Anti-tenant legislation
gets unanimous support

“Nothing in this legislation for tenants to applaud,” one te-
nant leader put it. Many long standing rights of tenants have
been stripped or put at the discretion of the Rentalsman. But
to the dismay of many, this legislation has passed unani-

Chiselling
on day care

In the face of a growing de-
mand for decent day care ser-
vices in Greater Vancouver,
available day care is on the

mously, page 3.

CIA's Caribbean base

A journalist with the Washington based “Covert Action Infor-
mation Bulletin’ told a public meeting in Bridgetown, Bar-
bados, that the West Indian island is the CIA’s major base in
the Caribbean. The Tribune’s Caribbean correspondent was

there, page 10

wT HORAW TH

IT
EN

&

WITHORAW
THE
PENSION
BILL

OUR
PENSIONS
ALONE

H OUR
SIONS.

wz ee eee ee

B.C. Government Employees president addressed a rally of some 6,000 people on the steps of the legis-
lature Monday as the campaign for withdrawal of the pension legislation culminated in a mass shut-
down of government offices and a march to the legislative buildings. The BCGEU met with Bennett
Tuesday and although the results of the meeting were not announced, an indication of the

government's stand was expecte

ac.
IMPLY ER LanuiIny

d at the end of the week.

Tag

we
BNC &.

Proposed salmon treaty will
cost Canada $1B in decade

The tentative agreement on a
new salmon interception treaty bet-
ween Canada and the U.S. worked
out in Vancouver last week will cost
Canada over $1 billion in lost
values if accepted by Parliament,
Unted Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union secretary treasurer
George Hewison warned this week.

The UFAWU’s general ex-
ecutive board met last weekend in
vancouver and had no choice but to
condemn the proposed agreement
as a sellout, Hewison told the
Tribune Monday.

Comparing the proposed treaty
to the Auto Pact and the Columbia
River Treaty, both of which cost
Canada hundreds of millions of
dollars and thousands of jobs, the
shih Spokesinan said that the
union Would campaign all across
Canada to block the approval of
the treaty by Parliament.

The UFAWU is considering
conducting a special referendum
among fishing industry workers to
demonstrate the overwhelming op-
position to the agreement, he said.

The terms of the agreement were
announced at a press conference in
Vancouver last Friday by Cana-

dian negotiator Dr. Michael
Shephard and U.S. negotiator Lee
Alverson.

Deliberately vague, the two
diplomats refused to acknowledge
outright that the U.S. currently en-
joysa wide imbalance in salmon in-

terception, and instead said that a

“study”? would be conducted to
determine what imbalance, if any,
exists.

The spokesmen went on to say
that both sides have agreed on the
principle that each country should
harvest the amount of fish which its

see SALMON page 3

TRIBUNE PHOTO—JACK PHILLIPS

decline. And those parents
who do have day care, and in
most cases run the centres
themselves, are finding their
day care centres on the verge
of bankruptcy, thousands of
dollars in debt. The continuing
crisis in Day Care, page 11.

Labor council
demands halt

on coal deal

Delegates to the Vancouver and
District Labor Council Tuesday
criticized the provincial govern-
ment’s action in seeking to ram
through the multi-billion dollar
coal deal in the Northeast and
demanded that the deal be stopped
until it has been fully debated
before a legislative committee.

An executive resolution
unanimously endorsed by the
meeting instructed the council to
wire premier Bennett demanding
‘“‘as a minimum, that no deal be
signed before the fullest possible
public debate before the ap-
propriate standing committee of
the legislature.”’

The resolution, which called on
the B.C. Federation of Labor to
take a similar position, also
declared that the labor council

would be prepared to appear:

before any committee named to
hear submissions.

It warned that the government
was “‘hastening to comply with a
Japanese-imposed deadline” on
the coal deal which, it said, ‘‘would
have serious ramifications for the
people of B.C.”

Those ramifications, it warned,
included massive expenditures for
rail lines and other infrastructures,
possible ‘‘irreparable environmen-

tal damage,’’ compromixing of In-
dian land claims and the export to
Japan of huge amounts of high
grade coal which is crucial to future
economic development in the pro-
vince as well as future energy needs.

‘‘We hear that the price to the
coal companies is going to be
around $70 a tonne,’’ Fishermen’s
union delegate George Hewison
told the meeting. ‘‘But what do we
get? Just a hole in the ground anda
lot of expenses.”

Deal ‘outrageous’
See page 3

He warned that the amount of
money the province would be ex-
pected to put up “‘will bein the hun-
dreds of millions of dollars — and
all to subsidize Japanese industry.”

‘“We have to ask why the deal is
being rushed through so fast,’’ he
said, ‘‘and why the negotiations
with the federal government broke
down.

“‘We can see something in the
works that is an even bigger sellout
than the Columbia River deal — a
deal that will sell out our coal and
our jobs with it.”

He said that the deal should be
put before a legislative committee
‘and let’s see if it serves our in-
terests.

Woodwards’ anti-union policy fuelling strike

By SEAN GRIFFIN

The strike'at Woodward’s Vic-
toria store may get “‘a lot hotter”’
over the next two to three weeks
— but if it does, a spokesman for
the Retail Clerks declared this
week, the blame will rest solely
with the company whose anti-
union policy initially provoked
the strike and has relentlessly
pushed it towards a major con-
frontation ever since.

As Retail Clerks Local 1518
secretary-treasurer Bryan Denton
told the Tribune Monday,
““Woodwards has been spending
thousands of dollars every day
trying to break the strike.”

Denton’s comments have been

echoed by virtually all trade
unionists who have had anything
to do with Woodward’s over the
year, including Bakery Workers
business agent Hugh Comber
whose union was pushed out by a
decertification vote when Wood-
ward’s carved up the bargaining
unit in 1976, and Meatcutters
president George Johnston who
stated bluntly last week: ‘“They
(Woodward’s) are doing
everything in their power to keep
union out...” .

And from the very beginning
of the current dispute — when the
food floor employees at the
Mayfair store in Victoria applied
for certification — Woodward’s

has been trying to keep the union
out.

The certification itself was a
particularly bitter fight as Wood-
ward’s ‘‘challenged everything all
down the line.”’ It sought to over-
turn the automatic certification
granted by the Labor Relations
Board and later charged that the
Retail Clerks had used
misrepresentation to sign up the
necessary members.

‘But the company never
substantiated a single charge,”
Denton pointed out, adding that
the challenge was part of Wood-
ward’s tactic of dragging out legal
proceedings, using the strategy of
‘protracted litigation.”

The strike itself has provided
demonstrable evidence of Wood-
ward’s approach. Significantly,
the issues in contention are not
major economic items since
Woodward’s has traditionally
paid union-scale wages and
benefits to blunt any union
organizing drive.

A fundamental point,
however, is union security —
Woodward’s has sought to have
the Rand formula applied. Under
the scheme, not all workers would
be required to join the union
although they would have to pay
dues.

But two benefits currently oc-

see STORE page 12