| Ployment.

The working people of Canada
are “‘sick and tired and damned
annoyed’’ with Bill C-73 and the
attempt of the government to make
labor the scapegoat by freezing
Wages, said Art Kube, regional
director for the Canadian Labor
Congress, in a speech at Van-
Couver’s May Day rally Saturday.

Kube told the meeting in the
Vancouver Technical School
auditorium that protests were

¥ Tising all across the country and

Cited the giant demonstration in
Toronto last Wednesday as an
Indication of the rising militancy.

‘The so-called anti-inflation
Program is a farce,’’ Kube

im Charged. “Right-five per cent of a

Worker’s expenses go for items on
Which there are no controls, in-
Cluding interest rates, food and

,  €nergy costs.”

What is worse, Kube noted, is the

! fact that the federal controls have

Caused -widespread unem-
Pointing out that controls on
Wages are not the answer to in-
flation, Kube urged support for the
LC’s 10-point program. He called
for a start on a major housing
Program to provide housing for low
mNcome groups; for effective rent
Controls and a program to curb
land speculation, and subsidized
Mortgage rates at low interest. The
CLC, said Kube, is calling for a full
employment policy which would
» abolish high interest rates, create

4 stable economy, substantially
eae pensions, and change
Xation to protect low income

Sroups.

Following Kube’s address the
Tally unanimously adopted a
resolution condemning Bill C-73 for
Its attack on free collective

Tgaining, and placing the burden

~ f inflation on working. people. It

demanded the withdrawal of the
bill and adoption of the CLC’s 10-
Point plan to fight inflation.

Orne Robson, secretary of the
Provincial council of Carpenters,
Who had just returned from

: Toronto where he attended the
Tally last Wednesday, pointed to

© massive protests in Quebec,
ntario and Winnipeg against the
80vernment’s wage freeze.
Although B.C. workers are
lagging behind the rest of Canada
Mm the fightback against Bill C-73
e objective conditions are
8towing among B.C. workers for a
Militant fightback, he said.

The Gaerpenters’ union leader
pointed out that 30,000 building
trades workers in B.C. are in
negotiations and that these
workers ‘‘won’t buy eight per
cent”? which is what the Con-
struction Labor Relations
Association is proposing. Robson
charged that the CLRA ‘“‘is hiding
behind the wage freeze
regulations’? and that the con-
struction bosses want to keep
unions apart so that they can pick
them off one at a time. ‘“‘Con-
struction workers need more
unity,’’ he said.

Pointing to the upcoming CLC
convention in May, Robson said the
most important issue before it will
be wage controls. He said that
many resolutions going to the
convention call for a general
strike. ‘‘This is the most important
convention since the CLC was
founded in 1956. Labor must refuse
to accept the wage guidelines and
fight back,” he said, calling on
B.C. workers to get into that fight
with all their strength.

Jack Phillips, Communist Party
provincial organizer, hailed the
struggle of people in Spain, Chile
and Africa and said B.C. workers
express their fraternal greetings to
all people fighting for freedom,
independence and social progress.

ART KUBE

Phillips charged that ‘‘the
Trudeau government has in-
troduced a so-called anti-inflation
program which is designed to
extricate the Canadian capitalists
from the world-wide crisis of
capitalism, at the expense of the

working people.”

Drawing attention to.the fact
that energy, housing and food
account for three-quarters of the
inflation Canadians have suffered,
Phillips. pointed out that ‘‘the
federal government — working
within the rules of the profit
system — have failed to take any
effective action to control the big
corporations.”

“The only way to effectively
control the profits of such multi-
national corporations and those of

the Canadian monopolies who;

dominate our economy is to place
them under public ownership. The
sooner, the better.”

Phillips said the Communist
Party proposes that the US.
branch plants in Canada, the
natural resources of our country,
the banks, the trust companies, the
insurance companies and all major
corporations be placed under
democratic control and_ public
ownership.

