New union
of jobless
announced

Unemployed workers in Van-
Couver, active in the campaign for
the B.C. Federation of Labor’s
Citizens Lobby for Jobs, an-
nounced this week the formation of
the Greater Vancouver Union of
the Unemployed.

The GVUU, which initially began
aS a committee of unemployed
Working with the Federation, in-
tends to offer assistance to the
unemployed with such things as
unemployment insurance but will

_ focus particularly on organizing to
demand government action to
Create jobs.

“There are three faces to
unemployment,” Michael Kauf-
Man, GVUU_ executive co-
ordinator, told a press conference
Tuesday. ‘‘The first is the
Statistical — which shows more
unemployed people than at any
tiem since the 1930’s.

“The second is the hardship
Suffered by jobless workers,
hardship that was reflected in the
3,000 questionnaires returned to
the B.C. Federation of Labor.

“And finally,’ Kaufman said
“there is the third face. Unem-
ployed people are angry, they
realize they’re getting a bad deal
te and want to do something about
1 band

He said that the GVUU
represents ‘‘a big step forward”’ in
giving the unemployed a voice.

The union will be working out of
-an office at 517 East Broadway in
Vancouver where it will also be
holding regular meetings. The
phone number is 872-7331.

Coal miners’
strike solid

Continued from pg. 1

help needy miners. It also asked
the membership to contribute $1 a
month to the relief fund.

Collections of food, including
fresh meat and produce, from U.S.
farmers who themselves have been
on strike, have also aided
thousands of miners and their
families.

In pledging their support of the
miners, trade unionists condemned
the action of the Carter ad-
ministration in invoking the
Strikebreaking law, seen as a
threat to the entire labor
movement.

.U.S. president Carter’s use of the
strikebreaking legislation against
the UMW came last week as the
160,000 miners voted over-
whelmingly to reject the contract
proposals which would have taken
away critical health, safety and
Pension benefits established in
earlier agreements.

The proposed contract would
have given up the 1974 health ac-
count which provided for some 50
health clinics, considered of vital
importance to miners and their
families in Appalachia. The
Miners, who received full medical
Coverage under the 1974 contract,
Would also ‘have been obliged to
Pay the first $50 in drug costs, $150
in doctors’ fees and $125 in hospital
Costs.

Particularly important are
Safety issues. The contract
rejected by the mineworkers would
have given the company the right
to fire a safety committeeman
Should it later be determined that
he was not justified in pulling
Workers off the job because of
Safety hazards. Miners have
Placed particular emphasis on this
issue because of unsafe conditions
in many mines throughout the
Country.

JOBS

#2 SS —

—Sean Griffin photo

Executive co-ordinator Michael Kaufman (right) told a press conference
Wednesday that the unemployed had a voice and an organization with
the formation, announced this week, of the Greater Vancouver Union
of the Unemployed. With him is Colin Snell, chairman of the
Vancouver and District Labor Council’s committee on unemployment.

‘Replace Eckardt
commission’—CP

Provincial Communist Party
leader Maurice Rush called
Wednesday for the dissolution of
the Eckardt Royal Commission on
Electoral Reform and for its
replacement by an_ all-party
commission.

Judge L. S. Eckardt, a former
deputy magistrate in the Yukon,
was appointed by premier Bennett
January 12 to conduct an inquiry
into electoral reform in the
province. Although hearings are
scheduled to begin only this week,
he has been under pressure to
prepare a report quickly, possibly
in anticipation of an early election.

That apparent haste un-
derscored the demand for the
commission’s dissolution voiced by
the Communist Party which
pointed out that it had received
permission to make a submission
before the commission — two days
after the deadline for the delivery
of written briefs.

Rush said that a note from Judge
Eckardt was received in the CP
office on March 15 with an enclosed
advertisement stating that written
briefs should be submitted to the
commission “not later than March
13, 1978.”

The letter was postmarked
March 14.

_ “That illustrates the entirely
inadequate nature of the present
inquiry,” Rush said in a letter to
premier Bennett Wednesday. He
stressed that the manner in which
the commission was established,
the haste with which it was
proceeding and the appointment as
sole commissioner a man who ran
for the government party —
Eckardt was a Social Credit
candidate in West Vancouver-
Howe Sound in 1966 — “lends
support to public suspicion that the
present commission is an exercise
aimed at strengthening the
Socreds’ grip on public office.”

> Rush said that the Communist
Party considers as long overdue
electoral reform that would
“strengthen the democratic
process and increase public par-
ticipation.

