FIBUNE

Vancouver police escort women out of building at 800 Burrard, March 30. Occupations of regional offices of the Secretary
of State took place in three cities, a protest against funding cuts that will see several women’s centres and services
terminated or sharply curtailed.

Police evicted women occupying Secre-
tary of State offices in Vancouver, Halifax
and Newfoundland March 30, but the
fight for restoration of .funding to
women’s centres will continue, spokesper-
sons for the Vancouver occupation
vowed.

In Vancouver, some 25 women moved
into the Secretary of State office on the
12th floor at 800 Burrard St. at 3:30 p.m.
demanding a meeting with Secretary of
State Gerry Weiner about funding cuts
that will close eight of 25 women’s centres
providing counselling for battering, rape
and other abuses in B.C.

Similar actions took place in Halifax
where women occupied government offi-
ces for two hours in solidarity with New-
foundlanders who had been camping out
in Secretary of State offices in St. John’s
since the preceding Monday.

Occupiers in all three cities were evicted
by local police on orders from the Secre-
tary of State office in Ottawa. In New-

foundland, about 22 people were arrested
after a renewed occupation lasting 2/4
hours April 2.

“The government is prepared to call out
police rather than come and speak with
women and try to find ways can get the
funding that they need and they deserve
for their services,” Esther Shannon, a spo-
kesperson for the Vancouver action, said
after the group’s eviction at about 11 p.m.

In a statement shortly after the occupa-
tion began the women demanded full res-
toration of the $1.6 million provided
under the ministry’s women’s program to
operate women’s centres across Canada.
B.C.’s share of the operating funds was
$500,000.

The group demanded an immediate
meeting with Weiner over the cuts, part of
the federal Conservative government’s
budget in February.

They negotiated with regional officials
who stayed in the building past the 6 p.m.
closing time. Bob Robertson, assistant

regional director, said operational funds
were eliminated but claimed women’s cen-
tres could still apply for grants in special
project funds.

Robertson said the order to call in local
police came from the Secretary of State’s
office in Ottawa.

Police arrived shortly before the build-
ing closed. Outside, a small crowd of sup-
porters gathered, including members of
the Hospital Employees Union who came
with pizzas and drinks for the occupiers.

Only three pizzas and a box of bever-
ages made it past the door, however,
before police ‘banned further deliveries,
leaving several pizzas cooling on the
pavement outside. Inside the lobby, HEU
representative Janet Fairbanks said police
told her she would be charged with
mischief if she opened the door to allow

~ the food in.

Upstairs, the women talked over a
see PROTESTS page 3

April 9, 1990
50F

Vol. 53, No. 13

IRG vote
forced on
striking
instructors

Striking vocational instructors and stu-
dents have slammed the board and presi-
dent of Vancouver Community College for
invoking a section of the Industrial Rela-
tions Act that will keep the sides from bar-
gaining and classes closed for at least 10
days.

The VCC board has demanded a mem-
bership vote on its last offer to some 530
striking members of the Vocational Instruc-
tors Association, who set up picket lines
around three VCC campuses last Monday
after voting overwhelmingly in favour of
strike action.

VIA negotiating committee co-chair
Frank Cosco denounced as “really cynical
tactics” the board’s decision to use Section
137 of the act, which requires a membership
vote on the last management offer.

Student associations at Langara and City
Centre campuses have called on the college
administration to scrap the Section 137 vote
and get back to negotiations with the
faculty.

The section does not allow the act’s
administrative body, the Industrial Rela-
tions Council, any discretion. The vote must
be held, and no negotiating can take place
during that time.

The union has rejected the administra-
tion’s “final offer” which does not meet
demands for language on contracting-out,
hours of work and salaries which make VIA
members “among the lowest paid commun-
ity college instructors anywhere in the pro-
vince,” says a VIA statement.

The instructors association, which only
last month joined the provincial College-
Institute Educators Association, says it tried
since last December to bring management
to the negotiating table, who stalled several
times in violation of labour statutes.

But management only agreed to nego-
tiate mid-February after the faculty voted
80 per cent in favour of strike vote, the
union reports. Administrators did not table
a complete offer until March 25.

Cosco said it is “very typical (of the col-
lege management) not to want to negotiate”
during contract renewal.

Members rejected the administration’s
position in a second strike vote conducted
under IRC supervision March 28, after the
union received an exemption from the B.C.
Federation of Labour’s IRC boycott. The

see COLLEGE page 8

eas