Pi STRIKE VOCATIONAL INSTRUCTORS ON: | STRIKES vi TONAL ASSOCIATION Sistah teens * ASSOCIATON © ig i Rind } lite in . . if the "Ed to win a collective agreement after nine months without Structors at Vancouver Vocational Institute set up picket lines Us Nyy) al Vancouver Community -College facilities Tuesday. (See ZN —Sean Griffin photo FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1974 The entire Vancouver Com- munity College system remained closed this week as the labor movement, faculty and a large body of students rallied behind the picket lines of the Vocational In- structors Association teachers at the Vancouver Vocational In- stitute. “We have struck, picketed and effectively closed the Vancouver Vocational Institute, special divisions programs, the Vancouver school board offices, the college council executive offices, the Vancouver School of Art and the community education divisions,” Karl Gregg, president of VIA told - The f nVanecout of 600 grainworkers grat 18 a national scandal. Y Sponsini pools beat the initial Mthe jpuity for refusing to settle 4 Mhich ySI8 Of the Perry Report 7 tinny i 2CCepted by the union. +) ;%al 95, “°S) business agent for Ltion, Wace the Grain Workers Staid qos, absolutely right when Nout tthe port of Vancouver jeht a big loser. He was dead BS ton t he said “everybody : be ain in this game except | N) the -e00ls. It is the farmers * big Pinworkers who will be } Oserg >» | othe Braj ‘iBinay i Companies were the & nme Culprits, the federal @S compounded the situation by failing to act decisively. The ability of the pool operators to defy the government and lock out 600 workers points up the obvious need to nationalize the grain elevators. They should be part of an integrated national transportation system, in- corporating the Canadian National Railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway, air transport and other related facilities. The elevator companies pay neighter income taxes nor cor- poration taxes since they are organized as cooperatives. It should be obvious that they are not serving the interests of their members by their stubborn refusal d in the collection, ally, he was called upon to cing trial by the junta. — eeds of which will go to to accept the Perry report. In- stead, they have become stooges for the big corporate interests by refusing the grant the grain workers a fair and reasonable settlement as recommended by a mediation report. The plea that they are doing this to assist in the fight against inflation is simply propaganda and hot air. The grain workers are the victims of inflation and the report is designed to give them some relief. There is*no ultimate solution to inflation short of nationalizing all the key industries as well as the banking and credit system. Compelling the grain workers to settle for less than the Perry report recommendations will do nothing to solve the problem of inflation. The government should move quickly to call’ Parliament into special session, not to legislate the grain workers back to work, but to nationalize the grain elevators and accept the Perry report on behalf ‘of the new grain elevator authority. Tribune VOL. 35, No. 36 ces 48 1 He the Tribune, ‘‘all are effectively inoperative’. Pickets around Langara college have effectively halted operations there as 90% of faculty and all unionized service employees respected picket lines. The Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Vancouver Municipal Employees Union, and Operating Engineers, all of whom have members employed in the community colleges, met with the VIA Wednesday and pledged their full support to the strike. -The Vancouver Province, in a statement clearly aimed at under- mining the strike, reported that Langara students ‘‘would. take over operation of the school’’ “This was incorrectly reported,” Gregg said. He said that moments after the Province reached the students, he received a phone call from them informing him they had no intention of doing strikers’ jobs. The students, at a general meeting, resolved to ‘‘keep the school clean’’ —or not to litter — and not to ‘“‘take over operations” as the Province reported. A large body of students have respected the lines. The strike at the colleges came after vocational instructors were without a contract for nine months. “We are seeking binding ar- bitration from a third party because we have not reached anywhere near agreement on any - points,” chief negotiator Al Stusiak told the Tribune. é The main demands of the in- structors are a 14.7% salary in- crease, 22 days. per year professional development time, a decrease in student contact time, and recognition of shifts and shift differential. “There is nothing innovative or new in what we are asking,” Stusiak said. At present vocational instructors spend 25 hours a week : inthe classroom as compared to 16 hours for Langara instructors, and see STRIKE pg. 12 Hugo Facio, former vice-president of the Chile Central State Bank under the Allende government, addressing Chile solidarity rally in Vancouver last weekend. (Story, more photos, page 3). COPE to run partial slate In an overture for unity to the NDP area council, COPE has determined to nominate only half a slate of candidates for the up- coming civic elections in Van- couver. Alderman Harry Rankin, in introducing the motion to the COPE membership - meeting Wednesday evening, said, “we will put the onus on the civic leadership of the NDP to split the progressive forces, if they so choose, by run- ning a full slate of candidates in opposition.”’ The motion which called for the nomination of a half slate “un- conditionally” carried the meeting ‘unanimously. “Without unity there see COPE page 11 NEW RENT INCREASES LOOM By FRED WILSON “The issue is to maintain the 8% rent level; the time is right now — the month of September . . . There is no room for timidity. We can not afford to meet the government with the decision ‘fait accompli’.”’ So summed up BCTO president Bruce Yorke in concluding a highly successful tenant workshop last Saturday called to map a con- tinuing strategy for the tenants’ movement and an emergency campaign in reaction to provincial rentalsman Barrie Clarke’s statement a few days before that the 8% ceiling on rent increases would be lifted. Clarke’s suggestion that rents will be going higher came the previous Wednesday at a mass tenants rally in Vancouver where, in answer to a question, he revealed that his recommendation for an allowable rent increase would be ‘‘not less than 8%:” The inescapable conclusion that thousands of B.C. tenants will be faced with rent increases of, as one tenant put it, ‘10, 12, 15% who- knows?’’, bore heavily on the minds of the tenant representa- tives from every organized tenant council in the province. With the new Landlord and: Tenant Act to be proclaimed on -October 1, and with it, a new allowable rent increase, the tenants saw little point in arguing further with Barrie Clarke. ‘“‘We have to carry the fight to those who are politically responsible,” Yorke said in outlining plans for a lobby to Victoria on September 25: to See TENANTS pg. 12