The employers flatly rejected this

@s at present until June 1970.

destruction of

demand.

PROFIT-GORGED
CORPORATIONS
REFUSE IWA
1969 WAGE HIKE

The IWA Regional Negotiating Committee unanimously proposed mutual agreement, as
Provided for in the Coast Master Agreement, to reopen wage negotiations in 1969 for a
12 per cent wage increase now nade possible by soaring industry profits and as neces-
Sary to relieve rising Cost-of-living pressures on the work force.

n Proposal, insisting, without good reason, that any such
wage increase was neither possible nor feasible and that the contract terms must remain

The Negotiating Committee members, without dissent, publicly condemned the attitude
of the employers as one of inordinate greed and in complete disregard of the employees’
welfare. They warned the employers that their policy will lead to loss of morale and the
sound employer-employee relations.

The Committee is unanimous in continuing to press for

acceptance of the Union's

The above leaflet stating the IWA’s case for a 1969 wage hike is being
distributed throughout the industry by the Regional Council. It calls on

woodworkers to be preapred to act.

‘Don't shop at Safeway’
appeal of grape strikers

“Please don’t shop at Safeway,”’

says an appeal

issued recently by the California grape strikers, who
have launched a continent-wide boycott of the
supermarket chain. The appeal Says:

Until Safeway announces
publicly that they will no longer
Sell California Table Grapes for
the duration of the Grape
Boycott, we ask the support of all
people with consciences for the
Farm Workers in their non-
violent struggle.for the right to
organize and to bargain demo-
cratically with their employers,
thus enjoying the rights that
other working people take for
granted.

In order to win their three-year-
old struggle, the Farm Workers
have been forced to ask their
friends all over this continent and
in Europe to boycott all
California Table Grapes. Various
markets in these areas are
Supporting us by refusing to sell
grapes. Safeway, the largest of
the chains on the continental
West Coast, has consistently
Supported the growers by selling
and promoting the sale of grapes
picked by strikebreakers.

Safeway is the largest seller of
grapes in the West, buying more
than 250 carloads of grapes,
worth over one million dollars in
Sales, from one grower alone.

Most of Safeway’s directors
are also directors of huge agri-
business corporations, and of
banks, utilities, and farm
implement companies that deal
with large growers. Some are
involved in the production of
grapes, bananas and Dole
products.

As the largest food buyer in the
West, Safeway’s near-monopoly
control of the food market is
forcing small farmers out of
business, and establishing
higher food prices. They have
been named in two anti-trust
Suits.

Safeway directors sit on the

Wine & Cheese
Party
Sat., May 31
8:30 P.M.
3365 Victoria Dr.

2 Decker Entertainment °
Proceeds: Pacific Tribune

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 23, 1969—Page 12

boards of companies which were
among the 10 largest
contributors to the Associated
Farmers, which fought farm
workers’ unions and broke
strikes through the mobilization
of local vigilante mobs and by
providing rancher-deputies to
county officials for the enforce-
ment of unconstitutional
Criminal Syndicalism laws.

Many smaller chains have told
us that would stop selling grapes
if Safeway did.

We are convinced that if
Safeway asked the intransigent
growers to settle with the Farm
Workers, they would do so.

Please don’t

JAMES M. MINIFIE, former CBC
correspondent in Washington,
D.C., and author of the book,
‘““Canada-Peacemaker or
Powdermonkey,” will chair the
public rally at the Kitsilano High
School, 10th and Larch, Wed., May
28 at 8 p.m. at which U.S. scientist
Dr. E.W. Pfeiffer will speak on
chemical and bacteriological
warfare in Vietnam. Dr. Pfeiffer
recently returned from South
Vietnam and will show a short
film and color slides of his tour.
The rally is sponsored by the Peace
Action League.

LABOR SCENE:

Shell plans scab service, —

to launch new price gouge

This week’s Vancouver and
District Labor Council (VLC)
heard a report from Oil,
Chemical and Atomic Workers
Union delegate R.T. Philp,
advising that Shell Oil Ltd. had
been served with a 72-kour strike
notice, and that in all prebability
the deadline for strike action
would come at 4 p.m. Friday of
this week.

The Oil Workers Union are in
negotiations for a new wage
contract with the six major oil
companies operating in B.C.
Negotiations which began back
in January have been stalled by
the oil companies and no
settlement reached. Shell has
made it obvious that it does not
want a peaceful settlement of
the dispute, and is gearing to run
its Burnaby refinery and
distributive operations with scab
labor.

Delegate Philp told VLC
delegates that, ‘Shell has given
us their clear indication that they
intend to take over (independent
of the union, Ed.) and run the

plant, and we are telling them.

take it over now’’.

Meantime, Gulf Oil had offered
the union a 25 to 21-cent wage
increase over a 2-year agreement
which has been rejected. The oil
workers are seeking a straight $1-
per hour increase, which
considered against rising oil
prices and profits, is regarded by
the majority of oil workers as
modest and justified.

Delegate Philp pointed out that
there is already talk among some
of the key people in the industry
of a price increase of a 1-cent per
gallon. “During the past 10-
years,”’ said Philp, oil company
profits have steadily gone up, and
a 1-cent per gallon increase now
would mean an additional $150-
million to their intake’.