“In the public interest, we
believe that the present com-
mission should be dissovled and a
proper commission, represen-
tative of all political parties, be
established, and that adequate
time be provided for serious
participation by all political
parties, public-spirited groups and
the general public,”’ he said.

Housing, transit top jobs program

Continued from pg. 1

only alderman Marzari and
Harcourt would support council
participation in the Lobby, but they
were joined by aldermen Brown,
Ford and Bellamy in voting to
endorse the Lobby. Aldermen
Gibson, Gerrard and Puil and
mayor Volrich voted against.

On another vote, however,
council voted unanimously to
consider the proposals of the
Vancouver Labor Council and to
prepare a program of capital
works spending by the city to
create jobs. ©

The detailed Labor Council brief,
presented by council secretary-
treasurer Paddy Neale, asked the
city to embark on a job creation
program itself, and to join in
pressuring the provincial and
federal government for full em-
ployment policies.

Among the main points in the
VLC brief were:

e That the city embark on a
substantial program of con-
struction of low rental housing.
“There has been no time in recent
years when a massive attack on
this problem would be as beneficial
as at the present,”’ the submission
stated. ‘“‘Not only would con-
struction employment be provided
in any major new housing projects
in Vancouver, but the economic
stimulus would be immense.’’ The
city controls suitable land, the
demand is present and capital
assistance is available from senior
governments, the VLC said,. ‘‘All
that is required is the initiative and
determination.”’

e That the city should speed up
planning for a light rapid transit
system and make an early start on
the LRT system. ‘‘A multi-million
dollar rapid transit construction
project would provide massive
amounts of employment anda very
great economic stimulus,’’ the
VLC said. =

e That the city should reconsider
the capital works projects from the
Parks Board that were narrowly
defeated in the 1976 referendum.
Involved in that vote was $12
million. in construction and
renovation of fields and facilities
and another $10 million in the

construction of ice rinks and pools.
“Aware of the need to provide jobs,
the public, we are confident would
approve of reconsideration of these
previously rejected projects,” the
brief commented. ‘

e That the city should pressure
the provincial government to
reduce the sales tax to five per cent
and put an additional $200 million
of spending power into the
economy.

e That the city should urge the
provincial government not to allow
any further plant, mine or mill
closures.

e That the city should press the

federal government for an early ~

start on the promised drydock
expansion on Burrard Inlet.
The Labor Council submission

|

COPE PRESIDENT BRUCE YORKE...
job-creating rapid transit development.

was backed up by COPE president
Bruce Yorke who stressed the need
for a beginning of construction of a
light rapid transit system to
provide jobs.

The LRT system is Vancouver’s
‘number one civic priority’,
Yorke said, “‘which would do more
to alleviate the scourge of
unemployment and stagnation in
this city than any other single
project.”

If pressure was brought to bear
on the provincial and federal
governments it would be possible
to begin construction by mid 1978,
he declared.

Yorke called for city hall
leadership that would ‘turn the
town upside down.” He said that
the city should call a massive

presses demand for

public meeting in the Orpheum
Theatre to let Victoria and Ottawa
“feel the heat from Vancouver
citizens.” The city should then call
on the provincial government to

honor its commitment to put up 37_

per cent of the costs with Ottawa
paying an equal amount, and then

“systematically visit every public |

organization in this city, to get the
kind of citizen involvement that
alone will force Ottawa and Vic-
toria to move.”

The Downtown Eastside
Residents’ Association, in its
submission, agreed that the
“obvious” thing the city could do
was to “pressure the federal and
provincial governments for the
money they always seem to be
promising for light rapid transit.”

DERA also advocated a start on
new housing projects in the
downtown eastside by the city, and
assistance from the city in
securing more subsidies for low
rental housing projects. In ad-
dition, it contended, if the city

enforced standard of maintenance

bylaws ‘“‘this would put electrical,
plumbing, carpentry, construction
and janitorial workers back to
work.’ To enforce the bylaw
doesn’t cost the city anything,
DERA noted.

Submissions to council by the
B.C. Student Federation and the
Greater Vancouver Union of the
Unemployed stressed the growing
hardships faced by the unem-
ployed, and in particular by
women, youth and students.

The GVUU told council that “‘the
few job creation programs that
exist are a joke.” It asked the
council to initiate socially valuable
public work projects and to support
the March 30 jobs lobby by
declaring the day a civic holiday.

The BCSF pointed out that young
people face an unemployment rate
two and a half times that for those
over 25 years, and a full 25 per cent
of students were jobless last
summer.

The student organization called
for ‘‘massive direct job creation as
the best possible direct short term
action to deal with unem-

ployment.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 17, 1978—Page 3

i