Medicare threatened With medical insurance prem- iums up 15 percent, hospital charges up 30 percent and doctors demanding a 30 per- » cent increase in fees — on the threat of direct billing of pa- tients — B.C.'s medicare sys- tem is in serious danger. The CU&C Health Services Soci- ety, the NDP and B.C. Federa- tion of Labor are sounding the alarm, page 3. Racism seen in shooting of U.S. Black The spectre of renewed violence against U.S. Black leaders, reminiscent of that dur- ing the civil rights campaigns of the 1960s, was raised again May 29 with the attempted murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana of Ver- non Jordan, Black president of the National Urban League, who was in the city to launch a Black voter registration drive. Jordan was shot in the back | by an unknown gunman as he stepped from his car outside his hotel in Fort Wayne, only three fours after he had delivered a hard hitting address to the local chapter of the Urban League warning of ‘‘the move to the right’’ by ruling circles in the country. The Ku Klux Klan has been actively seeking legislation in the Fort Wayne area and recently attempted to organize a march through a nearby suburb. Jordan was rushed to hospital following the shooting and underwent more than five hours of emergency surgery to remove bullet fragments. He was listed as ‘‘critical but stable.” , In his address to the Urban League audience of 450, Jordan said, “We cannot pretend that what happened in Miami was purely local. The ingredients that led to the urban distur- bances in Miami are in every city in this country.” The Black community in Miami exploded in anger last month following the exonera- tion by an-all-white jury of city police officers charged with murdering a Black insurance ex- ecutive, Jordan, in his speech laid the blame for the situation squarely on the Carter administration whose “Dolicy of cutting social programs reinforces inequality,” Although the attorney- general Benjamin Civiletti denied that the shooting was “racially or politically motivated’, the fact that he had earlier suggested that another Black leader Rev. Benjamin Hooks seek official protection when he announced a trip to Fort Wayne, lent credence to the widely held view. ead GREAT FUN/ I cm ge fi Over 500 BCGEU employees in Nelson closed down the liquor store, highway maintenance shops, the Kootenay Lake ferries and overfilled a local hall last Friday at the first of 17 provincial rallies or- ganized by the B.C. Government Employees Union and ‘the B.C. Federation of Labor to oppose re- cently introduced pension legisla- _tion. “It was a tremendous success,”’ Bill Hebert, secretary-treasurer of BCGEU local 1009 in Nelson told the Tribune, ‘‘and if the rest of the rallies are like ours, it will make a great impression on premier Bill Bennett.’’ According to BCGEU com- munications director, Robbie Robinson, subsequent rallies have also been successful, with members closing down government services and turning out, along with large numbers .of retirees, to hear representatives from local labor councils, the BCGEU and the B.C. Federation of Labor rap the pro- vincial government for its ‘‘odious legislation’”’. “In Nelson, almost the entire membership paraded through town to a rally and it was the same response in Cranbrook, where over Gov't workers leave jobs for - pension rallies 450 members attended a rally slated the same Saturday,”’ he said. “On Monday, over 700 people in Prince George and over 425 in Fort St. John made their respective rallies real successes.’’ Five bills introduced by the pro- vincial government late last month restrict indexing of pensions and in- crease employees’ costs for pension benefits. Rallies have been called for Chilliwack, 1 p.m. at the Evergreen Hall on June 9; for Vancouver, 1 p.m. at the Italian Cultural Centre on June 10; and for Victoria, where amass rally on the legislature lawns at 1 p.m. will be followed by a meeting at the MacPherson Playhouse on June 17. Last Wednesday, The B.C. Teachers’ Federation took their de- mand for full indexing of teachers’ pensions to Victoria where they met a hostile reception from premier Bill Bennett. About 100 teachers, echoing the stand taken by the March, 1980an- nual general meeting of the BCTF for full indexing of teachers’ pen- sions, called on the government to withdraw the new legislation, in- See TEACHERS page 3 City welcomes Odessa with Orpheum concert The city of Vancouver has rent- ed the Orpheum Theatre and writ- ten down the price of tickets for a special concert performance by Soviet artists*from Odessa, Van- couver’s sister city in the Soviet Union. The artists will arrive in Vancou- ver on the inaugural visit of the cruise ship Odessa, about to begin a three month, weekly service be- tween Vancouver and Alaska. The concert performance at the Orpheum, entitled Vancouver Welcomes Odessa, is set for June 22 at 2/p.m. Vancouver city council has waiv- ed normal rental fees for the Or- pheum and has offered a ticket price of only $3 for the concert. “‘It is the intent of city council to have the ticket price at a level that will allow families to attend without in- curring a large expense,’’ mayor Jack Volrich’s executive assistant George Madden said. Vancouver’s Kobzar Dancers ~ are scheduled to appear with the 28 performing Ukrainian artists from the Odessa. All proceeds will go in- to acity fund for future exchanges with its Soviet sister city. Human rights in Korea Mass popular uprisings challenging military rule in South Korea have dramatized the 30-year struggle in that country for elementary human rights, and for reunification with North Korea, page 7. Advice for IWA's Stoney While New Westminster IWA president Gerry Stoney looks to the prospect of an upturn in the U.S. economy as the an- swer to the current crisis in the B.C. Forest industry, Jack Phillips suggests that the militant.policies advanced by the re- cent CLC convention points the way to economic recovery in this country, page 12. 2 ive a { c oO ie < my an u oy e °o x aon ae z om a ac = Canadian Union of Postal Workers leader Jean-Claude Parrot told Vancouver postal workers, in urging ratification Sunday, that they would still have to struggle to ensure that any new contract was im- plemented. The new contract was accepted by a country-wide 89.8% vote. In Vancouver, members turned aside an executive rec- ommendation for rejection and voted 79.7% to accept. Retail Clerks picket ‘working man’s store’ Retail Clerks launched a strike Monday against the food depart- ment in Victoria’s Woodward’s Stores Ltd., the huge department store chain which has always called itself the ‘“‘working man’s store”’ but which has fought off. union organization for more than a decade. Pickets were set up outside the store Monday and were also sent tothe storein Port Alberni utilizing the provision in the Labor Code allowing picketing of allied com- panies. Retail Clerks president Rudy Krickan said Wednesday that the union would be extending picketing to other stores in the pro- vince to back the strike for a first contract. Although wages are not an im- mediate issue in the strike, they figure indirectly because of com- pany demands to alter the union’s standard job classifications. The Retail Clerks also want the same conditions clerks have won at other supermarkets as well as the maintenance of the current benefits which Woodward’s now gives its employees including a shopping discount and a 20-minute coffee break. Additional pension contribu- tions are also a contentious issue. Woodwards, which is the sixth largest company in the provice, has traditionally paid benefits com- parable to those in union stores as part of a determined company strategy to stay as union-free as possible. Krickan said that the union’s campaign, first to win certification and later to get to the bargaining table, goes back a year before the current strike. ‘‘We organized them some years ago but the com- pany intimidated them and forced a representation vote which we lost in 1972,” he added. “‘Woodward’s touts itself as the working man’s store,”’ he said, “but they actually have quite an anti-union record.” Other instances include thwar- ting efforts by the bakers to get a union contract and moving the graphic arts department to Ed- monton to block their attempts to win a collective agreement, he said. Only the meatcutters, affiliated with the Retail Clerks, havea union agreement with Woodward’s.