BRITISH COLUMBIA

Kamloops labor, students rap

cutbacks at Cariboo College

By DENISE HARPER

and JANICE HARRIS

KAMLOOPS — Drastic
budget cuts at Cariboo College
has incurred the wrath of
organized labor in this interior
city. The Kamloops and District
Labor Council joined the grow-
ing number of student, support
Staff and faculty groups pro-
testing the mad budget slashing
which will result in the elimina-
tion of seven courses, cutbacks
in nine programs and the layoff
of 15 full-time and 20 part-time
teachers. - .

A motion by the KDLC
executive pressing labor
minister Jack Heinrich, educa-
tion minister Brian Smith and
Kamloops MLA Claude Rich-
mondto provide additional fun-
ding to the college to enable it to
continue its current level of aca-
demic and vocational instruc-
tion received unanimous sup-
port from the council.

, B.C. Students Federation
spokesperson Steve Shallhorn
told the Tribune Tuesday that
the provincial government’s
refusal to tie college funding
levels to the rate of inflation was
the major reason for the rash of
staff layoffs and course cut-
backs hitting community col-
leges across the province.
“Capilano College in North
Vancouver is cutting 11
academic courses and 14 others
as well as dropping two of its
courses at its Squamish Learn-
ing Centre. ~
““Camosun College is dropp-
ing 29 out of 31 university
transfer programs, in fact, prac-
tically all of its second year
courses, and the King Edward

campus in Vancouver is looking
at severely cutting back its
English-as-a-second-language
and basic skill upgrading pro-
grams,”’ he said.

With every course cut is an

accompanying cut in support
staff and faculty. NDP educa-

tion critic Gary Lauk said earlier

this month that additional fun-
ding to colleges was ‘‘necessary
to maintain college faculty at the
1980 level.

“Cariboo College announc-
ed the layoff of 15 full-time
faculty, Malaspina laid off 22
staff and Camosun will cut its
faculty by 15 to 20,” he said.

Cariboo student society vice-
president Tim Boultbee asked
the labor council to circulate a
petition to their affiliates
demanding that adequate fun-
ding be returned to the college.

‘‘While the carpentry courses
at Cariboo are being eliminated
due to lack of funds, $900,000
has been made available to the
New Caledonia College in
Prince George to establish anew
carpentry program on that cam-
pus,’’ Boultbee told the
meeting.

Faculty association president
Jack Bradshaw added that he
had recently received a pam-
phlet from the labor ministry
stating that by 1984, industry in
B.C. will require 3,000 new ap-
prentices. ‘‘Yet current reduc-
tions are going to result ina 20
percent reduction in pre-ap-
prenticeship program

_capacity,’’ he noted.
John Harper, business agent _

for the Carpenters union accus-
ed the Cariboo College board,
made up largely of Socred ap-

_ Educators’

pointees, of passing their
responsibility onto the backs of
the public.

“They want the public to ap- »

ply the pressure for additional
funding and in so doing, negate
their own obligation to provide
education. It’s a political ploy.”

Harper also reminded the
delegates that colleges don’t lose
money on programs such as
carpentry because each appren-
tice is subsidized by the ministry
of labor.

Community colleges were
founded on the principle of pro-
viding post-secondary educa-
tion for students as near to their
own homes as possible. They
have given working class people
the opportunity to obtain higher
education for themselves and
their.children, Harper said.

He warned the meeting that
should these cuts be permitted,
“we will again see a situation
where higher ‘education will be
available only for the children of
the rich.”

Shallhorn noted that com-
munity colleges have been suc-
cessful in increasing enrolment
in non-traditional areas,
especially women, immigrants
and those without Grade 12.

However the trend is towards
cutbacks in university transfer
programs and the increasing of
technical programs at the ex-
pense of the academic compo-
nent, he said.

Adding their voice to the out-
rage, the College and Institute
Association,
representing eight college facul-
ty associations, are presenting a
brief calling for adequate col-
lege funding to education
minister Smith Friday.

Opposition urged
to premium hike

Continued from page 1

He urged ‘‘the loudest possible
public protest’’ against the new in-
creases.

He rejected Neilson’s attempted
justification for the increases, em-
phasizing that increases in all forms
of taxes on people, including sales
tax and medicare premiums, ‘‘are
what the Social Credit government
intended all along.

“The last budget was an ex-
ample of that,’’ he said. ‘‘The

Socreds shifted the tax burden.

sharply away from corporations
and resource extraction industries
and put it directly on the backs of
people.”

He also warned that the in-
creases were part of the govern-
ment’s attack on medicare, noting
that the costs “‘have now becomeso
high that they clearly stand in the
way of hundreds of people obtain-
ing the medical care to which they
are entitled.’

Premiums and hospital charges
should be abolished, he said. :
’ David Schreck, manager of
CU&C, a medical insurance carrier
for several hundred trade union
health and welfare plans, also con-
demned the increase as ‘‘the most
regressive form of taxation.

“We should be eliminating
premiums and replacing them with
a progressive form.of taxation,”’ he
said, adding that seven provinces
already do that. ;

The’ president of the B.C. and
Yukon Building Trades Council,
Cy Stairs, called the increases ‘‘out-
rageous.”

He was echoed by Ray Gerard, a
director of the 40,000-member
Building Trades Health and Wel-
fare Plan, who told the Tribune
that the increases ‘‘are going in the

opposite direction to what was in-
tended when the medicare scheme
was introduced.

“With these increases, it isn’t
medicare any more,”’ he said.

(The federal-provincial agree-
ment -outlining the medicare
scheme introduced in 1968 stipulat-
ed that no province would impose
user charges of such a magnitude
that they would present an obstacle
to citizens receiving necessary med-
ical care.)

Gerard also charged the Socreds
with ‘“‘deception’’ in using the doc-
tors’ fee increase to justify in-
creases in hospital per diem
charges.

“The sales tax was introduced to
pay for hospitals,’’ he said, ‘‘but
the Socreds are counting on people
not remembering that fact.”

For Gerard, who represents the
Plumbers Union on the health
plan, as for other building trades,
the increases will pose acute fi-
nancing problems since a fixed sum
of money goes into the plan under
the terms of the building trades’
collective agreements.

Each member of his own union,
the Plumbers, contributes 51 cents
to the plan, he said. With that
money the administrators of the
plan finance medical and dental
coverage, wage indemnity benefits
and life insurance.

If costs for one benefit increase
sharply — as in the case of the
medical premiums — their benefits
may have to be reduced somewhere
else to make up the difference, he
said.

Hardest hit, however, are thou-
sands of minimum-wage workers
and others on low incomes who do
not qualify for premium assistance.

Trib drive victory ‘phenomenal’

In an effort described by editor
Sean Griffin as ‘phenomenal’,
Tribune supporters carried the
1981 financial campaign for the
paper to an overwhelming victory
Saturday by surpassing the drive
target of $75,000 and raising
$77,498.

The announcement of the final
figure by drive manager Pat
O’Connor was met with jubila-
tion by the 450 people at the
Tribune Victory Banquet in the
Italian Cultural Centre in Van-
couver East, most of whom had
worked hard to make the cam-
Paign a success.

The total raised is three times
that raised in 1974, Griffin noted
IN summing up the accomplish-
ment, ‘‘the direct result of infla-
tion which is an economic
weapon not only against the
wages of working people but
against papers like ours.’’

