B.C. Tel
takeover
pressed

Plans for peace action mapped |

A trade union peace committee -

may soon becomea reality after the
B.C. Peace Council sits down with
the B.C. Federation of Labor to

discuss peace issues, fulfilling a

|
|
i

: pledge both organizations made at
Continued from page 1 a peace conference held in Vancou-

a extremely provocativething | er last weekend.
‘a = B.C. Federation director of wo-
€ union has stated that the | 1 en’s programs, Astrid Davidson

company offer made through
Kelly was never made seriously
and has laid an unfair labor

Sas before the Labor Rela- | the future for a more detailed look &

ons Board, charging B.C. Tel | + the question (of peace).””

with failing to bargain in good :
faith, The conference, sponsored by | 3 i eg ly Cha:  ¢

TWU vice-president George
Yawrenko told the Tribune
Wednesday that the union was
hoping for an expedited hearing
on the charge either Friday or
early next week.

Meanwhile, the TWU has ex-
calated picketing of various
agencies allied to B.C.
Telephone, including banks
which have been accepting pay-
Ment of B.C. Tel bills and
‘buildings and other sites where
B.C. Tel supervisors have at-
tempted to do the company’s
work.

Some of the banks have co-
Operated although the biggest
banks, including the Bank of
Montreal and the Bank of Com-
merce, have limited acceptance
of payments but are still taking
them from account holders.

On the other side, B.C. Tel,
while maintaining its intransi-
gence at the bargaining table,
has continued to turn to the
courts in an effort to block the
picketing which is becoming in-
creasingly effective. An injunc-
tion hearing to prevent picket-
ing of supervisors’ homes was to

Tesume Friday and a further bid }

by B.C. Tel to restrict picketing
throughout the province was
also expected.

Also this week, the Com-
munist Party called on the pro-
vincial government to take ac-
tion at the new session of the leg-
islature, opening March 9, “‘to
nationalize this U.S.-owned
Company which has the poorest
and most expensive service
Phone service and the worst set
of labor-management relations
In the country.”

Provincial CP leader Maurice
Rush said that the demand of
the company for CRTC ap-
Proval of a new rate increaseas a
condition of a collective agree-
ment “‘is the last straw.

“Obviously this company’s
greed is matched only by its ar-
Togance. The public has had
€nough,”’ he declared.

He emphasized that public
Ownership would make possible
lower rates, better service and
better labor management rela-
tions,

The TWU has also waged a
Camaign for public ownership
of B.C. Tel with a petition anda
Sticker saying ‘‘Nationalize
B.C. Tel Now” distributed
Widely throughout the province.

Rush urged public pressure
On the legislature to pass a reso-
lution demanding that B.C. Tel
Settle with the TWU on the basis
of the mediation agreement and
take steps to nationalize the tele-
Phone company.

He also cited the ‘‘special re-
sponsibility”? of the NDP to
Press for the nationalization.

‘The NDP endorsed nationali-
zation of B.C. Tel at its last pro-
vincial convention but Dave
Barrett has maintained it is nota
top priority.

_ “The present crisis has made
ita top priority,”” Rush insisted.

the B.C. Peace Council, was one of 5

the most widely representative in
years, drawing 190 delegates and
observers for two days of work-
shops and a final plenary. Dele-
gates came from a range of organi-
zations including the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor, the Vancouver and
Nanaimo labor councils, the Com-
munist Party, the Union of Spirit-
ual Communities of Christ, the
Vancouver-Little Mountain NDP
constituency, and peace councils,
anti-nuclear, solidarity and envir-
onmental groups from around the
province. F

NDP MP Nelson Riis (Kam-
loops-Shuswap) sent written greet-
ings “‘publicly endorsing the aim
and principle”’ of the conference as
did the Asian Buddhist Conference
for Peace.

