The current strike situation in
British Columbia is a ‘‘critical
front’? in labor’s fightback
against government and business
imposed wage controls, accord-
ing to the national labor secretary
of the Communist Party.

It requires a broad, united ef-
fort from labor and progressive
forces across the country; unfor-
tunately, the response of the labor
movement has been ‘“‘less than
adequate,”’ Bill Stewart told the
Tribune in an interview.

“There is a concerted, orches-
trated effort on the part of big
business and government to
smash workers’ resistance-to at-

tacks on their living standards. So |

thecurrent fight here, particularly
in regard to the B.C. Government
Employees Union’s struggle with
the provincial government,
should not be seen as an isolated
incident,’ he said.

Stewart, who also addressed a
public meeting on the strike situa-
tion in Vancouver Tuesday, said
“full marks’? should go to the
BCGEU for its ‘principled oppo-
sition”? to the Socred govern-
ment’s attempts to stick its work-
ers with a Trudeau-style controls
package.

“But it’s clear they can’t win
this battle by themselves — they

can’t continue to rely ona ‘circled
wagons’ approach.’’

To date, the BCGEU fight with
the government has been one of
form instead of content, he said,
and has been earmarked by ‘‘cute
tricks’? such as full page news-
paper ads and the latest back-to-
work strategy.

Part of the problem, he said, “

has been a lack of demonstrated
outside support. The B.C. Feder-
ation of Labor has failed to play
its ‘“expected, dynamic role” and
the New Democratic Party has
been ‘‘largely silent,’’ he said.
“The NDP continues to cling
to its narrow electoral strategy,

Entire labor movement must back B.C. strikers!

which inhibits the fightback and
shows that they underestimate the
capacity of the working class.
They trail behind the expectations
of the electorate, and you only
have to look at the recent Saskat-
chewan disaster to see that.

“The struggles at Sudbury, at
Stelco in Hamilton and the Public
Service Alliance of Canada’s
strike against the federal govern-
ment all proved that workers have
won major gains through long,
militant battles,’ Stewart as-
serted.

Canadian labor can support
the BCGEU strikers by staging
mass public rallies, in conjunc-

tion with provincial labor feder@
tions and local labor councils
Stewart said. ;

Both public and private secto!
unions should be involved, b&
cause attacks on the former, !
unchallenged, will soon be aimed
at the latter, according to Stewalt.
“If a big movement develops, the
governments and employers até
going to have to back off.”’

In the final analysis, ‘“‘a united
trade union movement needs 10
go to its membership, and the Ca
nadian public with a program 10
fight for new policies and new)

governments,’’ said Stewart.
—_—.

B.C. Tel application refused

Continued from page 1
would be recalled to work effec-
tive Feb. 1, 1983. But that meant
they must ‘‘wait 25 weeks before
they know whether regulation
3Qc) (ii) saves this layoff from be-
ing a deemed termination under
s.60 (4) because if they are not in
fact recalled by them the pur-

ported saving power of the ~

regulation is ineffective.
“If that happens, it is then too

late to give thenotice whichitthen ,

transpires ought to have been
given.”

He said he believed the inten-
tion of parliament was ‘‘that
employees should know at once if
they are being terminated or if
they are only being laid off, and if
terminated in numbers exceeding

300, that they should have the
benefit of that notice.’’

Therefore he found the regula-
tion to be ultra vires of the power
conferred by the section of the
code.

In bringing down his judg-
ment, Mr. Justice Spencer regret-
ted that he ‘‘did not have the
assistance of counsel for the at-
torney general of Canada in
reaching a decision: which may
have effect elsewhere .

Coincident with handing down
of the judgment, B.C. Tel releas-
ed its financial statement showing
common share earnings of $26.2
million or 77 cents a share, down
20.4 cents a share from $32.9
million or $1.08 a share.

The statement also disclosed

that per share earnings were down
29 percent because the number
of shares issued has been increas-
cd

A. hint of higher telephone
rates was contained in the direc-
tors’ report that ‘‘given the con-
tinuation of today’s economic
difficulties, earnings for 1982.asa
whole will not reach the rate of
return on equity of 16.5 percent
authorized by the Canadian
Radio-Television and Telecom-
munications Commission in its
latest rate decision.”

Asked to comment on this at
the press conference, -Clark
observed, ‘The company says it
has to meet its commitment to
shareholders, but not\apparently
its responsibilities to its workers.’’

Candles lighted for Hiroshima

Continued from page 1

scribed the sufferings of the vic-'

tims.

Up Island, about 350 people
marched through downtown
Courtenay to protest the presence.
of nuclear weapons at the nearby
Armed Forces base at Comox. Pre-
vious years’ demonstrations had
seen many visitors from the Main-
land, but the shutdown of ferries
due to the government employees
strike kept the numbers down. —

Featured speaker Kinuko Laske,
a survivor of Hiroshima and now a
Vancouver resident, described her
personal ordeal following the
bomb blast, and called on the Am-
erican government to apologize to
the people of Hiroshima and Naga-
saki.

Courtenay school trustee Wayne
Bradley noted: the board was forc-

ed to lay off 40teachers this fall due
to provincial government budget
cuts, “‘while the military receives
annual budget increases of three
percent above the rate of
inflation.”

Bradley told the Tribune that
this year’s demonstration was ‘“‘the
most successful one we’ve had in
terms of broadening the peace
movement here, because so many
church people were involved.”

