@ TAKEOVER: Vancou- ver's Downtown Com- munity Health Society has been taken over by the Socreds and the city, but it has nothing to do with health, page 2. Tribune focuses on Can- ada’s construction in- dustry and the issues before building trades: unions in a special four: page spread, pages 6, ‘ix orem » lhe LABOR: Jaclgjatx +) updates the continuing problems in CUPE Local 900 where a_ secession problems facing the Local leadership, page has been nominated for Academy Awards, but it is a film with more pre- tension than content, and what content there is turns out to be amoral and racist, page 10. @ BUILDING TRADES: The bid has dramatized the . @ FILMS: The Deer Hunter’ _| Empty nets and shore unemployment belie ‘riches’ of herring roe fishery By SEAN GRIFFIN It has been presented as the fishermen’s ticket to instant wealth with prices on the grounds soaring to three times the minimums extablished in union bargaining. One newspaper account — in the Vancouver Express — called it a “‘roe to riches’’, citing the case of one fisherman who made $108,000 with one day’s catch. Prices per ton were reported as climbing as high as $4,000 and perhaps even above that figure. But the real story of this year’s Its design thwarted in Vietnam, China last week responded with renewed aggression, launching a punitive invasion of Laos while massing troops on the China-Laos border. The foreign ministry of the Democratic Republic of Laos in Vientiane said that two battalions |> of Chinese Army troops invaded ~ Laotian territory on March 7 and 10 and are continuing to hold on to the territory seized. Troops, estimated at a strength of some 500,000, were also reported massed on the border between the two countries. Radio Vientiane said that China was also known to be arming thousands of Meo tribesmen who formerly were part of the CIA’s “secret army’’ in Laos. Earlier, Heng Samrin, chairman of the People’s Revolutionary herring roe fishery, now all but over, is a story of dangerously depleted stocks, new incursions of foreign capital, increased monopoly control — and unemployment for union shore- workers. And for the majority of fishermen, the soaring prices are just an illusion — scores of them haven’t even taken a fish as the catches have plunged far below the previous year’s total. “‘The press accounts of the her- ring fishery are greatly distorted,” Jack Nicol, United Fishermen and ‘Chinese invasion \of Laos charged Council of the People’s Republic of Kampuchea condemned __ the massing of Chinese troops on the Laotian border. Elsewhere, the Chinese have only withdrawn a few kilometres, and have dug in, carrying on shelling from a distance, as at Lao Cai. Last week, Vietnam sent a formal Protest note to China charging that Chinese troops are moving border Post markers deep into Vietnamese territory. It demanded that China im- mediately withdraw all its troops and cease trying to change the historic border between the two countries. eae If China complies with this de- mand, it stated, then Vietnam will be ready immediately to open talks aimed at normalizing relations with China. See LAOS page 11 a lesson’ says Rush ‘*When China’s new war lords in- vaded Vietnam along a 450 mile front on February 17 they taught the world a lesson, and that lesson is that the present leaders of China have betrayed the cause of national liberation and socialism and have gone over completely to the side of reaction and imperialism.’’ The lesson of China’s invasion of Vietnam was the main message of Communist Party provincial leader Maurice Rush to the 150 people at the Communist Party’s ‘Hands Off Vietnam’’ meeting Monday at the Ironworkers Hall in Vancouver. Rush told the CP meeting, called to explain the issues surrounding the invasion, that none of the pretexts used to justify the invasion hold up. Rather, he said, China’s invasion can only be explained in terms of its own ambitions. ‘‘The main aim of the leaders of China is to force Vietnam to change its policies, accept Chinese domina- tion and to support China’s policy of alliance with the United States against the socialist world and the national liberation movements,”’ Rush said. ‘‘When every other means failed, China resorted to the direct use of force to achieve that end,”’ Current reports from China and Vietnam are contradictory and it is not at all clear that China is withdrawing its army from Viet- namese territory, the CP leader told the meeting. Latest reports indicate that China has been moving border markings south in an attempt to an- nex parts of Vietnam while at the same time building up troops on the border to Laos. Even if China is forced to See VIETNAM page 11 Vietnam rally Vietnam’s ambassador to Canada, Tran Tuan Anh, will be the feature speaker. at a giant aid to Vietnam rally Sunday, 2 p.m., at the Queen Elizabeth Play- house in Vancouver. _ Organized by t h e Canadian Aid for Vietnam Civilians, the meeting is to raise financial and material aid for Vietnam. A fi- nancial appeal will be made. Allied Workers’ Union president told the Vancouver and District Labor Council Tuesday. He add- ed that if the case of a $108,000 catch cited by the Express was true, ‘‘it was a rare one.”’ “The fact is that the herring roe fishery on this coast is in real trou- ble,’’ he warned. Two years ago in 1977, when the roe fishery became particular- ly important with the expansion of the Japanese market, the catch totalled 85,000 tons. A year later in the 1978 season, it had dropped to 69,000 tons. This year the fisheries depart- ment set the quota for the total catch at 59,000 tons — a further drop from the previous year. “But with the 1979 season all but over only 29,000 tons have been taken,’’ Nichol emphasized. Inevitably, the decline in stocks has reflected itself in reduced in- dividual catches — and in some cases, the holds have been empty all season. “‘There’s about 230 boats in the seine fleet,’’ Nichol said, ‘‘but at least 125 of them haven’t taken a scale aboard.”’ see FOREIGN pg. 3 representatives from the Dene Nation and the Nishga Tribal Council in a press conference in Vancouver last Thursday as native groups launched a Northern Native Rights Campaign across the country. Story page 3." Sean Griffin photo CBRT committee urges rejection of rail pact Three B.C. locals in the Cana- ‘dian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and General Workers this. week announced their intention to campaign for rejection of the proposed three-year agreement for rail workers with the formation of the Railway Workers for a Decent Contract. The contract offered by CN, CP, VIA and several smaller companies for 55,000 non-operating rail workers calls for a 10 percent in- crease in the first year followed by eight percent increases in each of the succeeding two years. Of major contention is the length of the contract, but the RWDC is also concerned with the inadequacy of the wage increases and the COLA clause which, it said, isn’t fully indexed against inflation. RWDC co-ordinator Bob Storness-Bliss said Monday that despite references in media reports about early ratification, opposition to the contract has already been voiced by a number of locals. CBRT Local 326 delegate Craig Gigg told the Vancouver Labor Council Tuesday that the RWDC would be meeting this week to take its campaign for rejection to other locals across the country.