TWO WORLDS

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COMMUNISTS URGE:

wee AL:
—U.S. Daily World

‘Take over B.C. Tel—
cut phone rates now -

The B.C. Communist Party
calls for the takeover of the B.C.
Telephone Company in a brief
being presented to the Trans-
port Committee Hearing on the
company application for a rate
increase.

The brief to be presented on
behalf of the party by provincial
leader Nigel Morgan, also calls
for redress to subscribers for
years of service over-charge.

‘Subscribers to B.C. Tele-
phone services are already
paying more than almost any
other telephone users across the

‘length and breadth of the

country,” it stated. ‘‘We stren-
uously protest the existing rate
structure, which is generally 30
to 60 percent, and in some cases
double those of other telephone
companies.

City labor demands vote
among N.S. fishermen

Vancouver Labor Council will
send another telegram to the
Nova Scotia Labor Relations
Board urging them to hold a
certification vote among
trawler fishermen at Canso
immediately to determine the
union of their choice.

Recently, Homer Stevens,
president of the Fishermens’
Union which has signed up what
an impartial board found to be a
majority of Canso fishermen,
said that the Labor Relations
Board has no basis whatever for
accepting the validity of the
collective agreement between
the Meatcutters (Canadian
Food and Allied Workers) and
Acadia. ‘‘By its own admission,
the Board never accepts oral
testimony as establishing
membership in a union. Yet this
is exactly what it did in the case
of the Meatcutters.”’

He said 89 out of the 107 men
involved were members of the
United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union.

Local 400 of the CBRT urged
that a deadline of June 30 be set
by the Nova Scotia Board to hold
the certification vote. The VLC
telegram will stress the vote
should be held immediately.

* eK

The Marine and Boilermakers
Union has urged Prime Minister
Trudeau to take the matter of a
planned underground atomic
test on the island of Amchitka to
the security council of the U.N.
because the American Atomic
Energy Commission has
ignored all protests from con-
cerned people.

The VLC endorsed the Marine
Workers protest.

The Voice of Women informed
labor delegates they were
holding a public picnic in Stanley
Park, June 26, on the same
question, where speakers would
deal with the dangers of the
atomic test on Amchitka. The
VLC endorsed the meeting and
urged all affiliated locals to parti-
cipate in the affair.

Vietnam complicity exposed

Cont’d from pg. 1
had knowledge of the secret
operations being carried on
against North Vietnam and of
the U.S. plans to escalate the
bombing.

For years many Canadians
have accused the Canadian
government of playing the U-S.
game in Indo-China. These
charges are now proven with the
disclosure of the top secret docu-
ments by the New York Times.

Now that the matter has been
brought out into the open in the
U.S. it is also a good time to open
the door on Canada’s
involvement in the U.S. dirty
war against. the people of
Vietnam.

It is clear now that rather than
uphold the neutrality of
Vietnam, which it was obliged to
do under the Geneva Agree-
ment, Canada joimed in the U.S.
plot to destroy Vietnam’s
neutrality and along with it the
Geneva Accord.

Speaking in Parliament this

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 1971—PAGE 12
a“

week, External Affairs Minister
Mitchell Sharp confirmed the
story in the New York Times
that J. Blair Seaborn carried
messages from Washington to
Hanoi. Sharp’s lame admission
was followed by an explanation
that ‘‘we felt it should help bring
the war to an early end.”’

This admission by Sharp is
shocking in the extreme.
Actually the messages carried
by Seaborn were in the nature of
ultimatums threatening devas-
tation through bombing if Hanoi
did not submit to the U-S.
demands. Sharp’s statement
actually amounts to an admis-
sion that Canada sought Hanoi’s
capitulation to the U.S. as the
way to end the war.

A full airing in Parliament of
Canada’s role in Vietnam is long
overdue. The Canadian people
demand to know the full ramifi-
cations of our complicity in the
tragedy foisted on Vietnam: by

the U.S. government and the
Pentagon.

The Vancouver Parks Board
has reconsidered its decision to
buy bread from Seattle for their
summer concessions said Mel
Kemmis of the Bakery Workers
Union, and the contract has been
given to a local union shop.

