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( PROVINCIAL NOTES

Northern cannery

| workers unable

to collect Ul

PRINCE RUPERT — Hard

times are forecast for the north Coast this winter because of the government’s new Testrictive policies on Unemployment insurance Which will see thousands of fishing industry workers denied benefits, in spite of record production levels . in dollar terms.

United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union northern _ Tepresentative Mike Darnell _ has expressed alarm that even. fishing industry workers with top seniority in the Prince ~ Rupert area will not have ac- Cumulated sufficient hours to Teceive unemployment in- Surance benefits.

“Emily Brown is the top Seniority worker in the Can- Fisco Oceanside plant here in Rupert,’’ he told the Tribune Tuesday, ‘‘And she didn’t Qualify for unemployment in- Surance. That is a measure of the kind of problem there is for thousands of people this year,.’’

Canada Manpower nor- thwest director Mark Winkler _ has informed the union that \ Only about one third of

UFAWU members who col- lected unemployment in- surance last year will be eligible to collect benefits this year.

The prospect of the mass disentitlement from unemploy- ment insurance has alarmed community and Native leaders in many small communities heavily dependent on the fishing industry.

The problem has been created by a combination of cutbacks in the unemployment insurance program introduced by the former Liberal govern- ment which increased the qualification period to 20 con- secutive weeks of employment, and by the serious reduction in manhours of employment in the fishing industry due to the large scale invasion of Japanese capital and a shift in production to the frozen ex- port market from the tradi- tional canned salmon market.

The result has been that can- nery workers are not getting enough hours to meet the new UIC regulations, even though production value has increased vastly, from $173 million in 1975 to over $517 million this year.

The UFAWU will be making a special appeal to the federal government, Darnell said, to take the productivity of fishing industry workers into account

and to extend benefits to

workers who fall short of the necessary consecutive hours. ©

Canadian vessel has foreign crew,

Panamanian flag

NANAIMO — _= The Nanaimo Duncan and District Labor Council has protested the introduction of six trading vessels to the B.C. coast operating under flags of conve- nience.

Maxine Zurbrigg, pro-tem president of the council, said last week that the first of the vessels, the Douglas Fir, is ar- rived at the Nanaimo assembly wharf. The vessel is Canadian owned, but manned by a Japanese crew and sailing under a Panamanian Flag.

“Canadian workers are be- ing denied jobs through ships flying flags of convenience,”’ Zurbrigg said, ‘“‘If such at- trocities are allowed to con- tinue the west coast shipping industry will continue to disap- pear and along with that 200 localseafarers will no longer have employment.”

Unionists picketed the ship in Nanaimo demanding the im- plementation of the Canadian Labor Congress policy that all Canadian ships be manned by

Canadian crews. 3

Ron Johnson, Vancouver, writes: very much enjoyed reading the two issues of Labor Comment by

Jack Phillips on the subject of

Social democracy in Sweden. Of Particular interest to-me personally Was his analysis of the ‘‘Meidner lan”? which I described in an arti- Cle I wrote for the Democrat last March, ‘ — Phillips confirmed, the 4 €idner proposals call for the crea- On of Employee Funds in each ma-

JOr Swe

os Wedish industry into which A ons would be required to ee 4 percentage of their annual in- Me. The funds would be owned iio Workers collectively through ove. trade unions and would grow they ; Period of 30 to 40 years until €come large enough that the oP and control of the in- bane concerned would be the he from the capitalists to of ee a The plan is the subject Sweden. Se political debate in_

thaetPs Points out quite correctly it ot the Meidner Plan is adopted WM will not eliminate private

