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Friday, July 16, 1976

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VOL. 38, No. 28

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| workers.

itimat decision pending

A decision by the Labor
Relations Board on whether or not
Alean will be granted permission
to take disciplinary action against
136 members of the Canadian
Association of Smelter and Allied
Workers who struck Alcan’s
Kitimat smelter last month is
expected to be handed down this
week following the completion of
hearings in the northern com-
munity last week.

CASAW president Peter Burton
told the Tribune in a telephone
interview this week that Alcan was
seeking ‘‘relief from an un-

} dertaking’’ which it gave the LRB

that no action would be taken

| against those who left their jobs in

the smelter demanding a
reopening of the union contract.
Alean undertook to refrain from
recrimination when the board
issued a series of three orders
which required the workers to end
the strike and return to work.
Since that time Alcan dismissed
32 CASAW members, and asked
the LRB that it be allowed to
discipline them and additional 106
Burton said that the
dismissal of the 31 was in violation
of the undertaking.

PETER BURTON

AIM LEADER RUSSELL MEANS...

.S. Indian leader warns:

He said that Alcan had expressed
their intention to fire the 30, which
includes himself and a number of
executive board members as well
as most of the chief stewards in the
plant. ‘In addition the company is
requesting permission to hand out
severe suspensions of six to 12
weeks to 15 workers, moderate
suspensions of two to six weeks for
13 workers, and what the company
considers to be “‘light”’ suspensions
of up to two weeks for another 46.
As well, they are requesting
permission to issue warnings to
another 32 CASAW members.”

Burton said that the main
question discussed before the LRB
hearings, which lasted two days
instead of the anticipated four
hours, was whether or not the
company has the right to discipline
any individual considering its
undertaking to the board. ‘‘When
we (the union) were before the
board we wanted to know why the
company had waited so long before
moving against these people.
Logically, Alean should have
issued the suspensions, if they
were going to suspend anyone, as
soon as we were in violation of the
LRB order, and we think that they
have forfeited their right to
discipline anyone by waiting so
long.

“Another point we tried to make
to the board was that when Alcan
suspended myself and the rest of
the 31 which they are trying to fire,
they broke the terms of the LRB
order and have mOleled their
undertaking.”’

Burton would not speculate on
what the response to the LRB
decision would be and said that the
union would have to study the
ruling before taking any action,
and that any action would be
dependent on the board ruling.

A number of the CASAW

no fair trial for Indians in South Dakota. (See story)

SF

— Sean Griffin photo

members face more than the
threat of disciplinary action from
Alcan with a number of criminal
charges pending against union
members arising from the arrest
of 32strikers by the RCMP, and the
launching of a contempt of court
charges, after the workers
remained in violation of the LRB
order to return to work. In ad-
dition, Alcan has promised to
launch civil damage suits against
both the union and individuals in

the union, though no steps have.

been taken imthat direction as yet.

Calls on Canada

to grant asylum

If Leonard Peltier is returned to
the.United States he will face the
“same fate”’ of certain death as did
Anna Mae Aquash, American
Indian Movement leader Russell
Means said this week.

Peltier, an AIM member ac-
cused of murdering two FBI agents
on the Pine Ridge Indian Reser-
vation in South Dakota, is being
held in Oakalla pending an appeal
against extradition to the U.S. He
was ordered deported following a
hearing in Vancouver despite the
introduction of evidence that his
prosecution is politically
motivated, an action which voids
the terms of the Canada-U.S. ex-
tradition treaty.

Means was in Vancouver this
week to meet with minister of
justice Ron Basford over both the
Peltier case and the death of Anna
Mae Aquash, a MicMac Indian
from: Antigonish; Nova Scotia who
was shot to death in Pine Ridge last
February. Means said that the
shooting had all the earmarks of an
FBI execution.

Aquash’s body was found in a
deserted area of the Pine Ridge
Reservation on February 24 of this
year, and after a “‘cursory in-
vestigation” by FBI agents a
government pathologist declared
that she had died of exposure.

