KOJI FUJITA (left), TERUMI TANAKA ...-

'sarmament.

campaigning for nuclear
—Richard Morgan photo

Japanese delegation
urges N-weapons ban

Eight members of the Japan
Council Against A and H Bombs
Were in Vancouver last week on the
final leg of a North American tour
Which took them to the United

ations to demand the complete
elimination of nuclear weapons.

Koji Fujita, chairman of the
Chugoiku district of the trade and
- dustry workers union, told a
Teception hosted by the Vancouver
and District Labor Council and the

Nited Fishermen and Allied

orkers Union,. that the ‘major
Purpose of our visit to North

erica is to. urge the United
ations to place a complete ban on
huclear weapons and denounce
them as crimes _ against
humanity.” xt

Jujita said that until such a
Complete banning of nuclear
Weapons could be achieved, the

€panese delegation had sub-
Mitted a draft convention to the
United Nations which would
Prohibit the use of nuclear
Weapons. The third objective of the
delegation was to urge the United

ations to set ‘“‘the earliest
Possible date for the World
isarmament Conference to be
Called” and finally the delegation
asked for UN. support for a world
Symposium on the ‘facts and
Teality of the bombings of
hav estima and Nagasaki’ which

4S been scheduled for 1977.

Jujita said that though it has
can 31 years since the bombings

the two Japanese cities “the
Tealities of the situation and after
“tects of the bombings have never
en revealed as proper study of
€situation has been prohibited.”
€ stressed that it was important
at the world: finally become
aWare of the total effects of nuclear
Weapons,

The Japanese delegation was
Unable to meet with UN Secretary

“neral Kurt Waldheim, Jujita
ey but they did meet with both

under secretary general
Arkady Shevchenko, and the
President of the current session of
€ UN general assembly. “Both
©xpressed their full support for our
Project” Fujita said.
ile in Vancouver, the
delegation presented the United
tes counsul general with an
appeal urging the U.S. to cancel
€ Trident submarine project at

‘ngor, Washington.

The United States is acting as
_ theleader of nuclear proliferation,
es American governmental
faders have adopted a first strike
attitude.’ Fujita warned ‘These
Same leaders claim that their
€feat in Vietnam was a result of
mot using nuclear weapons.

Our people are actively fighting

IS attitude, as must people

everywhere. We are here in
Vancouver to ask your support in
our campaign.”’

UFAWU secretary treasurer
Jack Nichol assured the Japanese
delegation that the Canadian labor
movement was in support of their
campaign, and pledged that those
present at the reception will, ‘“‘as
labor leaders, work to help stop the
spread of nuclear weapons.”

Nichol added that “‘all too often
Canadians may have grown
complacent”’ on the question of the
presence of the Japanese
delegation will ‘‘arouse the sen-
timent of the Canadian people
against nuclear weapons.”

Planned Kitimat pipeline

an ‘ecological disaster’

Five environmental groups and
the United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union have joined forces
to oppose a proposed oil pipeline
which would carry oil from
Kitimat to Edmonton.

The five groups; the Sierra Club,
the Society for Pollution and En-
vironmental Control (SPEC), the
Islands Protection Committee, the
B.C. Wildlife Federation and the
B.C. Federation of Naturalists
have all stated that the pipeline, if
constructed, would ‘‘guarantee
ecological disaster” to Canada’s
west coast.

In addition to the opposition from
both the UFAWU and the en-
vironmental groups, the Prince
Rupert city council voted to oppose
the location of. such a_ pipeline
anywhere along the north coast of
B.C.

The proposed pipeline, which
would take oil delivered by
supertanker from Prudhoe Bay in
Alaska, the Middle East and In-
donesia, and transport it through to
Edmonton first came to public
attention in August of this year

“when Ken Hall, president of Trans

Mountain Pipelines presented his
company’s plans to a meeting of
the Kitimat-Stikine regional
district board.

Though not specifically men-
tioned by Trans Mountain, the
probability is that most of the oil
carried through the proposed
Kitimat-Edmonton pipeline would
be destined for Middle American
states. Already Trans Mountain
operates an Edmonton-U.S.
pipeline.

Though the ultimate destination
will be the U.S., the provincial

government has pledged its sup-
port for the northern B.C. pipeline.

Hall: said that the oil would be
carried from both Alaska and the
Middle East aboard super tankers,
some as large as 350,000 tons,
which would then have to navigate
the dangerous Douglas Channel
into the Kitimat Harbor. He said
that the only other location which
had been seriously considered was
Port Angeles, Washington, but he
felt that Kitimat was a_ better
choice, particularly in light of the
fact that if a spill occurred in the
Port Angeles area. it would
seriously harm the heavily used
beaches just outside of Victoria.

Though the major consideration
of the pipeline opponents is the fact
that an oil spill would prove to be a
disaster for the Pacific coast, a
number of people, including
Liberal MP Iona Campagnolo have
expressed. reservations over the
fact that Canada would receive
very little benefit if the pipeline
were to be constructed according
to the present plans.

