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Wednesday, January 11,1984

Vol. 47, No. 1

}B.c. HYDRO |

Striking B.C. Hydro workers maintain picket line around substation in
Burnaby Monday. The members of the Office and Technical
Employees Union, Local 378, along with the International Brotherhood
of Electrical Workers Locals 268 and 213 have staged 24-hour pickets
since last Fall. issues included Hydro’s attempts to put recently union-
ized backhoe jobs out to public tender, and the question of exemptions
from Bill3. A tentative pactwas reached with IBEW Local 213 Monday,
but operations will remain shut until all unions settle, strikers say.

Education

groups tell

Curtis: ‘End
cutbacks’

Socred Finance Minister Hugh
Curtis heard plenty about declin-
ing services, crowded classrooms
and lack of access to university and
college when he sat down with
representatives of B.C.’s education
community Jan. 6.

The B.C. Teachers Federation,
the Canadian Federation of Stu-
dents (Pacific Region), the Cana-
dian Union of Public Employees
(B.C. Division) and the College-
Institute Educators Association of
B.C. all hit chronic government
underspending on education, par-
ticularly as it has affected B.C.
schools in the “restraint” years.

The occasion was the first “‘con-
sultative” meeting — the process
outlined in the so-called “Kelowna
accord” — between Curtis and
effected groups prior to the unveil-
ing of the provincial budget,
expected sometime in late February.

Achief complaint concerned the
nature of restraint-style cutbacks.
While underfunding of public ser-
vices has been a reality for the last
decade, current Socred cutbacks
invalve not simply decreases in the
yearly budgetary increases to
account for inflation, but decreases
in straight dollar figures.

The result, the student, support
staff and educator groups pointed
out, was, in the case of colleges and

universities, a cutback of approxi-’

mately four per cent in provincial
government funding for the 1983-
84 term, and a projected 1.5 per
cent cut for public schools in 1984.

In fact, the situation is worse for
public schools, the BCTF argued.
Since a school term straddles two
years, from September to June,
while school board budgets run
from January to December, trus-
tees implementing cutbacks must
do so within the September to
December period, if they hope to
avoid layoffs and class disruptions
halfway through the academic
year.

That results in a “multiplier
effect” of 2.5, the federation rea-
soned, meaning an actual reduc-
tion of 2.5 per cent in September.

The BCTF brief urged instead a
modest 3 per cent increase in edu-
cation funding for 1984, just to
maintain services at the current
level. If that isn’t granted, the effect
would be a decrease of 4.5 per cent,
which, when the multiplier factor is
added, would mean an 11 per cent
slash to services this fall.

Both the teachers’ federation
and the CFS pointed out the harm
cutbacks do particularly to stu-
dents from working-class and
under privileged backgrounds. The
BCTF argued that cutbacks “‘add

see LOW INCOME page 3

Island woodworkers press ‘no vote

—page 12