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WA pAnOUness agreement ith Mac-Blo

Public pressure wins Van-Ply pact

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The decision of MacMillan
Bloedel to retain most of the
Vancouver Plywood operation was

a victory for the union’ Syd

ompson, president of Local 1-217
told the Vancouver and District
Labor Council Tuesday. :

Thompson reported to the
Council that the company “‘backed
off” its earlier decision to close the
mill and put 700 workers out of
work and reached a compromise
with the union based on the IWA’s
original proposal to close only one
Part of the operation.

Under the terms of the
agreement, reached last Friday

following meetings with the
company and forests minister Tom
Waterland, Mac-Blo will close the
older A mill and will upgrade the
lathes in the B mill.

The A mill was built in the 1930’s,
Thompson said, while the B mill

which now employs most of the |

plant’s 700 workers, was built some
20 years later.

The closure will take place over
a period of four months at the’ end
of which time, some 180 workers
will have been affected, according
to the IWA president.

Thompson noted that there had

been ‘‘massive pressure” on the
employer and on the provincial
government to prevent the shut-
down, although he reférred to the
final agreement worked out with
the company as a “victory for
tripartism.”

Earlier tripartite discussions
had failed to yeild any change in
Mac-Blo’s position, however, and it
was not until a meeting of IWA
plant chairman had threatened a
one-day stoppage and public
pressure had been brought to bear
on the government that a com-
promise was reached.

Thompson’s —
report says
ho to Kitimat

Dr. Andrew Thompson’s interim
Teport on the need for a west coast
oil port has concluded that there is
no need for such a port based on
present evidence, the Tribune
learned this week.

The report was submitted to the
federal cabinet on Thursday as the
Tribune went to press, but sources
Close to commissioner Thompson
Confirmed that he recommended
against a port.on present evidence,
but also asserted that the evidence
1S incomplete.

Thompson took a firm stand in -

© report in calling for the
Teconvening of both the formal and
Community hearings of the West
Coast Oil Ports Inquiry at the
Soonest possible date.

In addition, the commissioner
argued as well for the funding of

_ Participants in the Inquiry so that

°Pposition groups will have
Tesources to counter the
arguments of the oil companies.

At Tribune press time, however,
Thompson’s position on the all

portant ‘phase two” of the

quiry was not clear. Phase two
dealt with the supply and demand
and economic need for an oil port.
“Pposition groups, and in par-
ticular the United Fishermen and

llied Workers’ Union, had

Completely overwhelmed company .

Spokesmen in phase two and were
about to call their own expert
Witnesses when the Inquiry was
‘Suspended.

Since then energy minister
Alastair Gillespie has com-
Missioned the National Energy

Board to make a study of Canadian

Oil needs, also with a view to the

_ heed for a west coast oil port.

Opposition groups contend that
EB is completely dominated
Y the oil companies and cannot be
= ted to make a fair and honest
Sessment of Canadian needs.
th €y have consistently demanded
% at the Thompson Inquiry be re-
nvened and that Phase Two of
© Inquiry be continued.

conttimat Pipeline Company, the
ae Sortium of multinational oil
Sue eanies that wants to build a
Perport and pipeline at Kitimat,

» boycotted the Thompson
quiry to avoid public scrutiny of

their proposal.

TORONTO — Five men and
three women, dancers in the cast of
“Two Faces of -Africa’’, which
recently closed here, have applied
to the Canadian government for
political asylum ‘‘out of fear of
persecution based on race ‘and
political opinion’’, if they return to
South Africa. ;

Two of the dancers, Welcom
Ngozi and Magnus Zulu, and a
lawyer, Brent Knazan, spoke for
the eight refugees at a press
conference Feb. 10 where the
group told reporters that changes
in the content of the play as per-
formed in Canada, placed their
lives in danger if they returned to
South Africa. The play which
opened in: Johannesburg, South

Lawyer Brent Knazan with Welcome Ngosi at press conference.

South African dancers
_ seeking political asylum

°

Africa, contained an addition
referring to the murder of Stephen
Biko when it played in Toronto.

Hearings before officials of the
External Affairs Department are
to begin. Feb. 17, with the com-
mittee hearing two cases a day
until Feb. 22.

The eight made their claim
before Immigration Department
officials Feb. 8, with transcripts of
the claims forewarded to the
External Affairs Department for
its consideration, evaluation, anda
decision whether to approve the
claim or not.

Asked if he feared for‘his life in
South Africa if he had to return,
Magnus Zulu replied ‘‘yes.”

But even with the retention of B
mill, which the company has said
will remain open for at least two
years, ‘the workers are not out of
the woods’, Thompson said.

“There’s, still a danger that
MacMillan-Bloedel won’t put the
money that’s required into the
mill,” he said.

