Fed rally

backs ©

public employees

Continued from page 1

port for right to work came from,
the age and sex of supporters and
so on.

At one point Williams wrote, ‘‘If
such a referendum were to be plac-
ed before the electorate in British
Columbia, I would expect that the
supporters would be drawn from
the rural areas of the province while
the opponents would most likely be
drawn from the urbanized areas. If
there is a difference in the pattern in
the State of Missouri, this would be
of some considerable significance.”’
“That says to me,’ Kinnaird
responded at the rally, ‘‘We’ve
done our research into this and
want to check to see if we’re right
before we do the same thing you
have. :

“There is no doubt in my mind
that all the promises, all of the com-
mitments and all the statements
made by the labor minister and the
premier are just a con job — they’re
not worth the breath it too to utter
them,”’ Kinnaird declared, ‘‘I say to’
you that this government is looking
for a hook, for a reason, to hang
their planned introduction of so
called right to work on. A vote for
Social Credit in the next election is
‘a vote to have right to work ramm-
ed down our throats. There is no
doubt about it.’’

The deceit of the Socred govern-
ment in its actions with the labor
movement was’ a theme that
speakers returned to throughout
the rally. Wind up speaker Jack
Munro of the IWA cited the exam-
ple of Bill 46 and its Section 11
which added all municipal, regional
board and school board employees
to the list of workers covered by the
Essential Services Disputes Act.
Munro said that he approached the

overnment in his capacity as a
senior official of the labor move-
ment and was assured that Section
11 would not be proclaimed except
in extreme circumstances. ‘‘The ly-
ing bastards proclaimed it two
weeks later,’?. Munro declared,
«*You can put about as much stock
in their commitment on right to
work . . . We’re dealing with a.
government that has no honor.’’

Kinnaird’s revelations and
Munro’s biting attack on the
Socreds added life to the giant rally,

Socreds shaft
students, worsen

nurse shortage

VICTORIA — The acute shor-
tage of registered nurses, created
in the first place by a lack of
government funding, could be
further aggravated as a result of a

of health to end monthly stipends
for students in nursing programs.

The ministry said last month
that the stipends, amounting to
$150 a month, would be paid to
those currently enrolled in nursing
programs but new entrants would
have to rely on financial aid pro-
grams — in the form of students
laans and small grants — available
through the ministry of education.

Sharon Carlson, nursing
undergraduate society president
at UBC, said that the students in
the two-year program at colleges
and B.C. Institute of Technology,

or a willingness to rack up
substantial debts would be able to
enrol.

\_ Even if jobs were available,

7 PROVINCIAL NOTES

decision by the provincial ministry’

would be hardest hit, adding that
only those with wealthy parents

but in-between there was often little
to cheer about as a long list of
speakers detailed Socred anti-labor
legislation but offered few sugges-
tions for action except to vote NDP
in the next election.

B.C. Government Employees
Union general secretary John Fryer
was the only speaker to call for the
repeal of the Essential services
Disputes Act, in addition to Bill 46
which widened the scope of
designated essential services.
Unless the government restores
free collective bargaining in the
public sector, public employees will
have no alternative but ‘‘to take
them back’’, Fryer warned, ‘‘Not
any government, will take our
bargaining rights away.”’

Featured speakers Shirley Carr,
executive vice president of the
Canadian Labor Congress, and
Grace Hartman, national president
of the Canadian Union of Public
Employees continued the theme of
the rights of public employees and
attacked the federal Liberal govern-
ment and right wing provincial
governments for eroding the
bargaining rights of public sector
workers. \

“The days of public employee
bashing are over,’’ Hartman
declared to the rally, ‘‘There are
more than 750,000 unionized public
sector workers and together with
our fellow workers in the private
sector we can make the difference
at the ballot box.’’

Hartman proposed a ‘‘charter of

My

. . . but dear, I’m just gathering information .. .

” [ANE PEEES

public employee rights’? which in-
cluded:

@ The right to be treated with
the same respect and dignity af-
forded other workers.

@ The right to be governed by
the same laws as other unionized
workers.

@ The right to bargain freely for
decent wages and benefits.

@ The right to participate fully in
the political affairs of the country.

Although rally chairman Gerry
Stoney and each of the following.
speakers directed anti-Socred senti-
ment towards electoral support for
the NDP, when NDP MLA and
former labor minister Bill King

spoke, he delivered a low key
speech which warned of right to
work legislation if the Socreds are
re-elected, and pledged the repeal

of Bill 46, but indicated little else of .

what an NDP government would do
if elected. King was met with con-
siderable heckling at one point over
his record as labor minister when he
stated that there was no justifica-
tion for governments interfering in
the collective bargaining process or
in the right to strike.

The power of the Federation rally
was evident in spite of the
speeches, however, by the force of
the overflow audience filling the
2,800 seat Orpheum and another

800 spilling over into the adjacent
Commodore Ballroom, and by the
spirit of militancy that permeated
the crowd.

It was left to Jack Munro to ex-
plain the significance of the Federa-
tion’s campaign most succinctly
when he coined premier Bennett’s

\ question, ‘‘Who is the leader of the

oppostion — Is it Barrett or Kin-
naird?’’ ‘It’s working people who
are the opposition, that is who,”
Munro said.

The Federation has one more ral-
ly planned for Victoria, Thursday,
March 22, the second day of the
new legislative session.

