os

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Fetitioners for the Stockholm Appeal hit the streets in downtown Vancouver Saturday, gathering some 1,700
Ignatures in the course of the afternoon. Here, John Radosevic gathers names outside Woodward's.

Hospital

provoke dispute

Cont'd from pg. 1

hold the line is by cutting contract
settlements.

Following the rejection of the
Blair proposal by HLR, labor
minister Allan Williams an-
nounced that he would be
scheduling meetings between HLR
and the union with mediator Ed
Sims. Gerow confirmed that the
union would be participating in the
meetings but emphasized that it
would not be with the intention of
renegotiating the Blair settlement,
which he said the union would not
consider rolling back.

Originally, the union had
recommended acceptance of the
Blair report to its membership.
The report called for an eight per
cent increase in wages, but in-
cluded a number of improvements

B.C. Communist leader says:

Unity in fightback urgent

“This May Day finds the working
People of British Columbia con-
Tonted with many new problems
and big challenges,” said Nigel

Organ, B.C. Communist Party
fader, ina May Day statement
this week.

“Legislative roadblocks have

€n set up to weaken the trade
Union movement, and these have
€en combined with a slashing
attack on the living standards of
Me people under cover of so-called
Téstraints’ and the ‘fight against
inflation,’ ” he warned.
: ‘The Socred government’s Bill
6, placing B.C. under the federal
80vernment’s wage freeze
Program, (to which all B.C. NDP
MLAs have given initial support on
'tst reading), is expected to come
Up for final reading shortly after
l& Legislature reconvenes. The

®cred’s action is meeting
Mounting opposition as labor fights

eee

Trudeau’s wage control Bill C-73
and its Anti-Inflation Board.

‘‘While wage controls are being
clamped on labor, (with provin-
cial, municipal, school and Crown
corporation employees the first
victims, prices on food, housing,
energy, gasoline and - tran-
sportation continue to rise,”
declared Morgan.

“Last week Statistics Canada
reported that Vancouver had the
largest price rise over the previous
year of any major Canadian city —
up 11.3 per cent above March, 1975
— with the biggest increase in the
consumer index in March of this
year.

“Rising living costs, cutbacks in
services to people, mounting taxes
in B.C. are cutting deep into the
standards of living of the people.
Added to that is the grim picture of
one hundred thousand without jobs
in the province.

MAY DAY GREETINGS

from

International
Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers

Local 213

MAY DAY
GREETINGS

B.C. Tenants
Organization

_Greetings on

MAY DAY

"Unite against Bill C-73"

RICHMOND, CPC

“The 40 per cent hoist in B.C.’s
sales tax and fuel tax has boosted
living costs by an estimated
$200,000,000 for that one item alone.
And while the Socreds have raised
taxes on the people, they have
reduced the amount the cor-
porations have to pay for licences,
royalties and resource taxation by
10 per cent — saving them an
estimated $39,000,000.

‘While making massive conce-
ssions to the big monopolies, the
Social Credit administration has at
the same time increased auto
insurance rates by 100 to 400 per
cent; upped medicare premiums
by 50 per cent; increased hospital
rates by 300 per cent (from $1 to $4
per day for the sick and injured);

‘boosted hydro and gas rates by 12

per cent; imposed a means test on
some Mincome categories; and
sharply increased municipal taxes
by cutting the provincial share of
grants to school districts.

“People are justifiably alarmed
at what is happening. The time for
change is here, and so are the
forces to bring that change about
— provided they are united. The
major need in B.C. today is for
united labor and democratic action
to fight back and defeat the policies
of the most reactionary provincial
government in our history.