W) . . BS Nership in Sweden. He therefore A

aes that the proposal is not

“tm Kant and offers no path

a socialist economy. I

dj d "Sagree, Adoption of the Meidner Plan ar Sweden with a mixed chtre id Consisting of government Operative’ a greatly increased co- r x Sector and a_ greatly Private sector. So it is cer- ‘ ue that some private enter- P Ould continue. But the plan ‘Tadically alter the make-up ish economy by chang- Private, Ownership of all major Origing Porations. defi, sony the word ‘‘major”’ was Work. all firms employing over : Kers. I believe that figure Pethan, wcreased to 1,000 or even aaah But whatever the at may finally be agreed iNderstat ink Phillips has seriously Proposal €d the significance of the Tho aon. Meidner Plan has been aed the Swedish Trade ®DProved nfederation (LO) and was ee Nn principle by the trien- __ ~~ 48ress of the Swedish Social

tainly

t Drise : Woul

OPEN FORUM Meidner plan upheld

_ as ‘radical proposal’

Democratic Party in 1978. A joint LO-Social Democratic Party com- mittee has been created to refine the proposal and bring in a recommen- dation for implementing it.. Phillips suggests that the adop- tion of the Meidner Plan results from an ideological crisis for social democracy ,‘‘which motivates its leaders to search for new ideas in

order to win more seats in elections

...’? But the Meidner Plan is a con- tentious issue. Far from winning the Social Democrats extra seats, it is cited by many of their leaders as

one of the causes of their defeat in,

1976 after 44 years in government. Yet still they proceed with the pro- posal. :

The Meidner Plan is not just another social democratic reform. It is a proposal that strikes at the heart of capitalism. Those who sup- port it in Sweden know only too well that the capitalists and their political allies have and will con- tinue to fight it with a great deal of vigor. But as the Swedes are known to do, Meidner’s supporters are proceeding slowly and confidently taking care to ensure that the plan is understood and accepted. _

The Meidner Plan is a logical ex- tension of social democracy. AS Meidner explained to me, ‘We had to develop a realistic plan to reform the economy or accept that our work (to build a more egalitarian society) had gone about as far as it could go.””

In other words, social democrats in Sweden were at a crossroads. They had to make a choice between leaving the economy In private

hands or proceeding toward a,

socialist economy. They chose the

ialist approach. ae oT am pad that Jack Phillips does not deal with the pros and cons of the Meidner Plan more directly in his article. Instead he has chosen to critize those who support the plan, which of course he is perfectly

entitled to do, But he has not dealt

with whether or not the plan could work and whether it should pro- ceed.

I believe the Meidner Plan pro- vides a viable route toward socialism in capitalist economies that can be followed without revolution. The success of such a plan would provide ari uncontrover- tible example of how workers in a ‘Western’? society can run an economy without capitalism and it would provide that example in a context that could easily understand and relate to. Capitalists know how serious the implementation of the Meidner Plan would be for them and they will oppose it bitterly. A key ques- tion here is just how far they would try to go in a country like Sweden to oppose such an: idea.

I am convinced the working class in Sweden, through the LO and the Social Democratic Party, is strong enough to implement the Meidner Plan if that is what they want to do. But then that I suppose is one of the major disagreements I have with Phillips. In any event the introduc- tion of the Meidner Plan would be an exciting experiment. Now that the left has won the national elec- tion in Sweden it will be more in- teresting than ever to follow the debate on the Meidner question.

Canadian workers .

phillip david rankin stone paul

mecmurray

barristers & solicitors 500 ford bidg. 193 east hastings st.

vancouver, b.c. v6a 1n7 682-7471

Low rent tenants fight conversion

Low income tenants in North Vancouver are fighting an attempt by their landlord to convert their apartments into condominiums, in

violation of an agreement with the ~_

federal government which subsidiz- ed construction of the low rent housing.

“They are playing a game of psychological warfare with the tenants,’’ North Vancouver district aldermanic candidate Ernie Crist said of the landlord, Polygon Pro- perties, this week in the wake of an application to district council for approval of a strata title conversion of Lynmour Village on Premier Ave.

If Council approves the applica- tion, the tenants, most of whom are on low or fixed income, will have to buy or leave.

The Lynmour Village was built in 1968 with the assistance of. Central Mortgage and Housing Corpora- tion (CHMC) which extended a 50 year, 6 3/4 percent mortgage to the first owner in return for a 15 year contract to keep rents below market levels, CHMC loan director John Nichol confirmed to the Tribune in an interview this week.

