} ' | | : Ae Ftp: OF hye oe TB peel Ma Friday, July 31, 1981. 30° = Vol. 43, No. 27 Call by U.S. IWA opens way fo talks on ‘one wood union’ —page 8— preparing f By SEAN GRIFFIN CAMPBELL RIVER — It has Only been two weeks since it began — less for pulp workers at Crown Zellerbach’s Elk Falls mill — but forest industry workers here are looking down the road to a long strike. is At the International Wood- workers’ strike headquarters — a } tiny office squeezed into the labor centre — they have a pool on the date that a new contract will be signed. ‘Several IWA. members have chosen dates as late as October. John Eper, the picket captain for the day, smiles apologetically. “It’s a hell of a way to doit, may- be, but it shows how our mem- bers are looking at it. We may be in for a long strike just to get what we need to keep up.”’ For the sawmill workers and_ loggers in the IWA’s Local 1-363 and for themembers of two locals ‘Of the Canadian Paperworkers Union at the Elk Falls pulp mill, the cost of living in Campbell | River has been the spark beneath their contract demands and the Overwhelming strike votes earlier this month. Harnek Grewal, a sawmill worker at independent Raven Lumber, points to the cost of housing and land in Campbell River which has more than doubl- ed in a year. “Tt costs at least $35,000 for a lot. Last year it was $17,000,”’ he Says. The costs of getting a home are €ven worse: the house in the nor- thern Vancouver Island centre has shot up over $100,000, with Most of that increase coming in the last year. ‘‘And with interest rates at 20 percent, you’re looking at more than $1,400 a month mortgage Payments,’’ comments Gordon Cockburn, an IWA mechanic ae the first vice-president of the Ocal “Our members are cutting the trees and sawing the lumber — but we can’t even afford to buy it for a house,’’ he adds bitterly. In addition, unionists here see More increases for food, for elec- tricty, gas and oil coming — ‘‘and the percentage wage increase and the COLA clause just isn’t enough to keep up,”’ they say. “The percentage increase sf Be ae would only give the base rate categories $1.50 more an hour — and you’re talking about most of the members, the younger workers with a wife at home with young kids, the ones who need the money the most,’’ Cockburn points out. “The COLA clause would be just about useless — it would only kick in after the cost of living rose 26 percent in two years.” For the pulp workers, some 1,000 of them in Local 630 and 1231 of the CPU, the local issues vary slightly but the crunch that every member feels at the gas pump, the mortgage company ~ and the supermarket is still the determining factor. : For them, too, the recollection of hard-fought past strikes — in 1975 when they were legislated back to work by the former NDP government, at the earlier strike in 1957-58 has added a hard edge to the militance of union members. | | Campbell River unionists for long strike Le ee ‘ | GORDON COCKBURN ... with fellow strikers Harnek Grewal (r), Nick Chernoff and John Bodner at strike headquarters. ‘‘Our members thought long and hard about the last strike in "75 before they marked their ballots to reject the contract,”’ one striker points out. “They knew what it could mean when they voted to strike this time.”’ The CPU local in Campbell River earlier endorsed a motion instructing members not to com- ment to reporters so interviews among strikers were precluded. But those on the picket line never- theless voiced their feelings — and their determination to make some gains in this contract. One of those manning the picket line outside the construc- tion site for Crown Zellerbach’s proposed plant expansion, puts it simply: ‘‘We were out in 757-58 and again in ’75 when we were legislated back to work. Both times we went back for just what we went out for or even a bit less. “*There’s no way this time that See UNIONISTS page 8 8 NE PHOTO— SEAN GRIFFIN Demonstrators will be assembling from several centres on Vancou- ver Island and the Lower Mainland for the Aug. 8 rally at the Canadian Forces Base at Comox at 2 p.m. From Victoria, a car cavalcade will assemble at 9 a.m. at the Town and Country Shopping Centre and will proceed directly to Comox. In Nanaimo, cars will assemble at the Country Club Mall, four miles north of Nanaimo on the Island Highway, at 11 a.m. From Vancouver, those who need bus transportation should be at Victory Square at 8:30 a.m. Reservations should be made beforehand by phoning 685-9958, 733-1761 or 253-4766. : Dr. Judith Lipton, president of the Washington State Physicians for Social Responsibility, Vancouver alderman Harry Rankin and Jean Swanson are the speakers scheduled to address the rally, which has been organized by the Comox Valley Nuclear Responsibility Society. Native demand ‘won't change with eviction’ “Our demands remain un- changed,’’ Native spokesperson Terri Williams declared as 53 women were charged following their eight-day occupation of the Department of Indian Affairs of- fices in Vancouver Tuesday. The women were evicted by 60 Vancouver police officers who bat- tered the door down leading to the offices, and taken to court the next day where they were charged with criminal mischief, which carries a maximum penalty of six months’ imprisonment and/or a $2,000 fine. Protesting poor living condi- tions on the reserves, Williams said that the group remained firm in their demands for a face-to-face meeting with Indian affairs minister John Munro in Van- couver, not Ottawa; for a full and independent inquiry into the ad- ministration of B.C.’s regional DIA office; and for the dismissal of regional director Fred Walchli ‘‘for continuously interfering with the decision-making authority authority of Indian leadership in B.C.”” and his mishandling of funds. The Native women who carried out the sit-in, along with about 25 children, made it clear to the press and to Liberal senator Ray Perrault in a marathon session Monday, that a whole gamut of social and economic crises wracking their reserves had sparked the action. The actual decision, however, to occupy the DIA offices on the 15th floor of the Toronto-Dominion building on Georgia St. was made at a “‘pow-wow”’ held in Lillooet after people had returned from the Constitution Express. At that gathering, men and women from over 20 reserves - a large proportion coming from the Mt. Currie and Bella Coola reserves - discussed common pro- blems. In a statement issued Monday, the women, who call themselves the ‘£100 Aboriginal Women and their Children,’’ summed up the grievances aired at the pow-wow and relayed to Perrault. As aresult of their forced subser- vience to the “colonial office,”’ conditions on the reserves have become intolerable, the women complained. They listed poorly-constructed and overcrowded housing, sickness resulting from poor sewage and water facilities, a 90 percent unemployment rate, the steriliza- tion of Native women, high infant mortality rates and a high ratio of Native people in jails. They also voiced deep concern over the “‘large numbers of young people’”’ committing suicide, or turning to alcohol and drugs ‘‘for release,”’ the high drop-out rate from schools and the over-all destruction of their social and cultural fabric. “‘Our men can’t hunt, trap and fish for enough food because of laws which restrict them from do- ing so and because huge corpora- tions are taking our resources.” Amax report slammed —page 11—