Saskatchewan Fed targets Devine Tories — page 4 Newsstand price 40c Vol. 46, No. 43 Focus shifts but fight over bills not settled By FRED WILSON The public sector strike has beén call- ed off, and with a limited victory in hand Operation Solidarity and the Solidarity Coalition must now turn their attention to a political process to fight out their social and political demands. The unprecedented strike action by government employees and teachers, and the preparedness of the rest of the Public sector to follow in escalating ac- tion shook the Socred government and won solid achievements. Bill 2 has been Scrapped. Bill 3 has been circumvented. Bill 5, 20 and 27 have been blocked, temporarily at least. The B.C. Govern- Ment Employees Union was, in Cliff Andstein’s words, able to win a “‘no concession agreement.”’ None of this would have been possi- ble without the highest degree of labor unity ever achieved, or without the Working relationship of labor and its allies in the community through the Solidarity Coalition. But the strike action has terminated Short of concrete accomplishments to Meet the demands of the Solidarity Coalition, for the withdrawal of the legislation introduced to implement the Social Credit budget. ANALYSIS Indeed, the agreement which ended the strike is not a settlement; it simply shifts the focus of struggle from the Picket line to direct meetings between lidarity and the government. The actual agreement had been Worked out in negotiations between a Small group of Operation Solidarity leaders and government representatives €ven before the BCGEU won its con- tract. B.C. Federation of Labor first Vice president Jack Munro took the 4greement to Bennett in Kelowna and Secured his approval of aso called ‘‘con- Sultative process”’ to resolve Solidarity’s Social and political demands. € nine point agreement calls for: ® Bill 2 to die in its present form, the BCGEU and North Vancouver hers’ contracts to serve as models for €xemptions from Bill 3; @ No reprisals against any strikers; ® Ministerial consultation on Bill 5 (Residential Tenancy Act) to work out a . Mediation mechanism.” This would. lude some form of limited role for a €ntalsman or substitute body; . © Establishment of an outside ad- visory commission on Bill 27 (Human Righis Act), with no immediate action On the Bill. The Human Rights Com- See GOV'T. page 12 rattled gov't strate gists — page 3 ‘We'll expect results from talks,’says labor as strike ‘truce’ made £ 3 Solidarity leaders (I to r) Jack Adams (BCGEU), Mike Kramer (BC government would be monitored, and job action would again be Fed), Owen Dykstra (CUPE) and Larry Kuehn (BCTF) announce forthcoming if the Socreds were found to be ‘just playing ‘truce’ at BCGEU building late Sunday night. Kramer said the games. The Solidarity Coalition and the labor ‘movement will be ‘expecting some tangi- ble results”? to come from the “con- sultative process’ set up by Operation Solidarity and the Bennett government, B.C. Federation of Labor president Art Kube told the Tribune Monday. And the results that have been achiev- ed will be reviewed in two weeks time when Operation Solidarity makes a report to the annual B.C. Federation of Labor convention Nov. 28. “And we ‘may have to mobilize again — certainly the fight is far from over,” said Kube. Bee Fed president and co-chair of the Solidarity Coalition made him com- work following a bout with the flu which had removed him — although he was in constant touch by telephone — from the swiftly-moving events that led to picket lines being brought down just after mid- night Nov. 14. The most dramatic of those events began at 4:30.p.m. Sunday as the B.C. Government Employees Union emerged from more than 30 continuous hours of bargaining to announce that a collective agreement had been reached allowing the union to be exempted from Bill 3 and set- ting up an elaborate system of seniority that covers the provincial civil service — an agreement that was weeks in the mak- ing. Then, in the early evening, IWA presi- dent Jack Munro flew to Kelowna along with Deputy Premier Norman Spector and B.C. Fed communications director Gerry Scott for a summit meeting with Premier Bennett. The agreement had reportedly been reached some days before during a closed door meeting between Operation Solidarity, Spector and the Employers’ Sein canny Jim Matkin but the refinements on an agreement were made in Bennett’s home. At 10:30 p.m., only 90 minutes before the next escalation of the public sector See PROGRESS page 3 ments in an interview on his return to