Asense of urgency distinguished
the conference from the very first
moments when B.C. Peace Coun-
cil vice-president Bert Ogden de-
clared in his opening remarks,
‘“‘Never before in our whole history
has the entire human race been in
such peril.

“Thousands upon thousands of
strategic nuclear weapons are pres-
ently deployed in many parts of the
world with the potential of killing
every man, woman and child sev-
eral times over and many, many
more are in the planning stage.”’

Ogden took special aim at prime
minister Trudeau who, despite his
“fine statements about suffocating
the arms race at the UN special ses-
sion on disarmament in 1978, has
maintained Canada as the world’s
ninth largest exporter of arms.

“As if this was not bad enough,
we now have our national defence

Close to 200 people packed the Plaza 600 Hotel in Vancouver Saturday for the opening session of the

B.C. Peace Council's weekend conference. Above, vice-chairman Bert Ogden delivers the opening ad-

dress.

minister Gilles Lamontagne appar-
ently bent on leading Canada down
the road to cold war and brinkman-
ship,” Ogden declared, quoting
Lamontagne’s statement that ‘‘the
west must develop nuclear wea-
pons, including the neutron bomb,
as a deterrent to Soviet
aggression.”

The conference was also the oc-
casion of elections to the Peace
Council’s executive, broadened
considerably by representatives
from groups which have sprung up
around the province in response to
the new threats posed by the nuc-
lear.arms race.

Carmela Allevato, a lawyer and
COPE aldermanic candidate in the
1980 Vancouver election, was elect-
ed as the Council’s new president,
and Bert Ogden, welfare director
of the United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union was returned as
vice-president.

Re-elected as table officers were:
Rosaleen Ross, secretary; Minnie
Searle, treasurer; and Ed Hendel,
recording secretary. Newcomers to
the Council as executive members-
at-large were Lorne Robson, secre-
tary of the B.C. Council of Car-
penters and delegate to the recent
World Parliament of Peoples for
Peace in Sofia, Bulgaria, and stu-
dent Steve Weir.

The Council will be fully func-
tioning, said Allevato, when re-
gional peace committees in Vic-

toria, Nanaimo, Courtenay-Co-
mox, Kamloops-Shuswap and
Grand Forks choose regional vice-
presidents to the Council. Already
named as regional vice-presidents
are Bev Gidora from the Fraser
Valley and Eila Male from Haney.

Both the conference and the
elections reflected the heightened
new role of the B.C. Peace Council
around the province. It was appar-
ent that the renewed concern for
peace by the delegates was sparked
not only by the election of Reagan
and his hawkish government, but
by increased movement in Cana-
dian foreign policy toward a similar
war hawk philosophy.

External affairs minister Mark
McGuigan’s recent public state-

CARMELA ALLEVATO . . . new
B.C. Peace Council president.

ment, following talks with U.S.
secretary of state Alexander Haig,
that he had been given ‘‘reason to
pause’’ before opposing U.S. inter-
vention in El Salvador flew in the
face of information relayed to him
by people like Rev. John Hillborn.

Hillborn, a United Church of
Canada minister, went on a fact-
finding mission to El Salvador and
gave a moving account to the con-
vention of the situation there.

He said ‘‘there was no centre
line’”’ and that the struggle was be-
ing waged “‘by anelite few againsta
broad popular front composed of
many, many interested groups, in-
cluding students, teachers, peas-
ants, small businessmen, trade un-
ions and professionals.”’

A resolution was passed by the
conference expressing solidarity
with the El Salvadorean people
fighting the military junta and a
telegram, was sent to prime min-
ister Trudeau opposing the federal
government’s decision to send a
representative to celebrate Chilean
dictator Pinochet’s assumption of
perpetual rule.

The long-standing demand that
Canada get out of NATO and
Norad was reiterated and a resolu-
tion supporting all those struggling
for peace and detente, passed un-
animously.

Newport warns rally of U.S. Ist strik

“The first 30 days of the new
Reagan administration have been
terrifying,” Berkeley mayor Gus
Newport told over 500 people at a
peace rally in Vancouver Sunday.

