a a WR Ss SeWENBE UGGLE G16 ee FY * aie att, Members and supporters of the Southern Africa Action Coalition marched outside the old Vancouver courthouse Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of the Soweto massacre and reiterate the demand for an end to Canadian trade with the apartheid regime. Several students were killed and hundreds in- vited in 1976 when police and soldiers opened fire on demonstrating students in the black township out- TRIBUNE PHOTO—SEAN GRIFFIN side Johannesburg. went Labor to conduct | parallel campaign in Van. election The Vancouver and District Labor Council voted Tuesday to conduct a strong parallel campaign - in the 1980 Vancouver civic election - in support of the Committee of Progressive Electors (COPE) and Mike Harcourt for mayor. The executive recommendation for the parallel campaign followed endorsements of COPE and Har- court by the VLC in May, and subsequent meetings with representatives of COPE and the Harcourt committee and VLC’s metropolitan advisory committee. The VLC campaign will be loosely patterned after the CLC’s parallel campaign in support of the NDP and will be aimed primarily at trade unionists. Public ownership of arrogant, greedy . B.C. Telephone Company long overdue By ALD. HARRY RANKIN B.C. Telephone is not only greedy; it’s acting like an arrogant bully that resorts to threats when it can’t have its own way. Before going any further, I should remind you that the only thing B.C. or Canadian about B.C. Telephone is its name. It’s a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.S. com- munications multinational called General Telephone and Electron- ics. It takes its order from its parent company and the parent company decides its policies. In May, B.C. Telephone applied “for another big rate,increase rang- ing from 12.5 percent for individ- ual-line residences to 15-25 percent increases for business lines. It wanted an interim increase of a lit- tle less than half of the whole amount to go into effect on Junel, * with the balance effective Decem- ber 17. A : Th? Canadian Radio-Televisio and Telecommunications Com- mission, which has a reputation of giving B.C. Telephone just about everything it wants, this time decid- ed not to grant the interim increase. As for the over-all increase, this will be decided after public hearings that begin in October. B.C. Telephone today provides the poorest service and charges the highest rates of any company on the continent. How does it get away with it? It does so by business prac- tices that while not illegal can only be described as fraudulent and im- moral. The Commission, which must approve any increases, ruled some time ago that B.C. Telephone is en- titled to earn a certain profit, up to about 15 percent, on its investment. On the surface, this may sound rea- sonable; that is, if you accept the proposition that a foreign-owned company has the right to milk the people of B.C. But the methods us- ed sound like a con game, and are little less. The companies that B.C. Tele- phone buys its equipment and sup- plies from, like Lenkurt Electric, are also owned by the parent com- pany of B.C. Telephone. So all the parent company has to do to show that B.C. Telephone is not making an adequate rate of profit is to in- struct its subsidiaries to raise the PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 20, 1980—Page2 prices they charge B.C. Telephone. The B.C. Telephone company can show, with figures (and you know figures never lie!), that it must have another increase. In the meantime the subsidiaries send an ever-increasing flow of profits across the border to the par- ent company. Now everyone knows this is go- ing on. What is surprising is that the C.R.T.C. does nothing about it. In fact a few years ago when a demand was made that the subsid- iaries be compelled to open their books for public inspection, the Commission ruled that they didn’t have to. It’s hardly surprising that many mission protecting — the public or a U.S. monopoly? We should, of course, have our own government-owned telephone system in B.C., just as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have. Then these profits would be going into provincial coffers and rates would be much lower. B.C. Telephone should be plac- ed under public ownership. That step is long overdue. The NDP had this in its program before it was elected in 1972, and then, unfor- tunately, dropped it. But public ownership of this monopoly is still the only solution. Until then we’ll just have to fight every increase that B.C. Telephone cludes the demand for a 12.5 per- cent increase effective December for which there is absolutely no justification. During the first quar- ter of 1980 B.C. Telephone profits were 25 percent higher than the cor- responding period of last year. Instead of granting an increase, the C.R.T.C. should undertake a full and thorough investigation in- to just how B.C. Telephone, its parent company and the subsidiar- ies of the parent company, operate in B.C., and how they manipulate prices and send profits across the border. Furthermore, it should bea public investigation. After being skinned all these years, we at least have the right to know how th Local unions have been urged © invite candidates to speak to 10 ca meetings and Harcourt aly COPE’s Harry Rankin have 0&* scheduled to address future VE> meetings. The VLC will print pocket size slate cards which will be distribute? to unionists through the JO steward system. = IBEW delegate Jim ral chairman of the metropolitan ade visory committee, urged delegat not only to endorse the recommes dations, ‘‘but to do sometiilie aboutit.’’ He called on local unions “to get your members working the campaign so we can have cout cillors who will be responsive unionists’ needs.”’ ‘ Garth Brown, newly appointed Canadian Labor Congress $' representative, joined in the call for action, urging delegates “to 8% materials into every shop, evel plant, every office. =| ‘“We have to reach evely member on the job. And if thats done, there is no reason we call® turn city council upside down,” said. e The labor council campaign for a united slate of COPE and Hal court has been welcomed COPE, although the Har Committee has shown little @ thusiasm. In the meetings with B® VLC and COPE the Harcoult committee rejected a proposal for joint campaigning and refu: endorse the COPE slate. VLC president Syd. Thomps0# said that the council would col sider financial assistance to the people are asking: who is the Com- wo weeks ago we noted with some dismay that American Indian Movement leader Russell Means and some others among Native peoples’ organizations had joined the employ- ers’ campaign against the Muckamuck Res- taurant strikers even to the point — in Means’ case — of suggesting that the anti-union effort was ‘“‘a beacon of inspiration for Indian people.’’ Now, we can report, that those opin- ions were, at best, a minority view, and as Van- couver Indian Centre president Debbie Mearns tells us, her organization moved quickly to voice support for the Muckamuck strikers. On May 15, says Mearns, the Indian Centre board voted unanimously to send a letter of support to the Service, Office and Retail Work- ers of Canada expressing support for the Muck- amuck strikers and to offer assistance to the . strikers, as well as an opportunity to explain their strike to Indian Centre supporters. Readers may recall that the waiters and cooks moved in June, 1978 to strike the Vancouver restaurant which specializes in Northwest In- dian food, and have waged an increasingly dif- ficult fight for a first contract. Some employees sought later to decertify the union but their ap- plication was rejected by the Labor Relations Board. * * * he Tribune has, of course, warned for some time about the dangerous trend towards monopoly in Canada and the growing merger and takeover movement that has really gathered momentum in recent months. But it’s also interesting to note that concentration in the Canadian economy has become so dramatic that even business circles in the U.S. stand up and take notice. applies for as unjustified. That in- skinning takes place! -PEOPLE AND ISSUES: A reader brought in a lengthy New York Times article published earlier this year in the paper’s huge Sunday edition. Entitled ‘‘The Canadian Conglomerates: Monopoly by Oli- garchy”’ and referring to ‘“‘Canada’s unfettered giants,”’ it notes that no one, not even the fed- eral government ‘‘can keep track of all the moves, let alone the score, in a continent-wide game of adult Monopoly that is sweeping across the United States’ northern neighbor and chief trading partner.”” What is particularly significant, according to the Times piece is control wielded by Canadian conglomerates compared to their American counterparts. In Canada the 100 largest com- panies account for 45 percent of the value added to goods — the economic measure of the extent of control at various stages of production — as compared to only 33 percent by the 100 largest corporations in the U.S. In short, the Canadian economy is more monopolized than is the U.S. According to the Times, that worries Robert Bertrand, director of the Combines branch of the department of consumer and corporate af- fairs, who warns about ‘‘. . .a national oli- garchy in which a few dozen people will interact to bargain about the economic future of mill- ions.’’ But that apparently hasn’t spurred him into too much action, either to pursue prosecu- tions or to seek tougher legislation. The government’s silence has enabled cor- porations to thumb their noses at any federal regulation to the point, the Times notes, where ‘at no time . . . is much attention paid to the federal government.”’ But the really prize comment as to how the corporations themselves view monopoly comes from Kenneth Thomson, president of the campaign next meeting. Thomson organization which owns, among other things, 37 percent of Canadian news papers, including a half ownership of the Va _ couver Sun. i “There’s a limit to how many papers ont man, or company should own,” he says U — abashedly, ‘“‘a point where going past it D& comes ludicrous. But we haven’t reached fh And I’m sure that we will know ourselves if and when we do.” ae * * * A note this week from Bill Yaroschuk ™ Powell River brought us the sad news thal Jack Gavin, a founding editor of The Fis man and a reader of the Tribune since its inoef 4 tion, passed away May 26 at the age of 69. He was in Vancouver undergoing treatment in ho pital at the time of his death. mS 4 He was born in Alberta but began a life?’ * trade union activism in the ranks of the Paci? — Coast Fishermen’s Union, one of several pred” i cessors to the present United Fishermen and Al lied Workers Union. He became a union ganizer and played an active part in the trolle strike in 1935 and the historic Rivers Inlet s#™" the year later. - ; In 1937, he took the editorship of The 1 man, then still a mimeographed sheet and is veloped it into a printed newspaper, later WO” ing with Tribune founding editor George Dray’ ton who had also come to work for the unio? paper. : Following the end of World War II, he ete ed the wood industry, ultimately settling | Powell River where he took on work at the PUP mill and active membership in the Nie) Paperworkers Union. a . His wife of 43 years, Alice, died last yea!