¢* Courtroom hg AP9#la Davis talking to an East Ger ii: man correspondent outside aS i @ ylOSE—Angela Davis has Pought Court here how she Theat, pans and bullets and Motectig ave 4 bodyguard for n against threats on her aly Ite racists, is ad Inher own defence, tatement Said in an opening eth that the prosecution’s ideq ..** She plotted and pro- S for the shooting was ' MMaginative _ specula- The” Crsity *Year-old former uni- @ te oP Y lecturer said Bains jer eet =u” charges Ato €f were the logical out- = Campaign of harass- Ronala California Governor WBity oe (°88an and the Univer- ismig - ifornia Regents, who e her in 1969 because a Communist. 18, charged with mur- ing and conspiracy, peat om perience with guns ff “The ...~Y childhood. Reighborhood in which livs -U¢ where my parents ama), Oday (in Birmingham, lh Wee Called Dynamite PMlenog . ©, Of constant acts of "To 4 rich took place there. ry in the ak Person who grew ) the time > Uth, particularly at Was a child, guns mij. a Saj Normal ; ” * She liked cect, Of life.” She d shooting as a sport oft = €ngaged in target ) Igg : Buns in envis Said she bought pele Poms to defend her- bhotsan es St “hundreds and 1 Thi 8’ Of racist threats. tng, - became Ss articularl Rents When the Univ é University Re- nt Co, fire me because I | wpublic Munist. This made me eae as ae against my own ‘stent » SUbjected me to har- peau: ec ad Of the threats, Miss | 8ccomp. She never travelled | we panied, Jonathan Jack- Rotge y<8t-old brother. of the Bon and a key figure the People Shooting, was. one / 6 Durch Who protected her. ted for eeeeed weapons not otion bir Own personal pro- wets wi for the protection of i oo Whom I lived and Miss Davis sai & to avis said. ator Ale the court that prose- BY sa Harris had deliber- | Not i,,..° Prove that she na the ¢ terested in politics Hs but Waditions of all prison- allege as only motivated by tate i: Be for Jackson. et that Ing advantage of the , sash a am a woman,” she wePoseq ce, that women were en? With i, to act in accor- y € dictates of soci- \ der . “tions, their passions and tha, US w Mauvinis as an example of male ; ™,” Miss Davis said. Angela exposes frame-up Speaking in a calm voice, Miss Davis told the nine women and three men of the all-white jury that she had started working for the release of the Soledad bro- thers long before she met George Jackson. : “The evidence will show I am totally innocent of all the charges against me,” she said: She said the defence did not dispute the fact that a shoot- out took place at the Marin Country courthouse in which four people lost their lives. “The issue is whether I had anything to do with the occur- rence of these deaths,” Miss Davis. said. She said the prosecution, to make its case against her, would have to prove three points — that a plan existed which pre- dated the events at Marin County courthouse, that she had foreknowledge of the plan and that she took steps to deliber- ately promote the execution of the plan. “But he will not be able to prove. these three things. “He will not be able to prove them because they are not true and the evidence will so show,” Miss Davis said. on the ELECTION FRONT By setting the dates of two by-elections for October Prime Minister Trudeau has started another guessing game as to the _ date of the federal elections. There was the widespread view that an election was in the offing for late June. Now the by-elections and his remarks in connection with them could be interpreted to mean that an elec- tion is more likely to be held in October. However, a careful reading of his remarks leads one to the conclusion that an election in June is not to be excluded. He made two qualifications about when it might be called. The first was when he stated he had no intention “at this time” of announcing an_ election for June. The second was his re- mark that he “hoped there will be no need for an election in June.” The question of the necessity of an election in June could only arise if the government thought it could win at that time, or that some important issue or issues were shaping up which required a mandate from the Canadian people. President Nixon will be. visit- ing Ottawa: in mid-April. It is Quebec labor learns big lessons By ALAIN PATRIE There are about 600,000 organ- ized workers in Quebec out of a total of some two million working men and women. This union labor is the frui- tion of many long years of ardu- ous struggle against the com- bined conspiracy, brutality and deceit of business and govern- ment. It is a testimony to all those unsung martyrs who were persecuted, some even mur- dered. That struggle was a fight to improve economic conditions, to obtain elementary rights, to alleviate bestial working condi- tions, ghastly exploitation or simply to prevent an assault on one’s health, as was partly the case with the asbestos workers of Quebec. (Asbestosis is a dreaded lung disease, pneumo- niosis, caused by inhaling par- ticles of asbestos.) Nascent union groups had neither the strength nor the vision to look beyond this first stage of struggle. The priorities were to establish and secure labor organization and hammer out contracts which would per- mit workers to obtain, in the words of some union leaders, “a larger share of the pie”. During the past three decades, Quebec labor has undergone a considerable evolution, greatly accelerated during the past two years. ~ After 1967 ‘the hope for cyclical boom was over and the slump came. Quebec had be- come a casualty of capitalist insanity expressed by rapidly growing masses of poverty stricken people, even as afflu- ence flowered in smaller and smaller areas. Unemployment reached epidemic proportions. In its determination not to lose any. of its profit rates, monopoly launched an offensive against the working people. Wages, conditions and_ social gains became prime targets. . Working hand in glove with big business, the government launched its own assault against the working people of Quebec. The provincial government is the largest employer