The VLC voted full support to
the Oil Workers Union in their
struggle for a satisfactory wage
contract, and approved the Oil
Union’s decision to declare all
Shell refinery products as ‘‘hot’’.
Aside from Shell, companies
affected in the dispute include,

Gulf, Imperial, Home and
Standard Oil of B.C.
* * *

The California Grape boycott
took a long stride toward total
victory this week in various
areas of Canada. Here inB.C. the
British Columbia Federation of
Labor issued a press statement
this week declaring all California
table grapes ‘‘Hot’’ and urging
all affiliated unions, truckers,
warehousemen and food
workers in stores to refuse to
handle ‘“‘hot’’ grapes. ‘‘These are
steps which will assure a speedy
victory of the grape boycott,’’
said VLC secretary Paddy Neale.
VLC delegates voiced unanimous
approval of the BCFL position.

George Johnson, spokesmen
for the meat-cutters’ local of the
Canadian Food and Allied
Workers’ Union told the VLC that
the big chain distributors had all
but “‘slammed the door on nego-
tiations, that a 72-hour strike
notice had been served, with the
possibility of the food stores
involved retaliating with a
lockout. Seven big chain stores
are involved.in the dispute;

Safeway, Super-Valu, Dominion,
Shop-Easy, High-Low and Food
Fair.

The meatcutters are asking for
a $1.00 increase over the base
rate of $3.80 and a 4-day 36-hour
week, which the employers had
previously agreed to ‘‘consider’’
but which they have now reneged
on. In the event of a strike or
lockout forced upon the union by
the big chains, the VLC pledged

all possible assistance.
ok

Developments in the IWA
struggle for re-opening of the
IWA master contract to win an
additional 12-percent wage
increase over and above the 18-
cents payable June of this year
under the 1968 agreement were
highlighted last week by the
IWA’s Regional Executive
decision to ‘‘work to rule’’, and
“strictly in accordance with
contract terms, especially in
regard to hours of work’’.

Meantime, IWA workers in a
number of big operations (Crown
Zellerbach, Fraser Mills) last
week cancelled all overtime
work, with C-Z retaliating by
putting a number of workers ona
3 or 4 shift work week. A meeting
of IWA shop stewards at Fraser
Mills this week approved
continuation of the overtime ban
and urged their Regional
Executive to fight for an
extention of this policy.

The C-Z Nanaimo Lakes camp
have followed the lead of the
overtime ban, while M&B
operations at Kelsey Bay are ona
work stoppage as is the M&B
camp at Sayward, both involving
some 350 IWA men, and both
actions in protest of company
violations of contract provisions.

Meantime, of course, the letter
forwarded to IWA secretary of
the Regional Negotiating
Committee, Jack MacKenzie
from John Billings, spokesman
for Forest Industrial Relations
(FIR), provides its own brand of
cynical humor in its rejection of
the IWA request for a reopening
of the master agreement to
provide for a further 12% wage
increase to meet rising living
cost and in line with lumber
operator profits.

Welfare hit

About 30 to 35 pickets of the
Unemployed Citizens Welfare
Improvement Council picketed
the Vancouver Hotel last week,
where Health and Welfare
Minister John Munro was
speaking, to protest the
dehumanizing welfare system.

Banners carried by the pickets:
read. ‘‘Jobs for all,’’ ‘‘Where’s
medicare?’’ Other banners
protested the callous attitude of
the ‘“‘bureaucrats. 40 members
of the Council went into the
meeting.

A press statement released
this week by the UCWIC said

‘rising food costs, rents, clothing,

fuel, etc., are ‘‘withering away’’
welfare allowances.

On wage increases Billings e
very explicit, and very Be .
‘‘Wages’’, he says, “‘have eo
172-percent since 1950, ee
lumber has increaseil an at :
past, while prices sae
going down, wages i
increased sharply. As amal :
fact, prices are now 0
downward trend,” and so 0M. \-

On the question of ert
Billings is also emphatic, ©),
considerably less factual. -
is the duty of every Canadia +
assume his responsibl i
towards the cost of running ald
country and no employer shou!
be expected to reimburse i
employees for taxes levied poe
various branches of 809
ment.’’

how
If only that were true, ae
much smaller the wage ee i
tax load would be, direc

indirect and how - a
heavier the We 2
monopolist’s woul lings

important point which Bi
seems to have missed 1?

economic homily to the IWA-
** .

it, bul

Space does not ae the

there is every likelihood t
adamant position of the a
directors will force a strike ° :
workers, involved in the Oe
joint negotiations now in proce
between the Canadian ees
Public Employees (CUPE) @
the Municipal Indust
Relations Association (MIR
representatives of the mul
palities unless MIRA begins
bargain realistically.

MacMILLAN

Cont'd from pg. 1

cl

until he returns from his
racing stint in the U.S. Bre

There is no doubt that mil
of dollars will be donated by te
big monopolies to the ee
coffers to ensure that Poe é
resources policies — on ‘i be
they have grown fat — will
continued.

In the meantime, the Bente
government is running sa t
All indications were
Premier Bennett was al e
call a June election. His fal
to do so can only be attribute a
his fear that the Socred BONN Fi
ment would go: down to defeat The
snap election were held. + the
strong public reaction agains’ ind
film, ‘“‘The Good Life,”’ the ris

rial

ors

eens

j e, ¢
labor struggles in the provine’

t its
have
eeds
ding

and the strong feeling tha
time for a change, must
convinced Bennett that he
more time for fence-me?
before the election is called.
The labor and democr@ a
forces in B.C. have an ope '
tunity this time to bring abOv
change in policy and gover
ment in B.C. provided the wide
democratic and anti-monop?
forces are united aroun!
program for curbing the powe!
the giant monopolies, stopP!™
the giveaway of our reso
ane out anti-labor legislati®
and meeting the social needs

of

_ the people.

tic

urces: (2S