“Our party fully supports and
participates in the many battles of
the trade unions to compel the
withdrawal of wage controls. We
fully support the concept of CLC
president Joe Morris that the trade
union movement must be more
independent politically.”

Phillips said that while he had
every respect for NDP supporters
it “‘was to the shame of that party
that the NDP governments of
‘Saskatchewan and Manitoba are
cooperating with the Trudeau
government swindle and that the
former NDP government in B.C.
went along with the Trudeau
controls.”

Pointing out that the Communist
Party fights for elimination of
wage controls, Phillips em-
phasized that the end of controls

. would still.leave the monopolies

and conglomerates in charge of the
economy, and the working people
would still remain the victims of
exploitation, insecurity and
unemployment. ‘‘Yes, let us
abolish capitalist wage controls,
but let us go on and lay the basis for
abolishing capitalism itself in
order to build the most humane
society. ever devised by man,
socialism.”

Drawing attention to the up-
coming Vancouver East byelec-
tion, Phillips said the Communist
Party believes the main enemy in
this byelection is the Socred Party
— “and this party and the reac-

tionary Liberals and Con-
servatives, must be dealt a sharp
defeat at the polls.”’ He said it was
the policy of the Communist Party
to work for unity of action in-
volving the trade unions, the NDP,
and Communist Party around the
vital needs of the people.

“We call upon the people of
Vancouver East to unite their

JACK PHILLIPS

ranks, and to utilize this byelection
to deliver a major defeat to the
reactionary, social policies of the
Socreds, policies endorsed by the
Liberals and Conservatives.”

A resolution presented by Cliff
Rundgren, vice-president of the
Vancouver Labor Council, «and
chairman of the May Day rally,
condemned Bill 16 which would tie
B.C. to the federal wage control
program, and called on every
member of the B.C. legislature to
vote against Bill 16 which is still to
come up for final reading.

Another resolution- condemned
the Social Credit government’s
assault on people’s living stan-
dards and urged support of trade
unions in the fight against these
policies.

Vancouver alderman. Harry
Rankin told the rally that the
Leonard Peltier case ‘“‘exemplified
the plight of the Indian people of
the continent.”’ He said the Indian
people have begun to stir and at-
tempts are being made to drive
them down.

Pointing out that Peltier is
coming up for deportation hearings
this week (May 3),° Rankin said
there is ample evidence that he
was nowhere near where the

shooting near Pine Ridge Reserve
in the U.S. is alleged to have taken
place.

Outlining the Peltier case,
Rankin said he was arrested on a
“John ‘Doe’? warrant — which
means a blank warrant in which
the name is filled in later. Pointing
to some unusual features in the
case, Rankin said Peltier is being
held in solitary, denied bail,
shackled by his legs and arms.
Every person coming into court
under goes a body search, including
infants in mothers’ arms.

A resolution was uanimously
adopted by the meeting demanding
that Peltier be freed and be
allowed to remain in Canada.

Another resolution condemned

‘Scrap C-73" says May Day rally

- the armsrace, charging that it was

a major factor in causing inflation,
and endorsed the Stockholm Ap-
peal which calls for a ban on
nuclear arms, an end to the arms
race:and the convening of a dis-
armament conference in the near
future.

The popular music grcup,
Bargain at Half the Price,
presented a program of labor
songs. The rally was preceded by a
cavalcade from the PNE grounds
in which about 50 cars decorated
with banners took part. Several
unions, among them _ the
Longshoremen, Fishermen,
Telephone Workers and Boiler-
makers, took part in_ the
cavalcade.

This timely pamphlet by William
Kashtan, Canadian Communist
Party leader, is now available at
the , People’s Co-op Bookstore,
353 W. Pender St. It sells for 35c.

_Issues have begun to emerge
ore clearly in the value school

 Sontroversy as trustees in the

School district of Shuswap added
€ir voices to those of the B.C.
©me and School Federation and
€ B.C. Teachers Federation in

 °Pposing the establishment of

Value schools.

