| HE ia: uray SAME on] AME ONT Thad op Me: Mees RUS ay Members of the Canadian Food and Allied Workers Uniori picketed the shareholders meeting of Canada Packers last week at Toronto's Royal York Hotel. CFAWU wants the packinghouse company to lift its lockout imposed three weeks ago in response to a strike of CEFAWU members at Swifts Cana- dian. Some 6,000 packinghouse workers remain behind picket lines this week. set To A major strike is looming over B.C.’s fishing industry with this week’s rejection of the fishing companies last offer by the 70 member shoreworker’s negotiating committee of the United Fishermen and Allied. Workers’ Union. Shoreworkers and tendermen are already in a legal position to strike and although a plant by plant vote will not be completed until this weekend, a big rejection vote is expected. “The industry could shut down UFAWU secretary Socreds, not local boards 22:22" behind high school taxes Premier Bennett and education Minister McGeer have publicly urged defeat of local school boards Which have refused to slash budgets and lower the standards of education in their districts. In this special article prepared for the Tribune, Coquitlam. School Board chairperson Eunice Parker responds to the attack on school boards and fires back at the Policies of the provincial govern- ment. By EUNICE PARKER The passage of Proposition 13 in California has revived the debated on rising taxation in B.C. and has 8iven renewed vigor to the strident Voices that we have long heard jondemning education programs, Ocal school boards, teachers and 1 forms of education spending. The right wing crusade against education currently on in B.C. is Sed on a ‘cut the taxes and os be damned’’ philosophy. t completely ignores the need for a redistribution of taxation to those with the ability to pay. course homeowners are Overtaxed; but it is just these or- Nary taxpayers who are most in need of social services which 8overnment should provide for the Nefit of the majority of the Population, ne: reason for high property X€s is not excessive spending by School boards. In spite of the facts, . however, people like education minister Pat McGeer are working overtime to convince the public that education spending ‘is the culprit.in-the property tax steal. Those who are taken in by the demagogy of the minister and join the campaign for cutbacks in education funding are actually joining a campaign against the educational needs of the majority of children in B.C. The provincial government is quick to assure the public that education is a top priority of the .government. But it isn’t. The Socreds have steadily, reduced provincial funding for education over the past three years, while at the same time charging that education standards are falling, that school board budgeting is irresponsible and that declining See TAX page 7 ESSE EUNICE PARKER. .. ‘Taxes are up not because boards are spen- ding more, but because the Socreds are paying less.” negotiating committee is unanimous to reject and the membership are behind them.”’ If the UFAWU strikes the Fisheries Association it will idle some 15,000 fishermen, shoreworkers and tendermen on “the B.C. coast and could cost the companies up to $200 million in lost revenues. It will also be the first major strike in B.C. since the end-of the wage control program and will likely emerge as a test case for labor and big business in the post control period. Under the wage _ control program, UFAWU wage earners — shoreworkers and tendermen — had wage increases held to 14 percent while the cost of living rose by more than 20 percent in the same period. With controls lifted, the UFAWU is determined to win back some of the lost ground, but the companies are insistent that the workers accept another agreement less than the in- flationary rate. The companies’ last offer was Chilean DINA agent confesses U.S. assassination of Orlando Letelier The murder of former Chilean ambassador to the United States Orlando Letelier has been linked directly to Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and top officers of the Chilean secret police, DINA. Letelier served as ambassador Goodwin memorial | The sixtieth anniversary of the murder of Ginger Goodwin will be marked by a memorial rally July 30, 1:00 p.m. at Goodwin’s gravesite in Cumberland. ; Goodwin, an early radical labor leader, was shot by a CPR policeman July 26, 1918. The shooting precipitated Canada’s first general strike in Vancouver, organized by the Vancouver Labor Council. The Goodwin memorial rally is being organized by the Comox Valley club of the Young Com- munist League. to the U.S. on behalf of former president Salvador Allende until the coup in Chile in September 1973. After the coup Letelier was an outspoken critic of the junta’s fascist regime in Chile, using his broad contacts made in years. of diplomatic service on behalf of the democratic resistance in Chile. In 1976, however, Letelier was assassinated in a bomb explosion near the Chilean embassy in Washington, D.C. The murder evoked outrage from democrats around the world, but the Chilean junta denied any involvement in the crime. The murder has now been confessed to by a U.S. citizen living in Chile, Michael Townley who has been employed by Chile’s DINA since 1970. Chilean authorities have refused responsibility for Townley’s actions and have ex- tradited him to the U.S. where he is presently in the custody of the FBI. Since extradition to the US., Townley has confessed his role in planning the murder of Letelier and recruiting three Cuban exiles from Miami to execute it. Townley insists he acted on orders from DINA. Canadian Broadcasting Cor- poration radio program ‘‘Sunday Morning’’ July 2 interviewed Townley’s Chilean wife from Santiago who confirmed his role in ‘the murder and substantiated his claims that he acted on orders from DINA. Townley’s wife insisted that orders to kill Letelier came from DINA chief General Manuel Contrerez, a close friend and confident of Pinochet. U.S. in- vestigators are now seeking to have Contrerez brought to the U.S., to answer questions about his in- volvement. This poses problems for Pinochet, the CBC said, “because Contrerez literally knows where the junta has buried its bodies.” iIndustry wide | fishing strike break for 55 cents per hour or 7 percent for shoreworkers and $6.78 per day to tendermen, also a 7 percent increase. ‘‘There is no way our members will accept that after being held down, by controls,” Hewison said, ‘‘While we took a cut in real income, company profits increased 111 percent.” The Fisheries Association can afford to pay more, Hewison said, but it is under pressure from the Employers Council, of which it is a member, to take a hard line against the union. “‘Ability to pay is not at issue,’’ he said, ‘‘The issue is employer unity to suppress wages and conditions,”’ Shoreworkers in Prince Rupert, Steveston and Vancouver last week expressed their displeasure with the failure of the Fisheries See UFAWU page 8 INSID YouR Cost OF o VANDER ZALM: He has unleashed yet another series of repressive measures against the poor, but not all welfare bums have earned the ministers’ displeasures, page 2. o ARGENTINA: Neither democratic nor fascist under the. military government of General Videla, Argentina's com- plex political scene is ex- plored in a feature inter- view with .two leading members of the Com- munist Party of Argen- tina, page 4, 5. o LABOR: Some _build- ing trades leaders are promoting disunity among construction unions and helping the CLRA get away with a cheap settlement in B.C. Jack Phillips discusses the problem, page 8. Te es ye a eee Tee