THEY HAVE
TO GIVE US

$75-MILLION
JUST TO

ALBERTA

ON STRIKE

CALGARY — About. 1,000
Operating engineers joined plum-
bers, pipefitters, and millwrights
already on strike July 19 in the
northern section of Alberta. Wages
appear to be the source of the deci-

sion to"down tools. Meanwhile in’

ton about 1,700 Edmonton
Telephone, and Edmonton Power
0., employees with no contract
since Jan. 1, acted on their 80%
phd Vote and hit the bricks July

FEDS REFUSE
TO GIVEUIC

TORONTO — Canada Pac-
kers’ 4,000 locked-out meat-
Packers across the country were
told by the federal government
July 14, that it was siding with the
Company, and refused to grant the
workers unemployment insur-
ance benefits because they are in-
Volved ‘‘in a labor dispute’.

‘We had two 14-day rounds of
Negotiations before the lock-out
and were willing to talk’’, Cana-
dian Food and Allied Workers
Local 114 president Norm Ale-
Xander said recalling how work-
€rs cleaned up the plant before
they were locked out. ‘Now does

that look like a labor dispute?” he
asked.

CPU MAKES

ABITIBI PAY
,. SAULT STE. MARIE — After a
by representatives from

-Paperworkers Union locals met

here to plan negotiating strategy
July 19, striking members of CPU
Locals 133 and 67 at the company’s
plant here, threatened to file a
complaint with the provincial
labor department because Abitibi
refused to give the workers their
paychecks for the last two weeks
they were. on the job. Abitibi
spokesmen finally had to say they
would sign the paychecks and de-
liver them July 20.

5,500 END
IRON ORE STRIKE
LABRADOR CITY, NFLD.
— Some 5,500 miners and other
workers employed by the Iron
Ore Co. of Canada ended a four
month strike after winning a 30%
over-three-years wage hike from
the multinational. The workers in
Quebec and Labrador are mem-
bers of the United Steelworkers
and began voting on the latest of-
fer July 14-15. But, 160 brakemen
and conductors on the Quebec
North Shore and Labrador Rail-
way rejected a contract offer and
will remain on strike.

FEDERAL NURSES
STRIKE FOR PARITY

OTTAWA — The country-wide
strike by 1,100 federally employed
nurses continued last week. The
nurses want parity with their pro-
vincial counterparts, and overtime
pay for nurses in

isolated outposts.
Without a contract for 18 months,

the nurses, members of the Profes-
sional Institute of the Public Ser-
vice took strike action July 11.

nine Ad itibi Paper Co., Canadian

EDIMTORLAL
COMIMIENT

Viva 11th youth festival!

Greetings to the 11th World Festival of
Youth and Students in Havana, Cuba,
July 28 to August 5! May it be the exper-
ience of a lifetime for the 240 young
Canadians who will be part of the 16,000
youth from around the world.

The Canadian delegation promises to
be unequalled for its diversity — people
from widely varied backgrounds,
organizations and locales, from Canada’s
Native peoples, and from both French
and English-speaking nations.

What is it the detractors fear, which
causes them to rant so? Reactionary cir-

cles obviously fear the results of 16,000 .

young people getting to know one
another and learning about each other’s
lives and countries, and of how they
struggle for better lives.

The theme, For Anti-Imperialist Sol-
idarity, Peace and Friendship, is a proud
one to put a challenge and feeling of
cooperation into the hearts of particip-
ants. But to the monopolists, intent on
tightening their grip on everything pro-
fitable in the world — with the help of
their military collaborators, and at any
toll in human life and human suffering
— such a theme is impermissible.

What theme could these imperialists
devise instead which could capture the
very. able minds and imaginations of our
young generation, which would so unite.

youth of the capitalist, socialist and de-
veloping worlds, as the theme of peace as
opposed to war, friendship as opposed to
racism and the propaganda of hatred,
solidarity against imperialism as op-
posed to the continuance of neo-
colonialism and exploitation? They have
nothing to offer but the police state and
the political prisoner — about which
Andrew Young spoke openly until he
was re-programmed.

We not only welcome the Festival and
Canadian participation in it, with its un-
limited potential for uniting millions of
youth as a bastion against privation and
war. We not only applaud the opportun-
ity for 16,000 young people to explore
many facets of human relations — cul-
ture, social issues, development and the
world of their future. We intend to coun-
teract whatever combination of blackout,
tokenism or distortion the capitalist
media may decide to use against the Fes-
tival.

We can foresee a powerful bond of
understanding being formed in Cuba,
not to mention the young people’s sheer
enjoyment of one another, and of the
socialist island which is their host.

May anti-imperialist solidarity, peace
and friendship triumph among these
young people as with no young genera-
tion before!’

lobs from Bonn? Show us!

The fourth Western Economic Sum-

‘mit in Bonn, Federal Republic of Ger-

many, July 16-17, should get A for stage
management even before the analytical
ink is dry in the press, never mind the
long watch for results.

The leaders of seven powers — Cana-
da, USA, Britain, France, the FRG, Italy

‘and Japan — came out with smiles and

assurances that this time they had done
it. Each said in the same breath: It all
depends on (pointing finger) him.

Prime Minister Trudeau has promised
us a cut in the 8.6% unemployment rate
and less inflation (now 9.2%) as a result
of the Bonn huddle. hess

The healthy attitude of battle-wary
workers might well be: “Show us!”

Six of the seven powers at Bonn were
members of NATO which recently voted
the biggest quantitative armaments
boost in its history. Arms cuts in NATO
countries, including Canada, could have
vastly improved conditions. As to exces-
sive U.S. oil imports, billions of gallons
are used to keep aircraft carriers,
super-bombers, submarines and _ other
war machines active 24 hours a day
around the world — for whose benefit?

The Liberal government’s excuse for
Canada’s crisis, and for loading the bur-

~ den of it onto working people, has always

been that it’s world-wide. (That means

capitalist-world-wide; the socialist world,

united in the Council for Mutual
Economic Assistance is having its best
economic period ever, which puts Car-
ter’s economic “reprisals” more in the
category of U.S. blunders.)

~

However, Trudeau can now repeat, if

' the Japanese cut their exports, if the

West Germans boost their growth rate
and buy more, if the. USA reduces its
gluttony for foreign oil, then Canada will

have more jobs and less inflation — if

these capitalist leaders have figured cor-
rectly. But the hard winter ahead, of fal-
ling living standards, will be too early for
us to know.

Those trade. union bodies planning
and preparing to battle governments
through this fall and winter on the
unemployment crisis — those organiza-
tions fighting price increases, demand-
ing a rollback — and the peace move-
ment demanding cuts in arms expendi-
tures — are the reliable forces, attuned
to the’ times, in which the working class
and democratic forces can place con-
fidence and support.

Label imports

Canadians in increasing numbers are
angered and complaining about the way
supermarkets, as well as many smaller
outlets, either push USA fruits and veg-
etables in preference to those grown in
Canada, or provide no identification so
that the shopper can make a choice. This
is the sad result of multi-national con-
trols from the farm gate to the check-out
counter. It looks as though the 10 pro-
vincial agricultural ministers were listen-
ing to shoppers when they agreed July
10 food should be stamped “Canadian”
or “imported”.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 11, 1978—Page 3

sep eo
ae nent

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