CANADIAN TRIBUNE EDITOR JIM LEECH .. . addressing Pravda conference.

Editors mee

MOSCOW — Editors from the
Communist and workers’ press
around the world met here July 6-8
to discuss the role of their papers in
Mobilizing public opinion to stop
the ominous drift to nuclear war.

The three-day international
meeting, the first of its kind ever or-
ganized and sponsored by the Sov-

- let Communist Party daily Pravda,
Was not a formal conference and is-
Sued no final document or sum-
Mary statement. But the views ex-
changed by the participating jour-
Nalists nevertheless underscored
the renewed danger of war created
by the policies of the Reagan ad-
ministration in the U:S.

Representatives of some 67 pa-
Pers from six continents attended
the meeting including three from
Canada, James Leech, editor of
the Canadian Tribune, Claire De-
Mets, editor of the French-langu-
age bi-monthly Combat and Pa-
cific Tribune editor Sean Griffin.
The editors of some European pa-
Pers including the British Com-
munist daily Mi and the
Italian L’Unita declined the invita-
tion to attend, however.

Pravda chief editor Viktor Af-
anasiev, who chaired the sessions,
told the meeting that Pravda had
Sent invitations to papers around
the world ‘to compare notes in or-

der to find the best way to preserve
peace and combat anti-commun-
ism’’ and to ‘‘share the experiences
of our work.

“The press,”’ he said, ‘‘can be an
effective tool in mobilizing public
opinion for peace and detente and
against aggression and reaction.”

That same point was emphasiz-
ed by Boris Ponomaryov, secretary
of the central committee of the
Communist Party of the Soviet
Union in a major opening address.

“The role of public opinion in
political affairs has grown incal-
culably in the postwar decades,’’ he
said, ‘“‘and the mass media have be-
come a major force in shaping it.”’

But in the west, he noted, that
mass media has striven to create the
image of a ‘‘Soviet threat,”’ to win
public acceptance for increased
weapons spending.

‘*And in recent months, we hear
open and.cynical.tirades.that.nuc-
lear war is possible — and toler-
able,”’ he warned.

At the centre of the new and dan-
gerous international situation,
Ponomaryov stressed, is the policy
of the Reagan administration
which has been demonstrated in
three key areas.

First, is the U.S. policy of scrap-
ping the principle of military bal-
ance and with it, the SALT II trea-

TRIBUNE PHOTO— SEAN GR

ton peace

ty, and moving instead to deyelop
new weapons systems and increase
greatly U.S. military spending. |

In addition, the U.S. has’ put
pressure on its NATO allies to re-
nounce the policy of detente and to
accept U.S. leadership on such is-
sues as siting new Pershing missiles
on western Europe.

And third, Ponomaryov said, is
the Reagan policy of intensifying
its counteroffensive against na-
tional liberation movements, a pol-
icy most graphically seen in the in-
tervention by U.S. ‘“‘advisors’’ in El
Salvador.

“Tt is clear that such a policy can
cause great suffering — and that is
why it is so important to bring
home to people the dangers implicit
in it and the need to do everything
to block the devotees of unbridled
arming and military adventure,”’
he said. 2) ge

More than SOeditors took part in
the three days of discussions outlin-
ing the work of their respective pa-
pers and echoing the need for em-

‘phasis on peace issues. -

Several speakers urged that fur-
ther conferences be held in future
and that additional means be

found to exchange information

among the papers around the

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structure

Bill Ferguson, business agent,
Local 900 CUPE, Kamloops,
writes: In his Labor Comment
of June 19 and 26, Jack Phillips
deals at great length with the
concerns of many of us in the
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees, for a sincere and thor-
ough overhaul of CUPE struc-
tures.

While Phillips, quite correct-
ly in my opinion, has demon-
strated that the present structure
and practices within our union
are open to bureaucratic and
undemocratic abuse — which
can lead to such situations as the
recent abandonment of the On-
tario hospital workers’ strike by
the Ontario regional staff of the
union — and has linked the.cur-
rent concern over restructuring
to the call by CUPE’s national
executive board for a $2.10 in-
crease _in monthly per capita
payments, I think his argument
for structural reform would
have been more complete had
he noted that the concern over
structure is not new.

In fact, progressives within
CUPE have, from the very
founding of the union, express-
ed concern over a structure
of union servicing to hired staff
which are not answerable to ei-
ther local or regional member-
ships but rather to a centralized

staff apparatus based in Ot-
tawa.

Our concerns in CUPE are
the same as those of progress-

Concern over CUPE

not new’

ives in other unions who see
themselves adopting positive
policies in convention, but find
that they do not have the consti- -
tutional or financial clout to en-
sure that full time representa-
tives carry out these policies.

Secondly, and this is a point
of clarification, Phillips quoted
fairly extensively from an article
that I authored for our local’s
newsbulletin in which we set out
our concerns over structure and
per capita. In his summation of
the article he makes the point
that our proposal ‘‘suggests that
the local could do better as an
independent’’ which, he points
out, would mean severing any
connection with the Canadian
Labor Congress and other trade
union bodies.

- This is not my position nor is
it that of the local union.

As I pointed out in my articles
for our newsbulletin, our call
for reform and examination of
the structure of CUPE is not
anti-CUPE in intent or in prac-
tice but is rather a sincere effort
to raise the issues and make
CUPE an even more effective .
defender of public sector
workers.

(Phillips himself made that

second point in his Labor Com-
ment article. It stated: ‘‘Al-
though this ests that the lo-

cal union could do better as an
independent union outside of
CUPE. . . this is not the course
JSavored by the leadership of
Local 900. ’’—Ed.)

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- - PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 24, 1981—Page 11