“PUT B.C. BACK TO WORK” say these young people of the Union of Unemployed. Youth shown here
marching outside the UIC offices in downtown Vancouver Monday.

—Carey Robson photo

Construction unions win fight
for collective bargaining pact

There is little doubt that
construction trades in B.C. were
picked out by the Socred
government, the construction
bosses through CLRA, and the
Employer’s Council as the prime
target of this year’s anti-labor
drive. By taking advantage of
the craft nature of the Building
Trades, they hoped to weaken
the whole labor movement.

Labor Minister Chabot’s Bill
88, brought down at the last
session of the Legislature was
the opening shot in the
campaign. This would have
taken away the union shop, long-
held hiring hall practises,
overtime rights, etc. A united
labor movement forced Chabot
to draw in his horns.

After some weeks of the CLRA-
imposed lockout, Chabot
delivered his back-to-work
order. The unions in the building
trades refused to comply. Then
came the police raids on their
offices across the province. The
unions fought that one too.

They ignored the Mediation
Commission’s hearings into the
“‘dispute’’. They ignored its
“‘findings’’, which gave the
employers everything they asked
for.

The formation of the 6-Union-
Pact — made up of the larger
crafts within the Building Trades
Council, was an unprecedented
step forward. Backed by the B.C.
Federation of Labor, they
refused to be bulldozed into
accepting Socred Big Business
compulsion, and insisted on their
right to conclude free collective
bargaining settlements before
returning to work.

Their determined stand
compelled CLRA to enter into
negotiations with them and out
of it has come an agreement,
which, if accepted by the
membership this week, will end
the 12 week lockout-strike. By all
criteria this has been one of the
hardest-fought and most
significant battles labor has
fought for many years.

Ray Haynes, secretary of the
B.C. Federation of Labor, said
“this dispute should be the one
that convinces the government
and employers throughout the
province that we intend to defy
the mediation commission; we
do not intend to have an outside
body write our agreements.”

Full details of the settlement
have not been announced, but
Jim Kinnard, of the Building
Trades Council, has made it

Hiroshima Day courthouse rally
to protest bombing in Vietnam

Every week the equivalent of 1’2 Hiroshima bombs is exploded in
Indochina, it has been estimated. Aerial photographs of that once
green land show a barren desert, pockmarked with huge craters,
like the surface of the moon. Scientists say it will be many
generations, if ever, before crops can once again be grown in some

parts of the country.

Thus, the effects of bombing, the chemical defoliation, the cloud
seeding to produce floods, will be felt for generations to come — just
as the victims of the Hiroshima bomb dropped August 6th twenty-
seven years ago, passed its effects on to unborn generations.

Therefore in most countries of the world Hiroshima Day, August
6, peace groups mark not only commemoration of the dead, but
rededication to the unfinished job of ending the destruction of life and

the environment in Indochina.

Local peace groups which make up the Peace Action League are
planning an Information Evening at the Court House Square on
Friday, August 4, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. On display will be pictures of
Hiroshima victims taken by a Japanese newspaper together with
photographs of other victims of the war in Indochina. There will be
music, information leaflets, and an opportunity to discuss the vital

questions of peace and war.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1972—PAGE 8

known it includes $1.17 increase
oyer a 25 month period plus
retention of their hiring hall

practices.
* * *

B.C. Government employees
in some categories are getting a
pay raise which definitely breaks
Premier Bennett’s six and a half
percent wage guideline.

Highway employees earning
less than $700 a month will get a
$40 raise; manual workers such
as janitors, laundry, and
institutional groups will get from
$25 to $40 a month increase.

However, some of the
government workers who most
need it, such as aides in mental
hospitals, and some clerical
employees etc., are getting only
$12 to $15 a month. ‘‘The
government is well aware that
pay scales for most of these
groups are on the average five
percent below those paid by
federal, municipal governments
‘and by crown corporations in
B.C.’’, union secretary John
Fryer said. He added that in
some of these groups, a strike
vote may be taken.

Give us

demand youth

The newly-organized Union of
Unemployed Youth on Monday
presented a brief to the District
manager of the Unemployment
Insurance Commission for
consideration by federal
authorities:*Over twenty young
people took part in the first

‘demonstration in front of the

UIC offices, and received much
encouragement from passersby
who greeted their signs 100,000
Jobs in B.C. Now! and Put B.C.
Back to Work! with approval.

