Burnaby Kingsway NDP MP Svend Robins

abi or ss S " . a fas F we Be a wk
on hits continued human rights abuses by the ARENA government of El Salvador

at demonstration marking the first anniversary of the ultra-right party in power, June 1. Robinson’s riding is twinned with
a village in a Salvadoran province recently under attack by army troops, and the army launched a full-scale operation
across the Central American nation even as the government and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front sat down
to peace negotiations under United Nations mediation last month. A boycott of firms using Salvadoran coffee was also
promoted. Demonstrations took place in several other Canadian cities. Story page 2.

Correcting ‘Union Jack’s’ account

B.C. Provincial Council of Carpenters
president Bill Zander called on [WA-
Canada head Jack Munro five months ago
to retract references in Munro’s autobiog-
raphy Union Jack to Zander having par-
ticipated in the meeting that led to the
Kelowna Accord in 1983. But Munro has
still not responded to the request, the Car-
penters leader revealed last week.

Zander released copies of a letter he
had sent to Munro Jan. 5 in whichhe stated
that references to him as a member of the
Operation Solidarity executive which met
before Munro went to Kelowna to neg-
otiate with Bennett were in error and

called on Munro to “provide me with a
written retraction of the error made in
reference to myself.”

In a covering letter, the Carpenters
Union president noted that he had sent the
original memo to Munro “many months
ago” objecting his name being used incor-
rectly. “Since he has not seen fit to reply
to my request,” he stated, “I now feel it is
necessary to make my letter to him
public.”

Munro’s autobiography, written in
conjunction with journalist Jane O’Hara,
was published late last year by Douglas
and McIntyre. The book’s first and most

widely-read chapter, entitled “Derailing
the Solidarity Express,” detailed Munro’s
objections to Operation Solidarity and the
Solidarity Coalition and outlined his ver-
sion of the events leading to the now-in-
famous Kelowna Accord.

One of those events was a late-night
meeting of the Operation Solidarity ex-
ecutive which led directly to the accord,
according to Munro’s account:

“Meanwhile, (premier) Bennett knew
he had the upper hand. The polls were
saying that the public was with him, and
the government felt that they could handle

see NOT page 8

June 11, 1990
50 cents
Volume 53, No. 21

Revelations about the potential contract-
ing out of specialized heart surgery tech-
nicians at Vancouver General Hospital to a
private U.S. firm drew swift condemnation
June 4 from the Hospital Employees Union.

The union, pointing to the government’s
solution of sending heart surgery patients to
Seattle, the recent contracting out of laundry
services at VGH — imminent at other B.C.
hospitals —- sees the move as another at-
tempt to privatize public health care as a
solution to chronic underfunding by the
province.

HEU secretary-business manager Car-
mela Allevato made the charge in comment-
ing on a letter from Dr. Frank Tyers of
VGH’s cardiovascular surgery unit to an
official of PSICOR, a private U.S. corpora-
tion. The May 24 letter discussed the pos-
sibility of contracting the services of VGH’s
perfusionists to PSICOR.

The union ob-
tained the letter
June 1.

Perfusionists,
HEU members
who operate heart-
lung machines that
cleanse a patient’s
blood during sur-
gery, are already
leaving the pro-
vince in search of

ALLEVATO higher wages in the
United States, and too few are trained to
meet the demand, Allevato said.

While the health ministry is “doing noth-
ing to make sure that the heart surgery wait-
ing lists are shortened, hospitals such as
VGH are following up on privatization
schemes to try and meet the shortage,” she
charged.

In April the union met with then-deputy
health minister Stan Dubas and his assistant,
the current deputy minister, Chris Lovelace,
over the drain of perfusionists to the U.S.
Starting wages there average around
$54,000 Cdn a year, compared to $44,688 in
B.C., Allevato related.

The HEU called for increased training
programs and wages, and better on-call pro-
visions. The ministry officials said they
would consult with the union on the training
capacity of perfusionists in B.C. and would
report the contents of the disctission to the
ministries of finance and health, and the
employers’ group, the Health Labour Rela-
tions Association.

“In early May, we found out from HLRA
that there had been no communication from
the Ministry of Health regarding per-
fusionists,” Allevato said.

“Tn spite of the urgency of this issue, there
has to date been no follow up whatsoever by
the Ministry of Health officials.”

Inhis letter under VGH letterhead, Tyers
wrote PSICOR official Madeleine Massen-
gale suggesting a meeting between com-

see PRIVATIZA page 8