_ Battle lines have already been
Clearly drawn in Surrey where
Several trustees have refused to
udge from their intention to
*stablish a ‘‘fully-implemented
Value school” in Georges Vanier
lementary despite overwhelming
°pposition from the parents in the
area and from the teachers
€deration which has placed the
School in dispute.

ioe yet another district — Rich-

: Ond — trustees have received an
\blication from the right wing
gine Schools Movement to
Stablish a value school and
“onsiderable debate is expected at
sl Special hearing on the issue
‘ated for Monday, May 10.

he Shuswap trustees decision,
Made at a meeting last month, was
“onsidered a setback for the
“Ndamentalist proponents of the

value school concept who had
previously been successful in
mobilizing support from both
trustees and parents on the basis of
sensational charges of ‘‘im-
morality in the schools,” lack of
discipline and inferior education.

The board’s motion affirmed
support for, and improvement of,
the present B.C. school system and
declared that it was not prepared
to ‘‘designate, establish or support
individual schools as proposed by
the Shuswap Value Schools
Association.”

Credited with clarifying many of
the issues before the board was Al
Singer, president of the Shuswap
Teachers Association, who had
spent weeks attending meetings of
the value schools association
tackling spokesmen when they
made charges against schools or
teachers.

Singer’s work also prompted
other teachers and parents to take
action. and ultimately, an
organization called the Shuswap
Society for Democratic Education
was formed to combat the
regressive policies demanded by
the Value Schools Movement.

In a brief submitted to the
Shuswap school board, the group
outlined its objection to the value
school concept pointing out that
right-wing spokesmen have
established a pattern of agitation
throughout the province aimed at
discrediting the public school
system.

“The (value school) movement
has become in large measure a
forum for disgruntled parents to
air, in anecdotal form, real or
imagined grievances against a
particular teacher or a particular
situation in the schools.

“This incestuous debate,” the
brief noted, ‘‘provides mutual
reinforcement of their biases. . . .”’

Evidence of the unfounded
charges against schools and
teachers voiced by the value school
advocates was seen in a newspaper
ad run by the VSM which accused
teachers of being ‘‘immoral.”’

Challenged on the ad, the
president of the VSM, a minister in
a fundamentalist church, admitted
that the charge was groundless and
added that he had only run the ad
“to get things going.”

Spokesmen for the Value School
Movement have attempted to
counter the opposition to their
movement by arguing that their
proposals for value schools are
‘Gust another alternative school’
similar to those _ presently
available within the school system.

The emotional nature of their
campaign, the tactics utilized by
value school associations, together
with the experience in Surrey
where trustees and association
members have sought to ram
through a value school over the
opposition of parents and teachers,
belies that claim, however.

The B.C. Teachers Federation
placed Georges Vanier School “‘in
dispute” April 24 after a majority
of Surrey trustees, rejecting the
opposition of. 80 per cent of the
parents in the area voted to
designate the school ‘“‘a fully im-
plemented value school.”

The BCTF also stated that it
would place any other school in
dispute which is designated a value
school without a thorough process

Value schools face mounting opposition

of consultation with staff and
parents.

Following the BCTF action at
Georges Vanier, teachers and
trustees met last week in an at-
tempt to resolve the dispute but
trustees would not move from their
original position. ;

Representatives from the Surrey
Teachers Association were to go to
Victoria to discuss the issue with
local MLAs. The trustees were also
making the trip to Victoria but they
were to seek out education
minister Pat McGeer.

Surrey Teachers Association
president Doris Hahn _ said
following Wednesday’s meeting
that the dispute could remain “fo
a long time.” :

“We've done all we can,” she
Stated. “It’s up to the board to do
something new.”

At an earlier meeting of the
Surrey board, a majority of
trustees had voted down motions
calling for a formal survey of
parents in the area and a blueprint
of the education program proposed
for Vanier school.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 7, 1976—Page 3