OTTAWA—Mediation talks
between the Treasury Board
and the Public Service Alli-
ance of Canada broke down
here last weekend and 19,000
employees started a series of
rotating strikes on Monday,
Feb. 17, that halted grain
handling on the West Coast,
slowed down mail delivery

Winnipeg International Air-
port.

On Parliament Hill, at noon
on the first day of the strike
350 workers represented by
the PSAC marched in protest

al to negotiate a reasonable
wage offer.

The demonstrators marched
for about a half hour carry-

.and forced the closing of the —

of the Treasury Board’s refus- |

ing placards demanding the
resignation of Jean Cretien,
Treasury Board president,
and calling for a 32% wage
increase over the next two
years. The protesters then left
Parliament Hill when ‘buses
arrived to take them to the
picket lines at the Canadian
Armed Forces base at Rock-
- cliffe. Civilian employees at
the base are members of the
PSAC.
Guinea Pigs

Many of the demonstrators
were angry with the govern-
ment’s hard line in the nego-
tiations. One trades worker
and a member of the PSAC in
Ottawa told the Tribune,
“Turner called for wage re-
straints recently and although

@ Iutenational Yews ®

Europe troop freeze asked at Vienna

The socialist countries at the Vienna talks on Thurs-
day proposed a freeze on the numbers of troops in Central

Europe

. This important proposal was made public by

Radoslav Klein, the Czechoslovak representative to the
talks at a news conference in Vienna after Thursday’s
regular session. The Vienna talks, which resumed at the
end of January, are on mutual reduction of armed forces
and arms in Central Europe. Nineteen countries from
East and West Europe, and the U.S. and Canada, are tak-

ing part in the talks.

Communists to run

25 in Alberta vote

Special to the Tribune

EDMONTON — Alberta Prem-
ier Peter Lougheed’s decision to
Call a snap election in the prov-
ince on March 6, is an attempt
“to divert attention from the
Syncrude steal,” Alberta’s Com-
munists have charged.

Lougheed’s announcement in
the Legislature, Feb. 14, brought
Swift response from the Alberta
Executive Committee of the
Communist Party of Canada,
which has appealed te its mem-
bership and supporters to field
as many~-as. 25 candidates

throughout the province.
' _“The central issue in this elec-
tion is Syncrude,” the CP state-
Ment said.

“The voice of the people of
Alberta must be joined with the
forces of progress against Syn-
ude mounting across the coun-

ry.”
. The Communists accused the
Premier of trying to divert atten-
tion “by demanding a ‘mandate’
to increase oil prices for the
benefit of the same monopolies
as have benefited from the Syn-
Crude agreement!”

The fact that no other political

Party in Alberta will present this .

Ssue clearly places a great re-
Sponsibility on the Communist
Party, which accepts the respon-
Sibility for providing an impetus
to the anti-Syncrude sentiment
across the country, the Alberta
committee stated.

‘The maximization of Commu-
nist Votes in the March 26 elec-
tion is the overwhelming task of

© Communist Party in Alberta
at this time,” the statement said,
Calling for an all-out effort.

The Party is appealing for
imum -financial assistance
‘tom members and all those who
See the need to oppose the give-
away of public monies to the oil
Corporations, financial assistance

_ Which will enable Communist

Party candidates to launch pub-
Jic campaigns dealing with Syn-
crude, related resources and
taxation, and all issues of con-
cern to the people of the prov-
ince. :

The Party statement calls for
“the mounting of the most mas-
sive campaign in the history of
Alberta against the Syncrude
deal, and for the creatron of a
democratic, peaceful and socially
prosperous Alberta and Canada.

“The Syncrude steal can be
reversed!

“The Syncrude steal should be

- reversed:

“The Communist Party in Al-
berta will do everything in its
power to ensure that the Syn-
crude steal will be reversed,” the
statement concludes, “and the
oil sands development, together

with the whole monopoly oil in- .

dustry in Alberta, will be
brought under democratic public
control.”

CALGARY — The biggest
blackmail scheme ever perpe-
trated in this province has paid
off. : ;

Syncrude Canada Ltd., with
the help of the Alberta, Ontario
and federal governments walked
out of a series of meetings
around the country $800 million
richer. : :

And even that figure. pales in
the light of the other concessions
made to Syncrude in the form of
tax dodges and guaranteed high
prices for its product —— synthe-
tic crude oil.

