Off the minimum amount of money
for university budgets that was
recommended by the Universities

uncil. ;

The Socred’s attack on education
Spending has been met with a
Storm of controversy, but McGeer
aS remained firm in his position,
arrogantly telling protesting
Students that ‘‘there is nothing to
iScuss.’’

McGeer’s response to UBC’s
appeal for more funds after 3,000
Students demonstrated last week
Was equally terse. ““We were sure

ey were going to ask for money
and we were sure that they weren’t
S0ing to get any more money,”
McGeer said this week.

But the cloud looming over post-
Secondary education grew even
blacker last week with the report of

SFU

the Universities Council on how the
money will be divided up between
the universities.

The Universities Council, . an
appointed advisory body, went
beyond the mere allocation of
funds in its report and advanced
new policy positions in line with
Social Credit policy to continually
reduce education spending.

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“Nothing to discuss’” — McGeer

The Council’s proposals on how
to spend less and receive less met
with an immediate, and angry,
response from the B.C. Students
Federation which termed the
report ‘“‘a dangerous change in
educational priorities in B.C.”’

The most immediate threat to
students is the danger of massive
tuition fee increases — already
announced by University
presidents to be in the order of 25
per cent. Demonstrations at UBC
and SFU have been successful in

forcing administrations to hold off
the increases pending an appeal to
the Universities Council for more
money.

The report of the Universities
Council, however, made only one
recommendation on how to raise
more money for the universities —
“a substantial increase in.tuition
fees.”

The BCSF pointed out with
alarm that if the present budget
deficits were made up by increased
tuition fees it would require in-
creases of 53 per cent at SFU, 52
per cent at UVic and 41 per cent at
UBC.

“The Council’s report goes on to
indicate that perhaps they are not
really interested in educating the
likes of today’s students in the
future,’’ the BCSF warned.

The Council report projected the
“elimination of course offerings in
disciplines where unnecessary
duplication may exist in the
province.”’ Universities are urged
to “‘curb proliferation of under-
graduate course offerings in
traditional disciplines.”

Perhaps most alarming in the
Council’s projections is_ its
justification for reduced enrolment

on the basis that the university ,

degree would have a greater value.

“Tf high standards reduce
enrolment, the net cost to the
public could be lower and the

the
the

benefit to the student and
public could be greater,”
Council prognosticated.

‘All of these changes point to a
return to education for an elite as a
priority for the universities
council,’’ the BCSF charged.

Canadian Women, sponsors of the
event.

The tenor of Hartman’s address
was conditioned by the recent
remarks of her former colleague
on the Status of Women Council,
June Menzies. Now  vice-
chairwoman of the AIB, Menzies
has been touting wage controls as
an instrument for achieving
equality for women.

DR. MAYA MARTYANOVA

“It is a_ self-evident truth,”
Hartman replied, ‘‘that collective
bargaining and only collective
bargaining can be effective in
attacking the job ghettos that
women are forced into. The
collective bargaining process has
been devastated by controls.”’

Citing Pierre Trudeau’s com-
ment that ‘‘equal pay for women is
an inflationary demand,” Hart-
man said that Menzies’ association
with the AIB is a “‘betrayal’’ to
women. ‘‘Her appointment is an
interruption on the march to
equality.”

‘Beryl Plumptre was the token
woman on the AIB,” Hartman
continued, ‘‘and why not? She was
such a good establishment choice
and did such a good job for them
that in six months she has been
appointed to the boards of three
major corporations.

“J believe this speaks volumes
about the mentality of the authors
of the Anti-Inflation Board.”

Hartman took issue with the
claim of Menzies that ‘feminist
recognition is built into. the AIB
regulations.’’ Menzies’ claim
referred to a clause allowing

. exemptions from the controls to

eliminate discrimination in wages
based on sex.

Out of over 4,000 cases before the
AIB, only 20 have applied for the
exemption, Hartman pointed out,
and Menzies is unable to say how
successful these 20 were.

The reason for so few ap-
plications is that it is the employer
who must apply for it. ‘““Here we
are,” Hartman asserted, ‘‘faced
with the utterly ridiculous case
that the employer, the
discriminator, must make the case
for equality.

Coquitlam school trustee Eunice
Parker added her words to those of
Hartman in condemning the AIB
for its effect on women. Noting the
centrality of collective bargaining
to achieving women’s equality,
Parker said, “there is a conclusion
to be drawn — the unorganized are
the underpaid.”’

Parker laid special emphasis on
expanding military budgets —
“overkill at the expense of human
misery.’’ She drew attention to a
rising illiteracy rate in the world
and urged support for the
resolution of the International
Women’s conference in Mexico
that called for 10 per cent of the
arms budget to be used for
education in underdeveloped
countries.

Earlier in the meeting, chair-
woman Elspeth Gardiner in-
troduced a special guest from the
Soviet space exhibit Kosmos 77,
Dr. Maya Martyanova. A member
of the Scientific Council on
Exhibitions and of the USSR
Academy of Sciences, Dr. Martya-
nova brought greetings to the
meeting from Soviet women.

It was a different sort of message
that the Soviet scientist brought to
Women’s Day. ‘‘Since 1917 women
have enjoyed equal opportunity,”
the doctor noted, ‘‘and today they
are teachers, doctors, engineers —
and cosmonauts.”

In terms of political equality, the
doctor cited the 30 per cent of
legislators in the USSR who are
women as evidence of progress.

“Today there is only one
privileged class in the Soviet
Union,” she quipped, ‘‘and that is
children.”

Martyanova said that facilities
for children are essential to allow
women totakean active part in the
economic and political life of the
country. Facilities in the USSR are
well advanced, she said, and in-
clude kindergartens, nurseries and
day care centres that are available
to all.

South African women
arrive here March 19

Kate Molale (right) and Mpho Thoabale (left) of the African National
Congress of South Africa will appear at a free public meeting March 19
in the Christmas Seal Auditorium in Vancouver. See advertisement,

page 11.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 11, 1977—Page 3

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