"Some 200 people rallied

|
2

———

eee, eS ee a ee eet
SO ti ell i ns Nh ite cht

li. 3

in front of the courthouse Friday to

demonstrate support for the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and
president Jean-Claude Parrot (above) who faces a three-month
prison term. Representatives of the B.C. Federation of Labor, the

Pe

enema metro Rone PO

Le ane RET AUF NINETEEN ILI

| @ HOUSING: The housing
Crisis is as serious as ever
| -for some 40,000 Van-
couver households a new

H study reveals, page 2.

| © BANKS: While the chart-
ered banks make record
profits, manufacturing in
Canada is suffering. The
two trends are related
our Economic Facts fea-
ture shows, page 10.

@ INUIT: The Inuit at Baker
Lake, NWT are struggling
for a landmark decision
on their land claims, and
with it rests their very
survival as a_ people,

page 10.

PL 6 LPT Raa

Professional strikebreaking

Tories form unstable minori

¥

—

Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Vancouver Labor Council

and others pledged their support to CUPW. This week, members of
Local 500 of the International Longshoremen’s Union voted to con-

duct a 24-hour strike if Parrot is jailed.

— Sean Griffin photo

‘perilously close’ at Endako

A Labor Relations Board panel

said last week that Pathfinder Lihes.

”

was ‘“‘perilously close’’ to profes-
sional strikebreaking in its hauling
of molybdenum ore from the strike-
bound Endako Mine, but the LRB
declined to rule against the Fort St.
John trucking firm.

The Canadian Association of In-
dustrial, Mechanical and Allied
Workers, on strike at the Placer
Development Ltd. Endako Mines at
Fraser Lake since Febrary 4, had
laid a complaint with the LRB
claiming that Placer had hired pro-
fessional strikebreakers to haul ore
mined by supervisory staff out from
behind picket lines.

Several convoys of molybdenum
— including one Wednesday morn-
ing — have been hauled out since
the strike began and according to
evidence presented at the LRB hear-
ings, the owner of Pathfinder
Lines. J. P. Cronin, has ‘‘master-
minded”’ at least some of the con-
voys.

According to the evidence he had
arranged marshalling yards and
proposed routes for the convoys to
follow. Most of the ore has been go-
ing to non-union warehouses in
Alberta from which it is air-

} freighted to Japan.

In its finding, the LRB panel,

headed by vice-chairman Jim McIn-

| tyre, said that the leasing of trucks

nanan!

Vs

to Endako was not strikebreaking
but noted, “‘...it is adding to the
general strike-associated

| background of Pathfinder.’’

The panel also emphasized that

| the special assistance and consulting

furnished by Cronin ‘‘pushes
Pathfinder perilously close to the
line’’ of professional strikebreak-

} ing.

“When outsiders get into the

game plan itself, when they become
‘strategic advisors’ or ‘mercenaries’
in the struggle, then their primary
object may be seen as ‘interference’
with the strike, rather than mere
assistance by an ally,”’ it stated.

Bob Green, CAIMAW staff
representative in Fraser Lake told
the Tribune Wednesday that Placer
had taken another shipment of ore
out of the mine that morning,
beginning before daylight.

He said that he believed the
trucks — four fuel trucks and four
tractor-trailers, all. from Hertz
Rent-a-Truck — were provided by
Pathfinder.

The convoy was escorted by four

RCMP cruisers as well as a paddy
wagon although the union made no
attempt to block the trucks.

Green: said the union had not
been staging any demonstrations
over the movement of ore since the
RCMP had merely, used them as a
pretext ‘‘to bring out the dogs and
the riot sticks.’’ One woman was at-
tacked by a police dog several days
ago.

Seven people, five of them
strikers, were earlier’ charged by
police with wilful damage and
assault when rocks were thrown at a
convoy as it left the mine. They are
to apear in court in Fraser Lake

see CONVOY pg. 12

ty govt

No mandate
in polarized
federal vote

With almost unanimous backing
from Canada’s big business estab-
lishment and media, Joe Clark’s
Conservatives: formed a minority
government Tuesday, only the third
Tory government in post-war
Canada.

But while business spokesmen on
the stock exchange floors were
openly jubilant about the election
results, throughout most of Canada
a feeling of uncertainty was
prevalent as working people con-
sidered the political instability and
national divisions exhibited by the
vote.

The 135 seats which went Tory is
a minority and not a mandate to
carry through on its right wing pro-
mises to the business establishment.
The Conservatives were ‘the bene-
ficiaries of a widespread feeling for
change in the country, but it is dif-
ficult to find in the results an en-
dorsement of Tory policy which
was vague, unclear and at times
contradictory throughout the elec-
tion campaign. The Tory minority
government will be based on a dis-
tinct minority of the popular vote;
with almost no support at all from
French Canada.

The stunning defeat of -the
Trudeau government and of prac-
tically all of the Liberal cabinet
ministers from English Canada was
a clear rejection of the Liberal gov-
ernment’s economic and social poli-
cies. The _Liberal Party was
decimated in English Canada, re-
emphasizing the sharp division
along national lines in the election
and reflecting the polarization of
the vote in English Canada which
saw Liberal support swing both to
the Tories and to the NDP.

The election result showed that
“Canada is entering a period of in-
creasing instability,’’ Communist
Party leader William Kashtan com-
mented to the Tribune Wednesday
from Toronto. ‘‘One can see in the
results.a trend both to the right and

see FEDERAL pg. 3

Foreign capital and exports
force up B.C. salmon prices

VANCOUVER — The United
Fishermen and Allied) Workers’
Union entered negotiations with
the Fisheries Association last week
to seek substantial increases in
minimum salmon prices, but con-
trary to the claims of the com-
panies, the union says, its
demands need not ‘affect already
swollen retail prices for salmon in
Canada. - :

It is the companies, not
fishermen, reponsible for high
salmon prices, UFAWU chief
negotiator Bill Procopation told
the Tribune Wednesday, and now
the companies are exporting more
of the salmon catch which can on-
ly drive retail prices for salmon on
the domestic market even higher.

“We don’t control their sales,
or their prices,’’ Procopation
said. ‘‘Canned sockeye is already
selling for $3.98 per pound at
Woodwards, and at $4.48 per
pound in smaller cans. The
minimum price to fishermen was
only 89 cents per pound.’’

The fishing companies made
huge profits last year, and sold
their entire catch, he noted, and
now imported pink salmon from
the U.S. is selling in B.C. stores at
$3.05 per pound. Union fishermen
received only 36 cents per pound
for their catch of pinks.

But the big factor in negotia-
tions this year is the vastly increas-
ed frozen fish export market, Pro-
copation said. The frozen fish ex-

port market accounted for about
30 percent of the sockeye catch
last year, and it could go as high
as 60 to 70 percent this year. In
spite of the high prices paid for
frozen salmon on the export
markets, the companies are at-
tempting to bargain solely on the
basis of minimum prices for the
canned salmon market.

And there is good reason to
believe that the massive intrusion
of foreign, mainly Japanese,
capital in the industry will push
prices for frozen salmon way up
as it did in the herring fishery. The
union has reports that as much as
50 percent of this year’s projected
catch is already sold to Japanese

see FOREIGN pg. 12

i Slash cn

Seana om

a Si