Bittirne in that area of medicine. The hospital is very

modern with the latest up-to- date equipment.

We were then taken to an- other rest home located very _ close to the town of Velingrad. is rest home could accom- odate 150 workers and their milies,

They then took us up to a _ very small lake that was fed by stream. The interesting thing about this stream was that the water temmperature_ re- _ mained at 4 degrees Celcius re- _ gardless of the time of year.

_ Friday,’ September 30th

ted out with a breakfast

~BU LGARIAN TOUR™

meeting with the Director and Union President from G. Dimi- trov Woodworking Plant. The Director and Union President took us to the highest point around Velingrad and pointed out many historic areas in and around Velingrad. Once again, the history was of a very vio- lent nature.

An interesting monument that we stopped to see was in honour of a young 22-year-old girl (Vilince) who was a partisan during the revolution. This young lady was captured, shot, and beheaded two days prior to the end of the revolu- _Hon.

3

MILES OF PINE FORESTS

rd

On our return to Sofia, we

_ drove through many miles of

- their forested area. The trees were all pine, fine looking _ timber ranging from 6’’ to 2 feet at the butt. Other species

of oe were birch and pop- lar, but the majority was pine.

Situated right in the middle of this forested area was a king’s villa which had been turned into a rest home for em-

RILA MONASTERY in Bulgaria. At one time the monks had their own individual apartments in the monastery.

ioe

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

ployees in the woodworking section and tourists visiting their country.

On our way to Sofia, we fol- lowed a river and lake system that had five dams that pro- vided Bulgaria with some of its electrical power.

We arrived in Sofia at 1 p.m. and cleaned up and went for lunch. Right after lunch, we at- tended a meeting with the Pre- sident of the Central Council for the Woodworking Section.

We then attended a meeting with the Secretary of the Pre- sident for the Central Commit- tee. This gentleman knew Joe Morris very well and indicated that he was the person who talked with Bro. Morris about our visit. He informed us that we were the first Canadian Trade Unionists -to visit his country and they were im- pressed. While they watched us very closely throughout our trip they made us_ very welcome. He indicated they believed in a lot of our ideals such as Chilean workers, problems in South Africa, etc. They then took us out for another fine meal.

Saturday, October ist and Sunday, October 2nd were spent sight-seeing in different parts of the country. On Sun- day, we held our final meeting with a section of the wood- working industry. All of their operations were closed down so they took us on a tour of Rila Monastery where we had din- ner.

When we returned to Sofia, we went to the centre of town and went through the Cenotaph where Georgia Dimitrov lies in state. Georgi Dimitrov was a great labour leader in Bulgaria and fought very hard for work- ing people.

In conclusion, we would say that this trip will be of great benefit to us and to the mem- bership as a whole. As we stated to the fine people we met over there, their system is good for them but you can’t take any one system and move it to another country and ex- pect it to work. There are certainly some things that can be utilized from our gained knowledge and put to work here.

We would like to thank the Officers, Regional Executive Board, and membership for al-

‘lowing us to take this trip. It

has been an excellent ex- perience and something this Union should continue to do. It is good for our membership and good for our Country.

BAD NEWS

As the rate of ‘inflation climbs to the nine percent mark, workers are held to six percent wage increases which will take at least $350 out of an average family’s budget next year.

That unhappy picture was painted by NDP leader Ed Broadbent, after October’s consumer price index showed a

full percent jump.

ERICH EWERT, second fami left, ane Neil ay centre, pose with Bulgarian unionists at a hardboard plant in Troyan.

A VIEW of the City of levesh:

—o — Hit

1-367 OFFICERS’ REPORT | PAINTS ROSY eee |

ie meeting of Pocal 1- 367 IWA Haney, was held Octo- ber 1st in Maple Ridge with over fifty members and of- ficers in attendance. ;

Business of the meeting included presentation of Local.

_ Union Scholarships, election of

New Westminster & District Labour Council delegates, approving the Officers’ and Financial Reports and hearing from Regional 2nd Vice- President Bob Blanchard, the guest speaker.

Blanchard pointed out that this year was the 40th Anni- versary of the IWA and down through these years the Union had made tremendous strides.

He stated that now it was more important than ever for IWA members to cooperate with each other to keep the Union strong. He said that there were forces in British Co- lumbia actively working to de- stroy the labour movement for their own personal gain.

Their motivation, he added, was greater profits for big business and low wages and bad working conditions for union members. He backed his charges up by pointing out the number of. organizations {including the Social Credit Party ) who have been press- ee for right-to-work i in

SEE =|

He eerieiuded BF warning the meeting that unless all union- ists were prepared to support their unions, right-to-work laws could be a reality in this province.

The extensive Officers’ Re- port noted with pleasure that the finances of the Local were in excellent condition and the membership was the highest in the history of the Local Union.

Dealing with accident pre- vention the Report stated there had not been a fatality in the Local in the organized opera- tions. Unfortunately, there had been two in unorganized operations.

Organizing had been costly and time consuming over the past year the Report stated al- though seven operations were organized.

Education has always had high priority in the Local Union and the Report noted that everything possible was being done by the officers to ensure that the members were made aware of what was going on in the Union, community and province.

LIGHTER SIDE _

As soon as some women have a drink or two they start look- ing oor a chaser.