20 THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER JULY-AUGUST, 1972 te riWior A Published once mont! 38,000 copies printed in this issue h Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1 ww ithewesten Canadian ‘lumber worker ly as the official publication of the INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA Affiliated with AFL-C1O-CLC 2859 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone 874-5261 Editor—Pat Kerr Business Manager—Fred Fieber Forwarded to every member of Advertising Representatives—Elizabeth Spencer Associates the IWA in Western Canada inaccordance with convention decisions. Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 per year. on EDITORIAL KICK THE RASCALS OUT! LECTIONS have been held so frequently in recent years that we are all tempted to ignore the recently- announced provincial circus, to be held on Wednesday, August 30th. It would be a real tragedy if many British Columbians succumbed to that temptation, because this provincial government richly deserves to be thrown out on their collective ears. Chabot, who pretends to be the Minister - of Labour, began his campaign with a personal attack on B.C. Federation of Labour, Secretary, Ray Haynes, then called the Leader of the Opposition a traitor because he refused to take the company side in the construction dispute. That’s just the latest in a long series of laws and actions that are explicitly anti-labour. Bills, 3, 33, 42 and 43 are more important examples. Of more importance to the public at large is the long record of abuse of government power to steal a buck (witness Sommers and Gaglardi), and the even more destructive tactic of singling out groups in our society for attack. Organized labour was the first group to receive Bennett’s black-list treat- ment, and many British Columbians applauded him for attacking us. But now we are joined in the black-list by teachers and doctors and newspaper- men. People are beginning to wonder who ISN’T a villain — can you make a province out of hardware merchants alone? The IWA supports the New Democratic Party, and urges members to vote for them. But those members who don't agree with that should at least agree. with this: British Columbia deserves a better government — Kick the rascals out! GUEST EDITORIAL PUBLIC OLLS to elicit people’s views on strikes have proliferated in recent months. There have been several Gallup polls, one by the CBC, one by the Financial Times, and most recently, one by the Canadian. Magazine newspaper supplement. Not surprisingly, the majority of those polled are opposed to strikes, especially in the so-called essential services. The results were predicted at a time when an unusually large number of public service strikes were in progress around the country. There’s no way that strikes can be “popularized”; and when they incon- venience people, the natural reaction is to lash out at the strikers and their unions, without trying to determine if their walkout is justified. The Canadian Magazine poll is simply a “write-in”. Its questions are simplistic and loaded — e.g., “if you had your way, 4 UO) PINION would you ban all strikes ...?’’ — so as to encourage an anti-union response. Since people who are. against something are more prone to answer such write-in polls than those who are for it, and since the Canadian Magazine's readership is not primarily union-oriented, the results are bound to be heavily slanted against the right to strike. Such polls do nothing to shed any real light on labour relations disputes. They seem to be used chiefly as an anti-labour device, as a means of pressuring poli- ticians to further restrict or even abolish . the right to strike. ‘The pollsters could more profitably turn their attention to the pricing, polluting and profiteering activities of. big business firms. Or is it only the labour movement that is to be polled to death and projected as society’s No. 1 villain? the results. contributed by Ottawa. NEW EXPERIMENT IN ONTARIO Ontario is expected to institute an experimental guaranteed annual income for 800 to 1,000 families in May 1973. Social Services Minister Rene Brunelle, in announcing the $5 million project, said it will take one year to plan the project and then the supplemental payments will be made for three years. A fifth year will be needed to compile and assess The Minister stated the purpose of the experiment is to show whether the recipients of money will increase or decrease work efforts. Provincial authorities are conducting negotiations with federal officials to determine the degree of financial assistance to be DRY KILN Well if you’d been locked in that danged thing over night you’d be this size too! UBC PRISON PROJECT SEEKS UNION VOLUNTE The Editor: Several weeks ago, we of the UBC Prisons Project made a presentation to the Vancouver Labour Council, which outlined our project, its goals and rationale. At that meeting, we said that one of the major needs of the project is for volunteers — men — or women — who are willing to give a few hours of their time each week to participate in discussion and _ interest groups with inmates of prisons, or to serve as sponsors THE PROJECT . Keeping men locked in prisons doesn’t seem to do ‘much to prepare them for straight, law-abiding lives in the free community. Prisons are mainly schools for crime: men who have committed crimes are exposed only to each other. ; What is needed is more contact with responsible citizens of the community, if prisoners are really to be able to change their behaviour. Seven people are working on this project, which will go on for 18 months. The first thing we did was to investigate the extent of present contact between prisons and com- munity people. We met with representatives from John Howard Society, Elizabeth Fry Society, M-2 (a man-to-man citizen sponsor and job therapy group), Salvation Army, National Parole Service, and other organizations, as well as groups of inmates and staff at Matsqui Institution and the B.C. Penitentiary, in order to understand what is being done now, what more could be done, and how more community people can become involved in this work. There is a lot to be done, we have learned. So we have been developing programs of dif- ferent kinds: for example, we are expanding the number of volunteer groups working directly With inmates within the institution; increasing the range of activities in which inmates may participate while out on temporary absences; expanding permanent job for men being released on parole. We feel that the labour union movement particularly is a potential source of good volunteers. ; For this.reason, I have en- closed some information pamphlets, and an article which might be suitable for use in The Lumber Worker. Yours sincerely, A. JEAN MACDONALD School of Social Work, University of B.C. opportunities for parolees. Educational programs are being presented to the public over TV, radio and newspapers to help change the negative Stereotypes that many people have of inmates. At Matsqui Institution, the project has found more tem- porary absence placements for inmates by approaching various community service agencies. A labour education- information course involving labour union workers and inmates has been started; and project staff and inmates are working together to present a brief to the federal task force on half-way houses. And two men from Matsqui are working with the project as part of the temporary absence program. At B.C. Penitentiary, there have been evening sessions ‘with inmates and community people seeing and talking about movies; prisoners in education classes have met with university students to talk about different aspects of university life; and we are developing a volunteer parole sponsorship program. The alarmingly high rate of recidivism — about 80 percent of offenders return to prison for further crimes — warns uS that such programs are desperately needed. Com- munity people must. become more active in this area. Help is needed — volunteers are needed. If you can give some — time and help — or have friends who can, please contact the Prisons Project at 228-2461 — in Vancouver.