/THOSE WELFARE

CHEATS ARE
ROBBING You!

UNION CARTOONS

Contracting out hit

City wastes tax dollars

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

Vancouver’s outside employees,
members of Local 1004 of the
Canadian Union of Public Em-
ployees, in a recent bulletin
revealed that more and more work
that is normally done by city
employees is being contracted out.

Here are a few examples, taken
from their bulletin:

e At least 50 per cent of all
trucking on city construction jobs
is done by private contractors.

e A minimum of 40 trucks a day
are being hired by the city.

e At least 106 private firms or
contractors are now being used by
the city for work that could and
shouldebe done by city employees
with city equipment.

@ Virtually all the work in

Victoria turns deaf ear

“We have a deaf government.
What we need is a_ hearing
government, a government that
will listen to us.’’

These were the words spelled out
in sign language by one of 80 deaf
persons who marched in front of
the legislative buildings in Victoria
last Thursday to protest the Socred
government’s plan to decentralize
education for the deaf, and is ex-
pected to lead to the imminent
closure of Jericho Hill school for
the deaf and blind.

The provincial government
turned a deaf ear to the protest.
Neither education minister Pat
McGeer, who is responsible for the
program, or any other member of
the government, turned out to meet
the protesters. The demonstration
in Victoria came directly from the
convention of the Western
Canadian Association for the Deaf
(WCAD), which met in Vancouver
from Tuesday to Saturday last
week.

Education minister McGeer first
announced the new plan to
decentralize education for the deaf
and hard of hearing in a press
statement May 7. He said at the
time that “experience shows that
communicatively. impaired
children who live at home and are
educated in their own community
have the best opportunity to make
a good adjustment in society.”’

This stand was sharply repudiated

by the WCAD convention - last
week.

A lengthy resolution passed at
the convention said, ‘‘It is
predicted that under the new
system deaf children will be
frustrated, lonely and unhappy
there in their home communities
because they cannot communicate
with the hearing children.”

Allard Thomas, president of
WCAD, told the convention that the
idea of teaching deaf children at
the community level looks fine on
paper, but only a large central
agency can provide all the
specialized facilities and training
the youngsters need. ‘‘No deaf
person should: be deprived of the
right to communicate by whatever
means best suits him. No Canadian
should arbitrarily be cut off from
his fellow human beings.”’

Thomas said that if a deaf child
is put into an ordinary public
school, or even one with some
special facilities, he will have
problems in learning and in his
social life. Stressing that the dif-
ference between a child who is deaf
and one who is not is ‘‘very great,”
Thomas said: ‘‘we must do
whatever we can to head off the
decentralizing plan in B.C. before
it spreads to the other provinces.

“It’s fine to discuss theories and
make efforts to cut down on
spending of public money, but if

the future of deaf children is to

come before the dollar, the B.C.
plan needs another look.”

The resolution adopted by the
parley said the WCAD ‘takes a
strong stand for the continued
centralization of Jericho Hill
school which has been vastly
improved with excellent facilities
for the benefit of children.”

A group of deaf protesters in
Victoria echoed the concern felt by
the entire deaf community in B.C.,
that the government’s. de-
centralization plan would lead to a
lowering of the quality of education
offered the deaf both in the com-
munity and at Jericho, because
classes in all places will be too
small to warrant the specially-
trained staff now at Jericho.

The WCAD convention decided to
launch a new petition against the
decentralization move addressed
to the provincial government and
all opposition parties.

The Socred government’s policy
also came under fire at the June 15
Vancouver Labor-Council when the
subject was raised by the B.C.
Government Employees’ Union
which expressed concern over the
imminent closure of Jericho.
BCGEU delegates said
regionalization of deaf facilities
cannot provide service for the deaf
and would be a violation of a deaf
person’s rights.

John Eldridge of the BCGEU,

See DEAF PROTEST, pg. 8

Gastown was done by private
contractors.

e Paving of city lanes is now
done by private contractors. City

‘crews pave the outer edges, the

private contractor does the easy
and the profitable work on the
centre lanes, and then city crews
are brought in to do the necessary
finishing off and cleanup work.

e Contracting out of street
paving is on the increase.

What is wrong with contracting
out, you may ask? Two things at
least.

One is that it is costing taxpayers -

twice as much as when city em-
ployees do the same work. Private
contractors have to make a profit
while city employees using city
equipment can do it all at cost. The
result is fat profits for the con-
tractors and expensive bills for
taxpayers.

The other result is that hundreds
of jobs have been and are being lost
to city employees.

