Friday, April 30, 1976

20 e Br 18
VOL. 38, No. 17

ee 16,000 hospital workers
h € posed to strike the province’s
°spitals this weekend following a
€cision by the Hospital Labor
lations to reject the terms of a
Proposed settlement recom-
Mended by an industrial inquiry
Officer,
Industrial inquiry officer D. R.
at had proposed a settlement
talling approximately 15 per cent
‘ Wages and benefits, which was
Fed to by both Local 180 of the
hecbital Employees Union, and
€gotiators for Hospital Labor
‘elations. However the board of
€ctors of HLR refused to ratify
the agreement and sent it back to
Union with the statement that
-'€ir negotiators had been given
Structions not to negotiate a
Package above an eight per cent
Ncrease.
feck Gerow, spokesman for the
on, immediately announced
: at the HEU would be conducting
ike votes among the province’s
nq ePitals represented by HLR,
5 once the results of the votes
Ee received, the HLR would be
ved with 72-hour strike notice.

Food price
tise coming’

ba orking people got some more
d news this week from Ottawa
Sa € the Anti-Inflation Board
iced that it expects food
Ices to jump by a further 3 to 4

T cent over the next two months.

§ The report, released Tuesday,
ld that retail price increases are
Cipated for beef and. other
fats, dairy products, beverages,
Vent’, Soods and possibly fresh
“getables. Beef prices are eX-
Cted to go up by 10 to 15 per cent.

An estimated 25 to 30,000 trade
unionists from all parts of Ontario
converged on Toronto’s Queen’s
Park Wednesday in one of the
province’s largest demonstrations
in history, to condemn the federal
government’s wage freeze and the
Ontario government’s cutbacks in
social services.

Carrying banners demanding,
“Smash Bill C-73,” ‘End the
cutbacks,” “We want jobs not
welfare,” thousands of workers
formed up in other parts of the city
and marched to the rally at the
Ontario legislative buildings.

Construction workers formed up
at the Toronto City Hall and
marched to the rally carrying
placards demanding a _ jobs
program. About 10 to 15,000
building trades workers took part
in the march. It is estimated that
one-third of Ontario’s construction
workers are without jobs.

He indicated that Vancouver
General Hospital would be the first
hospital to be struck, which he said
would be a complete shutdown of
VGH, ‘‘with nothing moving in or
out.”

The Hospital Labor Relations’
position on holding wage increases
to less than eight per cent for 1976
stems directly from the federal
government’s wage control

legislation as was indicated by the
chairman of HLR,. James
Denholme who stated that while
the B.C. government has not as yet
included employees in the federal
program, HLR felt that they had
an “obligation to the taxpayers’ to
hold the line on hospital costs.
Obviously HLR feels the most
appropriate manner in which to
See HOSPITAL, pg. 3

Many Ontario anti-poverty
organizations took part in the
demonstration. An estimated 1,000
came from all parts of the
province, aided by the Ontario
Federation of Labor to help them
place their case before the Ontario
Tory government. The brief
presented by OFL president David
Archer said: ° ‘‘The — labor
movement in Ontario is not going
to sit idly by and watch your
government dismantle social
programs, health measures,
educational systems and cultural
institutions which we and our allies
have fought for and which took
decades of struggle to bring
about.”

Many speakers from the Ontario
trade union movement and Ontario
Anti-Poverty Organization ad-
dressed the huge ‘throng, con-
demning the wage freeze and
cutbacks in social programs.
Workers were urged to keep up the
fight against Bill C-73.

Grace Hartman, president of
the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, summed up the feeling
of the demonstrators when shé said
that the time is coming when
similar ‘‘massive actions from
coast to coast” will take place
against the wage freeze and cut-
backs.

Music for the rally was provided
by the well-known song group, The
Travellers. At the end of the rally
the crowd refused to disperse for
more than an hour and a half as

‘they demanded Premier Davis

MAY DAY 25,000 protest in Ont.

1976

come out and speak to them. Davis
refused to make an appearance but
representatives of the Liberals and
NDP spoke.

The huge Ontario protest was the
highlight of the week in which
Labor’s May Day celebrations fall.
In other provinces and major
centres large protest actions were
planned this week to Another

See LABOR, pg. 20

May First
rally Sat.

Art Kube, regional director for
the Canadian Labor Congress, will
be one of the featured speakers at
Vancouver’s May Day rally,
Saturday, May 1, starting at 2 p.m.
at the Vancouver Technical School,
2600 E. Broadway.

Other outstanding. speakers at
the -rally will be Ald. Harry
Rankin; Lorne Robson, secretary
of the Provincial Council of Car-
penters; and Jack Phillips,
Communist Party provincial
organizer. Chairman will be Cliff
Rundgren, first vice-president of
the Vancouver Labor Council.

The rally will be preceded by a
car cavalcade which will form up
at the PNE Park ’n Ride parking
lot at 12 noon. A musical program
and songs by Bargain at Half the
Price will round out the program.

Bitter fruit: one OT
and grapes rolls into a Va
conspicuously absent from s

of scores of trucks carrying a load of Chilean apples
ncouver fruit distributor. The fruit,
tores during the three years of the

13%

rs

Popular Unity gove

rnment in Chile, now appears on the shelves of

virtually every grocery store in the city.

—Sean Griffin photo