Wednesday, March 12, 1986 SD Newsstand Price 40° Vol. 49, No. 9 British print unions hit by Thatcher’s lai ws FiBUNE — page 5 ployed shipyard workers and fists from the Vancouver ployed Action Centre made of the plush Four Seasons sho with the chant of “jobs, _ s‘’ as Prime Minister Brian y made a flying visit to — r March 7 as part of the ampaign to sell the budget. _ onstrators waited two hours — . PM to emerge from a lunch usiness representatives and when he did come out, pped only briefly before whisked away by aides to a g car. It was long enough, ver, for Marine Workers and ilermakers Union president John patrick to tell him that shipyard 1e scene was repeated in _ eorge Friday night Ne centre. One unem-- worker commented: “The. rds he heard in Prince — were ‘jobs, jobs, jobs.’ "" schools battle heating up Districts plan Victoria visit An uninvited visit to the office of Educa- tion Minister Jim Hewitt, a petition cam- paign and the first two of what promises to be many school boards filing no-cutbacks budgets all point to the storm clouds that are again gathering around B.C.’s schools this year. Both the school boards in the normally conservative districts of Prince George and Quesnel have stated they refuse to accept the education ministry’s “fiscal framework” — the amount the government grants each school district — and have refused to sub- mit budgets by the provincial deadline March 15. Education community spokesmen agree that most districts are facing cuts to their 1986-87 fiscal budgets, and already some districts are gearing up for a fight to regain services chopped during the restraint years. In Greater Vancouver, the Metro Educa- tion Assocation (MEA) has telegrammed Hewitt informing the minister a delegation of parents, students, teachers and trustees will visit his office at the Legislature March 17 at 12:30 p.m. Spokesman Chris Taulu, organizer for the Defend Education Services Coalition, said the decision to visit Hewitt arose from a meeting of the MEA coalition March 6, when it was noted the minister had not responded to overtures for a meeting fast month. Taulu said most districts in the nine- member Metro Branch of the B.C. School Trustees Association are planning to submit “underfunded” budgets to the ministry. The task of MEA, a coalition formed dur- ing the budget crisis early last year* is to forward that information to other districts in the province, she said. Representatives of the public education community say boards face a shortfall of up to 16 per cent this year. That’s just to main- tain services at last year’s level, without accounting for inflation or “recovery” — gaining back services sacrificed to restraint since 1982. Vancouver school board chairman Pau- line Weinstein said the shortfalls for several Lower Mainland boards are “absolutely unbelievable.” Vancouver, with nine trustees all members of the Committee of Progressive Electors civic alliance which campaigned electorally against the cutbacks, has been holding a see PETITION page 2 South African anti-apartheid activist Jesse Duarte gives salute following speech to International Women’s Day rally in Vancouver Saturday. Duarte, of the Transvaal Women’s Federation and the United Democratic Front, declared women have a common interest the world over.