a ta a eae a 3 LABOR Several major unions in the Lower Mainland — as well as the two labor councils — have begun organizing campaigns to turn out their membership for the Apr. 24 Walk for Peace which is widely expected to be the biggest peace march in Vancouver in two dec- ades. At least one union, the United Fishermen, has established a 10-member disarmament ~ com- mittee which is mobilizing the membership and is arranging for transportation to take unionists to the march and rally and back. More unions are expected in re- sponse to the call sent out two weeks ago by the Vancouver and District Labor Council whose president Frank Kennedy is also co-chairman of the Apr. 24 steer- ing committee. “*This could be one of the most significant actions you and your members will be involved in this year,’’ Kennedy said in the letter sent out to affiliates. ‘“The Cana- dian government must get the message that the people of Can- ada do not want to be involved or affected by further wars — and that message has to be delivered by the prime minister of Canada to the second session of the Unit- ed Nations on Disarmament in June, 1982.” The steering committee organ- izing the march and rally repre- sents some 50 organizations in- cluding the Coalition for World Disarmament, B.C. Conference of the United Church, Project Ploughshares, the B.C. NDP, B.C. Peace Council, Vancouver Unitarian Church; the Vancou- ver Council of Churches and the United Nations Association. This year’s action is particular- ly significant, however, in that the trade union movement is playing a major organizing role, notably through the Vancouver Labor Council. The march will gather at Kitsi- lano Beach at 12 noon, Apr. 24 and participants will march across the Burrard Street bridge to a rally at Sunset Beach set for 2 p.m. Dr. Jesse Chiang, Seattle leader of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Dr. William -Epstein, former UN director of Tally. Speakers include Jim and ~ speakers. In Victoria, several church and disarmament groups have also organized a march and rally for peace, slated for Sunday, Apr. 25. Demonstrators will meet at 12:30 p.m. at Centennial Square and will march first to the provin- cial legislative buildings and from there to Beacon Hill park for a Shelley Douglass of the Pacific Life Community, UBC professor ~ Dr. Michael Wallace and UFAWU Island organizer Frank — Coxce Unions gear up for Apr. 24 peace march disarmament, headline a list of \m- ' PRINCE RUPERT -— Shoreworkers and fishermen con- tinued their fight this week to stop B.C. Packers’ closure of its Seal Cove fish processing plant, deman- ding that the federal and provincial governments take action to keep the plant open and the 301 mem- bers of the UFAWU who were em- ployed at the plant, working. The union protested BCP’s an- nouncement of the closure with a stop-work meeting Apr. 7 in Fishermen’s Hall in Prince Rupert where some 400 unionists voted unanimously to demand that federal fisheries minister Romeo LeBlanc to ‘‘stop all payments to BCP until the plant is reopened.” They also demanded that LeBlanc fly to Rupert and meet with in- dustry workers. UFAWU organizer Joy Thorkelson told the Tribune Wednesday that LeBlanc stated that he could not come to Rupert but did instruct his director of nor- thern operations, Eric Kremer, to meet with unionists Monday. “He (Kremer) basically argued the company’s case,’’ Thorkelson said, “but he did agree to take our message back to LeBlanc.’ That message was blunt: the government should do everything toensure that the plant continues to operate. ‘ “We also want the government to look into B.C. Packers’ books — because we don’t believe that the company isn’t making a profit on its groundfish processing opera- tion,’ she said. She emphasized that other com- panies, such as MacMillan Fisheries and Prince Rupert Co-op, far smaller than the multinational B.C. Packers, are making a go of their groundfish operations. On Tuesday night, UFAWU members went before Prince Rupert city council and won unanimous endorsement from the six aldermen and the mayor for a _- resolution backing their cause. _ “Prince Rupert city council sup- ports the 301 workers at B.C.’ Packers Prince Rupert Cold Stor- age (Seal Cove) operations in their fight to keep the plant from per- manent closure,’’ the resolution Stated. It called on city council to ‘‘peti- tion the federal and provincial gov- ernments to find a workable solu- tion that will keep Seal Cove oper- ating and ensure 301 Prince Rupert citizens their jobs.” — Union fights Rupert closure. Also this week, on Wednesday, some 350 UFAWU members and supporters marched from a protest meeting in Fishermen’s Hall down Third Avenue to BCP’s Oceanside Plant, now the main centre of the company’s operations in Rupert. UFAWU members working at Oceanside walked off the job along with several Building Trades workers to join demonstrators out- side the plant as they sang, “Solidarity Forever’’ and chanted “we want work,”’ UFAWU secretary-treasurer George Hewison, who addressed the rally outside the plant, demand- ed that if Weston-owned B.C. Packers won’t keep the plant open, “then the government should move in and take it over.” : Thorkelson said that the union would continue to keep the pressure on the government to en- sure that the plant stays open, ad- ding that industry workers shouldn’t be made the victims of the multinational company’s ra- tionalization. * She said that the government should look at industry regulations in Japan and Iceland where com- panies are required to maintain all sectors of the industry, profitable as well as unprofitable. BCP wants to close its less profitable ground- fish operation at Seal Cove to en- sure maximum return to the com- pany from its other processing operations, notably salmon. _ DWU protests expulsion The newly-formed Domestic Workers Union has called for pro- tests to employment