But large Vancouver hotels
are buying the Seattle-made
bread, he said, while our Cana-
dian bakers walk the streets
unemployed. American outfits
have the contract to prepare
meals in the general hospital;
Americans have taken over the
funeral chapels; ‘‘even their
undertakers are waiting for
me,” he said ruefully. ‘‘Where

are we going in this country?”
* *

HYDRO STRIKE

Reporting on the situation
between Hydro and members of
the IBEW now engaged in spot
strikes, IBEW president Tom
Forkin said Hydro bosses still
refuse to negotiate in good faith,
and his union is urging that an
impartial third-party con-
ciliator be appointed to the nego-
tiations.

He said Hydro and union nego-
tiators had met Tuesday, but
only details had been dealt with
and nothing constructive had
resulted.

He recapped the demands of
the union for wage parity
with outside industry; job
security, and isolation allow
ances.

John Nelson, of Merchants
Service Guild, told of the
problems towboat men are
having in getting something done
about noise levels on boats.

He has been working for four
months on a study of noise pollu-
tion in the marine industry, and
has presented a brief to M.P.’s
and MLA’s on this serious
problem.

Salmon het fishermen nego-
tiations broke off on Tuesday,
with no settlement on any of the
major issues in dispute.

The Negotiating Committee
of the UFAWU is recom-
mending that the offer of the
Fisheries Assoc., be rejected

‘‘We appeal to the Com-
mission for redress. . .”’

Pointing out that the company
is a subsidiary of the giant
General Telephone and Elec-
tronics of New York, the brief
states the B.C. Telephone Com-
pany should not be permitted to
capitalize on its monopoly posi-
tion and charge to monthly
accounts the cost of a whole
range of new services from auto-
matic meter-reading for Hydro
to the ‘‘push-button”’ banking
services that will require a vast
expansion in capital expendi
tures.

The Communist Party pre-
sents charts outlining the
relative rates to business and
domestic subscribers as they
are in B.C., Ontario, Alberta and
Manitoba. They show that B.C.
Tel’s asked-for increases would
put the cost of individual busi-
ness phones $12 higher than
Winnipeg; $8.65 more than
Calgary per month.

Individual residential service
would be hiked from $6.25 to
$7.40 if the asked-for rate
increases were allowed. This
would put B.C. charges $1.25 per
month higher than Bell
Telephone; $3.30 more than
Winnipeg; $2.95 higher than Cal-
gary rates.

‘We consider it unthinkable
that any ‘‘regulatory’’ body
could even seriously entertain,
let alone authorize, a boost of as

much as 300 percent on the exces-

sively high long-distance tolls
within the province demanded
by the company. We appeal to
the Commission for redress,
and demand the existing tariff be
cut back to a reasonable level.”’

The brief points out that one -

of the major reasons for exces-
sive charges for phone rentals
and long distance tolls made by
B.C. Tel is their policy of hiding

the real profits they acc!
by purchasing phone one
and supplies and Sel
directly through a numbel
sidiaries — Lenkurt
(Canada), Automati¢
Ltd., and Domin!0!
tories, Ltd. e
The policy of contra
provision and installa
switchboard and exe
telephone directories
Tel subsidiaries without»
lower bids may well B
Company’s best inte
leading B.C. Tel Sp
have said. HoweV®&:
certainly are not in the lf
of those subscribing
dependent, on B.C. Tel

“The Communist Pa
alterably opposed to 8?
the application for rateé
distance toll increases 1
by the B.C. Telephon
pany. ... We say al of
many thousands on
British Columbians, are
increasing the rates me
way Transport Com |,
should order them
reduced.

“If B.C. Tel cannot malt
rates of similar services” ofl!
parts of Canada, ! af
recourse will be gover
takeover with deme
management and COM
provide service at cost: —

Mid-summer #é!

Swedish Organiaatitl
holding a Scandinav!

=a

n
d
summer Festival 08 a
June 27, at Swedish Pa™
at the north end of t er \
Narrows Bridge in arts 2
couver. Program se 4
p.m., with the rae
dancing around the Mi
Pole. :

The Vancouver Tenants Council has called for 4 publi at
at the Vancouver Courthouse square, 6 p.m. on Tues OY: Gam
22, prior to the 7 p.m. hearing in the small debts
Howe St., into the case of 22 tenants facing eviction arising en? |
the Wall & Redekop rent strike. The public are urged !°

the rally.

The Tenants Council have also announced that
Rankin will take the leading case next Tuesday:
regarded as a watershed in the fight for tenants rights-

Courthouse rally to back ||
tenants strike June 22

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