Vancouver Island municipalities Inot be waiting much longer for 4 response from the provincial S0vernment before they escalate ir protest against the increases erry fares which have had a Vastating effect on Island “ommunities since the introduction the new rate schedule June 1. Is} € Association of Vancouver and Municipalities (AVIM), presenting more than 20 lnicipalities and regional ‘ tricts on the Island, sent a } Solution protesting the increases j) . “te government May 9 and has Messed the issue ever since but so "no cabinet minister has agreed discuss the matter. a. telegram to transport minister ack Davis May 17 was followed by “urgent” message June 8 after ‘ittoduction of the new rates had Ought about a one-third decrease OP a Se SE 5 2 a2 f=4 eam Shae | Friday, July 30, 1976 Bo: ...2. i a About 20 members of the Grandview Tenants Association manned a {| Picket line outside of the Rentalsman’s office this week protesting the ‘| °8e of a tenant who has been forced to move from her home because e| the landlord has designated the apartment block as “Adults Only.” The nant has a six month old baby and has been unable to find another artment as more and more landlords refuse to rent to families. in ferry traffic — but in both cases, the messages went unacknowl- edged and without reply. That set the stage for a heated meeting earlier this month when, at the suggestion of the Courtenay council, representatives of most Island communities went to Vic- toria to force the issue on the government and document the effect the fare increases were having on businesses on the Island —andon the over-all cost of living which affects every resident. But again, cabinet ministers declined to appear and the lone Social Credit MLA present, Sam Bawlf, sought only to justify the government’s position and at- tempted to shift the blame for declining trade on Island businesses, themselves. < ‘These people are not ina frame VOL. 38, No. 30 —Janet Lawton photo Jamaica target of CIA intrigue A terrorist murder squad, Upped with arms and explosives ay having a base of operations in “veral parts of the country has en uncovered in Jamaica, ¢ Moviding the most recent evidence ) : the massive ‘‘destabilization”’ { , mpaign instigated by the CIA fd local reaction agsinst the I} *vernment of prime minister | 'chael] Manley. s| ter a} th | My le Torist squads was presented to © Jamaican Parliament late last ®nth following the arrest of the j/;*der of the rightist opposition t} ymaica Labor Party, Peter f ehittingham, in whose possession q qcurity forces had found °Cuments outlining proposed Ubversive plans. e documents revealed that ocumented evidence of the . some 500 men had been trained by anti-government forces for organized terrorism and had been supplied with more 200 rifles, 100 submachine guns, several hundred sticks of dynamite, two barrels of gunpowder and 50,000 anti! government pamphlets. Much of that force, both arms and men, was concentrated in a small zone in the province of St. Ann, indicating that similar organizations, not yet uncovered, could also be in existence elsewhere in the country. In reporting to Parliament, Manley noted that two terrorist groups mentioned specifically in the documents had been assigned names: ‘‘Anti-Communist League’ and ‘‘Werewolves.” “‘It may interest members of the of mind to wait much longer for a response from the government,” George McKnight, president of the AVIM and a Port Alberni alder- man, told the Tribune this week, adding that there had been unanimous condemnation of the government’s position from the municipal representatives present at the Victoria meeting. McKnight stressed that the northern ferry route — Horseshoe Bay to Nanaimo — was hardest hit because, although public trans- portation is available in Victoria, it is not readily available north of Nanaimo and ferry passengers find it almost impossible to do without their cars. He cited the substantial decline in tourist traffic which has left many motels and businesses which rely on tourism “‘on the verge of bankruptcy” but he emphasized, (Municipalities suffer under new ferry rates island presses fare protest “that’s only part of the picture.”’ “The new ferry rates have brought about an increase in the cost of living for virtually every resident on the Island,’ McKnight said. ‘‘And for working people on the mainland wanting to take a holiday, the cost of ferry travel makes a trip to the Island prohibitive.”’ The new rates have pushed up costs for almost all items, in- cluding food staples, since most are imported from the mainland and increased freight charges are passed on to the consumer. McKnight also pointed out that there are a ‘‘significant number” of people, many of them elderly, who must go to the mainland for medical treatment and now face double the cost for the ferry trip. Many other residents are affected by the lack of intermediate care facilities 'on the Island, forcing people in need of such facilities to make the trip to Vancouver. “The important point is that the people who use the ferry system are working people,’ McKnight stressed, ‘‘and they simply can’t afford the increase.”’ The AVIM representatives have also stressed repeatedly that the drastic rate hikes make poor economic sense from the govern- ment’s own standpoint. Ever since the introduction of the new rates, ferries have been making the trip — apart from the peak. holiday season — only two- thirds or three-quarters full. That is expected to worsen considerably when the two new ferries, both of them with greatly increased capacity, come on line. See ISLANDERS pg. 2 GVRD accreditation seen as ‘confrontation tactic’ Led. by West. Vancouver .alder- man Don Lanskail, municipal governments in the Greater Vancouver Regional District are beginning a drive to strip local administrations of their bargaining powers and turn them over to a new organization; the Greater Vancouver Labor Relations Association. Lanskail, the former president of the forest industry’s employers’ association — Forest Industrial Relations — last month urged members of the GVRD_ labor relations committee to seek ac- creditation under Section 59 of the Labor Code as an employers’ association with ,the near hysterical warning that unless municipalities unite in bargaining they will be “picked off one by one as the union sets out to divide and conquer,” If the new association should succeed in their drive for ac- creditation the implications will be far reaching. Harry Greene, a delegate from Local 386 of the Canadian Union of Public Em- House to know that the name ‘Werewolf’ was used during the last war to describe the secret agents of the Nazi movement who served the most evil man of the 20th century, the racist and fascist Adolf Hitler,’’ he declared. The documents found in Whit- tingham’s possession also in- dicated that contacts were to be made with other forces, both local and foreign, and that the high command of the anti-government terrorist group had: been assigned the responsibility of making such contacts. Earlier arrests of other leaders of the Jamaica Labor Party, notably deputy leader Pearnell Charles, revealed tape recordings of security transmissions by the see JAMAICA pg. 8 ployees told the Vancouver Labor Council last week that once this group is accredited, the elected representatives at the municipal level will surrender all of their rights to deal directly with municipal workers. CUPE will be most directly affected by such a move as the overwhelming majority of civic workers in the GVRD are working under CUPE negotiated collective agreements. Greene, past president of the B.C. Division of CUPE, warned that experience with employers’ associations in the municipal field elsewhere in B.C. has proven to be disastrous. He cited the case of the accredited Okanagan employers’ association which he said ‘has precipitated strikes where strikes need not have occurred.” Unlike the present situation in the lower mainland where a number of municipalities and local unions have freely agreed to come together during contract negotiations, once the employers are accredited under the Labor Code the unions have no recourse other than to deal with the association and not local officials. This would mean that all aspects of labor relations including contract negotiations, grievances and local problems would be dealt with by the larger body. As well, section 59 binds any one individual employer to the association until the fourth and fifth month following the execution of a _ collective agreement when the employer may apply to the Labor Relations Board to be let out of the association. This again represents a substantial shift from the present situation where local ad- ministrations are free to opt out of the joint negotiations. Greene said that the dangers of such a situation become apparent when it is recalled that cases exist where a_ settlement has been reached between one employer and the union, and that settlement has been approved by the local elected officials, ‘‘tand lo and behold the accredited group steps in and blocks the settlement.”’..The ac- credited group would have such powers under the Labor Code as it would become the sole bargaining authority for all employers named in the accreditation, even though it may block a settlement which the elected representatives wanted to accept. He elaborated further and told the council that this final point was of the greatest concern to CUPE — the fact that by joining an ac- credited employers’ association ‘elected representatives, and public bodies turn over their rights to deal directly with their workers see CUPE pg. 8 ‘Finalize air probe’ —CLC OTTAWA—The Canadian Labor Congress called on the parties concerned to let the three-judge inquiry commission studying the safety of bilingualism in Quebec air space get on with the job “without being subjected to a barrage of politicking.”’ The statement by CLC president Joe Morris charged both sides in the dispute between the federal government and the Canadian Air Traffic Control Association (CATCA) with ‘‘escalating the matter into a conflict that divides Canadians along language lines and submerges the original question (of safety) beneath a sea of racial prejudice.” Morris pointed out that the stance of both CATCA and the Canadian Airline Pilots Association (CALPA) runs counter to CLC policy supporting the Of- ficial Languages Act. Neither union is affiliated to the Congress. “It is the position of the CLC,” Morris concluded, ‘‘that the fin- dings of the inquiry commission should be considered final. If the judges determine that bilingual air traffic control is safe, then it should be implemented without further debate.”