Guin ES Core

The unemployed on Vancouver Island
will be marching on the provincial
legislature Apr. 9 to dramatize the jobless
crisis in the province and to demand
government action for jobs.

The action is being organized by the

~ Vancouver Island labor councils—at
Campbell River, Port Alberni, Nanaimo
and Victoria—and by the B.C. Coalition
of the Unemployed which takes in various
unemployed groups including the
ization of Unemployed Workers in
Port Alberni and the Campbell River
Committee of the Unemployed.

Although Apr. 9 is a Saturday when the
legislature will not be open even if a session
has. been called, the weekend date will
enable unionists to take part to
demonstrate their support for the
unemployed.

And even before the day of the rally,
scores of jobless workers will begin to con-
verge on Victoria from northern Van-
couver Island.

A march from Nanaimo to Victoria is
scheduled to leave Apr. 4 from Nanaimo
and rallies are being organized in various
centres along the route, including Duncan
and Ladysmith.

Contingents of marchers will also be
coming to Nanaimo from Port Alberni
and Campbell River. They will leave con-
siderably earlier in order to be in Nanaimo
by Apr. 4.

Jobless to m

The march and rally has been endorsed
by the B.C. Federation of Labor.

Elsewhere in the province, unemployed
organizations are being urged to call rallies
and demonstrations in their own centres to
coincide with the Vancouver Island pro-
test. :

The Vancouver and District Labor
Council’s unemployed committee has
scheduled a rally tentatively for Op-
penheimer Park in downtown Vancouver.
The park, formerly known as the Powell
Street Grounds, was the site of numerous

Unemployed march in Victoria Apr. 5, 1982

es

demonstrations during the 1930s including
the monster rally in 1938 which followed
the police eviction of the single
unemployed occupying the Vancouver
Post Office. -

The unemployed committee plan to pre-
sent a jobs program from the platform at
the rally. :

Other labor councils including the
Shuswap-Columbia Labor Council and
the Prince Rupert and District Labor
Council are also reportedly considering ac-
tions for the same day. ‘

IWA conference targets

The unernationa’ Woodworkers wage
and contract conference last week rejected
repeated employer demands for concessions
and called for a substantial ‘‘across-the-

board wage increase to maintain and im-
prove the standard of living of our
members,”’ in a one-year agreement.

The conference was closed to the media
but delegates confirmed later that the vote
on the wage resolution was unanimous.

Some 150 delegates from locals

_ throughout IWA Region 1 attended the

three day contract conference which outlines

demands for bargaining on the union’s
_ Master agreement whic!. <xpires June 30.

_ Together with the wa, xe will go a de-
mand for a “‘triggered” cost-of-living ad-

justment (COLA) clause to protect IWA
wages from inflation.

The union’s bargaining position was
hammered out amidst a drumfire of conces-
sion propaganda from Forest Industrial
Relations, bargaining arm of the forest
giants, which has stated repeatedly in recent
weeks that woodworkers should be prepared
to accept a three-year agreement with a wage
freeze for the first year.

Last year, FIR pressed the forest unions to
forego the June wage increase and more
recently, has demanded that the IWA make
concessions at its shingle mills in the Fraser
Valley. Both demands have been rejected.

“Our members have to pay higher prices
for gas, too,’” IWA president Jack Munro

wage hike

said, pointing to the latest increases forced
by the federal oil pricing agreement, as an ex-
ample of continually escalating living costs.

He added that the employers’ pressure for
concessions “‘infuriated”’ the delegates at the

_ conference.
Among some 30 resolutions adopted by

the contract conference were demands for:

e Improvements in dental plan coverage,
health and welfare plan benefits;

e The establishment .of a union--

administered safety fund;

e The establishment of a plan for sup-
plemental unemployment benefits, paid for
by the employer, to supplement UI benefits
during times of unemployment;

e Improvements in pensions.

M-B pressured to open Chemainus

Forest giant MacMillan Bloedel has so far
agreed only to ‘‘go back to the drawing
board”’ but continuing public pressure could
force the company to reconsider the future

_ Of its Chemainus sawmill, slated to be shut
down permanently Apr. 24.

More than 200 laid off Chemainus
workers, members of the Local 1-80 of the
International Woodworkers waited outside
the offices of the North Cowichan Regional
District Monday as M-B chairman Calvert
Knudsen met with municipal officials ‘and
MDP MLA Barbara Wallace who pressed
the company to reopen the mill and save the
jobs of some 600 woodworkers.

Knudsen gave no commitments on either

re-Opening or construction of a new mill
when he emerged from the meeting. But he
did agree that local management would sit
down with the union to see if an alternative
can be found.