and immigra- tion minister Lloyd Axworthy inan effort to block the deportation of DWU member Daphne Williams, who faces expulsion from the country Apr. 21. DWU secretary Teresita Racal warned in a statement this week that two other DWU members, Prudence Cummings and Maria . Elena Solis, may also face the same fate unless the protest can stay the immigration department’s hand. The three workers applied in February for landed immigrant Status under a new department pol- icy which supposedly allowed long service domestic workers to change their status to that of landed immi- grant. But according to the union, only one domestic worker has applied successfully under the provision. And recent comments by regional immigration director Jim Pasman have raised new fears that the pol- icy is not being applied in all cases if in fact it is being applied at all. Pasman said in a television inter- view that it would make no differ- ence what Daphne Williams did, she would still not be granted land- ed status under the program. The DWU has urged that tele- grams be sent to Axworthy sup- porting the demand for landed sta- tus for Williams, Cummings and Solis. It has also called for support of the demand that Pasman’s de- cisions: and conduct in the three cases be reviewed by the depart- ment and that he be removed from any further action on them. May Day march, rally set Vancouver’s first May Day march in 20 years is scheduled to begin at 12 noon on Saturday, May 3 Marchers will assemble behind Britannia high school (off Com- mercial at Napier) and will march from there to a rally at 2 p.m, at” Vancouver Technical School, 2600 East Broadway. B.C. Federation of Labor presi- dent Jim Kinnaird will headline a list of rally speakers which includes Pauline Jewett, parliamentary ex- ternal affairs critic for the federal New Democratic Party, Maurice Rush, provincial leader of the Communist Party and Francisco PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 16, 1982 — Page 12 Acosta, representative of El Salva- dor’s Committee for Trade Union Unity (CUS). ; The march and rally is sponsor- ~ ed by the Vancouver Trade Union May Day Committee, which will turn over the proceeds to the FDR and the organization of the unem- ployed. For years a tradition of May Day in Vancouver, the May Day march was last held Apr. 29, 1962 when some 1,500 people marched from the Powell Street grounds (Oppen- heimer Park) to the Pacific Na- tional Exhibition grounds. May Day rallies have been held every year since, however. Continued from page 1 ministry’s Waste Management Branch was also monitoring the mine’s waste water on a month- ly basis. While the ministry can not check on all discharges in that.region, he has ordered daily monitoring of Carolin’s waste since the Coquihalla River inci- dent, he said. About 700 permits are grant- ed to various companies allow- ing them to discharge wastes in- to waterways in the region around Hope, according to Wong. . The company is in clear viola- tion of its permit by failing to wait for lab reports on its own tests prior to dumping the efflu- ent, and the ministry is ‘‘very seriously considering’’ pressing charges against the company, he added. The ministry’s dumping per- mits are in fact ‘‘permits to pol- lute,”’ according to Cathy Fox, executive director of the. inde- pendent Scientific Pollution and Environmental Control Society (SPEC). Fox bases her claims on a re- port of the environment minis- try’s First Fraser River Task Force completed in the spring of 1981. Meant for internal use on- agency. “The whole report was full of comments on the non-enforce- ment of river pollution controls. The team said they found a gen- eral attitude of non-enforce- ment by ministry officials,’’ she said For example, the ministry employees on the task force found it easier to get tests done through federal laboratories in- stead of the ministry’s own labs, she said. — ly, the report was leaked to her Fox said the Coquihalla inci- dent was a good example of how ~ the lack of ministry staff allows such incidents to happen. You could say there are Coquihallas all over B.C.,’’ she said. Unclear at this time is whe- ther the ministry will tighten up its regulations in the wake of what environment minister Ste- phen Rogers has called ‘‘this is very unpleasant incident.’’ Rogers told the Tribune that ; his ministry was working on a new Waste Management Act he | hoped to introduce in the legis- lature in the next two to three | weeks which will ‘‘bring pollu- tion control into the twentieth century,”’ : The minister said the act was not connected with the Carolin — Dumping rules ignored] : states leaked report om A mine dumping, and ‘whether it} will refer to this sort of thing, | ’mnotsureyet.”? Hesaidabout | 3,500 dumping permits are issu- | ed province-wide. Rogers told the legislature | Apr. 13 a decision whether to — lay charges over the incident — would be made following an in- vestigation by government offi- cials. He also said he would soon decide on possible new procedures to speed up the war- _ ning process in such incidences, Local residents Wilf and Rose Johnson have said they — want to know why they were not informed of the danger to their — water supplies from the dump- ing until two days after the high — cyanide levels were discovered, The cyanide level — measur- ed at eight parts per million, — while the level considered ac- ceptable is .2 parts per million — was discovered Apr. 9 after fed- — | eral fisheries officials discovered that 20,000 steelhead smolt re- cently released into the river had _ died. __ TRIBUNE Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186'5 _ Read the paper that fights for labor City or town Postal Code aT I a a a a a Pad a ® 3 oO Me ee ow ee ete ee he ew els Oe ¥.0 MRS: Seb e BPR Cae a awe 8 lam enclosing: lyr. $14 0 2yrs.$25 0 6mo. $8 0 Old New Foreign 1 year $15 0 Bill me later (1 Donation$.......... pe: