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Friday, September 24, 1976

48

Vol. 38, No. 38

20°

-Delegates-to. the. 39th- regional. convention. of the .IWA,.meeting in Vancouver this week, denounced the AIB
and pledged full support of their membership for the Oct. 14 Day of Protest.

—Carey Robson photo

COPE fights fare boost

Bruce Yorke, mayoralty can-
didate for the Committee of
Progressive Electors, has written
Robert Bonner, head of B.C.
Hydro, requesting a meeting to
“express COPE’s strong op-
position to Hydro’s announced
intention to hike bus fares.”’

Yorke said that in addition to
discussing the bus fare increases,
COPE will also tell Bonner that his
statements about the ‘‘unlikelihood
of an early start on a light rapid
transit subway system’’is, in
COPE’s opinion, ‘‘yet another
short sighted view notin the best
interests of Vancouver’s travelling
public.”’

Bonner announced last week that
Hydro bus fares would increase
substantially in the next period of
time due to losses incurred by B.C.
Hydro on its transit system.

In his letter to Bonner, Yorke
said that “‘Victoria cannot call for
everyone else to practice restraint
yet simultaneously take actions
which increase the cost of living for
thousands upon thousands of hard
pressed citizens.”

Yorke also afinounced that in
addition to meeting with Bonner,
COPE would launch an immediate
petition campaign urging Hydro to
leave transit fares unchanged and
to proceed with the building of a
light rapid transit subway system
for the Greater Vancouver area.

In addition to the COPE protest,
Nigel Morgan, provincial leader of
the Communist Party, has written
premier Bill Bennett demanding
that the proposed fare increases be
stopped by the provincial govern-
ment.

“Hasn’t this government learned
anything from its disastrous ex-
perience of doubling B.C. Ferry
fares last spring?’”’ Morgan asked.
“Increased fares, reductions in
service and further delays in the
introduction of rapid transit
facilities as proposed by Bonner,
can only escalate Hydro losses,
increase dependence on auto
traffic and add to urban congestion
in the Vancouver area,’’ Morgan
said.

The Communist leader called for

common action to prevent the bus
fare increase and said that the only
real solution to Hydro’s problem
‘Jies in provision from the com-
bined profits from electric and
natural gas services’’ for the funds
necessary for an efficient, low-fare
rapid transit system.

The B.C. Federation of Labor
this week warned the Social Credit
government against introducing
new anti-labor legislation. The
warning came following a
statement by Premier Bill Bennett
that new legislation will be brought
down at the next session of the
legislature, and statements made
by Socred cabinet members at the
recent Union of B.C.
Municipalities - convention.

Concern of labor was also
spurred by the disclosure of the
fact that a research agency in B.C.
is conducting a public opinion poll
to determine if the public would
support union-busting ‘“‘right to
work” legislation. The name of the
sponsor of the survey is being kept
secret, but there is strong

#suspicion that it was ordered by the

7s,

government to test public opinion
to see if it can get away with in-
troducing new anti-union
legislation.

The statements by Bennett, and
his cabinet members, has stirred
strong protest in the ranks of the.
trade union movement, and came
under sharp fire at the IWA con-
vention meeting in Vancouver this
week. In a public statement, Len
Guy, secretary-treasurer of the
B.C. Federation of Labor, said:

“T am hopeful that Premier
Bennett will consider very
carefully the dangers inherent in

‘any attempt to impose anti-labor

legislation in this province. As his
father’s government found in its
introduction of the Mediation
Commission Act and its attempted

Warn against new anti-labor laws

introduction of Bill 88 in the con-
struction industry in 1972, the labor
movement in B.C. does not roll
over and passively accept anti-
labor legislation. Those abortive
attempts created chaos in B.C. and
led directly to the defeat of the old
Socred government.

“Labor has said repeatedly, and
some enlightened employers. have
recognized, that improvement in
B.C.’s industrial relations is to be
found, not down the road of com-
pulsion and restrictive legislation,
but through complete government
commitment to free collective
bargaining, including the provision
of improved mediation services
and a greater degree of security
for working people in the
province.”

Support snowballing
for Day of Protest

Support for the CLC Day: of
Protest snowballed in B.C. this
week as the NDP, IWA, railway
workers, postal unions and
students joined in pledging all-out
support for the massive demon-

stration and shutdown set for Oct.

14.

Additional support also came
last weekend from the B.C.
Council of the Federation of
Canadian Unions, not an affiliate of
the CLC, which met in Terrace,
B.C. and voted 92 per cent in
support of the Day of Protest. This
includes the Pulp, Paper and
Woodworkers of Canada, some of
whose leaders previously voiced
opposition to the protest.

Meeting in Quesnel last
weekend, the provincial council of
the NDP ratified a resolution’ to
give full support to the National
Day of Protest. The NDP is urging
all its members to support the one-
day work stoppage and ta par-
ticipate in the protest demon-
strations.

Commenting on the. resolution,
NDP leader Dave Barrett said the
Anti-Inflation Board constitutes a
threat to the basic freedoms of
Canadians. ‘“Trudeau’s wage and
price controls, stolen from the
Conservative platform, are being
used to give the corporate sector a
stranglehold on Canadians.”

Strong support for the Day of
Protest came this week from B.C.’s
largest union, the IWA, which was
meeting in convention in Van-
couver. Speaking for the more than
40,000 members of the-union, Jack
Munro, regional president, told
delegates in the officers report, the

IWA “‘supports totally and without
reservation the program and
campaign of the CLC in its attempt
to have Bill C73 repealed and the
shackles of regression removed
from negotiations.”’

Munro said that ‘“‘when em-
ployers are assisted by a govern-
ment whose lack of principles
allow them to doublecross the
Canadian people by passing a bill
which destroys free collective
bargaining, employers and

STUDENTS BACK
PROTEST, PG. 3

negotiations become almost im-
possible.”’

The IWA leader said that ‘‘the
AIB must be classified as the most
important, most insidious problem
facing the IWA and the rest of
organized labor today.”’ Lashing
out at the AIB, Munro said the
policy of the IWA is to negotiate as
though the AIB did not exist and
that this will be the policy of the
union in the industry negotiations
coming up next summer.

“Tt cannot be said too loud or too
often how and what the Liberals in
Ottawa are doing to the working
people of this country with the
Anti-Inflation legislation. Hard
negotiated gains have been rolled
back even in the face of historical
relationships and with disregard to
the necessity of, and _ the
justification for fair wage set-
tlements... The inconsistency of
the Board’s rulings are second only
to Trudeau’s arrogance-toward the

See SUPPORT, pg. 12

RiBUNE