Thompson noted that the
problem at Vancouver Plywood ‘‘is.
only one example of what’s hap-
pening throughout the forest in-
dustry.

“There are a lot of old mills and
the forest companies. are not re-

investing in those mills to keep
them up,’’ he said. “They’re
running them into the ground and
then moving out — and taking their
money elsewhere.”

MacMillan Bloedel, itself had
made substantial investments
outside of the country — South
America, Alabama, Scotland and
the Netherlands — while allowing
its plywood operation to run down.

The IWA had earlier called for
the provincial government to
examine the tree farm licences
held by companies in the forest
industry which were not prepared
to keep their plants and mills open.

The Vancouver and District
Labor Council has called on the
Canadian Labor Congress to press
the appropriate federal govern-
ment agencies demanding a
moratorium on house mortgages
for unemployed workers.

Delegates endorsed the motion
unanimously Tuesday night
folowing an appeal = by
Marineworkers and Boilermakers
Union delegate John Fitzpatrick.

‘How many workers have lost
their houses because they were out
of work?” he asked. ‘‘How much
suffering has been caused because
a worker not only loses his job but
his house as well?”

Recent figures on mortgage
foreclosures provided graphic
Pillustration to Fitzpatrick’s point,
showing that home mortgage
foreclosures reached record levels
in 1977 and were expected to go
much higher throughout 1978.

According to Central Mortgage
and Housing Corporation, the
federal government’s mortgage
corporation, the number of
foreclosures nearly tripled bet-
ween 1976 and 1977.

The figures on foreclusure ac-
tions were more sharply revealed
in court registry statistics which,
although they are not kept as a
specific item, appear to have

Liberation war continues

Zimbabwe pact denounced

By TOM FOLEY

Last Wednesday’s aereemepe in
Salisbury between “Premier tan
Smith of racist Rhodesia and three

Black personalities has been

denounced everywhere, including
inside Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) itself.
The agreement is being hailed by
Smith, however.

Joshua Nkomo, co-chairman of
the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front
(ZPF), speaking 1n Lusaka,
Zambia, said Wednesday the
agreement was “a tragedy. It is a
tragedy because it changes
nothing. Those Black leaders
Smith is talking to will join his
cabinet and carry out the same evil
acts against the people.” Nkomo

said the ZPF-led armed liberation
struggle will continue.

Jacques Clafin, reporter in
Salisbury for the U.S. United Press
International (UPI), wrote
Thursday: “‘Heated talk — most of
it anti-agreement — filled Black

‘townships into the night.’’ Clafin |

quoted a Black journalist, who
said: ‘‘This is a sellout deal.”
The UPI reporter. said a young
Black man in his 30s told him the
three Black figures allied with
Smith in the agreement would have
to be protected from the wrath of
Zimbabwe’s people. ‘“‘They have
committed treason,” he said of the

three.
The three are Chief Jeremiah

Chirau, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and

the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole.
ZPF leader Nkomo described the
agreement Smith got them to
accept as one which ‘changes
nothing.’’ It puts forward the same
demands Smith’s racist regime
has been making all along, but in
slightly different wording.

The agreement provides for an
“interim government’’ where
nearly one-third of the seats in the
proposed 100-seat parliament
would be reserved for whites, who
make up about 4 percent of the
population. There are about 250,000
whites and over 6.5 million Blacks
in Rhodesia. The privileged

position of the‘ whites would be ¥

maintained by ‘‘constitutional
See WHITE pg, 12

Mortgage relief
for jobless urged

reached a rate of more than 12 for
the Lower Mainland.

Court registrar Peter Schlosser- ©
Moller estimated that nearly a
third of Supreme Court activity in
civil litigation involves filings for
foreclosure.

Although not all of such cases -
end in actual foreclosure, the
figures clearly show that more and
more people are faced with losing
their homes, many through

unemployment.
“It’s time the CLC pressed the .
federal government for a

moratorium,” Fitzpatrick said.

INSIDE )

e FOREIGN CONTROL: In
‘Part Two of this three-part
series, an examination of
government response to
foreign. economic control,
page 5.

e VANCOUVER: The Com-
mittee of Progressive Elec-
tors launched the 1978 civic
election campaign this week
nominating 15 candidates,
page 2.

e SCHOOL BUDGETS:
Declining enrollment has
become a cover for drastic
reductions in the provincial
share of education costs,

page 3.

e ETHIOPIA: Novosti
political correspondent
Vladimir Simonov analyzes
the conflict with
NATO-backed Somalia,
page 5.

p LABOR: The LRB ruling
has lent new urgency to the
question of a bargaining
council for building trades
unions, page 11.

,