Friday, December 17, 1976

FREIHEIT IM B
ER
DEMOKRATIE

LBETRIEB

“Freedom in your occupation, democracy. in. the workplace: defend
Your basic rights” says this placard carried by a demonstrator in West
Germany. The rally, held earlier this month, is one of scores organized
to protest the notorious “Berufsverbote” (professions ban) by which
thousands have been dismissed from their jobs because of their political

beliefs.

—Tass photo

Peace marchers urge

an end to Irish strife

More than 12,000 peace sup-
Porters gathered December 5 on
the banks of the Boyne River in
Drogheda, Ireland, 30 miles north
of Dublin and pledged to fight for
Peace and an end to sectarian
hatred in Ireland.

Nearly three centuries ago; in
1690, the Boyne River was the
demarcation line in the Battle of
the Boyne in which William of
Orange defeated the Catholic
forces led by ousted English king
James II, thus opening the way for
the intensified colonial subjugation
Of Ireland.

“Let the historians show that on
December 5, 1976, another great
battle began,” said Mairead
Corrigan, one of the founders of the
Women’s peace movement in
Northern Ireland. ‘‘This battle is to
bring peace to Ireland.”

Betty Williams, co-founder with
Corrigan of the peace movement,
told the rally: “We have marched
for peace — now we will build for
Peace. For too long the River
Boyne has been the symbol of all
that has divided us. From today on.
it must be a symbol of our unity,
Our determination to live in peace.

Special trains and buses brought
thousands to the rally from both
Northern Ireland and Eire. Among
the rally participants were some
100 people from Canada and the
United States who had come with
Rey. David Bowman in a
delegation sponsored by the U.S.
National Council of Churches and
Pax Christi, U.S.A.

The Comminist Party of Ireland,

in its. monthly newspaper; The
Irish Socialist, stated that ‘‘the
peace marches offer a new hope.
“The emergence of the peace
movement, based on Belfast
women, is to be welcomed as an
indictment of sectarianism and
violence... it could mark a new
stage in working class involvement
in the Northern (Irish) scene.”
Betty Sinclair, trade union
secretary of the Northern Theland
See IRELAND, pg. 16

Coming only days after Statistics
Canada announced the worst
jobless situation since 1960, the
federal government introduced
amendments to the Unemployment
Insurance Act which, if approved,
would deprive 50,000 workers from
collecting benefits. —

Tabled by manpower minister
Bud Cullen on Dec. 9, the amend-
ments would extend the period
claimants have to work before they
could collect. UIC benefits. At
present a claimant has to work
eight weeks out of 52 to be eligible.
Under the proposed change, that
period would be increased to 12
weeks.

A background paper issued by
the manpower department in
Ottawa showed that approximately
50 per cent of those deprived of UIC
benefits under the new ainendment
would be under 25 years of age.
Unemployment in Canada is
already: striking hardest at
Canada’s youth. This latest change
would impose additional hardships
on young people, as well as
thousands of low wage part time
workers.

A special report presented to the
recent B.C. Federation of Labor
convention blasted the federal
government for its plan to
emasculate the UIC Act and
whittle down benefits for unem-
ployed workers. “‘It is ludricrous
for the government to be amending
the Unemployment Insurance Act
to make it more difficult for people
to claim benefits at a time when
unemployment is at a record
high,” said the report.

Prepared by the committee of
the labor federation for presen-
tation to the November convention,
at which it was adopted, the report
charged that ‘the government is

seeking to reduce the social
security protections previously
afforded Canadians by the social
legislation it has taken the trade
union movement and kindred
groups so many years to
establish.”

The latest amendment, in-
creasing the number of weeks
required before benefits are paid,
comes on top of many previous
amendments which have reduced
both the eligibility and benefits.
Recently the act was changed to
double the disqualification period
for claimants who voluntarily
leave their job or are fired ‘‘for just
cause.”’

