SY Pe ee th CANADA Transit workers ratify contract MONTREAL — Under the renewed threat of provincial back- to-work legislation, 4,000 Montreal transit workers voted 80 per cent May 9 to accept a new collective agreement which will give them a four per cent wage increase in each of the first two years and a 4.8 per cent hike in the third year. The workers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, have been on strike since April 13, battling the city transit commission for a 6 per cent wage increase, and relief from split shifts, which spread their 7.5 hour work day over 13 hours. The new contract provides minor concessions on the issue of split shifts, cutting the shift spread to 12.5 hours on weekdays and 11 hours on weekends. The union had pared down its demands considerably from the opening of the talks. Among the demands dropped was a call for shorter hours. CUPE entered the conflict with a 95 per cent strike mandate from its members. It was a partial strike because of provincial legislation requiring the drivers to operate the system during rush hour, but, the impact of the union’s solidarity and militancy was felt nevertheless. The tentative deal voted on May 9 came in the wake of Liberal Labor Minister Pierre Paradis’ May 6 statement that he was giving the drivers until 2 p.m. the following day to agree to a proposal or the government would bring down back-to-work legislation and an enforced contract. Union secretary-treasurer Rejean Desgroseillers noted that unionists accepted the deal under the threat of government action. “I think it was somewhat imposed on us but the membership did accept it,” he said following the ratification meeting. Maintenance workers, members of the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN) also voted 69 per cent to endorse a contract offer, averting a strike that had been postponed from a week before. The offer gave tnem the same increases as transit drivers. relations on to the work force. The four-week strike has drawn the usual demands from the business community to strip the transit workers of the right to strike, aiming to shift the blame for the commission’s lousy labor Ineluding the current dispute, there have been 21 strikes here over the past 20 years. The last two disputes ended with government legislation, including the Parti Quebecois’ current law requiring the transit workers to provide so-called “essential” services. Longshoremen drawing U.S. international flak HALIFAX — A move by 5,000 Canadian members of the east coast longshoremen’s union to set up a Canadian district is drawing flak from the New York-based international. The International Longshore- men’s Association, which repre- sents workers in 36 locals throughout Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces, provides no headquarters, or union ser- vices in Canada and hand picks the international representative for this country. The drive for a Canadian dis- trict is based on the workers’ de- sire for unity in the face of the Maritime Employers Association who operate about a dozen ports from St. John’s Newfoundland to Thunder Bay. The workers want some clout at the bargaining table and com- monexpiry dates for all the ports. Delegates from the 36 Canadian locals met here in early April and decided to draw up a referendum and agreed on the May vote. Re- sults of the referendum will be taken to the international conven- tion which opens in Hollywood Florida, July 12. But Halifax Local 269, the largest in the country with 350 members, voted not to participate in the referendum. Local officers cited a recent two-year pact signed by the port of Quebec as the excuse for pulling out on the grounds a common termination date wasn’t achieved for all locals. However, rank and file mem- bers note that the International has circulated a letter to its Cana- dian locals urging them to boycott the referendum vote. Some mem- bers are even talking about going ahead with the waterfront votes regardless of local approval. TORONTO — The first visit in 24 years, by representatives of the Communist Party of Canada to the People’s Repub- lic of China was the subject ofa press conference on May 5. CPC leader William Kash- tan, last week, said the trip was to explore the possibility of renewing relations between the two parties. Kashtan described the tour as useful. ‘“We started off by 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 13, 1987 By PAUL OGRESKO The Innu of Nitassinan (‘‘Our Land’’), or what the Canadian government has named Labra- dor, have hunted caribou for thousands of years. The caribou have meant subsistence and cul- tural development for the Innu people. They have hunted the caribou herds but never depleted them. That way of life would be changed when colonization, in the name of ‘‘progress’’, came to Nitassinan. What ‘‘development’’ has done to Nitassinan and to the Innu is one more dark mark in the his- tory of cultural genocide and ig- norance in this country. The cari- bou herds that had sustained a people would be hunted into near extinction by white hunters. The Innu would become impover- ished and dependent. Eventually to be placed into bantustans ar- bitrarily by the colonizing -gov- ernment. In February of this year the Innu of Sheshashit, Nitassinan went on a hunt of the Mealy Mountain caribou herd. It was a hunt that had been curtailed by the Innu in recent years because of a reduction of the herd size. The Innu felt the herd had reached significant numbers to enable a hunt. The provincial government of Newfoundland had imposed a 12 year ban on the Mealy Mountain herd. That ban was due to expire at the end of 1987. That law — part of the Wild- life Act — was not recognized by the Innu nation. The Innu had never signed a treaty with either the Canadian or any provincial government. The Innu had never decimated the caribou herds. There is grow- ing evidence of who did. During the 1960’s the U.S. mili- tary used the caribou herd for strafing purposes. These exer- cises would come in handy in Vietnam where the targets would not be caribou but humans. The military assault on Nitassinan is continuing today. From the Canadian Forces Station at Goose Bay NATO has been con- ducting low-level flight tests with fighter jets. The Canadian gov- ernment is intent on receiving the agreeing the past was past,”’ Kashtan said, ‘‘We noted the questions on which the Communist Party of China and our party share identical views as well as questions in which significant differences remain.” Points of agreement, accord- ing to Kashtan, include the question of independence and non-interference in the internal affairs of Communist Parties, TRIBUNE PHOTO: MIGUEL FIGUEROA Ben Michel: “There: will be a just solution ... We will continue to provoke the government of Canada to the point where it can no longer cloak reality.” contract for an $800-million NATO Tactical Fighter Weapons base in Goose Bay: The Innu are just as determined to stop it. On April 22, at the same time six Innu and a Roman Catholic priest were in jail await- ing charges of illegally hunting the Mealy Mountain herd, the Innu pitched tents on the runway of the military airport. The flights, with their sonic booms, have been frightening away wildlife in the area as well as disrupting the mi- gratory paths of the caribou herds. On April 27 the Innu and their priest were sentenced by the court for illegally hunting caribou. Three received 30-day jail sen- the independent road to socialism in each country and the necessity of preventing a nuclear holocaust. Kashtan noted the letter rep- resented a shift in the Chinese Party’s position held during the days of the cultural revolution, when it saw nuclear war as inevitable. “‘However,’’ Kashtan stres- sed, ‘“we cannot agree with the Communist Party of China’s tences while the others were re- leased due to time already served. All were fined. The Innu remain undeterred in their struggle for justice. ‘There will be ajust solution to the problem the Innu are con- fronted with,’’ Ben Michel, per- manent representative to the Un- ited Nations on a non-govern- mental level for the Innu, told the Tribune. ‘“‘We will continue to provoke the government of Canada to the point where it can no longer cloak the reality of what the Innu’s in- tent is. As far as the Innu are con- cerned we have not committed any crime other than trying to feed our children.”’ position on equal respon- sibility of the U.S. and Soviet Union for the arms race; their position in relation to the socialist countries and regional questions such as Afghanistan, Kampuchea and Vietnam.” Kashtan said further party delegations to China are a pos- sibility in the future and a strengthening of relations be- tween the two parties is a dis- tinct possibility.