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Tanke aanaal

Report reveals offer to CUPE

City draws line on wages

Joint negotiations between
municipal employees and Greater
Vancouver municipalities has yet to
begin, but the city of Vancouver has
already drawn its-bottom line on

wage and salary increases for 1979.

A preliminary report on the 1979
operating budget estimates for the
city of Vancouver lists $9.1 million
in a ‘‘contingency reserve — pro-
vided to cover anticipated salary,

-wage and fringe benefit increases

NPA ‘Tammany Hall’ politics
pays off business backers

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

In. the’ civic election last
November, mayor Volrich, alder-
man Bellamy and their NPA fellow-
travellers came out strong for
“fiscal restraint’. ‘‘fiscal respon-
sibility’’, tax cuts and budget cuts
with accompanying service cuts.

They were telling only half the
truth or a quarter of the truth.
Politically, their statements had the
effect of misleading voters, because
they implied that all the citizens of
Vancouver would benefit from their
policies.

The big and all important ques-
tions these candidates for office left
unanswered were: tax cuts for
whom, service cuts for whom?

In the two months they have been
in office, the NPA and their ‘‘in-
dependent”’ allies have clearly

COPE annual
meet Sunday

The annual meeting of the Com-
mittee of Progressive Electors
(COPE) will be held Sunday,
February 25 at 2:00 p.m. at the
Ironworkers Hall, Eighth Avenue
and Columbia St., Vancouver.

The public is invited to the
meeting which will hear reports
from city council, school board and
parks board and elect a new ex-
ecutive. for. 1979. All COPE
members are urged to attend.

shown who they are out to help.
They lost no time in giving a sub-
sidy of $600,000 a year to the pro-
posed Trade and Convention Cen-
tre plus a subsidy of several million
(the exact figure is not yet known)
towards the annual operating
deficit of this Centre. This was a
subsidy to business interests.

Now we have the recommenda-
tion by alderman Puil, the chair-
man Of Council’s finance commit-
tee, that the business tax be cut
from 9.5 per cent to 9.0 per cent,
which would mean a saving for
business of $1,170,000 annually. It
also means a loss of revenue by the
same amount,-of-course.

This cut in the business tax will
not mean much to the small
business man, but for the big cor-

porations it will mean a saving of

tens of thousands of dollars a year.
That is where the pressure comes
from for the campaign of their can-
didates, and now, of course, they
want as much as they can get in
return.

The provincial government has
imposed certain restrictions on
Vancouver’s budget this year. We
are limited to a 5 per cent increase.
We will not be allowed to ac-
cumulate any surplus in 1979 for
future projects. The surpluses ac-
cumulated in 1977 and 1978 must be
treated as current revenue and
spent.

On top of that is the fact that ~

assessed property values are ex-

pected to increase by 2.6 per cent. -

All of the above, taken together,
mean that there will be a budget cut

of $1.7 million this year, which

should be passed on to taxpayers.

There are two ways to treat this.

tax cut.

Council can spread it out among
all property owners, and give each
of them, including business
establishments, a tax cut of about
$5.00.

Or it can give the whole cut to
one small sector of the population
— the business interests. And this is
exactly what the Mayor and the
NPA plan to do.

I, for one, object very strongly to
this favoritism, to this type of Tam-
many Hall politics.

The business tax should not ‘be
cut, instead it should be changed in-
to a graduated business tax, the
kind that the City of Winnipeg has.
Under a graduated business tax all
small businesses would pay not
more than about 6 per. cent-while
the big businesses would pay up to
13 per cent.

