Friday, February 18, 1977

VOL. 39, No._7 -

PACIFIC

RIBUN

Canadian Labor Congress President Joe Morris this week called on the labor movement to ‘Maintain its unity and solidarity built over the last year and a half” ‘and to continue its pressure on the government to scrap the controls program.

The CLC president was speaking to delegates to the Vancouver and District Labor Council Tuesday night. He was also slated to ad- dress the annual convention of the UFAWU this week.

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Morris paid tribute to Vancouver unionists for:their actions against

‘wage controls on October 14 but

warned that they could not con- sider their job done even though the government has indicated that controls may be coming off this

ear.

. “We had a meeting with the government last month,” he noted, “and the prime minister and his cabinet wanted us to agree that controls would be removed on a sectorial basis — that they would

come off the private sector but would remain on the public sector.

“But we told the government: take the controls off altogether.”

The Congress president em- phasized that the government may continue to try and divide the labor movement by withdrawing the controls selectively and may impose new restrictions during a period of “‘decontrols.”

“wehave a struggle ahead,”’ he

said. ‘‘We have to ensure that the decontrols will not be even more rigid than the controls program. We have to make sure that any agreements that we make uphold the interests of the people that we represent — the working people. And we must ensure that controls are withdrawn for everyone.” One of the most disastrous consequences of the controls program, Morris said, was wor- sening unemployment. ‘The government says 7.6 percent. but

the real figure is closer to 10 percent.

“We told the government from the beginning that the controls would slow the economy to the stagnation point — and our predictions were correct,’’ he declared.

‘‘Now if Ottawa doesn’t take action to alleviate unemployment, we are in for a far worse situation than we have had for many years.”

Native groups in Vancouver continued their protest against the Reed Paper-sponsored art exhibition this week as some 35 demonstrators picketed the en- trance to the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday. Demonstrations are also set for Feb. 20 and 27. Outside the gallery doors, Picketers, representing the Leonard Peltier Support Group

- and the Mercury Pollution Action

Group, dramatized their case with @ parody on the exhibition’s title Which they had changed from ‘Changing Visions: The Canadian Landscape” to “Changing Visions: The Native Nightmare.”

_ Reed Paper, a British-owned Company with extensive holdings in Ontario has been responsible for mercury pollution of the English- Wabigoon River system and has

Just obtained timber rights to a huge tract of land in northern |

ntario which, if exploited, will Cause massive environmental damage.

A company spokesman had: farlier sought to argue that the

Sponsorship of -a landscape show ao purely fortuitous but €Monstrators quoted R. W.

lingsley, president of Reed eee as saying, ‘“‘We believe it Specially appropriate ... to “ usor an exhibition as important d : Changing Visions . . . we care

Ply about . . . the invaluable Tage of our land.”

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“We have no complaint about consultation with the govern- ment,”’ one fisherman stormed at federal fisheries minister Romeo Le Blanc, “Our complaint is that you don’t listen.”

In the following hours Le Blanc was forced to listen as delegates to the 32nd annual convention of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union lined up at microphones to debate policy with the minister of fisheries following his annual speech to the UFAWU convention.

UFAWU secretary treasurer Jack Nichol gave voice to the mood of the convention when he told Le Blanc to return to Ottawa and tell his cabinet colleagues: ‘‘The UFAWU will not be smashed. Call off the Combines investigation of this organization.”

The union’s demand for an ex-

-planation of the investigation was a

clear embarassment to the federal minister who had taken time in his speech to laud the benefits of union organization for fishermen. Le

W= Combines blasted i} at UFAWU parley

Blanc evaded the issue by pleading ignorance and said that the combines investigation depart- ment was independent of the cabinet.

The day before, B.C. Federation of Labor secretary Len Guy had also assailed the government for the combines raids, asserting that the ‘‘architects of that legislation never thought that it would be used as strike breaking legislation.” Guy congratulated the union on its “courageous and _ excellent’’ position to demand that the secret combines hearings be opened to the public.

The UFAWU officer’s report warned fishermen that the threat from the combines investigation was not over and that ‘‘vindictive and punitive action is probable.”

Noting that the Combines in- vestigation director Robert Ber- trand has publicly stated that the combines hearings will continue “when the obstruction issue is cleared away,”’ the officers stated

see POLICY pg. 12

The British Columbia Students

Federation has called on students

to boycott classes and join in a

rally at Queen Elizabeth plaza on

March 10 to protest planned tuition fee increases at B.C. post secon- dary institutes.

The rally and class boycott was announced last week following a meeting of student leaders from BCSF, UBC, SFU, Capilano College, Douglas College and

_ Vancouver Community College.

Students are facing tuition in- creases of as high as 40 percent when they return to: school this September if they are unsuccessful in forcing university ad- ministrations to rescind the in- creases. P

Estimates vary as to the exact ‘amounts involved but the University of Victoria president Howard Petch has indicated that increases will be in the order of 25 percent. UBC president Doug

' . Kenny has told students to expect

—Sean Griffin photos :

increases of as much as 40 percent. Student leaders have pointed out that the increases in tuition fees by

itself is not the only, or main, consideration of the demon- strations. The main question is the rapidly diminishing accessibility to post-secondary education, a situation that the fee increases will aggravate.

While tuition fees are becoming a smaller and smaller portion of overall education costs — and now account for only about 10 percent of overall financing — they are being raised substantially as one remedy to cutbacks in education financing. The increases at B.C.’s_ three universities follows the provincial government’s $10 million cut from the minimum figure for post secondary education mended by the universities council.

The result is that while having a small impact on the budgetary cutbacks, the tuition fee increases have a large impact on working class students who already rely primarily on student financial aid programs.

BCSF organizers are also ap-

see RESEARCH pg. 12

recom- —