“The true centre of the Reagan
budget is to explode the levels of de-
fence spending,” he said, noting
that last year’s $197 billion budget
has been boosted 30 per cent to
$224 billion.

Newport, who heads a progress-
ive 5-4 majority on California’s
Berkeley city council, was the key
speaker at the rally which was the
climax of a two-day peace confer-
ence sponsored by the B.C. Peace
Council.

Newport said that it was appar-

’ ent by the new Reagan budget that

a first-strike nuclear war by the
U.S. “‘is on the boards. ‘

“I hope Congress will stop it. If
not, the peace movement will be
back on the streets,’’ he warned.

He denounced Reagan’s “*scat-
tershot approach”’ to reviving the
U.S. economy through tax cuts,
slashed social programs and in-
creased defence spending becauset
will only ‘‘exacerbate social and
economic tensions.”

For instance, the much touted

tax cuts will benefit most those with
incomes of $40,000 or more*and
mean next to nothing for those on
low and fixed incomes. People who
earn $200,000 a year will enjoy a
$10,000 to $20,000 reduction in
their taxes while those earning
$14,-000 a year will get a tax break
of only $100 to $200.

This approach, meant to “‘mag-
ically” create jobs and increase in-
dustrial productivity, will make the
“rich get rich quicker.’’ On the
other hand, the poor have been
given “‘blind faith’’ to substitute
for vital food stamps, job training,
job creation and equal opportun-
ities programs, he said.

Newport himself is something of
a unique figure in U.S. politics. An
executive member of the U.S.
Peace Council and delegate to the
World Peace Council in Helsinki,
he also took part in two extraordin-
ary conferences, one in Havana
where the representatives of the
non-aligned countries accused the
capitalist countries of getting weal-
thy ‘‘on their backs,”’ and another
in Mexico, where the struggle by
Puerto Rico for independence
from the U.S. was the subject of
discussion.

“‘My black experience, I see, is
analogous in many respects to the
experience of those in the third
world nations,’’ he commented at
one point.

Since Newport’s election to Ber-
keley council as mayor in April
1979, along with four other pro-
gressives, that council has passed
motions opposing the draft and the
increased war budget, as well as in-
itiating a number of solidarity ac-
tions for South Africa and El Sal-
vador.

“‘Berkeley was and is in the fore-
front of the civil rights, anti-war
and women’s liberation move-
ment,’’ he said, adding that they
were successful because of strong

grassroots coalitions, and citizen

input into the council’s 26 commit-
tees.

His announcement that Berke-
ley council doesn’t do business with
banks that invest in South Africa,
drew cheers from the crowd. There
was an even more enthusiastic re-
sponse when he talked about the
“tremendous spinoffs’? from a
press conference he and congress-
man Ron Dellums held at which
they called for an immediate end to
ue. arms shipments to El Salva-

or.

‘“We made the decision after be-
ing approached by an El Salvador
support committee last fall,’’ New-
port said.

In January, the International
Longshoremen’s and Warehouse-

‘men’s Union, along with other la-

bor and church groups announced
at another press conference that the
ILWU was boycotting all arms
shipments to El Salvador.

“This kind of activity created
important links among groups, in-
cluding church, labor, community
and solidarity groups,’ he said. “‘It
will be this kind of broad coalition,
only bigger, that will have to gear
up for Reagan and his ‘clones’ per-
haps, and move beyond reaction
(to events). ;

“The time is ripe for finding al-
lies, not in a short burst of anger
but in a longer, more persistent
struggle.”’

Newport also confided about a
personal dream of founding a fully
accredited ‘peace institute’ at Berk-
eley — the home of the University
of Southern California.

“Young people have to know
about wars, treaties, how they were
violated and the economic impacts
of war spending,” he said.

“2 as PACIFIC. TRIBUNE—FEB. 27, 1981—Page'3