CUTBACKS ie SORE ARE NEEDED = les - \ .. FOR YOUR Ee M, \ } ws OWN a /. le Goob. Ss 7 ; | y t t Z . JP e : | sen 25 yearsago.... 50 years ago... | DOMINION BRIDGE WORKERS FORM ANTI- SETTOSTRIKE _ FASCIST LEAGUE | Dominion Bridge workers at _ On Sunday, Sept. 2, Italian Lachine, Montreal, numbering Workers in the ‘Border. Cities _ » 1600 have: turned down flat an Anu arbitration award of fivecentsan The enthusiastic crowd of Ita- hour, voting to empower their lian workers, many of whom of America, to call a strike Of Mussolini’s rule, listened with should their demands not be 8feat interest to speeches deli- met. The strike vote was urged vered by comrades Beckie by International Representative Buhay and Harvey Murphy. Jack Thompson to coordinate Both. these comrades went with Dominion Bridge workers through the story of fascist rule Tachi : ._ story of terror and destruction chine workers want an M- of working class institutions. Crease of ten cents an hour plus They also pointed out that it was the 40 hour work week, with no jn “democratic” America that loss in take home pay. They now Sacco and Vanzetti were mur- work a 42!/2 hour week. Acre: : Tribune The Worker | September 14, 1953 September 15, 1928 Profiteer of the week: | Speaking of the voluntary . restraint _ preached at workers who try to keep their wages abreast of. latest inflation figures, Canadian Reynolds Metals Co. Ltd., in just three months ended March 31, 1978, took out . of circulation a profit of $6,510,000. That’s af- ter taxes and compares with $3,449,000 in the same three months a year earlier. : Figures used are from the company's financial statements. Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Associate Editor — FRED WILSON Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O CONNOR Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1476 Commercial Drive, — Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4.0 for six months; Ali other countries, $10.00 one year ; Second class mail registration number 1560 ! formed. an. Anti-Fascist League... ~ union, the United Steelworkers have themselves tasted the fruits - i In Toronto and Winnipeg. in Italy and showed how it was a - EDITORIAL COMMENT Block those cutbacks now! The knifing of family allowances and -unemployment insurance bears the trade mark of the Liberal-Tory old-line parties. Big business and all arch conser- vatives screamed for it and, Liberal Party legislation with Tory content means to give it to them. A quick reminder: $580-million slashed from unemployment insurance;. benefit rates drop from 667/3% of insur- able earnings to 60%. The government which refuses us jobs, sets 40 weeks of — work as qualification for jobless pay. How can a million unemployed find 40 weeks work? Metro Toronto Chairman, Paul Godfrey warns that 7,500 people denied both unemployment insurance and jobs will go on welfare in 1979 in Toronto ‘alone. Cost to taxpayers — $10-million. Such is federal government policy on behalf of the monopoly corpo- rations. i Again a reminder: Family Allowance — is to be cut from $28 to $20 a month per child, income tax deductions for chil-_ dren 16 or 17 cut from $840 a year to $460 (as for younger children), and the -$50-a-year credit withdrawn. Echoes of Ontario’s infamous “Progressive Con- servative” premier George Drew, who termed Family Allowance a baby bonus designed to breed French Canadians. So, are the masters of the system pleased? Tremendously pleased with the strangulation of the unemployed, and the crackdown on families. (Kids of the rich don’t need that pittance.) The pro- cess is one of making working people pay for the economic crisis by taking more The voice of What is Monique Begin trying to hand. us? On August 31 the health and welfare minister made a heart-rending appeal to ’ the aged, the poor, others who get the social service scrapings from her department, to let her government know that they exist. They do, marginally. Whatan original approach; previously the government wanted them to get lost. As Works Department experts in Toron- to, where she met reporters, pumped ~away the sea of crocodile tears, Miss Begin cried out to the poverty stricken, the old, to families with children to “speak out.” : Perhaps Miss Begin wants to be seen as ~ Chile’s freedom struggle On September 11, 1973, in one of the bloodiest coups in Latin American his- tory, a group of traitorous generals, aided by the CIA, smashed the govern- ment of the Chilean people led by Sal- vador Allende. . ' The five years since have been marked by a reign of terror. The Chilean economy, which had been turned to the Service of its people, is once again in the hands of giant corporations. Chile has become a land of fear and misery, a haven for fascists and a bonanza for foreign investment. - the Financial Post chimes in. “Significant » - not yet law! The time to fight them is now out of their pockets and leaving the cor- porations with larger profits. Are the corporation bosses happy then? Well, there are notes of alarm. PP Liberals don’t want to give up the plum of being bone fide representatives of monopoly capitalism — a plum the To- ries covet. Hence the dazzling Liberal circus starring Chretien, Trudeau, An- dras, Monique Begin, etc., performing the big slash combined with a disappear- ing ‘negative income tax. The matter, warns of the Toronto Globe and Mail, is “too big to aaishy << People already get subsidized every- thing, says the Globe; they don’t need pay-back credits. If UI benefits “deter significant numbers of people from working steadily,” the Globe observes, what would the next step, a guaranteed income do? : ox Besides, others with tax credits, e.g: dividends from Canadian corporations, might demand cash instead of offsets, funds,” it warns would have to be trans- ferred to “primarily low-income tax payers.” Those in higher brackets have enough income to cancel out such cre- dits. Workers have one powerful fact on their side: these iniquitous provisions are — through the trade union movement, the New Democratic Party, by joining the Communist Party, through every avenue where leverage.can be exerted. If this —" new round of war on the workers is not q thrown back, the winter ahead will be a grim one indeed. big business the Cabinet minister who cares. (We _ thought John Munro had claimed that spot.) If she “cares”, if she disagrees with the Trudeau government’s hatchet job on working people, families, the poor, the ailing she should have the decency to -resign. The fact is, she and her anti-labor vernment “care” most for powerful ig business lobbies who told the government what it had to do: Get rid of or decimate social security benefits, make the working people pay for the system’s crisis. She admitted this. If the people speak out, Miss Begin, what they’ll say is: hypocrite! These past five years have also been marked by growing struggle, both inside Chile and abroad, to isolate the junta and bring about its downfall.| Progressive mankind has striven to expose the crimes of the generals and speed the day when Chile once again will live in peace and democracy. _ On this fifth anniversary each of us’ should renew our efforts to this end and recall the lines of Chile’s immortal poet Pablo Neruda who died only days after the fascist coup: “‘Today’s prisons will be tomorrow’s victory!” PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 15, 1978— Page 3