A Friday, May 21, 1982

Vol. 44, No. 21

SWAPO:
‘The final

struggle
has begun’

— page 9 —

oncom

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Premier Bill Bennett (top) is surrounded by protestors outside
Social Credit fund-raising dinner in Kamloops May 14. Bot-
tom, young demonstrator echoes question being asked
around the province in wake of hospital cutbacks.

a:

By MIKE GIDORA

KAMLOOPS A. black-
draped coffin bearing the “‘spirit
of B.C.’s economy,”’ a makeshift
soup line and more than 200
angry protesters greeted an obvi-
ously shaken premier Bill Bennett
when he arrived here May 14,
complete with an entourage of
cabinet ministers, to address a
$100-a-plate Socred fund-raising
dinner.

According to one demonstra-
tor, who was carrying a small boy
with a placard which read *‘$100
would feed me for two weeks,”
the protesters were there because
they were ‘‘damn mad that the
premier would have the gall to
come into Kamloops for a $100
dinner after his government has
turned this place into an eco-
nomic ghost town.””

Kamloops has currently more
than 9,300 unemployed, has just
suffered the closure of 84 beds
and the layoff of 120 staff mem-
bers at Royal Inland Hove’ en-
dured yet another round of severe
cutbacks and course closures at
Cariboo College and is bracing
for wage controls in the public
sector.

Bennett, clearly wishing that he
were somewhere else, tried to tell
the demonstration that his re-

See BENNETT page 3

KAMLOOPS NEWS PHOTOS—MARGARET POWELL

Wood unions

repeat ‘no’
to pay freeze

B.C.’s largest forest union, the
45,000-member International
Woodworkers (IWA), reiterated
its “unqualified no”’ stance on the
question of wage deferrals on the
eve of talks with forest company
officials at press time Wednesday.

“Our position has been to not
accept a wage deferral at any
time,’> IWA spokesman Rob
Mingay told the Tribune, in
reference to the recent request from
wood monopolies that workers
forego for at least six months a 13
percent increase scheduled to take
effect June 15.

IWA negotiators were just sit-
ting down to discuss the response
they were to carry into a meeting
with the Forest Industrial Relations
(FIR) Bureau Thursday. Mingay
said it was ‘‘highly unlikely’ they
would change that position.

FIR, the bargainning agent for
B.C.’s 108 forest firms, first
floated the wage freeze idea
through the media last February.
FIR’s sister organization, the Pulp
and Paper Labour Relations
Bureau soon followed suit. Both
porposals met with a resounding
“no” from the three major forest
product unions.

Now that request is formal, with
the companies pleading poverty
due to the downturn in the industry
over the last several months.

Industry spokesmen admit
they can not guarantee employ-
ment through wage freezes. FIR
chairman Don Saunders said
Wednesday, ‘‘it is impossible
for us to guarantee employment
because 80 percent of our produc-
tion is sold in international markets
over which we have no control.”

That fact was underscored by

the recent shutdown of MacMillan
Bloedel’s Chemainus sawmill May
14. The mill closed its doors in-
definitely after it reopened for a
week following a previous five-
week shutdown, throwing 540
workers on the streets.

The chief culprit is the B.C.
forest industry’s almost total
dependency on the U.S. housing
market, which has declined sharply
due to the policies of the Reagan
administration.

IWA regional president Jack
Munroe has also cited high interest
rates, as has Art Gruntman,
regional vice-president of the
Canadian Paperworkers Union
(CPU).

Gruntman said he would urge a
meeting of CPU local presidents
Friday to reject a request from the
pulp bureau to meet and discuss a
13-percent wage deferral. And he
called for the resignation of
MacBlo chairman Calvert Knud-
son and B.C. Forest Products head
Kenneth Benson for ‘‘spending
millions on interest charges and yet
they blame the workers for their
problems.”

Gruntman said there was no
justification for the pulp industry’s
request, since the downturn in that
market has been minimal com-
pared to the forestry slump.

So far no response has come
from the Pulp, Paper and Wood-
workers of Canada. The head of-
fice said PPWC leaders have not
met over the issue, nor has there
been any meetings of the union’s
wage committee.

The PPWC executive board will
hold its scheduled quarterly
meeting June 1. But there is no in-
dication the union heads will even
discuss the wage freeze proposal.

Socreds seek confrontation, says B.C. Fed

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