BRITISH COL Heed city laws, slumlords told There are over 5,000 people living in the Downtown Eastside area of Vancouver — some- times called Skid Road. Most of them are poor people on low in- comes. In 1978 the Downtown East- side Residents Association (led by Bruce Eriksen, now on city council; Libby Davies, now on the parks board; and Jean Swanson) and city inspectors made a study of this area to de- termine and document just how unhealthy and unsafe it was. They recorded over 9,000 bylaw violations by the owners of ho- paint; unclean floor coverings; bad wiring and plumbing. The study also concluded that these violations were not the fault of the tenants concerned. For what they’re getting these people are paying horrendously high rents. The brief showed that these buildings have the most expensive rental accom- modation in the city. Yet there are all kinds of health, fire and standards of maintenance viola- tions. Our standing committee agreed to recommend to city council that: Harry Rankin (a) The standards of main- tenance bylaw be strictly enforc- ed by the city; and (b) When the owner of .any ' premise refuses to comply, he will be instructed to appear be- tels and rooming houses in this area. Recently the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA) made another intens- ive study of 18 hotels and room- ; : ing houses in the area. Its find- fore city council to show cause ings were presented to the stand- why his business license should not be revoked. DERA is also asking city council to write to Peter Hynd- man, minister of consumer and ing committee of council on community services, of which I am chairman. The study reveal- Sinherqoecitions — taese meats corporate affairs in Victoria. ee ee asking him to direct the Liquor : ; Distribution Branch to cancel | Thiswelldocumented report, the license of any hotel that does complete with photos as added _ not comply with the city’s regu- proof, showed that conditions were still appalling. These in- clude (just to mention a few) big open garbage containers right below windows; broken win- dows; no heat in rooms; no hot lations governing .fire, health and standards of maintenance. As DERA putsit: ‘‘It is both un- ethical and immoral that hotel owners be allowed to profit from the sale of liquor while ne- TRIBUNE PHOTO— DAN KEETON \ wo 3 CRTC demonstrators unfurled a banner inside the hea gVATIONALIZE UPABES MA Me to bring U.S.-owned B.C. Telephone under public ownership. ‘Opposition’ CRTC urges B.C. Tel nationalization Continued from page 1 Rush challenged Lawrence’s justification of the interim hike on the grounds the company needed a 14 percent rate of return to engage in construction, saying, ‘‘You con- firm my charge. The CRTC is more concerned with B.C. Tel’s profits than with service or people’s ability to pay. There is something more important than the sacred right of profits — public service.”’ The B.C. Communist Party has challenged the CRTC hearings in _ recent releases, calling the commis- water; a large number of people _glecting to meet the city’s mini- using thesame toilet whichisnot mum health and safety require- kept clean; dirty linen; lack of — ments.’’ sion ‘‘a rubber stamp’’ for B.C. » Tel’s increases, and demanding the federal regulatory body cancel all hearings until it has ‘‘determined a correct formula for estimating the cost of telephone services.”’ The demand for a rollback of the interim increase and rejection of the current hikes also came from mayor Michael Harcourt’s repre- sentative, Jean Douglas. Reading from a brief,from Vancouver city council, Douglas reiterated the de- mand for the establishment of pro- per criteria to measure B.C. Tel’s service record, noting that the CRTC had cited service improve- ments as necessary: in two previous reports. Stating that the phone rates would be too high for most citi- zens, she repeated the demand of the Consumers’ Association — which, along with the B.C. Federa- tion of Labor, the Committee Against Rising Prices, the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of B.C., and many community groups, endorsed council’s brief — that B.C. Tel ‘‘give rate subsidies to all who need them.”’ Alderman Bruce Yorke added that the brief was unanimously en- dorsed by a city council ‘‘widely di- verse in political opinion. So we can say that the vast majority of Van- month ago, we commented ironically on the curious silence from official circles which, although clamorous in defending workers’ rights in Poland, had nothing to say about the demise of trade union freedoms in another country, Turkey. And now, admidst the television extravaganzas and Reagan declarations of Solidarity days, that silence over Turkey, where the repression of trade unions has mounted omi- nously in the 17 months since the military coup, has become positively deafening. We were given a glimpse of just how draconian measures are taken against Turkish trade unions in the most recent issue (Jan. 25) of Trade Union Flashes, the international bulletin published by the World Fed- eration of Trade Unions. Among the examples it cited: @ At the time of writing 52 leaders of the Turkish trade union cen- tral DISK were still before a military court. In each of the cases, the pro- secutor has sought the death penalty. It is forbidden by law to comment on the case in Turkey. e Already sentenced were 185 members of a DISK affiliate, work- ers in an agricultural-industrial complex, who received sentences rang- ing from two to 24 years for organizing an illegal strike in early 1980 — before the military coup. _ @ Another 40 teachers’ union leaders were given prison terms rang- ing from one to nine years for union activity. Most received either eight or nine years. @ Prison sentences, some as long as five years, were imposed on 14 metal workers, members of a DISK choir, for singing the Internation- ale at the 23rd congress of their union in 1979. Significantly, however, the double standard for which the Reagan administration has become notorious, is not a monopoly of official- dom. Maclean’s magazine has just as revealingly commented on its own ‘‘objectivity’’, if you contrast its Dec. 21 and Feb. 15 editions. On Dec. 21, the magazine noted the “‘savagery with which Poland’s armed forces moved on Sunday to crush the workers’ freedom. . .”” The Feb. PEOPLE AND ISSUES 15 article on Turkey mentions the trade unions only once with this . phrase: ‘‘Union activity has been sharply curtailed. . . ”’ * * * * * ring room Feb. 10, calling for government action = his many friends in the Carpenters Union and elsewhere, we ]’ were deeply saddened last week to learn of the death of Nick Po- dovinnikoff. He died in hospital Feb. 12; and the news was made even heavier by the fact that he already appeared to be well on his way to re- covery after having undergone open heart surgery a week before. Born into a Doukhobor family in Yorkton, Saskatchewan on May 19, 1910, Nick was forced to leave the province during the depression years and moved first to the west coast and then a year later, to the United States. In California, he followed the example of thousands of his generation and became active with the Young Communist League — and encountered the wrath of the U.S. government which treated him forever after with unyielding malice. Although he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served throughout World War II, he was denied his right to U.S. citizenship. When he ap- plied following demobilization he was again rejected by immigration authorities and told: ‘‘You were only fighting for Russia anyway.”’ He joined the Carpenters Union after the war and continued to fight for his citizenship but now the cold war had frozen the U.S. administra- tion’s position even harder. In 1951, he was deported. Together with his wife, Elaine, he settled in Vancouver and contin- ued his active membership in the Carpenters, transferring to Local 452. A member of the local executive for some years, he also served as a local business agent for a short period during the 1970s. In 1961, he reaffirmed the course on which he had earlier set his life, taking out membership in the Communist Party, which he main- " tained until his death. He was a candidate for the party in the riding of ‘Vancouver-Centre in the 1975 provincial election. _Amemorial service was scheduled for this Friday, Feb. 19 at 12:30 p.m. in the Boal Chapel, 1505 Lillooet in North Vancouver. Elaine Podovinnikoff has asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the Tribune. “%-