in Quebec: directly or indirectly it engages and pays some 250,000 people. Invoking . financial hardship, the premier outlined a budget which not only precluded rises in pay for all the public and para public employees but in fact was a reduction in view of the increase in the cost of living. Using the shoddiest of ruses, it came up with “reclassifica- tion,” with longer working hours, a demand for more pro- ductivity, which is really a mask for speed-up, arbitrary splitting up of unions so as to be able to negotiate from strength (sectorial bargaining), incredible contempt and proc- rastination when bargaining for a new contract; these and many more artifices that reveal the real face of the government as an employer. This came as a_ traumatic shock to union leaders and many rank and file. The hoped for acconimodations were shat- tered by bludgeons and anti- labor legislation. Thousands found themselves swept into a maelstorm of un- employment or welfare. Whole towns watched as pivotal indus- tries closed their doors with shocking indifference. The Que- bec government played a similar tactic of collusion, closing various plants and mills which it owned. The initial response by organ- ized labor was unity. The three central trade union councils, the QFL, the CNTU and the CEQ, formed the now well known, “front commun” (Common Front). 2 The working class fought back with heroic encounters which will be inscribed in the annals of history. Alongside these confronta- tions arose a new phenomenon for the masses of organized labor: Politicization. The call for a mass party of - labor in Quebec: was voiced at the recent QFL convention. It was carried from there into various branches, such as the Alliance des Professeurs, who characterized the government as no more or less than a bour- geois exploiter. The CNTU is- sued an ideological tract calling for Quebec labor to “rely on its own resources.” And finally the Common Frost organized mons- ter rallies in Montreal and Que- bec City which clearly express- ed a need for a new political party. The militancy and vigor of the struggle created a chain reaction. Several weeks ago over 200,000 government employees faced up to an _ intransigent patron and voted overwhelming- ly in favor of a strike if they ‘could not obtain their just demands. These were teachers, hospital workers, civil servants, profes- sionals, liquor commission em- ployees, maintenance and hydro electric workers. The negotiating policy involv- ed four critical items: a mini- mum .of $100 per week for all public employees; equal pay for equal work; a minimum increase of 8% per year for salaries to follow the rise in the cost of living and production; job se- curity. The government responded with a 4.8% across the board salary increase and refused to consider minimum salaries. As for the teachers, negotiations have been a monstrous parody- like dialogue between lord and serf. Every demand for improv- ed conditions is greeted with an unrelieved blanket of denial. For the first time in the his- tory of French Canada, Quebec labor answered by a one-day general strike. The struggle con- tinues. History is being made. Why Nixon is coming to Ottawa By WILLIAM KASHTAN, leader Communist Party ee ee a “= a. = well known that the “special relationship” between Canada and the USA has been replaced by a “crisis relationship,” by stepped-up pressure by U.S. im- perialism to impose a one-sided agreement on Canada. Nixon’s new economic poli- cies, the monetary crisis, the trade negotiations, all these spelled out the changing rela- tionship of forces in the capital- ist world and the “crisis rela- tionship” with Canada, the im- passe in trade negotiations, and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Connally’s threat to use “suit- able means” to compel agree- ment by Canada to terms U.S. imperialism’ wants to impose, illustrate the more brutal forms of pressure being exerted by the U.S. government on our country. It is rumored that President Nixon’s visit is for purposes of signing a non-pollution ’ agree- ment between the two coun- tries. This may be so. It may also be that President Nixon’s . visit will ‘be used to discuss trade and other matters, and to exert pressure on Canada. Per- haps the end result may be highly unfavorable to Canada’s real interests and occasion an election. : After all, an election was held in 1911 around the issue of reciprocity—an issue which is very much to the fore at the present time when the whole in- tent of the trade negotiations on the ‘part of U.S. government is to impose a one-sided agree- ment on Canada to the benefit of U.S. imperialism and_ the multi-national corporations, at the expense of industrial devel- opment for Canada and employ- ment for Canadian working people. Whether these or related is- sues will be discussed when President Nixon comes to Otta- wa. is still, to. be seen. In any case they remain, as President Nixon himself admitted, “very basic disagreements.” The “an- tagonistic partnership” is show- ing more antagonism: and fess partnership these days. Under the veneer of friendship in which Nixon comes to Canada is the hard face of U.S. imperialism. Prime Minister Trudeau, for political purposes, tries to create the impression of a benevolent U.S. imperialism, and a benevo- lent. Nixon, out to reinforce Canadian independence. He sug- gests the Connally is the “bad man” and Nixon the “good man.” All this balderdash - is directed to persuade those cor- porate forces in Canada tied in with U.S. imperialism by a thousand strings that his govern- ment can get on well with the Nixon Administration. All this window dressing can’t hide the sharpening relationships be- tween Canada and the USA, which may be one of the reasons for the qualifications by Prime Minister Trudeau about an elec- tion this June. In any ‘case, whether the elections are held in June or October, there is no reason to slow down preparations for them. ~~ Seek PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, APRIL 7,1972—PAGE 7