Attack on public sector seen in AUCE dispute

Continued from Page 1
ment is an extension of the current
attack on public employees taking
place in this province,’? Burton
said.

Bev Korman, assigned by the
BCGEU as full-time media co.
ordinator to assist the AUCE
strikers, emphasized Burton’s war:
ning and added that there was a
possibility that the government
would use essential services legisla-
tion to end the strike.

Picket lines at the major road en-
trances to the university were swell-

ed by BCGEU members as well as
supporters from other unions in-
cluding the Service, Office ‘and
Retail Workers Union (SORWUC)
and AUCE local 6, representing
teaching support staff, both of
which have honored the picket
lines.

Maintenance staff at the universi-
ty have also respected the lines
while service trades and B.C. Hydro
bus drivers are driving up to the
picket line and then turning back.

Although the local is relatively
small — 200 of its 650 members are

part-time student workers — and is
not affiliated to the B.C. Federa-
tion of Labor, the SFU dispute has
been seen as indicative of the larger
attack on the wages and conditions
of public service workers and the at-
tempt by the administration to pass
on provincial and federal cutbacks
in the form of reduced wages.

John Rowell, spokesman for
Local 6 of AUCE which is still seek-
ing a first contract for teaching sup-

port staff at the university noted,

‘‘We are involved in a general pro-
blem of cutbacks in education and a

specific problem with the attitude
of the administration at Simon
Fraser.’’

Although AUCE has altered its
demands considerably since the
contract expired last March 31 —
including an agreement to sign a
two-year rather than a one-year
agreement — the administration
has remained adament in its stand
on wages. It has called for the reten-
tion of the old wage agreement
from April 1, 1978 until November
22, 1978 and a six percent increase
over the remainder of the two-year
contract.

most nursing students are unable
to work during the summer mon-
ths because of practicums con-
nected with their training.

' Marilyn Carmack, executive
secretary of the Registered Nurses
Association of B.C. declined com-
ment on the stipend cut since the
RNABC has not yet received con-
firmation from the ministry, but
she told the Tribune that B.C.
already only produces ‘‘half the
nurses it needs each year.’’

The shortfall, she said, is the -.

result of a lack of education
ministry funding which effectively
limits the number of graduates.
Hospitals are compelled to recruit
in other provinces and only last
month Vancouver. General
Hospital was in Ontario bidding
with other hospitals for nurses.

Carmack’s figures also belied
the statements made by associate
deputy health minister Jack Bain-
bridge who justified the decision
to end the stipends on the basis
that they had attracted students
to nursing programs and had
created a ‘‘glut’’ of nurses.

At least one community college
has sent out a petition calling for
retention of the stipends to all in-

_ stitutions in the province offering
‘nursing programs.

~Cominco caught
‘loan sharking’

needy pensioners

TRAIL — Cominco Ltd. has
been accused of ‘‘loan sharking’’
‘old age pensioners by Local 480 of
the United Steelworkers of
America.

The USWA has demanded that
Cominco discontinue deductions
from the old age pensions of
retired workers who were conned
into signing a loan agreement
with the company in 1965 which
the union says was nothing more
than asip off.

Cominco employees in 1965
retiring at the age of 65 could ex-
pect a pension of about $84 per
month, an inadequate amount to
meet living essentials. Cominco
offered at that time to raise the
.pension by $22.50 per month for
five years, bringing the total pen-
sion payment to $106 per month.

However, from age 71 on, the

pensioners would have to pay ©

back to Cominco $40.00 per
month for the rest of their lives in

return for the $1,350 received over
the five previous years.

Those pensioners still alive who
were wooed into the agreement in
1965 have now paid Cominco
$6,240 for the $1,350 originally
received. Cominco has netted
$4,890 in clear profit out of each
pensioner left alive.

The USWA kas charged that
the 360 percent profit return for
Cominco at the expense of the
pensioners is ‘‘gouging’’ and have
demanded that the company stop
deducting the monthly $40
premium from the pensioners che-
ques. The company has refused
to negotiate the issue, however,
insisting that ‘‘a deal is a deal’’.

‘“‘The pensioners were sweet-
talked into signing for short term ©
benefits for themselves and long
term benefits for Cominco,’’ Local
480’s paper reported, ‘‘And it was
all under the guise of Cominco do-
ing the pensioners a favor.

“Tt is high time that Cominco
discontinued this wretched prac-
tice. Surely they are big enough,
being a multinational company

‘and all, that they don’t have to re-

ly on loan sharking tactics to im-
prove shareholder dividends.”

~
March 8 marked
by peace vigil

VICTORIA — The Voice of
Women and the Victoria Peace
Council marked International
Women’s Day, March 8, with a
silent vigil in downtown Victoria
to protest the Chinese invasion of
Vietnam and to demand that the
B.C. government release the
$2.25 million of aid for Vietnamese
children promised by the govern-
ment.

A statement issued at the vigil
dedicated the action on Women’s
Day to the attainment of the goal
of the International Year of the
Child to assure the right of each
child ‘‘to grow up in a world of
peace.”’

Also in Victoria, the Victoria
club of the Communist Party
declared March 7 that the federal
government must speak out
against the Chinese invasion of
Vietnam. Canada’s government
should urge China ‘‘to withdraw
immediately without precondi-
tions and to settle all differences
by peaceful means,’’ the state-
ment said.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 16, 1979—Page 3