Here’s how it happened.

About a year and a half. ago,
Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed
gleefully announced that his gov-

-Syncrude,

he backed down from his
statements after the protest
from organized labor, it is ob-
vious ‘that the government
wants to make us the guinea
pigs for a program of wage
curbs.

“We are already so far be-
hind other workers in the
building trades field,’ this
worker said, “that I wonder
if we will ever catch up. But
that doesn’t seem to bother
the government. They want
wage ‘restraints and they’re
trying to get them by walk-

- ing all over our backs.”

Another demonstrator told
the Tribune, “We’re not ask-
ing for too much, I think that
we're really asking for too

Continued on page 10

MAIL, AIRPORTS HIT BY STRIKE

action

to stop layoffs

OTTAWA — “If we don’t get some
results in a month or six weeks, we are
going to be back. Only the next time
we're going to have a demonstration
similar to the one in Washington, D.C.,
two weeks ago, but ours is going to be
larger,’ Dennis McDermott, Canadian
Director of the United Automobile

OTTAWA—Dennis McDermott, Canadian Director of the UAW led

By RICHARD ORLANDINI

cabinet.

a delegation to Ottawa to present their economic program to the

federal cabinet.

ernment had made a deal with
whereby Syncrude
would build, at a cost of: $850
million, an oil sands extraction
plant in northern Alberta, which
would produce 125,000 barrels
of “synthetic” crude daily.

Such plants stripmine thou-
sands of acres of the oil sands,
extract low-grade oils from the
sands, and then upgrade those
cils into synthetic crude.

Split after Expenses

Syncrude was composed of
four huge U.S. oil monopolies,
Cities Service, Atlantic Richfield,
Gulf, and Imperial, the subsidi-
ary of Exxon, the world’s big-
gest oil company. :

The deal was for a 50-50 profit

THE SYNCRUDE PA YOFF

split, between the companies
and the Alberta government. The
catch was that the companies
would be allowed to recover
most of their expenses before
the 50-50 split began.

But late last year Atlantic
Richfield withdrew from the Syn-
crude consortium, claiming that
inflation had driven the plant’s
cost to a prohibitive $2-billion.
The real reasons were that At-
lantic Richfield is already com-
mitted to massive energy devel-
opments in Alaska, and that the
federal government was curtail-
ing oil exports — Atlantic Rich-
field has no refineries in Canada,
and had no intention of produc-

Continued on page 10

Workers told a press conference follow-
ing a meeting of the Auto Workers
Council with members of the federal

With 27,700 members of the UAW on
temporary or indefinite layoff last week
in Canada, the meeting with the cabinet
to present the union’s economic pro-

gram, should have come at an
opportune moment. But when the
Tribune. asked McDermott if
“anything happened in the meet-
ing with cabinet to give the more
than 27,000 workers who are laid
cff any hope of getting back to
work soon,” McDermott answer-
ed: “Not in any positive or tan-
gible way — no.”

One of the more than 250 dele-
gates to the meeting with the
cabinet told the Tribune why he
felt it was important to present
cabinet with the UAW’s econo-
mic program. “When there is a
slump in the economy,” he said,
“auto workers are the first to
get hurt. We need something to
stimulate the economy and I
think that this program of the
UAW is a step in that direction.”

_ (Excerpts from the UAW pro-

gram were published in the Trib-

~ une two weeks ago.)

But the same delegate also be-
lieves that although the cabinet
listened to the brief, “I really
don’t expect much action from
them on the proposals. Just be-
cause the cabinet members sat

SACRIFICES — FOR WHOM?
FOR WHAT? See Labor Scene
=P: 8:

there and nodded their heads
when we made our proposals
dcesn’t mean that we are going
to get any action.”

Although the program of the
UAW deals with a broad spec-
trum of economic issues includ-
ing new housing, better pension
plans and a lower income tax
for working people, the presen-
tation to cabinet dealt mainly
with the auto industry.

Some of the points called for
in brief included:
—A removal of the 12% fed-
eral sales tax on automobiles;
—Public scrutiny of pricing
by auto companies and the eli-
mination. of a price differential
Continued on page 10

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1975—Page 5