Wubi tt ||| UM EDITORIAL An important victory The Tribune’s hat is off to the letter carriers. The Tory government and Canada Post thought they could push them and their union around. They were wrong. The Letter Carriers Union of Canada has won the important first round in the ongoing battle with this Tory government determined to destroy public sector unions, drive down wages and privatize essential services. They’ve got billions for nuclear subs, millions to pay scab labour, but nothing to maintain and expand our postal service and pay its workers a decent wage. That’s vintage Toryism. Maximum unity and solidarity was the key to fighting back the onslaught on the postal unions. So was unprecedented public support. The LCUC strike holds some other lessons. One is the need to press for economic policies that will create jobs. This strike showed the urgent need.to remove the weapon of scab labour from the hands of government and employer. Jobless Canadians shouldn’t be submitted to the indignity of scabbing on their sisters and brothers. And the labour movement should’take a closer look at the growing tendency by governments to use the iron fist of the state — the courts and police — to beat up pickets, arrest workers, herd scabs, and bring down injunctions when working people use their legal and democratic right to strike. The LCUC strike was just the latest in a series in which the police become integrally involved — always on the side of the employers, as one police inspector himself noted last week. Round one may be settled. Now the same solidarity and unity should be rallied as inside workers prepare to deal with Canada Post which, under Tory government orders, hasn’t abandoned its overall anti-union, privatization aim. Spying on the public The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was born in 1984-out of the RCMP dirty tricks debacle. Mounties framing, intimidating and harassing people, of course, was nothing new. But zealots getting caught burning barns and forging documents was. Enter CSIS, the so-called “civilian” service. Now, three years later, the Security Intelligence Review Committee finds that CSIS is ss becominge clone ofthefermer ROMP security department. @ Sofie 83 per Cent of CSIS, the committee says, is made up of former Mounties; @ CSIS has files on 30,000 Canadians it regards as subversives; @ The agency watches and wiretaps so-called “left-wing” groups, including maga- zines and newspapers; @ It is gung-ho for right-wing U.S. foreign policy — even when it runs counter to stated Canadian policy, as in Central America; @ CSIS can’t (or won’t) distinguish subversion from dissent. How could it be otherwise? The'CSIS “‘counter-subversion” arm is a watchdog on the Canadian public. The recent revelation that This Magazine is the subject of CSIS snooping shows how far it extends its domain. The fact there are an estimated 30,000 (““We don’t know and we can’t find out” how many files exist, said the committee), also shows the extent of its snooping into the legitimate, legal activities of citizens. - ; And just who are these 30,000 “subversives”? Unionists? Native people? Women’s groups? Peace activists? NDPers? Tenant activists? Communists? Solidarity support groups? What “left-wing” publications does CSIS wiretap? This Magazine? The Common- wealth? The Tribune? United Church Observer? Catholic Times? Ontario Indian? Whose foreign policy does CSIS protect? Washington’s? Canada’s? Its own? What faceless CSIS hack separates “subversion” from dissent? Are the 77 per cent of Canadians who think Mulroney’s Tories are a terrible government subversive? Nameless little men secretly listening into telephone converstions, opening people’s mail and keeping files on tens of thousands of citizens is a dangerous and alarming reality. : SLB Se2p0D ieee FIBUNE_ Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK Graphics — ANGELA KENYON Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5 Phone (604) 251-1186 ISSN 0030-896X Subscription Rate: Canada — $16 one year; $10 six months Foreign — $25 one year; Second class mail registration number 1560 People and Issues (casemate nas en someaenea a Ee SR R S L I S STT veryone has birthdays, so we’re not usually in the habit of announcing them. But we felt we owed something of a tribute to veteran Tribune reader, Com- munist and peace activist Lena Skehor, who is celebrating her 92nd birthday on July 17. Born in the Ukraine in 1895, Lena came to Canada in 1912. From at least 1921, when the family moved to Calgary, Lena was a member of the Ukrainian Labour Farm Temple Association, forerunner to the organization in which she still holds a proud membership, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians. Lena was one of the first readers of the Pacific Tribune’s ancestor, the B.C. Workers News, when it first rolled off the presses on Jan. 18, 1935, and was at the special ban- quet to launch the Tribune’s 1985 anniver- sary fundraising drive 50 years later, at the Holiday Inn in Vancouver. It was there that she received recognition for 50 years in the Communist Party — most of those in the party’s Bill Bennett club — from CP national general secretary, Bill Kash- tan. During those years Lena participated in several historical actions, including the formation of the human “Mothers Day heart” for the On-to-Ottawa trekkers in Stanley Park in 1935. She also helped tend those wounded in the 1938 police attack on the occupied main post office, when the injured jobless workers were taken to the Ukrainian Hall at 805 E. Pender St. We join with her family and friends in wishing Lena all the best on her 92nd. Those who wish to do so can send their greetings to 4221 Mayberry St., Suite 2103, Burnaby. * * * Wi; were watching the news the other day and saw anti-union crusader Merv Lavigne and his well-heeled backers in the right-wing National Citizens Coali- tion commenting on the latest Ontario Supreme Court decision concerning the use of Lavigne’s union dues. Lavigne last year won a decision that use of his dues (which he pays under the Rand Formula, having rejected union membership) for causes such as abortion rights and aid to Nicaragua violated his consitutional rights. Last week the court ruled he had to take his own initiative to prevent such uses. About the same time we received an item from our reader and frequent con- tributor in Kamloops, Bill Campbell, with the suggestion we reprint it. While acknowledging that the Lavigne case does not challenge the collection of union dues per se, we note that it takes place in a big-business fostered climate on anti- unionism. In the interests of combating that sentiment, we offer Bill’s item, and pass on his suggestion it be posted wher- ever anti-union ignorance seems to gain- ing. Under the heading, “Free Rider’s Union,” it reads: “I am opposed to all unions, therefore I am opposed to all benefits unions have won through the years: paid vacations, paid holidays, sick leave, seniority rights, wage increases, pension and insurance plans, safety laws, workers compensation laws, Canada Pension, time and a half for overtime in excess of eight hours in one day and 40 in any one week, unemploy- ment benefits and job security. “I refuse to accept any benefits that were won by the unions and hereby autho- rize the company to withhold the amount of the union-won benefits from my pay- cheque each week and donate it to char- ity.” Seek, 521 media release from the Vancouver Folk Music Festival says that shortly before New Zealand went nuclear- weapons free, The Topp Twins were singing about the nuclear war danger. The mes- sage here is that although progressive per- formers don’t force changes all by themselves, they are certainly part of the process. There will quite a number of contribu- tors to the peace, labour and other fronts at the festival, which takes place at Jericho Beach Park in Vancouver July 17-19. Along with the aforementioned twins will be dub poets Lillian Allen and Clifton Joseph, Vancouver’s famous Celtic-rock group Spirit of the West, England’s Billy Bragg and quite a number of other topical and popular performers. Tickets are available, for a variety of prices, from VTC/CBO centres. 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 15, 1987