| AM WORKNG WITRIN THE SYSTEM... ROBBERY IS THE SYSTEM ! cal Washington Star Syndicate. EXXON TOPS THE PACK NEW YORK — Exxon Corp., the largest oil company in the United States, has become the first industrial company ever to earn more than $4 billion in a single year. Exxon disclosed its earnings in a report Friday which showed the company enjoyed a 60-percent earnings gain for the fourth quarter of 1979 and an over-all 55-percent increase for the year over 1978 results. The report followed announcements by several other major oil companies that the 1979 world oil price explosion resulted in sharply higher profits, with much of the earnings gains coming from operations overseas. Exxon said its profits for the year totalled $4.295 billion, or $9.74 a share, up from $2,763 billion or $6.20 a share in 1978. Revenues rose 30 per cent to $84.350 billion. GULF CANADA TORONTO — Gulf Canada Ltd. had net earnings of $273.8 million or $6.02 a sharein 1979, up 46 percent from $186.9 million or $4.11 the previous year. The 1979 figures do not include a non- recurring gain of $14.2 million of 20 percent of Gulf’s interest in the Syncrude project to the Alberta Energy Co. Ltd. OIL PROFITS MORE THAN $1 BILLION United Press International CLEVELAND — Standard Oil of Ohio, the second largest producer of crude oil in the U.S., will report 1979 profits of more than $1 billion, a 120 percent increase over the previous year, a spokesman indicated Sunday. Sohio already has reported profits of $735.1 million for the first nine months of 1979, or an average of just less than $250 million per quarter. But the Alaska Pipeline, the company’s major source of oil, has been operating at “maximum efficiency” only since Oct. 30 —a development which undoubtedly pushed Sohio’s 1979 profits past $1 billion. Sohio made $450.2 million in 1978 and $181.1 million in 1977. Asked whether it would be correct to assume the company’s fourth quarter prof- its would continue the skyrocketing trend established in the first three quarters of | 1979, Sohio spokesman Chuck Partridge = “T don’t think that’s far off the mark at all. “As a matter of fact, we’ve gone further and said that the first two quarters of this year will continue to reflect that (profit outlook), Partridge said. $1 TRILLION OIL PROFIT It is a common belief that big business dominates the U.S. government ...a belief easily documented. Recent events have underscored the power of one sector of big business, the oil companies. The following facts should help to remind us just how much control they have over our govern- ment. Congressional Oil Interests Staggering e Thirty-seven members of the Senate own stock in oil and gas companies, including nine members of the Finance Committee, which controls all tax legisla- tion covering oil companies. The Chairman of the Finance Committee, Russell Long, owns $1.2 million in oil and gas property. © Sixty-one members of the House of Representatives own interests in oiland gas companies, and 21 congressmen were paid speaking fees by oil and gas interests in 1978. © The oil lobby spends up to $75 million a year in Washington. More than 600 oil- industry employees are on the payroll just to influence Congress and the regulatory agencies. Obscene Oil Profits While the commercial press has recently given its headlines to obscene profit gains by the oil companies (Exxon, up 118% in the third quarter, 1979, above one year previous; Mobil, 130%; Texaco, 211%, Sohio, 191%), the really big news has been buried. The fact is that the oil companies are expected to make an extra $1 trillion in profits during the next 10 years, compliments of President Carter. —From “ECONOMIC NOTES” Oct.-Nov., 1979 Labor Research Ass’n. New York. IMPERIAL OL TORONTO — Imperial Oil Ltd. of Toronto reported net operating income in 1979 was $471 million, a 50-percent increase from $314 million in 1978. The company also had a net gain of $22 million from the sale of 20 percent of its interest in the Syncrude heavy oil project to Alberta Energy Co., bringing total net in- come to $493 million. Operating earnings per share were $3.61, compared with $2.41 a share last year. Net earnings, including the sale of the Syncrude interest, were $3.78 a share. VENZOIL CARACAS — Venezuela’s state oil monopoly had record profits in 1979 of more than $2.5 billion, up 72 per cent from the previous year, while the company’s export sales totalled $13 billion, up by 52 percent, industry sources said. Although the state oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, has not yet made public its financial results for the year, reliable sources in the country’s nationalized petro- leum industry made the information available. SUNCOR FORT McMURRAY, Alta. — Suncor Inc. has announced net earnings for the three. months ended Dec. 31, 1979, totalled $78.5 million, more than triple the $21.5 million earned during the fourth quarter of 1978. Earnings for 1979 reached $169.8 million, nearly triple the $57.8 million recorded in 1978. BASHING THE JOBLESS Proposed cuts in unemployment insurance will hit the worst-off hardest, says MP John Rodriguez. If you get laid off tomorrow you will probably have a lot more trouble collecting Unemployment Insurance than you would have had four years ago. In fact, chances are you might not be able to collect it at all, even if there are no other jobs to be had. If this new Conservative government in Ottawa has its way, things are going to get even tougher. For the past several months, the Conser- vatives have been circulating a study which would see U.I. benefits for season workers cut and payments to single recipients drastically reduced. The approach, which pays less to single people, is called a two-tier system. It would mean that in 1978 a single recipient, on the average would have received about $82 per week rather than the $110 he did get. Moreover, the people who can least afford this will be most affected. Over 93 per cent of people with insured earnings of less than $100 a week would see their benefits cut while only 61 per cent of those making over $200 would be affected. This Conservative proposal is in keeping with the last four amendments to the Unem- ployment Insurance Act brought in by the previous Liberal government. The Liberals kicked people over 65 out of the program in spite of the fact many of these people need to work to eat and some have contracts which permit later retire- ment. The fact of the matter is that both Liberal and Conservative governments find it easier to attack the unemployed than to create jobs. Jobs, or the lack of them, is the real issue. Some Canadians do cheat on Unemploy- ment Insurance but the overwhelming majority do not. The answer for those few who docheatis to apply present regulations, not to cut off whole segments of the popula- tion from the program’s protection. Both the New Democratic party and the Canadian Labour Congress are committed to opposing this legislation. C.L.C. Vice- President Shirley Carr has called for a broadly-based campaign to convince the Government that it is wrong about this issue. Public pressure has already made the Tories think twice about selling PetroCan. It will take even more public pressure to make the Tories think twice about once again bashing the unemployed. —From “Canadian Interchange’’, Dec. 1979 “We in America are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land. The poor-house is vanishing from among us. We have not yet reached the goal; but, given a chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty shall be banished from this nation.” —Herbert Hoover, speaking on the occasion of wig Domination for U.S. President, August 11, ———~.y"