Tax windfall profits—Rush

UIC overpayment case put to Bud Cullen

EMIL BJARNASON ... “rate
unequivocally higher than 1 per
cent.”

i

LOCAL 115, TAG

The strike-lockout at Pacific Press, now into its sixth mo

FANCIES NEW STIS
a

Unionists handling the appeal
in the contentious Unemployment
Insurance case intend to put the
demand to manpower minister
Bud Cullen that he intervene to
ensure that thousands of UIC
claimants across the province are
not forced to make repayment of
benefits paid to them. because of
computer error.

Fishermen’s union welfare di-
rector Bert Ogden, one of those
handling the appeals, said that
Cullen would be pressed for ac-
tion in the wake of a ruling by a
UIC board of referees Tuesday re-
jecting the representative appeal
made on behalf of more than 115
union claimants. The three-mem-

ber board unanimously disallowed
the appeal in spite of overwhelm-
ing statistical evidence that the so-
called error was not an error at all,
a contention supported even by
Statistics Canada staff.

The overpayments issue has
sparked angry reaction from un-
ionists all across the country ever
since the Commission sought the
repayment of extended UIC bene-
fits paid to claimants as the result
of a supposed computer error
which raised the regional rate of
unemployment more than 1 per
cent above the national rate.

But as economist and statisti-
cian Dr. Emil Bjarnason told a

| VANCOUVER ~ |
| TYPOGRAPHICAL ey {

LOCAL 226

4

AFL-ClLO~

this week follow-

ing the release of mediator John Kagel’s report which favored the employer's stand on the crucial man-
ning issue involving the Printing Pressmen. The talks resumed without the Pressmen who have main-
tained their position on the manning clause, seeing it as decisive for job security in an increasingly

automated industry.

—Sean Griffin photo

day-long hearing Friday, the error
would not have been an error at
all if conventional statistical meth-
ods had been used.

Bjarnason pointed out that he
used the same StatsCan figures as
the Commission but he used a
“‘weighted: average’ by which fig-
ures are taken out to at least three
decimal points to determine a pre-
cise figure.

Stats Canada in establishing un-
employment rates uses only a sim-
ple average, using only one-deci-
mal point to arrive at a figure.

By the weighted average, the re-
gional rate of unemployment was
“unequivocally more than | per

See STATSCAN pg. 15

NANAIMO — Communist Party
provincial leader Maurice Rush call-
ed Sunday for an immediate imple-
mentation of a windfall profit tax
to stop large corporations f ro m
reaping exorbitant profits from the
devaluation of the Canadian dollar.

MacMillan Bloedel has made
windfall profits of $52.5 million in
1978 due to the devaluation of the
dollar alone, Rush charged, but
consumers and the public have been
compelled to pay more for import-
ed. goods because of the devalua-
tion. eae

“There is no reason why. large
companies should be able to gather
in super-profits as a result of pol-
icies adopted by the federal govern-
ment which lower the value of the
Canadian dollar,’’ the CP leader
asserted.

Rush made his demands at a CP
rally of Vancouver Island election
workers in the Nanaimo Tally Ho
hotel. The meeting was held to sup-
port the campaigns of CP provin-
cial candidate in Alberni, Gary
Swann, and CP federal candidates
Ernie Knott, Cowichan-Malahat,
Sy Pederson, Comox-Powell River

See DON'T RENEW page 15

Placer strikebreaking blamed in incidents

Solidarity rally called for CAIMAW

A spokesman for the Canadian
Association of Industrial,
Mechanical and. Allied Workers
said this week that unionists in
Prince George would be holding a
mass rally Saturday to demonstrate
support for the striking miners at
Placer Development’s Endako mine
at Fraser Lake.

John Bowman told the Tribune

that the International Wood-
workers of America and the
Teamsters would be among the
unions taking part in the solidarity
rally, called for 11 o’clock Satur-
day.

The miners at the molybdenum
mine have been out since February
14 to back wage demands but the
strike has become increasingly bit-

Neruda’s wilow arrested

SANTIAGO — The. widow of
Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was ar-
rested along with more than 60
other women who chained them-
selves to the iron railing of the Chil-
ean ministry of justice building here
recently.

Matilda Urrutia de Neruda had
joined the women, who were de-
manding that relatives be given the
remains of the patriots found in a
quarry last December. Police, after
cutting the chains, threw the dem-

onstrators into waiting police vans.

Thousands of Chilean mothers,
wives and sisters are camping out
on the doorsteps of various institu-
tions hoping to learn something
about relatives who have ‘‘disap-
peared’”’ since the fascists seized
power in a bloody coup September
1973.

Secret burial places of people
murdered by the junta have been
found in various parts of the coun-

try.

ter following the company’s action
in bringing in security guards and
non-union truckers to carry hot
molybdenum, mined by supervisory
staff across picket lines.

The action sparked an incident
last week in which - tires were
reportedly shot out by a shotgun.
CAIMAW staff representative Bill
Green blamed the incident on
Placer’s use of professional
strikebreakers and on action by the
non-union truckers in attempting to
run union cars off the road.

The Socreds also attempted to
utilize the incident to attack B.C.
Federation of Labor president Jim
Kinnaird. :

CAIMAW. began picketing
various trucking companies, in-
Bees Pathfinder Lines in Fort St.

ohn which Placer has hired to
carry the hot ore out. Pickets were
also set up at Trimac Trucking in
Burnaby with Teamsters honoring
the line.

Machinists at Vancouver Interna-
tional Airport have refused to han-
dle molybdenum bound for Japan,

forcing Placer to truck the ore to
Calgary where it is being held in a
non-union warehouse.

Bowman said that a mediator has
called the two parties together for
talks Tuesday, May 1, in a bid to
end the strike.

May Day rally
set for April 29

Ernie Hall, NDP provincial can-
didate in Surrey, and Jack Phillips,
Communist Party candidate for the
federal riding of Vancouver
Kingsway, share the speakers’ plat-
form at the May Day rally in Van-
couver April 29.

The annual rally, sponsored by
the Vancouver Trade Union May
Day Committee, is slated for 7:30
p.m. in the Templeton High
School,. 727 Templeton Drive in
Vancouver.

Vancouver Labor Council
Secretary Paddy Neale will chair the
meeting.

BERT OGDEN ... pressing de-
mand to Bud Cullen.

May Day issue

ceemrergerntn is:

i aa om EP:

@ DARSHAN SINGH ERew
in Canada for a visit after
a 30-year absence Indian
‘Communist MLA  Dar-
shan Singh looks at the
East Indian Community
— then and now, page 8

i

@ THE COALITION: There
has been a deal to rule
B.C. for over 37 years,
and it b eg an with the
first coalition govern-
ment of John Hart and
Byron Johnson,
1942-1952, page 9.

@ INTERVENTION: Jack
Treliving is 82 and he
remembers the world’s
first socialist revolution,
for he was assigned to
the expeditionary force
sent to intervene, page
10.

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