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Darling report one step

This country may be one step
further toward the establishment
of a merchant marine if the
recommendations of the Darling
report, tabled in the House of
Commons earlier this year, are
converted into federal government
policy.

Prepared by consultant Howard
_J. Darling, the report outlines
“Elements for an International
Shipping Policy for Canada”’ and is
being used as a basis for
discussions with shipowners and
operators, exporters and im-
porters as well as the trade union
movement.

The maritime committee of the
Canadian Labor Congress has
already met to discuss the policies
outlined in the report, prompting
comment from the Congress and;
in this province, the Marine-
workers and Boilermakers Union.

The Congress stated in a press
release following the meeting:

“The Canadian Labor Congress is -
solidly behind the establishment of -

a Canadian-built, Canadian-
manned deep sea fleet, essential to
the development of Canadian in-
dependence, our export trade and
the Canadian economy in general.

‘‘Although we have reservations
on some aspects of the Darling

| LANDLORDS PROFIT FROM LOOPHOLE

DERA raps rent hikes

Whether or not residents of
hotels in the downtown area are
Covered by the provisions of the
Landlord and Tenant Act is still
“under review” by rental
housing authorites but the
Downtown Eastside Residents
Association has determined that if

there is any doubt, it is time that:
- the benefit of that doubt stop going

to the landlord.
DERA emphasized that point

AUCE goes

to mediation

Discussions with provincial

labor department mediator John
fatherspoon were scheduled to
&m this week as the Association
of University and College Em-

Ployees took its stalemated first

Contract negotiations with Simon
Taser University’ to mediation.
Having sought since last

December to reach a first

agreement, AUCE set up picket

lines for nine days in early May but

withdrew them May 7, following a

Tequest from the Student Strike

Support Committee that the best

Supporters of the strike not be kept

off the campus by their continuing

respect for the picket lines.
Weatherspoon was appointed by
abor minister Bill King in

response to a motion.at an AUCE

Membership meeting May 15

"equesting the mediator.
Virtually nothing has been

achieved in talks since picket lines

fame down, with the ad-

Ministration offering the same

amount of money but giving the

Union the option of dividing it
OWever it wanted.

A € administration also insisted
n calling the offer “parity with

Workers” even though it is

on an agreement at UBC

already a year old.

baseq
that is

aie ences in union structure

Job classifications between the

FU workers and those at UBC

ve also been cited by AUCE as

Srounds for rejecting the so-called
Parity offer.

Monday as some 50 downtown
residents demonstrated outside the
offices of the Rent Review Com-
mission in Vancouver protesting
the rent increases being imposed
on tenants and calling for ‘‘teeth”
in provincial rental legislation.
Under the present provisions of
the Act, a lodger in a hotel may be

.designated as either a tenant or a

licencee, depending on the oc-
cupancy and the method of rent
payment. The latter are not
covered by either the Landlord and
Tenant Act or rent increase
ceilings.

As.a result, downtown residents
‘have been faced with rent in-
creases far in excess of the
allowable 10.6% and in one in-
stance, the increase amounted to
130%.

Both the office of the rentalsman
and the Rent Review Commission

have the question under study but -

spokesmen for the RRC have in-
variably suggested that tenants
continue to pay rent increases until
the disputed jurisdictional matter
is settled.

The Eastside

Downtown

Residents Association charged.

that such suggestions constituted
“gross favoritism’’ by the rental
authorities and added: ‘‘So long as
the question of whether tenants of
hotels and lodging houses are
lodgers or something else is under
review, tenants have as much right
‘to assume that they are protected
by the Landlord and Tenant Act as
landlords have to assume that they
can raise rents of long time
residents by 130%.”

Rent
executive assistant, A. C. Mac-
Donald, met with DERA president
Bruce Eriksen during Monday’s
demonstration and expressed his
sympathy with the residents but
told them they “were in the wrong
place” — that they should place
their grievance before the at-
torney-general’s department. :

The RRC ~ had’ earlier
corresponded with Eriksen urging
that he call off the demonstration
and sit down at a meeting with

Review Commission

officials from the RRC and
provincial renfalsman Barry
Clarke.

Review Commission chairman
John Brewin also issued a press
statement following the demon-
stration insisting that the Com-
mission ‘‘was keenly aware of the
difficult circumstances faced by
many -who live in these cir-
cumstances”’ but again stated that
the problem ‘“‘lay in definitions in
the Act.”