The union charges that the
practice of contracting out has
been a creeping sort of thing,
growing month by month, year by
year. And they charge that it is a
deliberate policy, the aim of which
is to eventually turn all city work
over to private contractors.

a

‘ya TEAMSTERS
Pam coca ais:

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deo
me ON STRIKES. 4 ON STRIKE

b TEAMSTERS

I’ve been on council for 10 years
now and I know of no decision of
council to turn this work over to
private contractors. And I dont
know of any decisions to this effect
that have been issued by the city
manager or the heads of city
departments. ‘

Yet the fact remains that it is}
being done, and that someone,
somewhere is issuing the orders,
Someone or some people in
authority are undermining the long |
established policy that the city}
does its own work. :

The union states that it isnt}
going to sit back quietly while their |
jobs are being taken away and
taxpayers are being billed for
“unnecessary and large eX
penditures just so that some
private contractor can make a
profit at our expense, both as
employees and as taxpayers.

They should be congratulated for
exposing this growing practice.
City council has a duty to look into
these charges and take corrective
action. But you know and I know it
won’t do this unless the public also
raises an outcry.

We owe it to ourselves to back
the union on this issue — it’s our
dollars that are being wasted.

SS KRESGE CO

SHIPPING AND RECEN

Co. Ltd., and are protesting action by the local Manpower office which)
is cooperating with the company’s efforts to break the strike by
referring students to scab on the workers. It is reported Kresge’s has set)
aside $2 million to break the attempt by the Teamsters to organize its

distribution depots in Canada. :

TOM

\he Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the Anti-

Inflation Act is properly legal, constitutional and all
that. Now, it seems, in a time of crisis, near crisis, or just
plain manufactured crisis the federal government has the
power, the responsibility and the right to do what it damn
well pleases, all in the interest of ‘‘peace, order and good
government.”’ ‘ ;

Seems to me the people of Canada have heard that yarn
before. During the reigns of spook-chaser Mackenzie
King, Tory Iron Heel Bennett, the saturnine Arthur
Meighen et al, it used to be sounded morning, noon and
night. Then it was mass unemployment, hunger and
destitution among the people that gave rise to the ‘‘peace,
order and good government” ballyhoo. Today it is that
and something more; the right of a government to rob the
‘people on behalf of big monopoly, to enforce the extortion
of every last cent by so-called wage and price control,
with all emphasis on the wage controls, and every en-
couragement to the big business robbery, And this for-
sooth, is presumed to enhance ‘‘peace, order and good
government.”’ We together with the people of Canada
have another name for it, not strictly polite, but eminently
descriptive!

Pierre Elliott Trudeau is reported to be jubilant at the
outcome of the Supreme Court ruling. So is every last

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 23, 1976—Page 2

McEWEN.

crook in the prices ripoff. Even the Al Capones in our
society see a new era of profits ahead. Only the people,
who are getting rooked on everything they buy, be it food,
transportation, gas and oil or a useless cathartic to

stimulate their bowel movements. The Anti Inflation -

Board, or the AIB as it is better known, sees to it that
wages are kept at zero minimum while profits are boosted
to ever higher maximums. :

Moreover the AIB has become in the course of its short
existence, a weapon of control and arbitration on the issue
of wages. A union may settle, following a period of long
struggle with the bosses on just what the wage will be, but
the AIB horns in and says no, you can’t pay that, the
stipulated figure must be so-and-so less. It’s legal now, so
your collective bargaining with the boss is all shot to hell,
and the AIB becomes the main instrument of bellyrobbing
or other ripoffs on the worker’s pay envelope. Marx and

_ Engels foresaw this method of robbery as far back as

1848 when they referred to the ‘“‘other means whereby
capital robs the workers,’’ even if they weren’t acquainted
with Mrs. Plumptre, Jean-Luc Pepin or Trudeau.

The only segment of society that isn’t jubilant at the
legality of an illegal heist is the labor movement, which
broadly speaking, represents the people. It has nothing to
be jubilant about, and as the Canadian Labor Congress
has said, ‘‘the Supreme Court ruling means nothing to
us.” That is splendid, providing it is backed by more than
mere statements, plus a class consciousness that
evaluates capitalist legalities and illegalities in their true
worth; just another ruling of their kept courts to preserve
the hegemony of a class which rules by robbery, deceit
and doublecross.

illegalities of AIB have now become legal and, as with the ;
War Measures Act, and such like dictums, now the war}
against labor and the people has been legalized. Hence the}
general strike or other nation-wide activity which labo
has been speaking about, becomes much more urgen
Either that, or accommodate ourselves to the general idea}
of being robbed legally — without redress. }

In short, it is time to mount the general and widespre
offensive before we are seized with an epidemic
“legalities.”

For “peace, order and_ good government” t
ingredients are essential. Stop the squandering of billio
of dollars for war equipment, and put it at the service
the people. To achieve “‘order,”’ stop the graft, corruption
and immorality at the top, and show an example to the
“bottom.” And for ‘“‘good government’ put an end
orders-in-council and decrees. In short, the Lincolnesq
dictum of the people as masters of government, not as
subservient peons. oe

PACIFIC

RIBUN

Editor - MAURICE RUSH
' Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — MIKE GIDORA

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