“‘Assuming that the need is still there, we will do everything to see that the agreement is maintained,’’ Nichol said, but CHMC will not ap- pear before district council, he said.

The need is still there, Crist told the Tribune this week, citing a ‘‘real shortage of this kind of accom- modation in North Vancouver.’ The district has no policy on strata title conversions, he added, and this issue should be used to fight for a

policy on all conversions. ‘‘Council.

can be forced to vote against this conversion if the tenants organize,”’ he said. ‘‘But let’s take it a step fur- ther. Council must recognize that there will be a lot more of these types of applications, and rather than dealing with each case as it arises, with the_ possibility of a dangerous precedent being set, it’s

- will use issue to press for strata title conver- sion policy in North Van District.

ERNIE CRIST . .

time for tenants.”” In Vancouver, city council was forced to react to a wave of conver- sions in the early seventies with a tough bylaw that required 75 per- cent of tenants to agree voluntarily to the conversion. The percentage has since been lowered to 66 per- cent. But North Vancouver has no policy, requiring only a vote of Council to approve conversions. The Lynmour development con- sists of 128 1-3 bedroom units. Tenants are currently paying $206 for a one bedroom apartment. Tenants identified two problems with the scheme, the first being af- fordability. One tenant stated that on a Handicapped pension of $357 a month, it was hardly enough to pay $206 a month as it was. ‘“‘It would be impossible to attempt to buy the. apartment. I’m. living. in, with mortgage payments estimated at over $300 a month,”’ he said. They have, along with other con- cerned citizens, until Sept. 25 to in- tervene in the application by Polygon to the council of District of North Vancouver.

a policy to protect

CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING

COMING EVENTS

SEPT. 26 — Personal account by Brian Hadden of the Com- monwealth Conference. and the Zimbabwean refugee camps_ in Zambia and’ Mozambique, Wed. 8 p.m., 1811 W. 16th Ave., Van- couver. Sponsored by SAAC.

SEPT. 29 — The Young Com- munist League invites you to a slide show of the recent World Festival of Youth and Students, held in

Havana, Cuba. Mt. Pleasant Neighbourhood House, 535 E. Broadway. $2 admission. Refreshments, snacks and live entertainment.

SEPT. 30 — Grandview- Woodlands COPE pancake

breakfast, Sunday, Sept. 30, 10 a.m. at David and Rosemary Stone’s house, 2163 E. 3rd, Van. Games and fun for all.

OCT. 27 — YCL Halloween Dance at Kensington Community Centre, Vancouver.

NOV. 10 — Keep this date open for the banquet celebrating the 62nd anniversary of the Great October Revolution. Sponsored by the GVRC.

HELP WANTED

FOUR AGGRESSIVE PEOPLE needed to present an electrical ap- pliance. Work evenings and Satur- days. Must have a car. For an ap- pointment call: 874-7214.

LEGAL SERVICES Rankin, Stone, McMurray, Bar- risters and Solicitors. 500 Ford

Building, 193 East Hastings St., Vancouver 682-7471.

BUSINESS PERSONALS

ROOF REPAIRS — Reasonable. New roofs and alum. gutters, 277-1364 or 277-3352.

TRADE UNIONIST seeks re- search, writing work. Phone Ron Sostad — 980-5157. —

Heal Fedor Gosaclles

JEWELLERY REPAIRS

Remodelling at reasonable charge. For appointment phone 254-7678.

HALLS FOR RENT

RUSSIAN PEOPLE’S HOME — Available for rentals. For reserva- tions phone 254-3430.

WEBSTERS CORNERS HALL — Available for banquets, meetings, etc. For rates: Ozzie, 325-4171 or 685-5836.

UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CUL- TURAL CENTRE — 805 East Pen- der St., Vancouver. Available for banquets, weddings, meetings. Ph. 254-3436. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— SEPTEMBER 21, 1979—Page 11

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