$40,000 - target for 1975 drive

$40,000 will mean a better Pacific
Tribune. This is our objective.

April 1 will begin the largest fund
raising drive ever in our paper's 40
year history.

The energetic, live campaign
needed to raise that sum will
mean a bigger Pacific Tribune.

Between April 1 and June 14 we
aim to raise $40,000,

Over the next two months our
drive columns will chart the
progress of the campaign. Watch
for details of the major contests,
awards and special events which
we sponsor during the drive.

A mammoth task, yes; but
necessary if we are to succeed in
making our 40th anniversary year
one of growth.

We have had three major increases
in our operating costs already this

year — and more are coming. We call on our supporters to make

the drive a success. Every
donation, big and small, must be
collected. Fund raising events of
every kind must be planned.

But> still, the quickly moving
political events in B.C. demand
that we expand and improve our
coverage of the home front.

There is no doubt that it can be
done. We have both the need and ~
the means; we ask you to see that -
we raise $40,000.

For that reason we have added a
-sixth page of B.C. news. We will
need every cent of $40,000 to

maintain it.

AQ) years

fighting for labor’s needs

Civic workers demand parity ©

By JACK PHILLIPS

The longshoremen’ struck all
_ British Columbia ports on March 1.
It was announcéd March 17 that
negotiators for the union and the
employers had agreed on a set-
tlement, subject to ratification by
the principals.

The General Trades and Labor
Sroup of the Public Service
Alliance of Canada has _ been
Staging a series of rotating strikes
these past few weeks and it is now
Teported they are close to set-
tlement.

In both cases, the militancy of
the workers was complemented by
Other pressures. Powerful
€conomic groupings and their
Political spokesman in Parliament
Were clamoring for a settlement.
Obviously the closure of the Pacific
Port and the disruption of mail
Service and airline scheduling has
4 considerable effect on the
€conomic life of this country:

_ Let us compare those situations
With that of some eight thousand
Municipal and school board em-
Ployees who have been involved in
€Scalating strikes and lockouts for
Some two months. These disputes
ave not generated the pressures
for settlement that surfaced in the
longshore and PSAC strikes.

In Victoria, 250 outside civic
Workers went on strike in January.

he inside workers honored the
Picket lines and the surrounding
Municipalities locked out their
Municipal employees. Then the
Manual and trades workers of the

reater Victoria school board
Struck and the clerical workers

Onored their picket lines. Some
2,000 Greater Victoria municipal
and school board employees are
Mvolved, .

In Surrey, 750 inside and outside
Municipal employees are on a full-
Seale strike, after a series of

rotating job actions failed to
generate conditions for a
negotiated settlement. The
municipal council has taken the
position that it can afford to sit out
the strike for two, three or four
months. The Surrey mayor has
publicly stated there will be no
settlement before an agreement is
reached in Greater Vancouver,
involving 5,000 municipal workers
in Vancouver, Burnaby, New
Westminster, North Vancouver,
Delta and Richmond, where job
actions have been escalating over
the past two weeks.

Then came the' strike of 93 out-
side workers employed by the
Vancouver School Board. With 111
elementary, secondary and special
schools in Vancouver, they are
hard pressed to maintain their
picket lines and only 46 schools are
being picketed at the time of
writing. Other unions, involving
close to 1,000 members,. are
honoring the picket lines. One of
these unions, the Vancouver and
Regional Employees Union (in-
dependent) has some 600 members
affected by the dispute and is also
involved in the Greater Vancouver
municipal negotiations along with
the Canadian Union of Public
Employees.

It would appear that the lack of
public pressure to settle the
municipal disputes has prompted
the leaders of the 93 Vancouver
school board employees, members
of CUPE local 407, to launch their
strike. Reportedly, their
estimation is that the municipal
settlement in Vancouver will not be
an early one and that perhaps
Local 407 can do better on its own.
They hope to bring the school
system to a halt, thus building up
pressure for an early settlement.

There is also a strong feeling in
political circles that the municipal

councils of metropolitan Van-
couver and Victoria have prepared
for long strikes in order to save
enough money on wages to finance
any negotiated increases in pay
scales and benefits for the balance

of the year.
The two key unions involved —
CUPE and the Vancouver

Municipal and Regional Em-
ployees Union — are doing their
best to coordinate ‘all of their ac-
tions, but it is obvious that the
employers have gone much farther

board employees against any token
increase.

One of the key issues in dispute in
the Greater Vancouver joint
negotiations is the demand for a
cost-of-living allowance clause
(COLA) in addition to a substantial
wage increase.

Last time around (early in 1974)
the municipal negotiators took the
position they could not agree to a

COLA because very few labor

contracts had this provision. Now
that it has become much more

negotiations? In a report to all
municipal council members dated
March 7, we find the following:
“The basic thrust of the GVRD
effort has been, and is to maintain
a unified position which is as cool, -
as calm and as flexible as the
unions’ provocation will permit,
but which will provide the councils
with the opportunity to react in
unison and at short notice if the
provocation reaches intolerable
proportions.”

In short, it appears they are

THE CIVIC WORKERS’ CASE

Classification ~Municipal Rate
“LABORER $4.52-1/2 per hour
TRADESMAN $6.12-1/2 per hour

CLERK-TYPIST

$540 per month

B.C. Hydro Rate
*$6.07 per hour
*$8.21 per hour
$698 per month

B.C. Tel Rate
*$5.75 per hour
*$7.21-1/2 per hour
*$577 per month

B.C. Hospital Rate
$6.06 per hour
$8.19-1/2 per hour
$716.82 per month

*New Rate to be Negotiated in 1975

in coordinating their efforts.
However, workers learn in
struggle and this appears to be one
of those. situations where unity has
to be fought for every inch of the
wayne

Two elements have added highly
combustible fuel to this situation.
First, there is the rapidly in-
creasing cost of living, with no end
in sight. Second, the great
disparity between the wages of

municipal and school board em-.

ployees, on the one hand, and those
of provincial government, B.C.

Hydro and hospital employees on

the other.

Adding additional fuel is the fact
that settlements in private in-
dustry last year ran much higher
than those among municipal and
school board. employees who
settled early in the year, or who
had settled in 1973 for a two-year
agreement. The general pattern of
wage settlements since January 1
this year has further stiffened the
resolve of municipal and school

common, and is part of provincial
government, B.C. Hydro and
hospital agreements, they have
changed their tune. They are op-
posed to it now because, they say it
would destroy the principle of “‘fair
comparison’’ and would place the
municipal councils in a position of
having to find money they hadn’t

budgeted for. Both arguments are

superficial and the municipal
employees are not buying them.
Municipal employees are the
victims of inflation and rising
prices, not the cause. It is the
responsibility of elected councils to
meet the legitimate demands of
their employees and to arrange
their budgets in such a way as to
provide for COLA payments.
What are the intentions of the
Greater Vancouver Regional
District Labor Relations Depart-
ment, the bargaining agency for
the municipalities — in

joint .

trying to provoke an all-out con-
frontation with the unions, even
though union spokesmen have
publicly stated the unions’
demands are negotiable. This
reflects the line of the Employers’
Council of British Columbia, an
anti-labor, big business line. The
majority of municipal council
members involved are Socreds,
Liberals, Conservatives or anti-
labor types without a label. The
trade union movement should
throw its full weight behind the
municipal employees and demand
a return to the bargaining table
with a more reasonable attitude on
the part of the councils. If there has
to be an intensification and
widening of these struggles, then it
should be with full support of the
trade union movement. The
general public should be kept fully
informed of the issues involved and .
of all developments.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 1975—Page 3