Peace — it's everybody's business — Seattle conference, page 3 — — Editorial, page 4 — — Myths of arms race, page 5 — VSB stalls on tax increase; The Vancouver School Board demands gov't reconsider par een a woman voted Tuesday to defer passing on the provincial government’s new increased mill rate until the eleventh hour, as a protest over the unfair education finance formula that will see Vancouver taxpayers hit with 130 percent more in school taxes this year. “Clearly the provincial govern- ment needs to take a first, second, . third, and even fourth, fifth and sixth look at what they’re doing to the taxpayers of this city,”” COPE trustee Gary Onstad said, in urging support for the motion. The motion deferring the final vote on the mill rate bylaw, gives the VSB a little over a week, to put more pressure on the education minister to re :onsider the mill rate increase and to petition other school boards in Greater ‘Van- couver to follow its lead in pressing Victoria for reconsideration. Money for the provincial government’s basic education pro- 8 gram (BEP) is raised by a tax levy + (mill rate) applied to all assessed . property values the effect of in- e creasing the mill rate from 41.25 last year to 41.8 this year and apply- Hope's landmark ruling Labor Comment — page 12 — Jan Waddell, Vancouver Kingsway MP and NDP energy. critic, has been added to the list of speakers at the Vancouver May Day rally, scheduled this year for May 3, 2 p.m. in the Templeton Auditorium. B.C. Federation of labor president Jim Kinnaird, Com- munist Party labor secretary Jack Phillips and Felip Ortiz from the Central America Sup- port’ Committee are also slated The Soviets have long enjoyed the reputation as the most prolific letter-writers anywhere but as this Photo shows, they also get thousands in return. It’s from the Young Pioneers Palace in Moscow and | the Organization has correspondents in 40 countries around the world and receives hundreds of letters In its offices every day. The organization, which celebrates its anniversary May 19, receives numerous to address the meeting. Van- couver and District Labor Council president Frank Ken- nedy will be chairman. ing it to land values which have soared in the Vancouver area, will result ‘in school taxes going up on “we a | ‘equests for international pen pals and regularly arranges for them among its members. see VSB page 2 \ Municipal _ Strikers Striking members of the Cana- dian Union of Public Employees and the Vancouver Municipal and Regional Employees will be marching on Vancouver city hall on Saturday, May 2 to highlight support for their strike against the Greater Vancouver Regional District, now entering its 12th week. : CUPE 1004 president Dave Long Tuesday asked for and received unanimous support for the march from the delegates to the Vancouver and District Labor ~ Council. “This should tell you,” he add- ed, “that we’re looking at the long pull.”’ He told the council that if there was to be a settlement ‘‘the politi- cians. will have to start doing something. ‘“And the message should go to the Employers’ Council to butt out,’’ he’ said, referring to the continuing role of the employers’ group — which includes GVRD negotiator Graham Leslie — in obstructing a settlement. Provincial mediator Ken Albertini was scheduled to meet with both sides separately this week with the purpose of getting negotiations going again although GVRD labor relations committee chairman John Parks has been adamant thatthe GVRD won’t go back to the table until there has been: a vote in each union local on the GVRD offer. The call for the civic workers’ march, which is set to begin at 11 | a.m., followed a mass meeting in the PNE Gardens Tuesday at which more than 2,000 municipal employees voted overwhelmingly to reject the GVRD offer and to" give unanimous backing to their negotiating committee to press for a better deal. Another motion endorsed by the meeting called on the GVRD to get back to the bargaining table: ‘as quickly as possible.”’ _ Thestand taken by the meeting spiked’ any suggestion that the union bargaining committee’ did not have the support ‘of the rank and file in spurning the GVRD offer which negotiators see as in- ferior tothe pact reached with the municipality of Surrey. : Worse, however, is: that it : widens the gap between outside workers and: inside clerical workers — in direct opposition to the principle of parity: which the unions have sought to achieve in any new collective agreement. According to the GVRD’s own figures, published in daily newspaper advertisements. Mon-. day, the wage gap between a Clerk Typist Il ‘and a Laborer I would rise from the current gap of $1.10 per hour to $1.23 at the end of the GVRD’s proposed contract. A’ laborer I, now earn- ing $8 an hour would rise to $11 -an hour whereas the Clerk Typist II, now earning $6.90 an hour would rise to $9.77. .-' Moreover. the proposal makes §. ‘no provision for the elimination ‘or-even reduction in the number “of increment. steps for clerical workers. A Clerk Typist II only earns'the above quoted rate after four years of experience unlike the Laborer I rate which applies after the. probationary period.