Friday, Feb. 26, 1982

fea 18

uid

Peace is everybody's business

Bennett’
branded

COPE aldermen Bruce Yorke (left), Harry Rankin and Bruce Eriksen

Vol. 44, No. 8

Peace rally March 6

B.C.’s peace activists will get together at Christ Church cathedral
in Vancouver Mar. 6 and 7 in a conference billed as one of the most |
broadly-based during a time of critical challenge to world peace. |
Under the auspices of the 16-member Coalition for World Disarma-
ment, the conference will deal with Canada’s role at the upcoming

The arms spending gap, Page 10

special United Nations disarmament conference in June, and
labor’s stake in world disarmament. A highlight will be a march be- |
ginning at 1:15 at Christ Church to a rally downtown where B.C.

Federation of Labor president
speakers.

‘fame Out fighting against the provincial government's restraint pro-

™ Monday, calling on Bennett to cancel the

Pees '

SNS TANT A ER AE SN

nions

Premier Bennett’s new Com-
Pensation Stabilization Program
(CSP) could well go the way of W.
A. C. Bennett’s Mediation Com-
. 4ssion — into political oblivion —
ifthe stand taken by the province’s

lic sector unions is any indica-

Nn of the fight that is to come.

Both the 50,000-member B.C.

vernment Employees’ Union
8nd the 24,000-member Hospital
Employees Union, have declared
* they will not be made the

Whipping boy” for inflation and

Ean a SD RN SO

age

oe to negotiate despite

the wage controls in an effort to get
the catch-up increases their mem-
bers deserve.

Jack Gerow, the secretary and
business manager of the HEU said
Friday following Bennett’s an-
nouncement of the wage control
program that the government’s
measures ‘‘are nothing more than
an attempt to punish public sector
workers for the inability of the pro-
vincial government to deal with the
real economic problems facing

Gerow and B.C. Teacher’s Fed-

se eS sasnormne ics

Jim Kinnaird will head a list of

and scrap his mega-projects instead. COPE has also called a “peo-
ple’s conference” on civic spending priorities as part of the cam-
budget restrictions paign against the Socred program (story page 3).

eration president Larry Kuehn
have urged the formation of a
‘common front’’ of all public sec-
tor organizations to fight the gov-
ernment’s new wage curb pro-
gram. Both the HEU and the
BCTF are independent of the B.C.
Federation of Labor.

B.C. Fed president Jim Kinnaird
said last week that the common
front proposal ‘“‘has good poten-
tial.”’ The approach that the B.C.
Federation of Labor will take was
to be outlined in meetings late this

eee

week although Kinnaird told the

Tacha secon se

CP meet

sets ‘new

course for

Canada’
page 6-7

Province he hoped ‘‘a hard-hitting
program will be developed to chal-
lenge the government.”

Kinnaird had stated earlier that
the“sovernment had been warned
repeatedly that it would face con-
frontation if it attempted to impose
wage curbs.

It is clear that the government
was prepared to provoke that con-
frontation in announcing its con-
trols, indicating that unity of the
public sector unions will be critical
if Bennett’s program is to be chal-
lenged.

TRIBUNE PHOTO—SEAN GRIFFIN"

aR meee asc Rad!

s restraint program
‘B.C. Reagano

. |

The restraint program announc-
ed by premier Bill Bennett will
mean the introduction of ‘‘Rea-
ganomics”’ into British Columbia
and an attack on the labor move-
ment and on public services.

That was the reaction of the
Communist Party to the wage con-
trol program and curbs on public
expenditures outlined by Bennett in
his special television broadcast
Feb. 18.

The CP urged wide opposition
to the program to force the govern-
ment to cancel it.

New Democratic Party leader
Dave Barrett termed the Bennett
proposals ‘‘cynical’’ and charged
that they “‘really kick at munici-
palities’” while they do nothing
“for those in trouble.”’

Bennett took the unprecedented
action of going on television to an-
nounce the new program, hoping
to create a populist image of a gov-
ernment which “‘is doing some-
thing to fight inflation.”’

He announced the imposition of
two-year wage controls for the
public sector which, despite the
current inflation rate of 14.5 per-
cent, will be held to 10 percent in-
creases for 1982-83, with possible
adjustments from two to four per-
cent for special circumstances.

Public sector wages will be con-
trolled through the Compensation

See RESTRAINT page 3

Di nih An

to bargain in spite of wage curbs

Since the wage control an- |

nouncement was made Feb. 18, the
government has pressed the pro-
gram further. Draft-legislation in

preparation will be made retro- |

active when it is passed. In addi-

tion, CSP commissioner Ed Peck |
could make interim decisions re- |
stricting wage increases even before |

the legislation is passed.

But whatever Peck may be em- |
powered to do, BCGEU president |

Norman Richards declared Tues-

See WAGE page 12

=

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