Knudsen’s agreement to consider the issue
was no doubt prompted by the campaign
mounted by the [WA local and local officials
who in turn has urged the provincial govern-
ment to put an ultimatum to M-B: re-open
the mill of lose the timber rights.

In fact, Socred forest minister Tom
Waterland had put such an ultimatum. to
Knudsen in an earlier meeting Monday, call-
ing on the M-B president to provide some
commitment for future employment at Che-

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 11, 1983—Page 12

mainus before the scheduled closure date or —

timber cutting rights would be taken away
and given to ‘‘another company that is will-
ing to build a mill in the area.

“‘T would like a commitment before ter-
mination notices take effect whether that’s
Apr. 24 or whether they extend it,”’ he said.
“I want a commitment for that site, either
M-B or a joint venture.”

M-B informed IWA members Feb. 23
that the mill would be closed permanently
but the union’s collective agreement
stipulates that 60 days notice must be given,
putting the effective termination date at
Apr. 24. However, the plant has not
operated since last May.

Not mentioned by Waterland was acom- -.

mitment he was reported to have received
from Noranda at the time of its takeover of
M-B, that all existing plans for expansion
and modernization would be honored.

The Chemainus mill, originally built in
the 1920s, was slated for a $78 million
modernization program at the time of the
Noranda takeover. But the company has
reneged on the agreement—even though
M-B was investing millions in new plant con-
struction in Alabama.

The IWA is to begin meetings with local
M-B management next Monday to discuss
the future of the plant.

lass

repeat seen

Continued from page 1

nal affairs of the Salvadorean people.”
Several U.S. Congressional, represe”
tatives have also taken issue with the
Reagan administration over its prosition:
Senator Claiborne Pell (Democrat
Rhode Island) a member of the Foreig?”
Relations Committee, charged thal
the administration, ‘“‘By proposile
more aid, by considering sendils
more advisors by refusing to supP
negotiations with the guerillas, is heagum
into a senseless search for a military S®
tion.”’
In the House of Representatives, 1owé
Democrat Jim Leach charged Mat
that Reagan was proposing ‘‘ml
money, more guns, more bullets and ni
more advisors whose non-combat role
ominously, said to be ‘under review’.
California Democrat George Millet
told the House: “I think it is an outrage
that the president is considering sen
additional Americans to El Salvador.
deliberately circumventing the authority
of Congress. We've already had ont
American shot in El Salvador. What we
need is to find a path for a peaceful setU*
ment, not a way to deepen our involve
ment there.” s
Adding to Congressional fears welt
reports that Reagan may seek to delivel
the $60 million in aid from a special con”
tingency fund which he could tap without
approval of Congress. el
Miller also warned the House the pro"
posal to re-define the role of U.S. ad
visors in El Salvador “could lead to U.S:
participation in the civil strife in the Cen”
tral American nation.” a
That warning has been echoed by
many as the parallels with the road t0
U.S. involvement in Vietnam stand 0!
more starkly. . ‘
Pell referred directly to Vietnam,
stating that Reagan’s actions ‘‘remind me
a lot of Vietnam.” He added, ‘In Bl
Salvador we are backing a government
that is not popular, just as we did in Viel
nam. Also, as in Vietnam, our respons
to guerilla successes is to step up military
aid and to inch towards greater U.S. 1
volvement.”’ a
Newspaper columnists supporting
Reagan’s policies—including one whos¢
column was picked up by the Vancouvel
Province March 6—have discounted sug”
gestions that El Salvador could become
another Vietnam, but the historical
parallels are unmistakeable.
In an editorial March 5, the U.S. week-

_ ly People’s World cited the example of

Vietnam in 1964 under General Minh
who was overthrown with U.S. backing
in order to block negotiations with the
National Liberation Front of South Viet-
nam, :
At each step, whenever a military

_ stalemate was reached and pressure

mounted for negotiations, the editorial

stated, ‘“‘the U.S....sabotaged the

possiblity of negotiations by
the fighting.”
The paper also: likened the U.S. at-
tempts to base its actions in El Salvador
on a “Soviet threat”? and to turn local
wars in to a regional conflict between
“east and west,”’ following the pattern set
during the Vietnam war.

. Similarly, it noted, sham elections have
been used as a justification for escalating
the fighting, as was the case when Nguyen
Van Thieu came to power in Saigon.
Reagan is urging quick elections in Hl
Salvador, knowing that the results could
only favor the right as long as govern-
ment sanctioned death squads control the
balloting process.

The editorial urged ‘‘a massive out-

_ pouring of protest...to block the politics

of escalation and to allow a peaceful
resolution of the conflict.

“It is critically important that we move
quickly,”’ it urged.