W/CODWORKERS SAY:

‘c uay OPEN THE AGREEMENT - Now. 7 -

fi JOHN Buttines.

i |

of Vancouver IWA local 1-217.

The above cartoon appeared in the current issue of

| “The Barker,” organ

| LABOR SCENE:

Fed policy on oil strike under sharp fire by VLC

This week’s session of the Vancouver and District Labor Council (VLC) voiced its approval, but only by a narrow majority of the delegate body, to continue support of B.C. Federation of Labor (BCFL) policy in relation to the current strike of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAWU), in which six of the big oil distributors in B.C. are involved.

In brief, BCFL policy as laid down recently in what is described as a ‘‘representative” conference of BCFL Executive Council together with affiliate union officers and _ staff members, decided to declare all Imperial Oil (Esso) products “hot”’, to refuse to cross picket lines of other struck refineries, and give the Oil Workers all

‘Work for welfare’ scheme condemned by aldermen

Vancouver alderman Harry Rankin and Burnaby alderman James Dailly joined this week in a public statement condemning the recent proposal from the Mayors and Municipalities parley held in Ottawa that employable persons work for welfare. They branded the scheme as both ‘impractical’ and “‘reactionary’’.

“It is designed to perpetuate the falsehood, originating with employers who want cheap labor, that welfare rolls are loaded with healthy, lazy people who wouldn’t take a job if you offered them one. The fact is that only a small percentage of people on welfare are employable - perhaps 10 percent. The rest are people who are incapacitated by illness, physical disabilities, deserted mothers and families,” says the statement.

Charging that the proportion of freeloaders among the wealthy is greater than among the poor, the statement says that ‘‘when employable people go on welfare it’s because they are desperate, they are without work and can’t get unemployment insurance.”

NQUR SURVEY Sine PLENTY oF HOUSING ~WE HAVE Too MANY. PEOPLE /

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 20, 1969—Page 12

Paitin

Further: ‘‘Welfare rates are so low that these people are living in acute poverty — poorly housed, poorly clothed and poorly fed.”’

The two aldermen said that “to make people work for welfare, for the inadequate allow- ances they get, is to punish them for being unemployed. The policy of making people work for relief was dropped 30 years ago becase of widespread public resentment. It didn’t work then and it won’t work now.”’

“The problem that needs to be tackled is to find steady work for employable welfare cases that will enable them to get off welfare rolls entirely,” they said, urging senior governments to give greater help in finding jobs for employable welfare

cases, giving special vocational

courses to train and up-grade

those onet ons they already have.

“If Canadian mayors and aldermen are serious about looking for freeloaders living off the public purse, a good place to start would be in their own municipalities where special tax concensions (by means of under-assessment) are given to big commercial and _ industrial properties, and where vast public funds are used to provide freeway and access routes to

private promoters like Block 42- -

p23 “and Vancouver.”’

Project 200 in

The statement also brands as freeloaders those like the Kaiser interests, who get hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coal without paying a cent royalty, and other big business interests like the CPR and Ford Motors who get special concessions.

possible support in securing a satisfactory contract with Imperial, thereby opening the way for a break-through with the other major oil companies involved in the strike.

Strong disapproval of BCFL policy was voiced by delegate Bissky (Oil Workers), who charged that such a ‘“‘selective’’ policy was creating all kinds of problems and difficulties for the union, ‘“‘that his union was

bargaining with an industry and not an individual company, and that anything that comes out behind a picket line is ‘hot’. If: we continue to carry on under BCFL policy, we’ll be on strike for 99-years’’, The delegate urged VLC members ‘‘to think about it— and if you have a union conscience you should know that every product that comes out

from any one of these other

refineries is ‘hot’, so don’t use

ibe,

Tom Clark (IWA) reported that his local union had reiterated their opposition to BCFL policy with regard to the Oil Workers strike, and wanted his opposition in the VLC debate recorded. Other delegates were also sharply critical on BCFL policy in relation to the Oil Workers strike.

On motion VLC delegates agreed by substantial majority - to hold a special closed meeting within a week or so, to discuss BCFL policy on the oil strike.

On VLC executive recommendation, delegates voted unanimous approval of the

program outlined by the ‘‘Action Committee of Unemployed Students”’ to assist the thousands of high school and university students .now in dire need of employment and no _ jobs available.

