P . . .
ey Of the crowd of nearly 25,000 people who took part in the Operation Solidarity

Yin Victoria July 27.

Operation Solidarity — the B.C.
Federation of Labor-backed coalition of
unions, community and church groups —
has called a major rally against the Socred
budget for Aug. 10 in Vancouver’s Empire
Stadium, beginning at 10 a.m.

The rally, at which upwards of 30,000
are expected to attend, is the third major
demonstration against the provincial
budget and the accompanying legislation
which provides for firing of public
employees without cause, strips tenants of
rent controls and rights and abolishes
human rights legislation. Rallies of 25,000
in Victoria and 35,000 in Vancouver have
already protested the sweeping anti-people
legislation. _ <a :

Workers in the private and public sector
throughout the Lower Mainland as well as
pensioners and the unemployed have been
urged to attend the Empire Stadium event.

Unions in the public sector, including
the B.C. Government Employees’ Union,
the Canadian Union of Public Employees
and the Independent Canadian Transit
Union are expected to shut down various
operations to coincide with the rally.

Job action on the Metro Transit system

has already been announced, with drivers,

who are members of ICTU, set to book off
at 9:30 a.m. to attend the rally. The union
has stated that it is prepared to resume ser-
vice at 2 p.m.

The rally program will get underway
with entertainment at 10 a.m. followed by
speakers beginning at 11 a.m. It will wind

up at approximately 1 p.m.

U.S. religious and civil rights leader Cor-
etta Scott King, whose husband, Martin
Luther King was assassinated in 1968, has
been invited to speak. She is in Vancouver
for the World Council of Churches con-

gress.

Also scheduled to speak are Alan
Borovoy, chairman of the Canadian Civil
Liberties Association and Hanne Jensen,
who was fired as a human rights commis-
sioner when the government introduced

legislation to abolish the commission.

__...Free_bus transportation .has been
organized to and from the rally. Buses
leave from Coquitlam Centre, north side, 9

a.m.; Brentwood Mall, northwest corner,

9:30 a.m.; Park Royal, south side, 9:30
a.m.; Lansdowne Mall, southeast corner, 9

a.m.; Oakridge Mall, southwest corner,

9:30 a.m.; Lougheed Mall, north side, 9

a.m.; Champlain Mall, northwest side,
9:30 a.m.; Hope, Legion Hall, 8:30 a.m.;
Chilliwack, Cottonwood Mall, 8:30 a.m.;
Abbotsford, Seven-O Shopping Centre, 9

a.m.; Mission, Mission Hill Shopping .
Centre, 9a.m.; Maple Ridge, Haney Place

Mall, 9 a.m.; Guildford Town Centre,

Eaton’s side, 9 a.m. Parking will also be

available off Cassiar Street.

are Operation Solidarity rally Aug. 10
ory be one of the most important and
“al events in the current campaign.

& It is to deepen the impression on the
ernment, it must be a packed house,

Onstrating clearly to the Socred cabinet

= the Campaign is continuing to escalate

aud that citizens and unions will keep

bigg ressure up until the budget and the 26
are withdrawn.

Orkers in both the public and private
ot have been called on by the Trade
tino” Solidarity Committee — represen-

a Unions throughout the province, B.C.
| the; affiliates and non-affiliates — to leave

19 Se and attend the rally, beginning at

Bach union will determine how its
bookin S will participate — whether by

& off for the day or by members
ate ns tools and marching off the job to

ha the rally. But their participation is

crucial.
The Labor Relations Board ruled that

the Operation Solidarity rally in Victoria
was a political protest not a strike, thus
paving the way for every union in the
Lower Mainland to take its members off
the job and into Empire Stadium.

And it is clear that a huge rally at which
both private and public sector workers as
well as citizens’ groups are broadly
represented — coupled with the shutdown
of various plants, offices and job sites —
will be essential to leave no doubt with Vic-
toria that people are united in their demand
for the withdrawal of the legislation.

For those in the public sector, the cam-
paign is immediate and urgent: every
public employee, whether a government
worker, a civic employee or a teacher faces
the threat of firing and the sting of further
wage controls under the Socreds’ legisla-

tion.

For those in the private sector, the im-
plied threat is no less ominous: Bills 2, 3, 11
and 26 are only the first assault in what is
clearly intended as an attack against trade
union rights and the trade union move-
ment itself.

Changes to the labor code and even
some form of right-to-work legislation
have been widely hinted. But the govern-
ment would find it very difficult to proceed
in the face of unity and a mounting cam-
paign against the current legislation.

The protest so far — the rallies in Van-
couver and Victoria and the regional rallies
organized in Prince George and Nelson,
Salmon Arm, Fort St. John and elsewhere
— have forced the government into a
defensive posture. Some modifications to
Bill 3, the Public Sector Restraint Act,
whereby firings would be based on seniori-
ty, have now been suggested by some
sources in the government.

But as B.C. Fed president Art Kube has
emphasized, they are only cosmetic
changes; they will not change the intent of
the legislation — which is to lay off
thousands of public sector workers and to
carry out wholesale cuts in social services.

Nor will changes to Bill 3 get rid of the
other pieces of legislation. Among them:
Bill 5, eliminating rent controls and
tenants’ rights; Bill 27, abolishing the
Human Rights Commission; Bill 6, stripp-
ing local school boards of financial
autonomy; Bill 24, eroding the medicare
system; Bill 26 revising employment stan-
dards legislation.

Only the withdrawal of the legislation
will accomplish that end. And an escalating
campaign of action by citizens’ groups and
trade unionists — focussing now on a
packed Empire Stadium Aug. 10 — can
force the govenment to make that
withdrawal.