In Vancouver the candles held
by several hundred people provid-
ed the only illumination in the last
minutes of the Candlelight Vigil for
Peace at Vanier Park Aug. 6. The
result was an almost church-like at-
mosphere as the purposefully sub-
dued crowd heard Vancouver al-
derman Bruce Yorke, Project

' Ploughshare’s Kathleen Wallace-

Deering and David Cadman of the

Working conditions
major union concern

Continued from page 1

a vote on the complete government
_ offer, which includes some 90 un-
resolved clauses affecting hours
and working conditions — a major
concern of members.

The vote, still being completed at
Tribune press time, was confident-
ly expected by the union to show a
big majority for rejection.

Regardless of the outcome,
BCGEU secretary John Fryer has
announced that all members will
return to work Aug. 12, with the
next move up to the government.

Some 35,000 construction work-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 13, 1982—Page 8

ers have been off the job since Aug.
6 when Construction Labor Rela-

tions Association, which bargains -

for about 850 construction com-
panies, locked them out.

The lockout followed collapse of ©

talks between the association and
building trades unions, with the as-
sociation’s refusal to accept full ret-
roactive payment of wage increase
a major obstacle to agreement.

When the unions started select-
ive picketing, the association in-
stituted the lockout which has shut
down projects ranging from the
B.C. Place stadium to the North-
east Coal project.

local United Nations’ Association
call for an end to the arms race.
Carmela Allevato, co-chair of
the End the Arms Race Committee
which with the Coalition for World
Disarmament organized the event,
announced the commencement of
the Refuse the Cruise campaign,

which began earlier that day with a.

distribution of leaflets and post-
cards at Robson Square.

The leaflet explains in point
form the first-strike nature of the
small, air- and land-launched mis-
sile which can avoid radar detection
and deliver its payload with pin-
point accuracy. The campaign
urges Canadians to write their MPs
to oppose the proposed testing of
the missile at:Cold Lake, Alta., and
draws attention to the fact that
components are manufactured in
Toronto by Litton Systems.

Speaker Hilda Thomas of the
University of B.C.’s English de-
partment said it was ‘‘impossible
not to single out the U.S. for its de-
liberate act of contempt for the vic-
tims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,”
in reference to the atomic bomb
test at Nevada a few days earlier.

“‘T do not like being the victim of
America’s testing of the atomic
bomb,”’ read the testimony Hiro-
shima survivor Kinuko Laske was
to give at Courtenay the next day.
“In doing so, America lost the right
to tell other countries not to use
atomic weapons,”’ she said in her
statement, which was read to the:
assembly.

The ceremony closed as organiz-
ers and performers holding candles
lined up in front of the stage. With
the stage lights turned off, a group.
of flutists played a Japanese mel-
ody, followed by a mass singing of
Holly Near’s anti-war song, ‘‘We
are a gentle, angry people.”’

Forced on to the picket lines by
the monopoly-dominated
Fisheries Association’s demands
for salmon price cuts and a wage
freeze, fishing industry workers
ended their one week strike last
weekend by voting 80 percent to
accept a new contract giving wage
increases to shoreworkers and
tendermen and salmon prices
above those offered by the
association in pre-strike negotia-
tions.

A combination of factors
prompted the association to
reopen negotiations with the
UFAWU-Native Brotherhood
joint bargaining committee —
reports of a good Adams River
sockeye run, return of the Bristol
Bay run at less than half its
estmated strength with a conse-
quent reduction of anticipated
Alaska production, and the low
level of B.C. salmon inventories.

Long sessions at the bargaining
table last week produced an
agreement which gave fishermen
a sockeye price of $1.06 a pound,
two cents less than last year’s
$1.08 but 18 cents above the
opening offer of 88 cents and six
cents above the pre-strike offer of
$1 a pound.

New contract price for pink
salmon, mainstay of the seine
fleet, is 35 cents, up 10 cents from
the association’s opening offer
but still 13 cents below the 1981
price: This, however, is an off-
cycle year for pink salmon.

The association’s attempt to
revert to a two-price system for
chum salmon, ended some years
ago after persistent union efforts
to abolish it, was turned aside by
contract agreement on a price of
71 cents in all areas except for ter-
minal fishing areas‘ to be
designated by a joint committee

Fishermen extract
better price offer

- fishermen recognized that to fish] —

in which fishing will be only for

The new contract also incre
the amount paid into the union
welfare fund from 1.4 to 1.6ceé
a pound.

Instead of the wage freed
sought by the associatio
shoreworkers will receive a wé
increase of 70 cents an ho
retroactive to April 16 and an é
ditional 20 cents for a total of
cents effective July Ih)
Tradesmen will get a further 10)
cents an hour above these rates:

Tendermen too, will get a wae’)
increase instead of wage freeze — |
eight percent to be extende
retroactively to include those wh?
worked in the roe herring fishery ;
last spring.

“Our picket lines were solid,”
UFAWU president Jack Nichol
told the Tribune this week. “Few
boats went out, far fewer than 1)
any recent strike. Can you im]
agine only two boats out OM} —
River’s Inlet where normally) —
there would be hundreds at this :
time; ~ ce
“J think virtually all workin}

at the prices the companies of}
féred would be ruinous. Even ‘il
the new contract prices many
find it hard tomake expenses with :
the prices of everything they havé]| —
to buy — nets, fuel, grub .
doubled in the past seven years.’ |
Union business agent Bill Pro
copation noted that B.C.
Packers’ determination to mail
tain its profits at the expense 0 |
fishing industry workers hal
helped to dispel illusions -in th}
fishing fleet which have led to for
mation of several ‘independent
associations. |
‘What this strike has proved §
that unity of all fishing industtY
workers, the lesson learned in thé
thirties and the founding princk}
ple of the UFAWU, can wrest},
gains from the companies even is
a. suse he declared.

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