Other amendments have
disqualified persons over 65 from
collecting benefits, a reduction
from the previous disqualifying

age of 70, and eliminated the

special dependency rate. For-
merly, claimants with incomes of
less than $62 were eligible for a
rate of 75 per cent of their regular

earnings. Now all claimants
receive benefits at the rate of two-
thirds of their regular earnings,
thus reducing the income of those

already at the lower end of the.

wage scale.

The B.C. Federation of Labor
report said that amendments to the
UIC Act over the past year were a
thinly-veiled attempt to reduce the
government’s share of the
unemployment insurance fund
while increasing the contribution
of the employers and employees by
about 33 percent. Since employers
pass this added cost on to the
public in higher prices, almost the
entire burden falls on working
people to make up the amount the
government is opting out of paying.

The seriousness of the govern-
ment’s action in whittling down
UIC payments to jobless ata time
of massive unemployment, which
it is deliberately creating by its
own policies, came under fire

See UNEMPLOYED, pg. 16

Season's Greetings

With this issue of the Pacific Tribune, we conclude
publication for 1976, our 41st year of operation, and extend our
warmest wishes for the season to all our readers and sup-
porters. May the new year bring the promise of peace and

security throughout the world.

As has been the practice in recent years, this year-end issue
has been increased in size to 16 pages and offers several
features for holiday reading. In order that the staff might
enjoy some of those holidays, our next issue will not appear
until January 7, when the first issue for 1977 will be published.

In extending greetings for the Christmas season, we also
wish to thank all of those who, by their subscriptions and
financial contributions, have enabled British Columbia’s only -
labor weekly to reflect in its pages the momentous events that

have shaped 1976.

We look forward to their continued support in the new year.

‘Covers up hatchet job’

Report on WCB

A report on the Workers’
Compensation Board compiled by
a Vancouver consulting firm is a
‘politically, employer biased
diatribe which covers up and
vindicates the hatchet job laun-
ched by the Socred government on
the WCB at the behest of the em-
ployers of this province,”’
provincial council of carpenters
president Bill Zander said this
week.

The report, prepared by the firm
of P.S. Ross and Partners, lashed
out at the current administrative
practices of the WCB and said that
economic, efficient administration
of the WCB ‘“‘appears not to have
been an objective’’ of the board.

Zander conceded that some
improvement in the administration
of the WCB was possible but said

that that was an ongoing challenge
to all government bodies and
should not be used as an excuse to
reduce services. The question with
which the Ross report deals, he
said was the new approach
initiated by former WCB chairman
Terence Ison which did not use cost
as the determining factor in in-
troducing new health and safety
programs,

‘In this, the Ross report con-
curred entirely with the objectives
of the Employers Council of B.C.,”
Zander charged. ;

Zander said that sections of the
Ross report are “flying in the face
of reality, particularly in the
section on the time needed in the
claim procedure. Under Ison’s
chairmanship, the claim
procedure was sped up and was

operating efficiently, but since the
Socreds came back into power a
steady deterioration of WCB
service is evident.”’

The Carpenters’ Union was
particularly upset at the fact that
the Ross report rejected out of
hand the establishment of a fourth
independent board of review to
hear WCB appeals. Zander said
that his union had written
specifically requesting that a
fourth board be established due to
the tremendous back log of claims
before the review boards.

‘The final exposure of the Ross
report is contained in the con-
clusion of the report itself where it
reads that though service is of
prime importance, everything
must be related to the cost of the
program. This is in direct con-

blasted by labor

tradiction to the concept of the
WCB which is to guarantee income
in times of disability.

“Already we are light years
behind the socialist, European and
Scandinavian countries in the.
areas of industrial hygiene and
safety and this report indicates
that we will fall even further
behind.”

NDP labor critic Karen Sanford
has also blasted the Ross report
and said that the Employers’
Council of B.C. influenced the
findings of the report. She warned
that the report would probably be
used as a basis to initiate cuts in
services and programs of the WCB,
a move which the NDP will

“strongly oppose” in the spring ~

session of the legislature which
opens on January 13.

BUNE