For the paper’s supporters,

| themselves fighting inflation, to

have met the challenge and raised
Over $77,000 is ‘‘of major
Political significance,”’ he said.
While some attempt to
minimize the influence of the
Tribune because of its size and
Small staff, the paper is playing an
creasingly important role in
B.C.’s labor movement, said

Coverage of the Nabob strike
Which played a critical role in

[Tallying support to the union, and

Griffin. He cited Tribune’s

Saturday's victory banquet.

the paper’s extensive coverage of
the GVRD muncipal strike, the
TWU strike and the current
building trades — CLC dispute as
material ‘“‘which no other paper
has carried.”’ :
Associate editor Fred Wilson
paid tribute to the. paper’s sup-
porters, especially the 165 honor
press builders who raised more
than $150 in the campaign. A

huge banner with each of their

names inscribed wrapped around
the back of the large auditorium.

Singled out for special honors
were the 36 members of the ‘‘500
club”’ who raised $500 or more.
The club for the top money
raisers has grown from less than

cians ge

Tribune supporters hold up cards to announce the total raised at

10 members when founded in
1975 as the ‘400 club.”” ©

Leading the way were seven
who raised more than $1,000 in-
cluding long time supporter Alex
McKitch who turned in $2,000,
Tribune board of directors presi-
dent Rita Tanche who raised

“$1,350, Jim Angelidis, Stan

Lowe, Ed Dotzler, Merv Shoe-
bottom and Gerry Delaney.
Other 500 Club members includ-
ed: Ivo Perkovic, George Gidora
Sr., Walter Gawrycki, Lorne

‘Robson, Ed Skeeles, Maurice

Rush, Mona Morgan, Bill Cho-
botuck, Julius Stelp, Columba
Rush, John Johnson, Bert Og-
den, Gordon Pinnell, Harold

TRIBUNE PHOTO— SEAN GRIFFIN

x

Pritchett, Bill Choma, Barney
Hanson, Hal Griffin, Betty Grif-
fin, Donalda Greenwell, Sean
Griffin, Dusty Greenwell, Mary
Gawrycki, Richard Blackburn,
Dorothy Lynas, Nick Podovinni-
koff, George Nelson, George
Hewison, Sam Vint, Jack Treliv-
ing, Dian McIntosh, Marty
Smith.

The drive shields, awarded
each year to the press clubs in
Greater Vancouver and in the
province with the outstanding
performances during the cam-
paign, were presented to Agnes
Jackson, press director of the

Correspondence Club for its ef- _

fort in raising $2,789 on a target
of $1,200, and to Barney Hanson
who led the Vancouver East club
to an unprecedented fifth con-
secutive shield in Greater Van-
couver by raising $10,505.

Other clubs in the running for
the awards were the Nikos
Belogiannis club and the Rich-
mond Club in Greater Vancouver -
and Victoria, Surrey and Camp-
bell River clubs in the province.

Ladysmith residents

- dominated the annual Tribune

contest winning both first and se-
cond prizes. Winner of the 1981
Ford Escort was Helen Gallagher
of Ladysmith and winner of the
vacation in Cuba was Lynn
Kistner, also of Ladysmith. Win-
ner of the third prize, a side of
beef, was Tony Cordoni of
Falkland, B.C.

How it
was done

GREATER VANCOUVER
Belogiannis

Bill Bennett
Building Trades *
Burnaby
Coquitlam
Kingsway

Niilo Makela
North Van

Nigel Morgan
Olgin

Richmond
Seamen

Van. East

N. Westminster
West Side

N.W./INTERIOR
Correspondence
Creston

Powell River
Trail

Fernie

Terrace

Prince George

SOUTH FRASER
Delta
Fort Langley

- QS Na
881 8s88sse38
2 PA2ONgGnan

BESSRSSERETS

N= _
=,
Rosen

18888 883

oa

Surrey
White Rock

EAST FRASER
Fraser Valley
Maple Ridge

OKANAGAN
Kamloops
Notch Hill
Penticton
Vernon

VANCOUVER ISLA
Campbell River
Comox Valley
Nanaimo

Port Alberni
Victoria

Miscellaneous

gant
_
8 8888

= oN

8888

ied, ok sd oA h OO, a
Bgees

-o

88a 82 S888 RSSReSL

—

1,279

TOTAL: $77,498

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 26, 1981—Page 3 _