“The Communist Party calls for
action to compel rescinding of
federal Bill C-73 and scrapping of
the. Anti-Inflation Board; to con-
vince. the NDP to reverse its
support of Socred Bill 16 and force
its withdrawal before it comes up
for final reading; to join in
delivering a crushing defeat for
Socred policies in the upcoming
Vancouver East byelection. All
these actions are necessary to take
B.C. back on a progressive cour-
se,” said Morgan. ,

“The only answer to big business

_————
MAY DAY

GREETINGS _

OLGIN CLUB

CPC

domination of B.C. is united power
of labor and its democratic allies.
That is the message that must ring
out this May Day.”

boards

to the workers’ benefit plan, in-
cluding changes in holiday pay, the
introduction of a dental plan and
the rerfioval of a two per cent
trigger to the COLA clause.

A possible strike in the provin-
ce’s hospitals is seen as a testing
ground for the Socred govern-
ment’s policy on strikes in so-
called ‘‘essential services.”’ The
former NDP government gave
hospital workers and other em-
ployees in this area the right to
strike, but inserted a clause which
would allow the government to
order a 21-day “cooling off period”’
before any strike could be
mounted.

Williams has given no indication
as to what the government will do
if HLR refuses to move back to the
settlement recommended in the
Blair report.

Gerow also revealed that the
union would be conducting
membership meetings late this
week to seek a strike mandatel, in
addition to scheduling the strike
votes. He said that any strike
action which the HEU would take
at Vancouver General would not
seek to stop members of the
Registered Nurses Association and
Operating Engineers Union from
going to work, but that everything
else would be ‘“‘closed down.”

Public response good
to Stockholm Appeal

Mass petitioning on downtown
streets of Vancouver and Victoria
last Saturday launched the
Stockholm Appeal campaign by
the B.C. Peace Council, which
aims to collect 150,000 signatures
and endorsements by August.

Over 1,700 signatures were
collected in the three and a half
hours spent by petitioners in the
downtown area of Vancouver, and
a further 500 names were gathered

‘in Victoria.

Petitioners. reported that the
response was generally good.
Young people were especially
favorable to the petition which
calls for ending the arms race and
banning of nuclear weapons. Some
people remembered the first “‘ban

the bomb” petition which was
circulated in the 1950’s.

Endorsements of the Appeal so
far have come from the United
Fishermen and Allied Workers
Union, ‘the Marineworkers and
Boilermakers Union, and the
Victoria Labor Council. Many
other unions have been cir-
cularized, and additional en-
dorsements are expected, said an
official of the B.C. Peace Council.

An organizational committee
comprised of representatives from
various trade unions, youth groups
and other associations concerned
with peace, will meet Wednesday
of this week to draw up plans to
take the Stockholm Appeal and
petition to all sections of the public
in B.C.

Block ratification
of Socred Bill 16

EDITORIAL
Now that the legislature is back
in session in Victoria after the
Easter recess, it’s likely that the
Socred government will bring Bill
16 up for final reading in the near
future. ,

Bill 16 was introduced for first _

reading just before the recess and
will not become law until it passes
third reading. Under the Bill, B.C.
would be placed under the federal
program, and those immediately
affected would be public em-
ployees and workers in Crown
corporations. But it will affect all
labor.

Unless the situation in the

Jegislature changes the Bill is

expected to go through. Leaders of
all opposition parties, including the
NDP, have welcomed the Bill.
NDP House leader Bill King
congratulated the Socred govern-
ment for ‘‘having been able to take

a clear stand ’’ Not a single NDP
MLA has yet spoken out against
Bill 16 despite the fact that the
trade union in B.C. stands strongly
against joining up with Ottawa
under Bill C-73, the federal
guidelines legislation being bit-
terly opposed by Canadian labor.

Last week the Vancouver Labor
Council, the largest in B.C., con-
demned Bill 16 and called on B.C.
to opt out of the federal wage
freeze program. The _ B.C.
Federation of Labor presented a
brief recently to the Socred
government in which it also
demanded B.C. stay out.

There is still time to stop Bill 16.
NDP members in the legislature
should be urged to speak up and
vote against joining up with this
discredited program. Public
pressure can still force premier
Bennett to withdraw the bill.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 30, 1976—Page 3

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