A graduated business tax would
give a break to the small business
man who is struggling to get by. At
the same time it would compel the
big outfits like the banks, the high
rise office buildings, the breweries,

B.C. Sugar, etc., to begin paying

their fair share of taxes, which they
certainly haven’t been doing until
now because all of them are vane
under-assessed.

ihre cnr aries

oo PEOPLE AND ISSUES =

: jee people who mailed a post card to the federal
‘government over the past weeks protesting the cuts
tamily allowances have probably received a thick wad
of a letter from Ottawa containing lengthy brochures
on the new child tax credit and still more brochures

trying to sell the program as a great boon to Canadian ,

families. The very volume of material itself is enough
to arouse suspicions but the accompanying letter from
the prime minister (significantly, the pressure on the

government was such that even the invariably arrogant

Trudeau felt compelled to respond) is even more
suspect. His figures are just-plain wrong — and that’s
all apart from what he doesn’t tell you.

“The changes will provide more financial assistance
to low and middle income families,’’ the PM argues,
claiming that the reduction in family allowances will
only amount to some $68 per year and that the new tax

credit will get about $132 per child per year more. It :

sound plausible but the facts aren’t all there.

First of all, based on the government’s indexing of
family allowances, the monthly payment would nor-
mally have risen to $27.99 in January, 1979. So with
the reduction to a monthly payment of $20, families
will lose $95.88 over the year in allowance payments —
not $68 as Trudeau claims.

It’s true that families with incomes in the $18,000

and less bracket will benefit slightly in the first year of

the program but those returns will diminish in the -

following year. Even with indexing at 9 percent, a
family with one child and an income of $18,000 or less
will only get $113 more in 1980 through the tax credit
program — and that figure will be reduced still further
by the elimination of the existing $50 per child tax
reduction. Subtract from that the substantial cuts in
the tax deductions for 16.and 17-year-old children and
the much-heralded program that is supposed to
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 23, 1979—Page 2

.

“benefit those who need it smut turns out to offer
precious little indeed.

What’s worse is the fact that just as families are get-
ting their reduced family allowance cheques, ‘the
military was getting fat new increases. According to
figures tabled in the House of Commons, defence
spending will increase by an overall $274.2 million to a
massive $4.4 billion. And our children are paying for
that — in more ways than one.

2 *- * *

e have a note from freelance broadcaster Howie

Smith asking for assistance in getting in touch with
any readers who may have known early socialist and
miners’ leader Ginger Goodwin or any of the labor
leaders miners and socialists who worked with him —
such people as Joe Naylor, Jack Kavanagh, Vic
Midghy, Arthur Boothman and others.

According to Howie, research is now underway fora
radio play about Ginger Goodwin. He wants readers’
help “‘so we can get a good picture of the characters of
the men and women who were fighting for a better
world in the early years of the century.

Anybody having any information should contact: _
Ginger Goodwin Project, c/o Howie Smith, 104—337 -

Carrall St., Vancouver, B.C.. V6B 2J4.

* * *

rom Rita Tanche comes a note offering her thanks

for the many cards of well wishes sent her eee
her stay in hospital last month.

Though she has some convalescing to do, Rita is
back on her feet again and is looking towards this
year’s Tribune financial drive. This year, perhaps
more than ever, we’ll need her help.

1

and other additional
items.”’

According to the city finance
department the total wage and
salary bill is about $110 million for
1979, and the $9.1 “million set aside
for anticipated increases would
amount to 8.27 percent. But the city
also points out that there are other
‘“‘expense items’’ to be covered by
the contingency reserve which
would reduce the percentage in-
crease allowed for wages and
salaries.

The city’s bottom line in the
preliminary budget, then, is likely
about six percent — far short of
what CUPE and the VMREU will
be demanding at the bargaining
table.

Mike Kramer, head of CUPE’s
joint ‘bargaining team, confirmed
that CUPE will be asking for a $1
across the board increase, a COLA
clause and improvements in
benefits. Although Kramer insists
the demands are ‘‘modest’’,
would add up to about 15 percent

expense

on the base rate of $6.80 per hour

for municipal employees.

“‘We’re looking for something
far in advance of that,’’ Kramer
said of the city’s $9.1 million

budget figure, ‘‘It is certainly not a_

settlement in our terms.”

