Friday, September 10, | 1982

40°

ET IS

Vol. 44, No. 35

Fed sets action plan to back BCGEU

pe,

Region-wide strikes seen

The 210,000-member B.C. Federation of Labor announced Wednesday that it had mapped a program of rotating regional strikes to back the B.C. Govern- ment Employees Union and declared that the program would “click into action’? swiftly if premier Bennett did not move im- mediately to get government negotiators back to the table to ef- fect a satisfactory settlement. ~ Federation president Jim Kin- naird told a press conference Wednesday that a meeting of of- ficers had selected 16 ‘‘key strategic areas of the province,’’ which could be targets of 24-hour rotating strikes by federation affiliates.

The plan was subsequently en- dorsed by a staff conference of of- ficers of affiliated unions and has also been fully backed by the B.C. and Yukon Building Trades Coun- cil which is not affiliated. ~ He said the program would begin ‘‘on a limited scale’? — limited to one regional area — but warned that the action could escalate ‘“‘to include the whole pro- vince’’ if the government failed to resolve the dispute.

He also indicated that the Federation could begin to put its

See AN END page 12

to big business

ies

China-bound ship Pine Trust forms a ghostly backdrop i ly morning light for IWA members as they picket at Ohnson dock at Burnaby’s Berry Point to protest expo

| Jarvis tax scheme a boon

ee nthe ear- logs to China and Japan. There has been more than a tenfold in- Goodwin crease in log exports over the last six months — while B.C. pro- rt of raw cessing plants lie idle and thousands are jobless. (Story page 12.)

OTE OSE YE SY PO I RNS

__ By DAN KEETON

Riding the crest of a wave of Tevolt against spiralling property Taxes, right-wing tax crusader

Oward Jarvis rolled into.

@naimo last month in an at- tempt to sell his brand of €aganomics to local residents.

€ co-author of California’s Proposition 13, the initiative that 8ave windfall profits through tax Telief to big business and is now forcing thousands onto the Unemployment rolls while cutting Social services, was paying the latest of a series of visits to he has made since Pro-

| Position 13 was enacted in 1978. | _ In his address to a public | Meeting Aug. 23 Jarvis presented i" usual image as a crusader for

the rights of the ‘common man” ee an unfeeling and greedy bureaucracy, using a pitch his business sponsors hope will recruit B.C. property owners fac- ed with astronomical tax m- creases.

The main purpose of the Nanaimo meeting was to get signatures for a petition deman- ding the provincial government institute a referendum process similar to that through which Proposition 13 goton the Califor- nia ballot. It was distributed in the hall by conference organizer and ex-businessman Pat Barron, who heads a group called the Citizens Action League of Greater Nanaimo, which sought to use Jarvis to enhance its chances in

the coming civic election.

The Nanaimo meeting was the latest visit Jarvis, an advisor to U.S. president Ronald Reagan, has paid to this province. Last October he addressed a West Vancouver audience in a meeting sponsored by the North and West Vancouver chambers of com- merce in association with 10 West Vancouver ratepayer groups.

Jarvis gave what could be termed the crux of his argument when he told the Nanaimo au- dience, “‘I am convinced that in- flation is the most serious pro- blem now facing this country. I am equally convinced that this monumental problem of infla- tion is caused by excess govern-

ment taxation and spending.”’

Significantly absent: in that assessment, reminiscent of fre- quent statements from Canadian right-wingers, is any mention of corporate profits. But in the opi- nion of Jarvis’ critics, that is ex- actly what Proposition-13 type legislation is designed to protect and enhance.

The legislation, adopted by a 65 percent mandate when California homeowners were fac- ing foreclosures in the area of 7,000 per year, limits taxes on residential and business property to one percent yearly increases. That saved property owners $4.78

billion by the end of 1981, Jarvis

claimed. What he didn’t mention is that

Proposition 13 also saved big

business $4 billion a year — about 60 percent of the total savings — and that the losers are California’s working and poor people, and social services.

The resulting decline in tax revenues was made up in the first few years by a massive infusion of funds from the state’s surplus revenues, according to Taxpayers for California, a group that fought hard this year to amend Proposition 13 to provide some real relief for California’s homeowners.

Now that surplus is gone, and the projected state deficit this year might be $300 million and $750 million for the next fiscal year,

The effects of the Jarvis-Gann

__See PROPOSITION page 3