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Faced with mounting public
Pressure for action against run-
ee prices, the Liberal minor-

Y 8overnment unveiled its pro-
&tam Tuesday.

hile some of the measures
amounced are long overdue,
€ Trudeau government’s
Program falls far short of meet-
Ing the needs of the Canadian
People, or effectively curbing
€ affects of inflation on the
es People.

The major weakness in the
government’s program is that
it fails to roll back prices which
are now at an all-time high, and
further fails to take effective
action against the big corpora-
tions whose profiteering gouge
is the major reason for high liv-
ing costs.

The Liberal government
refuses to face up to the fact that
without strong measures
against the big monopolies there

‘OTTAWA MUST CURB MONOPOLIES

| Profits push up living costs

can be no effective action to halt
the prices spiral.
Profit figures in Canada and

B.C. prove that the only ones

benefitting from inflation and
high prices are the big corpora-
tions. Trudeau’s new meas-
sures will not basically alter
that state of affairs.

A survey of B.C. corporation
profits published last week
shows that corporation earn-
ings in the last three months

were 128 percent higher than for
the same three months a year
ago!

Broken down by industry, the
survey shows that the major
forest companies in B.C. led the
way, showing a 218.5 percent
profit gain in the last three
months compared to the same
period a year ago. Heading the
list, of course, is MacMillan-
Bloedel, who reported profits
for the last three months of

$32,800,000. In the same three
months in 1972 MB’s profits were
$11,900,000— almost a threefold
increase!

The food processing industry

-

in B.C. showed a 196.2 percent.

jump in earnings in the last

three months compared to the

same period a year ago. Lead-

ing the way in the foodindustry

is the U.S.-owned B.C. Packers,

‘whose earnings in the last three
See PRICES, pg. 8

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. ai
basis ; ilWorkers refused to return to work Tuesday on aday to day

'n pr : ‘
2 Protest against government strikebreaking.

-Sean Griffin photo

Teamsters campaign

~ Vi
Mouncers Made the dubious an-
eeoin.. that it is pulling
ing No fyepaPe fields and mak-
‘ e ae er attempt to sign
the Tt agreements with
‘ 1a grape growers,
taken raster Unionhas again
Obreak offensive in an effort
ong this, PPling grape boy-
; lumbia, time in British

Vio
Penge “Sly not Sparing any ex-
famsters’ interna-

S
ve ighest paid labor
.S., earning
year — the

We

Ste
‘ Sterg “u Con

‘fo Stop grape boycott

nia, all of them aimed at mask-
ing the racism, the violence and
the collusion with employers
that the Teamster leadership
has been guilty of. eee,
The folder has been distri-
buted to several trade unionists
throughout British Columbia.
Along with the growers them-
selves and the major news
media, the Teamsters have
pushed hardest to present the
current struggle in the grape
fields as a jurisdictional dis-
pute between the UFWU and the
Teamsters. One booklet, which
asks consumers to continue buy-
ing California lettuce and’
grapes, states ‘“‘the factis that

see TEAMSTERS pg. 8

» Tribune

Vol. 34, No. 36 Pe 1 ih

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1973
Second class mail registration aveber 1560.

SAK

Labor condemns gov’t

railway strikebreaking —

Reacting to the impositionof
inferior wages on Canadian rail-
way workers, delegates to
Tuesday’s Vancouver and Dis-
trict Labor Council meeting
unanimously adopted aresolu-
tion ‘‘condemning the use of

Parliament as a strike-break--

ing agency.”

The council resolution which
echoed the statements of trade
unionists across the country, is
to be followed later by a further,
detailed resolution.

Speaking to the motion,
Marineworkers delegate Bill
Stewart said that it was a timely
resolution and noted that ‘‘we
have been subjected, in the
newspapers and elsewhere, to
the glorification of scabs.’ He
drew to the attention of the
delegates a picture appearing in
one Vancouver daily of a super-
visor at CP Air donning cover-
alls to scab on striking CP Air
machinists.

‘‘Why did they call parliament
together?’’ Stewart demanded.
‘To bail out the rail companies.
And they’ve given the workers a
wage increase that won’t even
buy them a loaf of bread.”

Meanwhile, rail workers them-
selves, meeting in New
Westminster Tuesday roundly
condemned the action of the
federal government in breaking
the strike and voted unanimously

to defy the back-to-work order
and to withold their services ona
day-to-day basis as is being done
in several- centres across
Canada.

While picket lines didnot goup
except in New Westminster, rail
workers are expected to meet
daily on the continuation of the
strike, based on support from
centres in Canada who did
accept the back-to-work order.

The Central Executive
Committee of the Communist
Party also condemned the fed-
eral back-to-work legislation and
stated that the ‘‘rail workers
cause is just and reasonable.”

“The rail workers want to

protect themselves against the
galloping inflationary price
spiral,’’ the statement said,
‘‘they want to benefit from
increased productivity. They
want wages equal toworkersin
similar work elsewhere. They
want to protect the right to
collective bargaining and the
democratic right to strike.
‘Instead of lecturing railway
workers, NDP leader David
Lewis should make unmis-
takably clear that the NDP
walks with the workers and is
determined to help them win. If
they win the whole working
class wins; if they lose, the
see STRIKEBREAKING pg. 8

Protect consumers from
profiteers—farm leader

National Farmers Union vice-
president Walter Miller has
called upon consumers to
“demand” the government
attack the cause of the problem
and stop treating the symptoms:
by implementing a national
policy which generate the type
of confidence necessary toavoid
moving from crisis to crisis and
assure a continued adequate
supply of necessary food which
this nation is capable of pro-
ducing.”

He said, ‘‘Export controls in
no way deal with the real cause
of soaring meat prices. These
and other skyrocketing food
prices are caused by trading
abuses in commodity futures
markets and profit gouging by
packers suchas Canada Packers
and Burns, as well as food
chains.

“How will export controls
help food prices while chains
such as Safeway, Loblaws and

Dominion flagrantly mark up
the price ona package of meat
on the shelf by as muchas fifty
cents a pound and as often as
three or four times a day?

‘‘What is really needed is a
National Meat Authority that
will take the necessary food pro-
duct out of the hands of those the
federal minister of agriculture
called ‘the bastards of society’
and control it from the farm to
the consumer, assuring each
fair treatment.

‘Farmers are not the cause of
higher food prices nor are they
the beneficiaries. All they are
doing is handling more money
but with very little increase in
personal income.

“It’s time the government
developed resistance to the
powerful lobby of the multi-
national corporations and legi-
slated the necessary protection
that people need rather than