Though Hall had assured the
Kitimat-Stikine Regional Board
that Trans Mountain would be
conducting a thorough study of all
of the implications which the
pipeline construction would have
for the Kitimat area, a preliminary
report from the land use
secretariat in Victoria points out
that both of Trans Mountain’s
environmental consultants have
only undertaken the barest of all
possible studies and have stated
that they will need another 12 to 16
months to complete a proper en-

vironmental impact study for both
the marine and terrestial en-
vironment. :

The land use.secretariat noted
that the location of an oil tanker
terminal in Kitimat, which would
handle both Middle East and In-
donesian crude oil makes ‘‘the
entire west coast of Vancouver
Island, the mid coast, and the north
coast of B.C.’’ vulnerable to oil
spills. No study has been un-
dertaken as to whether or not the
construction of the Kitimat-
Edmonton pipeline will eliminate
theneed for Puget Sound oil tanker
traffic, but the secretariat points
out that both navigation and
climate are much more difficult in
the Douglas Channel area than
through the Straits of Juan de
Fuca, and in fact winds alone were
twice the velocity through Douglas
Channel. ’

The secretariat noted that Trans
Mountain's consultantants had not
determined the probability of oil
spills but had “‘in fact considered
spills to be inevitable.”

As well, the majority of the
benefits to the Northern Coastal
area in terms of employment and
increased business volume appear
to be “‘short term”’ the secretariat
said. ‘‘There will be little ongoing
employment, and in fact the social
impacts caused by the transient
construction force could be
severe,’’ the report noted.

“Unless the Trans Mountain
proposal can be modified to
decrease the volume of traffic
through the southern tanker route,
it does not appear to be in the best
interests of either the area or the
province,” the report concluded.

Ottawa policy repudiated

‘Munro proposal

By MAURICE RUSH

‘Management role planned for
workers’? read the headlines
following the announcement by
labor minister John Munro in the
Commons Monday, Oct. 18, that
the federal government intends ‘‘to
promote the introduction of worker
participation at various levels.

Undoubtedly, Munro’s speech
was a response to labor’s October
14 Day of Protest and:was intended
to assure .the public that the
government is responsive to the
demands of the workers and is
planning to do something about it.
But a closer examination of
Munro’s speech shows it to be an

‘empty gesture devoid of any real

meaning. |

Hailed as a new Ottawa policy
under which the federal govern-
ment is moving to establish a form
of industrial democracy, Munro s
main proposal poils.down to this:
that the federal government is
looking for one Crown corporation
which would be willing to place one
or more workers on its board of
directors. Munro said he hopes to
find the “willing” Crown cor-
poration by the end of the year and
that the example thus set might in
time “demonstrate to the private
sector” that the system can work.

The labor minister’s speech also
revealed the limits of worker

participation Ottawa sees in its
new program for ‘industrial
democracy.” ‘‘There are three

areas (of worker participation) the
government wants to pursue,” said
Munro. “‘One is an institute for
occupational health and safety, the
second is measures to improve
opportunities for labor education,
andthe third is worker education.

This statement of the labor
minister, along with his proposal to
“find” a Crown corporation which
would admit a worker to its board
of directors, should disabuse
anyone in the labor movement of
the idea that the federal govern-
ment has any intention of ex-
tending to labor any important role
in the direction of the economy or
any meaningful part in the making
of decisions which bear heavily on
the interests of working people.

The policy announced by Ottawa
should make it clear to those in the
labor movement who advocate
tripartism — that is boards repre-
sentative of the government,
corporations and labor to make
policy decisions concerning
Canada’s economy — are barking
up the wrong tree. Neither the
federal government nor the big
corporations have any intention of
giving the workers a meaningful
role in running Canada’s economy
unless labor is strong enough to
force such decisions on them.

The federal government and
employer groups have for some
months been examining closely the
findings of Charles Connaghan,
former head of the Construction
Labor Relations Association,
whose study of industrial relations
in West Germany outlines how the
West German government and
corporations were able to enmesh
labor in various bodies which have
deprived labor of its militancy and
independence. They are trying to
extract from his study those
proposals which can achieve for
them similar results in Canadian
conditions.

The concept some people have —

‘empty gesture’

JOHN MUNRO ... his “industrial democracy” a sham.

including some labor leaders —
that it iff possible for labor to
participate as an equal partner on
tripartite boards with representa-
tives of a capitalist government
and the giant corporations is both
false and harmful for working
people. First of all it takes for
granted that governments are
above the struggle between labor
and capital whereas capitalist
governments are not impartial but
an instrument furthering ‘the in-
terests of the economically
dominant class in society.

From the beginning labor is
placed in the position of being odd
man out on such boards. Capitalist
governments and the corporations
have have also shown they have

—Sean Griffin photo

the knack to be able to get labor
men named to such boards who
have a similar ideological outlook
and usually end up being a tool for
furthering the interests of the big
corporations.

Certainly labor in Canada is fully
justified in demanding a greater
say by workers in all decisions
affecting the interests of the
country and the people. But that
new power for labor will come not
from a ‘partnership’? with the
corporations and _ capitalist
governments, but through its own
united strength and struggle to
nationalize the giant corporations
and bring about the election. of
governments based on labor. and
democratic forces in Canada.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 29, 1976—Page 3