SH
pa’ Al

Tribune

15°

Vol. 34, No. 27

EERING

Reciting the inevitable arguments about increased
labor costs, one major bakery company in Vancouver
last week announced a wholesale price increase of two
cents per loaf, an action that will undoubtedly be re-
peated by other bakeries in B.C. following the com-
pletion of contract negotiations with the Bakery and

SPURS

PROFIT

<3 SE —
aa s fo os

Picket linesa
®Served d
clay;

"ng the stores “hot.”

it Shoppers Drug Mart stores
€cision on an injunction sought

continued this week while Judge H.E. Hutcheon in Supreme Court
by the drug store chain against the B.C. Federation of Labor's stand

NDP gov‘t names top business

tycoons to run Crown company

ete Naming of the new nine-
Npp .22'd of directors by the
Tun pooVernment last week to
dian C newly-acquired Cana-
taken €llulose Co., recently

ee from Columbia Cel-
Cone, SNould cause widespread

Cer :
People * among progressive

aq;
Bate Control of the opera-
Howe 1th a 79 percent interest.
the “€!, the board named by
Priqay OVincial government
the : Places the operation of
hangs sue corporation in the
en in the board made up of top
The nj big business world.
koe “nemen are: CharlesC.
Using, . Prominent B.C. bi
ber oPewyer who was a Seer
Board, . Columbia Cellulose
Berty €fore the takeover; E.
4m Berkley of Kansas

City, Mo., headof the second lar-
gest envelope manufacturing
company in the U.S.; Alan S.
Gordon of Montreal, chairman
of Merrill Lynch Royal Securi-
ties, and a director of many
major private companies
across Canada;

lulose; Max Litvine of Brus-
sels, managing director of La
Companie Lambert, a holding
firm for Banque Lambert, one
of the largest financial invest-
ment houses in Western Eur-
ope; Harry L. Purdy, former
president of B.C. Electric
before the takeover ;

John H. Spicer of Edmonton,
vice-president of the Mountain
region, Canadian National Rail-
ways; Ira D. Wallach of New
York, president of the largest

pulp marketing firm in North
America and director of many
large U.S. corporations; Donald
N. Watson of Vancouver, presi-
dent of Pacific Western Air
lines.

This is hardly the collection of
people to runa so-called ‘‘social-

imagine. Members of the
public who had experience with
Harry Purdy when he was head
of the B.C. Electric know that
the interests of big business are
safe in his hands— as it will be
with all of the nine men.
Significantly the board of the
new company does not include a
single representative of the
government, labor or the public.
Hardly a good start for the NDP

See NDP GOV'T. pg- 7

Confectionery Workers.

The increase will soon be
passed on to the consumer at the
retail level where shoppers,
already burdened with vastly in-
flated prices, will probably also
have to face a further increase
in the retail price of meat.

The bakers’ wage package,
which the companies seized
upon to raise prices, amounts to
$15 per week for each year of the
two year contract as well as
some .pension and welfare
benefits many of which are al-
ready enjoyed by workers in
other industries.

David Devine, general man-
ager of McGavin Toastmaster
Ltd. whose subsidiary Mother
Hubbard Bakery Ltd.
announced the first price in-
crease, complained _ that
‘‘bakery companies are victims
of inflation’’ but the results of
the last price increase — two
years ago— show the opposite
— the companies have, along
with all other food producers,
been the chief beneficiaries of in-
flated prices.

The twocentsper loaf price in-
crease imposed two years ago
gave the bakeries an extra $50
perday perman while the wage
increase cost them only two
dollars per day per man.

Because of automated equip-
ment and production, each baker
is able to produce some 2,500

’

Soviet-U.S. talks

—P. 4,9

Fish strike looms

—P. 8

loaves per day andthe outputis
increasing all the time.
Supermakets gave the same ra-
tionale for expected increases
in meat prices as meatcutters
signed anew agreement giving
them a wage increase of $40 a

week over two years. But re- =»

tailers needed no excuse for the
flurry of price increases on beef
that preceded the jatest anti-
cipated hike.

In Toronto last weekend,
porterhouse steak, which retails
in Vancouver for $2.89 per
pound, was selling for $1.68 per
pound. Consumers have long
demonstrated the sham of justi-
fying price increases on the
basis of increased wage costs as
meatcutters’ wagesin Toronto
are comparable to those paid in
Vancouver.

The latest announcements of in-
creases or expected increases
in the price of bread and red
meat are only the beginning ofa
further trend of rising prices
forecast for the remaining
months of 1973 and throw into
deeper doubt theeffectiveness
of the Food Prices Review Board
as it is presently constituted.
Arguments that “increased
family incomes appear to have
offset rising food prices’’ con-
tinue to originate from Ottawa

See BREAD PRICES, pg. 8

n a. we 39 .
— Ronald M. Gross of Van- ist enterprise. ee more
y Week sa Onies completed last couver, who was vice-president powerful collection of big busi-
' WtheB.C. government since 1968 of Columbia Cel- ness fat catsit is impossible to |