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EDITORIAL

South Africa/South Korea
Striking similarities

Though thousands of miles apart and on different continents, the current
340,000-strong South African Mine Workers’ strike and strikes by hundreds of
thousands of striking South Korean workers have some telling similarities:

In both countries, trade unionism has been banned and/or curtailed by law
for decades as enormous profits are reaped from a viciously exploited cheap
labour force;

In both countries the state designs laws, uses the courts, police and army to
repress workers and smash unionism;

In both countries this decades-long grip is being broken as labour organizing
is moving into centre stage in a broad struggle for civil and human rights, for
democracy. :

Both South Korea and South Africa are staunch allies of Washington, both
are military powers in their regions, both are watchdogs for U.S. transnationals
and Reagan’s geopolitical goals.

The regimes of both countries are massively unpopular; one being elected by
only a handful of its citizens, the other a military junta kept in power by armed
force and U.S. direct presence. Neither could withstand a free and fair vote.

South African Black miners whose toil has piled up untold riches for owners
and the white elite of the country, earn an average of $210 a month — one-fifth
that paid white miners. They often work and live away from their families, are
subjected to arbitrary company rules as well as the racist laws of the apartheid
state.

During the strike the have been forced into the pits at gunpoint, shot and
beaten, had their meetings smashed and leaders arrested and are subjected to
threats of mass firings and closures. Botha’s racist state and the South African
Chamber of Mines are indistinguishable. They have one face, one aim, one
interest.

South Korean workers have the longest work-week in the industrialized
world: 54.4 hours; unions are either illegal or toothless company ones. The
average factory wage in that country is $1.55 per hour in manufacturing, much
less for untold thousands who toil beyond the pale supplying countless compo-
nents to well known corporate giants.

And while at Hyundai 40,000 are back on the job awaiting the company’s
offer due Sept. 1, other thousands still face police in cities across the land as they
strike for decent wages, working conditions and workers’ rights in this land of
the so-called ““economic miracle.”

It’s revealing how capital thrives under apartheid in South Africa and
military rule in South Korea. It’s enlightening to compare the “climate for
investment” under these regimes where workers’ rights are reduced to nil,
profits raised to the skies — all done behinda shield of draconic law and police
steel.

The workers of both countries have earned the respect and admiration of
Canadian working people and deserve the utmost solidarity by the labour
movement. :

wag Uke

ENoad [h G El \

KOREA!
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Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON
Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK
Graphics — ANGELA KENYON

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f there is some higher form of poetic
justice working, you might say that it
has begun its reckoning for Gainers’ Inc.
czar Peter Pocklington.
First, just a couple of weeks ago, there
was the judgment by the federal tax court
which found that Pocklington’s creative

writing with his income tax didn’t sit well
with the regulations and ordered him reas-
sessed.

In an intriguing comment, the judge
noted that when he was attempting to buy
Gainers, Pocklington was “ready to sell
everything except his wife.” On that point,
at least, we’d probably differ with the
learned judge. In Pocklington’s world,
everything has a price. Everything.

The income tax reassessment, it seems,
came up because Pocklington, having
traded an multi-million dollar apartment
building for the Edmonton meat packing
company, made a $1.7 million profit on
the transaction. With his usual display of
honesty, he called the difference a “capital
gain’ instead of a profit and wrote off half
the amount.

He claimed that he had bought the
building as a long term investment. But
the court said no dice, pointing out that,
from the moment he got the building, “his
(Pocklington’s) intention was to dispose of
it and his policy in that respect was not
different than that of his other transac-
tions. He was ready to sell everything
except his wife.”

The tax court didn’t like any better

Pocklington’s attempt to write off his
$126,000 sponsorship of Paul Newman’s
racing car as a promotional expense for
the Edmonton Oilers and ordered him to
put the amount back on to his taxable
income.

And then last week, there came another
low blow. Leo Bolanes, the “great Ameri-
can union-buster” that Pocklington
brought up from the U.S. to slash wage
costs and take on the United Food and
Commercial Workers at Gainers, an-
nounced he was suing his boss for breach
of contract.

In his claim filed with the court,
Bolanes, known as the highest paid meat
packing executive in North America, said
he was supposed to get a bonus of
$400,000 (U.S.) for the year 1985 but
Pocklington wouldn’t pay up despite
repeated demands for the money.

Readers will recall that last June,
Alberta Federation of Labour president
Dave Werlin revealed that Bolanes salary
when he came to Gainers’ as president and
chief executive officer in 1984 was set at
$310,000. That was the same year that
Gainers’ workers accepted concessions
because Pocklington told them that the

People and Issues

a

company had to be turned around. It was
the same year that the starting rate for
workers under a two-tier wage system was
dropped from $11 an hour to $6.99.

But Bolanes, in addition to his
salary — with annual increases built in, of
course — was to an extensive expense
account, numerous health and welfare
benefits for himself and his family as well
as bonuses based on pre-tax profits.

But now it seems, Bolanes has to go
after Pocklington in court.

We can’t help thinking that Bolanes
was expected to produce more for his
money — like the demise of Local 280P
of the UFCW.

And whom knows what Pocklington
might face next. Maybe Gretzky might
give up hockey and go full time into selling
breakfast cereal.

* * *

e had a note this week from the
Women’s Committee from the
Committee of Progressive Electors telling
us of its upcoming conference on Sept. 27
at the Trout Lake Community Centre,
3350 Victoria Drive in Vancouver.
Formed in March of this year, the

committee has set out to develop policies
for women at all three levels of civic
government — council, school board and
parks board — particularly in light of
recent budget cuts at city hall which have
reduced both jobs for women and services.

The conference will run from 9:30 a.m.
to 4:30 p.m. and childcare will be provided
as will lunch. For more information, you
can contact Michelle at 251-4209 or Tami
at 251-1491.

* *

hen you consider what he has

repeatedly done during the Trib-
une’s financial drive — he raised $1,011
this year on the seamen’s target, for exam-
ple — long time Tribune supporter ard
former seaman Stan Lowe’s efforts belie
his 77 years. But we can’t say that we were
pleased with the news that came from
Stan’s doctor last month — he will be
beginning a program of chemotherapy in
a battle against cancer.

But Stan, who has been a fighter ever
since he walked into a Princeton mining
camp along with Art Evans to face the
mine employers and the Ku Klux Klan,
isn’t passing up work yet. He’s still on the
phone about the Trib and even doing
some writing about his own experiences as
a seaman and unemployed organizer.

More than anything, he’d appreciate
friends and comrades stopping by . He’s in
ward C-6 of the Heather Pavilion of Van-
couver General Hospital.

4 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 26, 1987