Friday, October 22, 1982

aE ES

Action on
Central
America
‘needed

— pages 9, 11

Vol. 44, No. 41

demonstrations and protest
messages, and several thousand
demonstrators are expected on
Parliament Hill Oct. 30.
Featured during the 11-day
affair, endorsed locally by the
End the Arms Race Committee,
will be disarmament activists
Dr. Linus Pauling and Nino

United Nations Disarma-
ment week, held in various cities
around the world and proclaim-
ed here by Vancouver mayor
Michael Harcourt Tuesday, will
receive added impetus by the an-
nouncement that the Canadian
government is on the verge of
signing an agreement allowing
the American military to test,
among other weapons, the no-
torious Cruise attack missile
over northern Alberta. When
the news first came to light last
spring, it prompted several

mander. Pasti will speak on
Alternatives to Madness on
Wednesday, Oct. 27 at 7 p.m.,
in the Robson Square Theatre.
Pauling’s talk on No More War

Cruise pact shadows peace week

Pasti, a retired NATO com-

is set for Thursday, Oct. 28 at
7:30 p.m., and has been moved
to a new location, the Hotel
Vancouver ballroom.

American activist Mike Jen-
drzeczyk will talk on the effects
of the nuclear freeze campaign
on the U.S. mid-term elections,
this Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the
Robson Square theatre.

For more information,
phone End the Arms Race,
736-2366, or Canadians Against
Cruise, 731-8864.

IWA president Jack Munro (in-
Set) addresses delegates at
pening session Monday.

‘TRIBUNE PHOTOS— SEAN GRIFFIN

British Columbia woodworkers, battered by 30 percent un-
employment and exhausted unemployment insurance claims,

_ turned their anger against “governments who don’t give a damn
about working people”’ as the 45th annual convention of the In-
ternational Woodworkers of America opened in Vancouver
er ae from the traditional colorful thetoric of regional
president Jack Munro’s opening speech ,it was an otherwise rela-
tively quiet convention as delegates laid out their opposition to
both Socred and Liberal economic policies in a host of resolu-
tions and reports and re-emphasized support for the New Demo-

cratic Party asthe alternative.
‘As the convention opened, chairman Roger Stanyer, Local

~. 1-80 president, underscored the crisis levels of unemployment

facing the union, pointing to the layoffs and plant closures in his
own local in Nanaimo.
See JOBLESS page 12

‘Employers’
strike’ shuts
B.C.’s ports.

The lockout of B.C. longshore-
men, who have been working with-
out a contract since Dec. 31, is
simply a “‘strike by our employ-
ers,’ union spokesman Frank
Kennedy has charged.

The secretary-treasurer of the
Canadian area of the International
Longshoremen’s and Warehouse-
men’s Union said the lockout, initi-
ated Wednesday by the B.C. Mari-
time Employers Association, fol-
lowed a six-week slowdown pro-
mpted by the year-long contract
dispute. A key issue is the union’s
container clause, which the em-
ployers.want removed, he said.

The employers association had
demanded changes that would re-
sult in transferring jobs away from
dock workers, to be performed by
lower-paid and possibly non-union
workers, Kennedy said.

Other issues, such as basic hour-
ly rate increases over a two-year
agreement, had been close to settle-
ment although there was still an
outstanding dispute over shift pay-
ment differentials.

The year-long negotiations —
the workers have been without a
contract since December, 1981 —
broke down last July when both
parties asked federal conciliator H.
Allan Hope to report to the federal
ministry. His subsequent report,
released mid-August, heavily fa-
vored employer demands but was
accepted by the ILWU as a basis
for further negotiations, which
were resumed.

Despite the lockout, “‘we’re not
putting up a picket line,’’ Kennedy
said. The union has agreed to move
any perishable goods still on the
docks.

‘“We recognize what happens to
the community when we take strike
action. But the employers have al-

ways waited until the government,
at the last minute, steps in and rams
a collective agreement down our
throats,’’ Kennedy said.

Employer spokesman Norman
Cunningham claimed the associa-
tion took action — he denied it was
a lockout, although all longshore-
men employed in shipping opera-
tions have been sent home — be-
cause the union slowdown was
‘‘bleeding us to death.”

A simultaneous announcement
by the National Harbors Board
said the Port of Vancouver had set
a loading record in the first nine
months of 1982.

A key recommendation in
Hope’s report was that the union
agree to drop for a trial period of 12
months an existing clause which
grants longshoremen the right to
unload containers with goods
bound for two or more consignees.

The BCMEA has demanded an
end to the clause, which would
mean containers would pass
through the docks intact, to be un-
loaded at some other warehouse,
which could employ lower-paid
and possibly non-union labor.
(There is no dispute over containers
bound for one consignee.)

“They’re saying we have to give
up our work rules, conditions we
have won over the years, so that
they can send work uptown to do it
cheaper,’’ Kennedy said.

“‘We’re not about to do that —
they should know that,’’ he added.

While the lockout was not di-
rected against longshoremen at
grain elevators, the elevator dock
workers have walked off the job.

So: far the federal government
has said it will not use its traditional
weapon of legislating the long-
shoremen back to work.

B.C. Fed, CLC to act in hotel union dispute

— page 12