In their brief the young un-
employed point out that in June,
youth accounted for 25 percent
of the labor force but con-
stituted 56 percent of the unem-
ployed. Tracing the history of
the Liberal government’s “anti-
inflation’’ measures, and sub-
sequent actions to “‘create’’
employment, the brief points
out the bankruptcy of both
policies.

The federal government’s
move to provide $80 million in
subsidies to businesses to
“provide jobs’ for workers was
siphoned off to automate

‘industry, thus contributing to a

decrease in the number of jobs.
Moreover, a large percentage
of the grants went to subsidize
American corporations in
Canada.

A7 percent taxation cut has
been granted to corporations,
but middle income groups have
had their taxes increased.

Opportunities for Youth and
Winterworks programs are
designed to ‘‘buy off’’ a small but
dissident section of the popu-
lation, charges the brief. But it is
working class youth who
compose the majority of the
unemployed population, and
such programs exclude, for the
most part, these people.
Moreover, in many cases OF Y
projects are providing a service
to the community which are
substitutions for social services
that the government has respon-
sibility to provide. In some cases
the government is hiring youth
at low wages to even construct
community facilities. Some of
the projects, says the UUY, are
“pie in the sky’’ escape trips.

The brief details some of the
reasons for unemployment and
poverty in Canada. Couched in
the simplest of terms, the
government is taken sharply to
task for its policies of ‘‘contin-
entalism’’ which has merged the
productive forces of Canada and
the USA into a larger system
which has led to the practical
results of Canada having a raw
material export economy while
other nations enjoy the job-inten-
sive industries from our

’ resources.

The brief challenges the gov-
ernment to take action on the
real source of unemployment—
and put the unemployed to
work!

“Full employment can only be
won by expanding our economy
to make use of our resources in
secondary industry. We need
both massive processing and
manufacturing industries. The
common fallacy that Canada is
too small a nation without the
consumer demand to support
secondary industry is easily
refuted by the fact that in 1971
we imported over $10 billion
worth of consumer goods from
the U.S. alone.

“Here are the policies that are

jobs,

needed to make Canada advaitt |
as an industrial nation. They @™ |
not new; they have been ignol® |
by Liberal governments !! 4
close to thirty years:
e A “Made in Canada” enetel
policy. ‘We demand a cessal™® |
to North-South energy polit
and the building of an ae
grated East-West power grid 4
lay the foundation for an 1m! a4 |
trial Canada in full Canadial |
control. A
e An All Canadian Resour
Development Policy. “Ou! ae
development must be a prog? |
of secondary industry public” 7
owned for the benefit of all Ca"
dians.”’ ; fa
e The establishment et 1
copper smelting industry, oa 4
a crown corporation, 4m@”
major steel industry. at
e A Canadian-built Merch’
Marine for Canada. “Shipya™
are a natural complemen.
secondary industry. Steel ee
plastic and chemical indus
electronic and machine pr ies :
tion and many other industt 5
are all necessary Q
construction of a nae
marine.” a
e The construction of 250,00
low cost housing unils
Canada. dap
e Modernize and exten no!
prenticeships, at trade ei
wages, for all who apply ree
less of academic or finalh” |
qualifications.

e Open up the univer fot
Make stipends available ik
students who cannot fin edu?
and wish to continue thelf nt
tion. With the developmé i,
secondary industries univ.
graduates would have a & role
tunity to play a productivi

el
sities’ :

if)
in the economy. AS } oan
percent of Simon Fras®’ 9g
UBC graduates from thé

class are unemployed.

e
“Youth are organizing ant we
manding their right to 4 ye We
have no need for rhetor! ‘bs

want jobs and we wal

now!”’ the brief conclude :
OUST SOCRED?

Cont'd from pg- 1 a

et of ;
needing a new mandate to 8%

with a “resources develop™

rogram. as
2 The Bennett government fy
sharply curtailed all a6 4
services to the pe? ont
education, hospitals, tin’
housing and welfare— © + the

them to the bone while aio

same time handing out ™ othe!
in subsidies ae big

concessions to
monopolies.

The Bennett government :
adopted the worst anti-la” aj
anti-democratic legis!# oyiné
Canada aimed at deS\ ing
B.C.’s trade unions an
down workers living st4 , the
He has acted as agemt his
Employers Council
attempt to freeze workeh * ion
and undermine the trade ms e

B.C. needs a REAL a onl
August 30. That change © widest
be brought about by the ¢ god
unity of working peoP gt tb
progressive voters t <4 jie
Socreds, block the ° gel }
parties from returning oa}
and electing a male
NDPers and Commu®
could put B.C. on a neW
progress.

ee