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FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1970

Tribune

VOL. 31 NO. 31

10c¢

TENANTS DEMAND ACTION BY OTTAWA

‘ Ottawa should use its powers under the BNA Act to
establish Canada-wide rent controls. This demand came
from B.C.’s provincial tenants organization in a brief
presented to the House of Commons Committee on
Finance, Trade and Economic Affairs, sitting in

NOVA SCOTIA FISHERMEN IN OTTAWA. Carrying on their f
travelled from the Maritimes to put their case before MPs.

Minister Bryce Mackasey and Nova Scotia labor minister Thomas J
Skeover two foreign companies who refuse to recognize or negotiate with the unio

ight for recognition of the UFAWU, fishermen
On July 20 the UFAWU wired federal labor
McKeogh demanding that the government

n of the workers choice.

Victoria on Monday.

Pointing out that the Bureau of
Statistics says that shelter
accounts for 32 percent of the
spending of the typical Canadian
family, the brief asks: ‘‘What
better place to start fighting the
battle of inflation than in an area
in which the government itself
has been a major contri
butor?”’

Challenging the Bureau of
Statistics figure of 32 percent as
being below the average rents
actually paid, the tenant’s brief,
presented by secretary Bruce
Yorke, charges that average
rents paid in Vancouver have
more than doubled in less than a
decade. ;

Yorke said that average rents
paid in the city of Vancouver
would be $150 per month, and in
reply to questions charged that
about 52 percent of rents now
paid by tenants go for payment
oninterest charges.

In reply to questions, Yorke
charged that the provincial
government had evaded respon-
sibility for rent controls by

‘Share the wealth’- Pulp Union

~The companies raise their
Prices because of two reasons:
the ability of the customer to
Pay and the cost to produce.

“We intend to base our wages
On the same two reasons — the
Companies ability to pay and our
Cost to place our labor at their

Isposal. Part of our cost is

Ousing, clothing, food, trans-
Portation, etc.’’ The Leaflet,
°rgan. of the Pulp and Paper
"0rkers, concisely put on the
ie in the above statement the
Teasons that their 5,000 members
Went on strike last Friday. The

€aflet makes it clear that their
Workers, and thousands more
across B.C. are determined to
Sain a larger share of the trem-
€ndous wealth of this province as
'S their need, and their right.

Gus Leonidas, government
appointed mediator, has turned
a report on his attempts to

Ting about a settlement
€tween the companies and the

Pulp and Paper Workers. It is
understood that once a report,
unsatisfactory to the workers is
submitted by the mediator, they
are free to strike.

In the case of the Inter-
national Brotherhood of Pulp
and Paper Workers and the
United Papermakers and Paper-

workers union, the mediation
commission appointed the same
mediator, Gus Leonidas, to try
to end their dispute with the
companies, thus preventing
them from taking strike action.

The PPWC were offered the
minimum by the companies. A
three year contract with five
percent annual increase the first
two years, and six percent in the
third.

Understandably the union’s
reply was ‘‘No way!”
* KK
Members of the Carpenter’s
Union are voting this week on
recommendations made by

Deputy: Labor Minister Sands
who has been acting as mediator
in the construction lockout. No
details of the offer will be made
public until after the vote is
taken. —

At Trail, Cominco employees
are voting this week on a
company offer. Here again no
details are available.

An injunction was granted to
Weldwood Sales with “‘regret”’
by Justice Kirke Smith to stop
IWA members from picketing
their office. Although Weldwood
Sales is a wholly-owned sub-
sidiary of Weldwood of Canada,
the company claims it is
‘“independent.’’ The IWA is on
strike at the Kent street plant of
Weldwood.

In the meantime, Mr. Justice
Nemetz, head of an industrial
inquiry into the Forest-Labor
dispute, has adopted a get-tough
attitude with union and manage-

ment over work stoppages at
Tahsis, on Vancouver Island.

John Billings, chief negotiator
for the forest industry, said
“We’re doing everything we can
to keep the lid on things, but as
an organization we must
support our members.”’

As a union, IWA leaders
obviously have the same respon-
sibility, but Billings sees one
condition for management,
another for labor.

Jack Moore of the IWA said
union men are fed up with
Billing’s whining.

“The workers are frustrated.
Their contract expired a month
ago and the industry’s lockout
threat is hanging over their
heads,”’ he said.

He told Chief Justice Nemetz
that if Billings continued to
waste time bringing up small
matters there wouldn’t be time
to get down to the major issues.

passing it on to the munici-
palities who in turn are passing
the buck by saying that a single
municipality cannot pass rent
control regulations.

Runaway rents are a national
problem and only the Federal
government can establish
meaningful controls, said
Yorke. The tenant’s brief urges
that “‘the government freeze
rents. on all existing premises

. . and that rents on new apart-
ments be established at a level
corresponding to the average
market rent for that type of
accommodation in the area
concerned.”’

The tenants brief favors the
federal White Paper proposals
for a capital gains tax and elim-
ination of what it calls the
“‘depreciation scandal’’ under
which landlords can charge as
much as 10 percent per year
depreciation rate for income tax
purposes.

However, the brief warns that
unless nation-wide rent controls
are imposed at the same time
that these changes are
implemented tenants might be
forced by large landlords to
bear the extra burden through
higher rents.

The brief charges that the
present Income Tax Act which
allows depreciation but without
a capital gains tax, has ‘‘actually
served to promote the runaway
rents most tenants have had
inflicted on them.”

Pointing out that pressure for
high rents is mainly generated
by monopoly control of housing
and the high interest rates
demanded by moneylenders, the
brief concludes by saying:

“The long suffering tenants,
constituting in all likelihood the
majority of the Canadian popula-
tion, must be given meaningful
relief, both from the exhorbi-
tant rents forced on us by the
landlord-mortgage holder, as
well as from our high taxes.”’

WHO IS TO BLAME
for lead pollution

in Richmond?
—See page 2

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