However, under pressure from
her family, the community of
Oglala and the Wounded Knee
Legal Defense/Offense Com-
mittee, her body was exhumed and
another autopsy performed by Dr.
William Peterson, one of the top
pathologists in the United States.

The second autopsy revealed that
the cause of death had not been
exposure, but rather that she had
been ‘“‘shot behind the ear at very
close range with a 38 calibre gun.”’
Means said that the autopsy also
revealed multiple bruises and
contusions about her head and
shoulders and matted blood in her
hair.

He said that Canada’s reaction to
the FBI ‘execution of a Canadian
citizen’’ has been a ‘‘cowardly
action in an attempt to have this
assassination forgotten by burying
it in bureaucracy thereby aiding
and abetting the FBI execution.”’

The AIM leader urged Canada to
bring pressure to bear upon the
U.S. through the United Nations.for
a “just investigation which would
confirm the FBI execution and
political persecution of AIM.”

Means said that the repression
which AIM. faces can be shown by

‘the fact that in the 39 months since

the Wounded Knee occupation
there have been 263 deaths of AIM
members in the U.S. and over 600
AIM members have been sent to
prison. ‘‘The figures are incredible
when you consider that there are
only about 250,000 native people in
the whole United States between
infancy and old age.

“Through a systematic process
the federal authorities have taken
away the strength and potential of
the American Indian Movement.
But, we’ve gone through 400 years
of concerted genocidal practices
and we've survived, and we'll
continue to survive now.”

See PELTIER, pg. 8

The Supreme Court decision

EDITORIAL

The. Supreme Court of
Canada’s ruling that the federal _
Anti-Inflation Act is con-
stitutional doesn’t do a single
thing to change the nature of
that viciously anti-working
class piece of legislation, the
aim of which is to force down
workers’ living standards and
undermine colivetive
bargaining.
~All it did was declare the
legislation legal. But that
doesn’t make it right. The Act
remains the most one-sided and
anti-working class pieces of
class legislation seen in many
generations. No wonder the
spokesman for the Employers
Council of B.C. hailed ie
decision.

It should be recalled ey it
was the federal cabinet which
_asked the Supreme Court to rule
on the legislation. Their reason
for seeking constitutional

support for the Act was to —

strengthen the government’s
drive to impose its unfair
provisions on Canada’s trade

union movement and as a reply —

to the growing mass protest ;

against the legislation.
With a favorable ruling in its
pocket, the federal government
can now be expected to drive
unrelentingly to impose it on
working people no matter what
the cost. Prime minister
Trudeau indicated as much
when he said, following the
announcement of the court’s
_ ruling, that ‘Now that the court
has decided, everyone will get
behind the controls and make
them: work.”

George Johnston, president of
the B.C. Federation of Labor
summed up the attitude of labor
when he said the decision was
not unexpected and did not
make any difference to the
trade union attitude toward the
controls. —

Johnston said the trade
unions are committed to oppose
the legislation.and will continue
to mount its protest. ‘There is
going to be a work stoppage of

- national character in the not too
distant future.’’ He said the
federation will hold a con-
ference with CLC president Joe

Morris in the near future to co-
ordinate B.C.’s part in the
Canada-wide protest.

The Supreme Court’s ruling,
plus the drive by the employers
to impose wage settlements in
line with AIB guidelines, as the
contractors are trying to do in
B.C.’s~ construction industry,
coupled with the vicious anti-
labor legislation recently
adopted by the Socred govern-
ment indicates that organized
labor is a fight for survival.

The urgency of the present
situation makes the B.C.

Federation of Labor’s con-

ference, called for Tuesday,
July 20 at the Bayshore Inn, an
event of vital importance for
every trade union local and
union member. Two items are
to be on the agenda: Socred
anti-labor legislation, and the
Liberal government’s wage
control program.

Given unity and militant
fight-back policies, this BCFL
parley could mark a_ turning

_ point in the struggle against the

wage freeze and in defence of
labor’s rights.

at