He added that a case by case
examination of instances where
large increases in rents have taken
place will be conducted by the staff
of the rentalsman’s office.

“We don’t need more studies and
examinations,” DERA president
Eriksen declared, ‘‘we need rental
authorities that are not biased in

‘favor of the landlord. And we need

clearer legislation.”

considerably

report, we are in accord with the
general principles,” the statement
added.

Of immediate contention in the
report is the assertion that the
development of Canadian flag
shipping and the construction of
such shipping in Canada have

“essentially different’’ objectives. -

While Canadian shipbuilding is
recognized as ‘‘a good thing” in the
report, Darling suggests that “‘it

‘must be regarded as a by-product

or a fringe benefit of a shipping

‘policy.”’

Canadian ships, he adds, could
be obtained through various means
including the purchase of foreign
shipping lines or foreign-built
ships, the use of Canadian-owned
ships registered in other countries
or the registration in Canada of
foreign-owned lines.

As an argument against a policy
of Canadian shipbuilding, the
report emphasized the increasing
specialization in types of ships and
the advantages of confining work
to one or two such types in series.

Those aspects of the report drew

considerable comment from the

Marineworkers and Boilermakers
Union in Vancouver which has long
advocated the establishment of a
Canadian-built, Canadian manned
merchant fleet.

Writing in the union’s paper,
Ship and Shop, president Jeff
Power declared: ‘“‘We don’t accept
the position that a Canadian ship-
building program may or may not
be a by-product of a Canadian
international shipping policy. We
insist that it is an integral part of it.

“The benefits,’’ he said, “‘would
be so many that the whole country

~ would gain — not just the ship-

building industry.” :

Bob Cook, chairman of the
Congress maritime committee also
asserted that Canada would gain
as a result of
government encouraged expansion
of the shipbuilding industry.

“Such a policy will mean im-
proved employment, long-term
stability and growth in the shipping
industry, increased Canadian
control of working conditions and
operation of ships trading from
Canadian ports and an improved
balance of payments for Canada,”
he said.

A completely unacceptable
proposition advanced in the report
is the suggestion that the trade
union movement in the shipping
industry . submit ‘‘to the

‘toward merchant fleet

requirement of binding arbitration
of disputes as a condition for
qualifying for any government
program of assistance.”

“T know of no union in Canada
that would agree to a humiliating
and insulting arrangement that
would take away all its bargaining
rights,’’ Marineworkers president
Power declared, ‘‘and if there is
one, it hardly deserves to be called
a union.”
| Power also noted that the very
appearance of the Darling report
advocating the establishment of a
Canadian deep sea fleet was
prompted by the recognition of
several dangers to the economy of
this country.

Already foreign owned shipping
lines have banded together to
establish price-fixing policies, he
pointed out, and many of those
same shipping lines avoid
Canadian ports and ship Canadian-
bound goods through U.S. ports. In
addition, foreign shipping lines
have frequently refused to make
cargo ships available to Canada.

The Darling report substantiated
many of those dangers, stressing
that shipping “has become very
capital intensive” with the result
that monopoly situations appear
“such as price maintenance and
selective competitive tactics
causing elimination of competition
in unprotected areas.”

It added that bilateral
agreements squeeze out third-flag
operators and “‘constitute a serious
threat to the rates and services
offered Canadian shippers and to
the use of Canadian ports.”’ _

The report suggested a system of
tax deferrals and government
credits’ as a. means of facilitating
the development of a Canadian
merchant fleet and attracting
Canadian operators of ships under
other flags.

The Marineworkers Union
outlined a different approach:

“The problem now facing the
labor movement is to get a
Canadian merchant marine in a
way that will be best for Canada
and its people, not just for big
business interests which want to
bleed the taxpayer for a few
hundred more million dollars
annually. And the way to di it is to
build the fleet in Canada, register
it in Canada and man it with
Canadians. Furthermore it should
be government owned for the most

part.”

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League of Quebec.

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*Y pati,

Fifteen thousand people took part in the Montreal May Day parade. Photo shows some of the banners
carried by the marchers. Large banner in white letters (top right) is the banner of the Young Communist

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 30, 1975—Page 3