A motion presented by Delegate Werlin ‘(CUPE) condemning Vancouver’s Mayor Tom Campbell as being ‘‘the first management agent in B.C. to call for the use of Bill 33 and compulsory arbitration against the unions” (during the recent

Tenants win important victory

Vancouver tenants won an important victory last Thursday when the Supreme Court issued a judgment dismissing an injunction applied for by the landlords of an apartment block at 2150 Pandora seeking to prohibit picketing by tenants to protest high rents and other grievances.

Bruce Yorke, secretary of the Vancouver Tenants Council, said the decision has established in principle a tenant’s right to picket and organize. ‘‘This was a Significant decision and we intend to take full advantage of

Early last week some 25 tenants at Pandora Place paraded up and down with signs urging the management to correct grievances and sign an agreement. A leaflet handed out by the Pandora Place Tenants Assoc., which is affiliated with the Vancouver Tenants Council, said, “‘Ever since this block was

constructed, often ordered to get out in 24 hours, many are threatened with eviction, discrimination takes place and. that tenants are presented with arbitrary and outrageous rent increases.

put into operation the tenants have had a bum deal. Rents far too high. . . conditions bad. . . the management promises improvements but never

delivers.

The leaflet charged that the apartment building is poorly that tenants are

that all forms of

The landlords sought an

injunction to halt the picketing, claiming that the protest was illegal under the Trade Unions Act. ' Judge E.E. Hinkson, who heard the case, said he was not convinced the Trade Unions Act had any application to a landlord- tenant dispute and that the defendants nuisance.

had created no

Meanwhile, the Vancouver

Tenants Council sent a letter to Mayor Tom Campbell and members of City Council demanding that the city move ahead immediately with the drafting of a by-law setting up a Landlord-Tenant Board.

The letter points out that on April 22, 1969 Council passed a motion in principle to set up a board and instructed the City Solicitor to prepare a draft by- law. ‘‘That was 8 weeks ago, and no further action has been taken. Surely the time has come to have the draft by-law placed before Council for consid- eration, hearing of interest parties, and final enactment.”’

The letter says that a functioning Landlord-Tenant Board with teeth in it is urgently required as every passing day brings unwarranted rent increases, arbitrary evictions, unsatisfactory conditions and the security deposit ‘‘racket’’ continues.

CUPE strike) was unanimous’ 4 approved by the VLC deles@ body. * KOK ‘ ¢ The giant timber monopo who harvest B.C.’s Um ‘ resources have a “gentle agreement” with an obligl 5 Socred government written their forest licences; Vi) 7) should they so desire, they “farm out’ or to be A a precise, sub-contract out @ cee portion of the logging operall® on their vast licensed domai, So far so good, but there 5 union-busting joker in the ie which neither the Hm A monopolies nor the Se government make any provis! ; for. in’ -thein me accommodations for bet exploitation of B.C.’s tm resources. ate Between these big tm ‘s monopolies and the i . national Woodworkers C America (IWA) there is 4 Be IWA Regional Master Ue Agreement, to which, the) monopolies are signatory — is which the provincial cole _ment should be obliged i recognize in theit am contracting deals, but don’t.

The licenscee therefore a and does sub-contract out forest domain to non-union SU contractors, and expect ! ¢ union (IWA) on his own loge! é operations to handle the me produced by non-union Jab. This deliberate provocation 4” , ignoring of a Union Mastet Agreement, is not only a Bae violation of that agreement its employer signatories, DU violation aided and-abetted bY government, which assures monopoly the ‘‘right contract out his operations, makes no provisions whatsoey™ for the safeguarding of unl? labor under the terms 9% is Master Agreement against SU contracting non-union operations.

to

Thus when the monopoly pres laments the ‘26th wilde? strike” in logging operations A omits the existance of a Mast : Agreement specifying, ie alia, a basic principle of ‘4 he union organization; viz, ! a union men under contract | this case) are not required © handle logs produced by be union labor, because to do § would be equivalent to scabbiné on themselves, and renderine meaningless their long struggle to win such union contracts. h

But the timber barons, ie the Socred government in ie. pocket, and a wad of con “‘injunctions’’ in the other, i, think otherwise. If they didn» the ‘26 wildcat strikes’ ° Vancouver Island loggin® operations or perhaps elsewhel®

need never have happened. * KX

UFAWU salmon net fisherm® have voted by an overwhelmin 96.5 percent majority to rej the Fisheries Association’s off@!

‘of a two year contract slashiné

sockeye prices by 1% cents @ pound and adding a meagre a, quarter of a cent per pou! the price of pinks.