With an 8.9 percent rise in the
cost of living this year and the need

for catch up on the lost ground dur-
ing wage controls, CUPE won’t set--

tle for a six percent figure, he.said.

of ‘‘fixed items’’

they”

It is not unusual for
municipalities to write into a
preliminary budget a _ projected
figure to cover wage and salary in-
creases, but this year’s preliminary
budget is different because of the
impact of the provincial govern-
ment’s’ five percent ceiling on
municipal budgets.

Under the terms of the provincial ~
edict, the city must trim $3.8
million from its preliminary budget —
to stay within the five percent
guideline. To do that the
preliminary report suggested a list
and ‘‘variable
items’’ and the contingency reserve
was listed as a fixed item. There will —
obviously have to be more money ~
put on the table by the city, but it is —
not yet clear where it will come —
from. The political reality of that
situation is that by going along with —
the Socred’s interference in
municipal budgets, the city is set-
ting a confrontation with its own —
employees. :

CUPE and the GVRD signed a
protocol agreement to begin
bargaining Monday — from the
outset with a mediator — although —
a date for beginning bargaining has —
not, yet been set. The negotiations
will necessarily be highly political —
with the unions questioning the
ability of the employers to engage in —
free collective bargaining while their
budgets are tied by Victoria, and
doing everything else they can do to —
undetmine the Socred’s indirect
form of wage controls. ~-=

Big firms get benefit —

of cut in business tax ©

Vancouver city council heard a
major contribution from COPE
president Bruce Yorke Tuesday and
then took about five minutes to
pass. into law a $1.17 million gift to

business by reducing the business ,

tax from nine and a half to nine per-
cent. -

Only COPE’s Harry Rankin and

independent Darlene Marzari voted
against the motion which will grant
tax breeaks of thousands of dollars
to large businesses with high rental
values (the tax is a percentage of an-
nual rental value) while giving only
a few dollars to small business.
_ *Shortsighted to the extreme,”
alderman Harry Rankin called the
decision, pointing out that it will be
necessary to substantially increase
taxes on homeowners and business
next year.

The lower business tax was made
possible in 1979 by the provincial
government’s edict that the city
must spend its accumulated $5
million surplus and at the same
ime limit spending to only five per-
2ent more than in 1978. In effect the
rity was required to reduce tis in-
rome by $1.17 million, but instead
of lowering the general mill rate for
ill taxpayers, it instead gave the en-
ire $1.17 million to business by a
‘educed business tax. ;

Next year, without a surplus to
idd to the budget, Rankin ’said, the
sity ‘will have to find more money
ind also slash services.

NPA alderman and finance com-
nittee chairman George Puil said
that business pays ‘‘a dispropor-
ionately high proportion of taxes’’
as he argued for lowering the rate.

Corporate profits are “embarass-
ngly-high’’ Yorke told the council,
with department stores — a main
deneficiary of the reduced business
‘ax — recording on the average an
84 percent increase in profits over
che past year.

Based on 1978 assessments the
:ax break would range from $10, 000
to $20,000 for big business:

Savings to big business

Woodwards $17,21 )

_ Eatons ae j
Three grain elevators 15,385
McMillan Bloedel 23
CPR 14 368

Small business would bare
benefit at all though, Yorke said,
citing these figures for three small |
businesses picked at random:

George Jackson, butcher $51.10
MacKinnon’s bakery 27.80 |
Dunbar St. gasstation + 48.50

Yorke reiterated COPE’s de-
mand for a graduated business tax
which would see small busine
taxed at a low rate of six percent
while big business would pay a

; high as 14.5 percent. The city would

receive the same income, he said,
but it would result in greater savi
to small business:

Savings to small business
with graduated tax

$269.0

George Jackson, butcher
MacKinnon’s bakery 215.31
Dunbar St. gas‘station 258.0

Council chose: not to debate
COPE’s proposal for a graduated
tax, however, nor did it discuss tl thi
alternative to changing the busine:
tax — a lowering of the general mi
rate to reduce income by the need
amount. That would have resultet
in about a $5 reduction ~ hi
average person’s taxes, COPE
estimated, and would have sal
fair and normal way to balance th
budget. ‘