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FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1974

VOL. 35, No. 25

«= 15°

ROLLBACK PRICES 25%

DEVELOP OUR

PORT — NATIONALIZE CPR, says

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Rod Doran, New Westminster Communist candidate

shown hete pointing to Pacific Coast Terminals in New Westminster which is a subsidiary of Cominco and

the CPR- Doran says this giant transportation octopus is strangling Canadian growth and development..
Doran also urges building of a Canadian merchant marin

jobs for B.C. workers.

BUILDING TALKS ON

e to free Canada from foreign control and provide

IWA to vote on offer

With about half the forest in-
dustry alfeady shut down as the
IWA contfact expired June 15 and
woodworkers in many: areas
walked Off the job, Forest In-
dustrial Relations (FIR) came up
with an Offer to IWA negotiators
Tuesday Which will likely be put to
a vote Of the membership in. the
near future,

IWA Yr&gional president Jack
Munro CAme out of the talks
Tuesday to announce what he
called ““A major breakthrough.”
He said the IWA committee will
meet Wednesday and make a
fecomme€ndation to the 32,000
members of the Coast region.

It is r€Borted that the industry

made what it called “‘its final of-
fer’? which included an across-the-
board offer from 11.5 percent over
one year to 12 percent with a
minimum increase of 65 cents.
Details of the offer have not been
made public at press time, but it is
also reported to include a cost-of-
living adjustment. (COLA) clause
under which employers will pay
one cent an hour for every 0.35 rise
in the consumer price index. Its
previous offer was for 0.4 cents.
The union had asked for one cent
for each 0.25 rise.

Reports also indicate that
woodworkers will receive job
category revisions and additional
fringe benefits. In explaining the

Meat price boost

asa

COLA clause, Munro said it will be. ©

paid quarterly with the first
payment to come Jan. 1, 1975. The
union had demanded it be paid ona
monthly basis. vacations are also
said to have been improved as well
as overtime work provisions. A
dental plan is expected to be in-
cluded.

Some 10,000 Interior wood-
workers are due to enter
negotiations for a contract set-
tlement in the near future.

a * * *

Meanwhile, on the construction
industry front it was announced
Wednesday that talks would
resume between the Construction
Labor Relations Assoc., (CLRA)

and the 10-pact building trades |

unions after three weeks.
Agreement by the CLRA to
resume talks came after the 10-
pact unions published an ad-
vertisement last Friday outlining
its stand accusing the CLRA of
deliberately provoking the strike.

With cost of living figures released last week showing the
sharpest jump in prices — especially food — in the last 23 years,
William Kashtan, Canadian Communist leader, called for a 25
percent rollback of prices on all basic food prices, rents, heating

fuels and gasoline.

Sharply critical of the policies of
the federal government which
allows food prices to be
manipulated at will by the food

- processing industry, food chains

and speculators, the Communist
Party leader pledged that Com-
munist MP’s will press for the 25
percent rollback in prices.

Figures released last week by
Statistics Canada for the month of
May showed a. 1.7 percent rise in
the consumer price index which
was the largest monthly increase
since the Korean War. If the May
increase of 1.7 percent is main-
tained in the coming months prices
could rise as much as 20 percent in
the next year.

The most disturbing aspect of the
latest price rise is the fact that
about half of the increase was due
to higher food costs. The food price
index for home consumption rose
3.3 percent.

If food continues to rise at this
level during the next year there
could be a 40 percent rise in food
costs. ;

This would strike particularly
hard at working people and those
on low incomes who _ spend

proportionately a larger part of
their income on food than the_rich.

Kashtan, who is touring southern
Ontario centres this week and will
return to B.C. towards the close of
the campaign to speak at election
rallies here, blasted Tory leader
Robert Stanfield’s wage and price
control scheme to solve the
problem of inflation as
“hankrupt’’. The object of the Tory
freeze, he said is “‘to control wages
while leaving the big corporations
free to continue their criminal
profiteering at the expense of the
living standards of the working
class,. the unemployed and pen-
sioners.

Meanwhile, the 12 B.C. Com-
munist candidates took to the
hustings this week concentrating
their fire on the rising cost of living
and demanding action to roll back
prices and to curb the profiteers.
(See page 3).

Drawing attention to a statement
by Agriculture Minister Eugene
Whelan in September of 1973 that,
‘We have 10 times as much food as
Canadians could eat,’’ Maurice
Rush, Vancouver East Communist
candidate asked his audience at a
rally in the Swedish Hall Monday,
“Tf we have all that food, why are

See ROLLBACK, pg. 12

SEEN HERE GETTING Set up to pull for the Communist Party,
Burnaby-Richmond-Delta candidate Homer Stevens (right) and
Burnaby-Seymour candidate Eric Waugh (second right), fought ‘ie
mightily — but lost finally to the Tory team. The tug-of-war was part :
of the program at an all-candidates’ picnic and rally in Burnaby last ye
Friday evening. —Sean Griffin photo —

It charged that the CLRA is taking

.a hard-nosed arrogant attitude,

refusing to negotiate issues that

can only be settled by negotiations.

It said the CLRA is making false
See BUILDING, page 12