WORKING WHEN THE HEAT'S ON (P6)

VOL. 1, NO. 4/WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 AN UNEASY TRUCE SETTLEMENT SPARKS DEBATE (PAGES 3, 4, 5)

MUTILATION! GRISLY GOODIES! LASER - SENSOR BURP GUNS! BORING! (PI 5)

WOMEN AGAINST THE BCGEU chief negotiator Cliff Andstein announces 'no concessions' contract settlement November 13. BUDGET SPEAK OUT A SPECIAL INSERT THE FORGOTTEN STRIKE 5574 Mackenzie ^ Vancouver, * St' (PAGE 7)

^0/26/84

Second-Class Mail Bulk. 3rd Class Registration Pending Vancouver, B.C. No. 5136 DEB WILSON PHOTO TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

vince's public sector workers and left them prey to firing at will. The erosion of workers' rights, as well as attacks on human rights, social spending, and democratic decision• making had led to the forma• tion of an unprecedented Solidarity Coalition of trade unions and community groups. On Nov. 1, the B.C. Back Government Employees Union had hit the bricks on the seniority question. Now, a week later, teachers were due to join the protest. from However, there was still a chance to pull back from the brink. If the government was willing to exempt public sector workers from Bill 3, the pro• brink : tests might be called off, and llfll By Stan Persky WKS another way found to Government workers get support on Robson Square picket line. BEV DAVIES PHOTO School teachers in North negotiate other contentious Vancouver had initiated and issues. The teachers' agree• for Heinrich's hands-off tion Solidarity's weak link? success, and to many ratified a model seniority ment was the key. agreement. The North Van• claims. The next morning, Nov. 8, observers, more than a slight couver school board, which Sometime after the eleventh The question was not it got its answer. Joined by surprise. For the remainder of had proposed the deal at the hour, the North Van school whether the government had 14,000 non-teaching members the week, schools and colleges urging of Jack Heinrich's board called the education squelched the ceasefire (it of the Canadian Union of remained non-operational. education ministry, had also ministry for the final okay. had), but why? Did Bennett Public Employees, college in• The number of those out pro• initialed the document. Don't sign, said the ministry. and his chief negotiator Nor• structors and unionized testing, in fact, grew during Later in the week, provincial man Spector believe the university support staff, the the week as many school prin• With less than 24 hours to secretary Jim Chabot and teachers' protest would quick• teachers shut down more than cipals joined the walkout. go before a Tuesday, Nov. 8 education minister Heinrich ly fizzle, given that only 60 per 80 per cent of the school Meanwhile, at the Labor deadline that could see 30,000 both vigorously denied they cent of the school teachers had system. From Prince Rupert to Relations Board, where the B.C. teachers joining 40,000 had pulled the plug. Heinrich voted to walk out? Or, as Pro• Revelstoke, from Fort St. B.C. Government Employees striking government workers even pounded the table for vince analyst Rod James to Nanaimo, schools Union had been bargaining in a fight against Premier Bill emphasis. Despite the denials, Mickleburgh asked, "Other• closed. with the government for more Bennett's right-wing legislative the evidence pointed the other wise, why would the govern• A middle of the night rush than a week, there was a brief package, it appeared that par• way. North Van board vice- ment turn its back on the to the courts by various school and bitter pause in the talks. tial peace was but a hair's chairman Roy Dungey said relatively small concession re• districts seeking injunctions The government's man, Spec- breadth away. there were "lots of calls back quired, when the price for say• against the protesters had little tor, accused the BCGEU of High on the list of objec• and forth to the minister's of• ing 'no' is potentially the most effect. Where teachers were holding "a hidden agenda." tions to the government's so- fice" before the trustees decid• wrenching confrontation this prevented from picketing, Chief union negotiator Cliff called restraint program was ed not to ratify the agreement. province has ever seen?" Did other unionists staffed the Andstein categorically denied Bill 3, a law that wiped out Other trustees backed up Bennett and company think lines. Operation Solidarity's Spector's charges. "The seniority rights for the pro• Dungey's account. So much the teachers would be Opera• "phase two" was a near-total See page 12: BRINK

THE B.C. GOVERNMENT'S BUDGET LEGISLATION PACKAGE: LEGISLATION THAT WOULD ERODE THE A BUDGET THAT ALARMS EVERY PERSON RIGHTS OF EVERY CITIZEN... CONCERNED WITH EDUCATION... Loss of basic democratic rights, elimination of local decision All those who teach, all those who leam, and all those whose making, and cuts in needed social services are the common children's future depends on the quality of B.C.'s public education features of the government's plan. Some examples: system, have special cause for concern. Here are some of the reasons: Human Rights Repealed Larger Classes in Public Schools Bill 27 would repeal the Human Rights Code and replace it with a statute The government has consciously decided to put the quality of that fails to protect against many forms of discrimination, and has no education back 10 years. School boards will have three years to effective enforcement procedures or education program. Already the government eliminate 3,000 teaching positions, fire support staff, and cut $80 million has fired the Human Rights Commission and human rights branch from present budgets — at a time when enrolment is growing! Returning to employees. the days of over-sized classes, when today's students need more attention than ever, creates damage that can't be repaired. Renters' Protection Ended Under Bill 5, renters would be subject toeviction without cause and unjustified No Room at the Universities and Colleges rent increases. Rent review and the rentalsman are eliminated — leaving The government proposes to starve universities to the extent that, for the tenants without protection. first time, enrolment limits will mean that fully qualified siude nts aretumedaway. All post-secondary educational institutions — universities, colleges and Social Services Cut — Everywhere technical institutes — face cuts of needed programs, teaching, and non- teaching staff, as well as increased class sizes. Almost no area has escaped the inhuman "down-sizing" of vitally needed community services. Among the programs cut or eliminated: child-abuse teams; family service workers; legal aid; grants to the handicapped; consumer Education Decisions Centralized counselling; funding for community health groups; the list goes on and on. Bill 24 Bill 6 means that politicians in Victoria — not locally elected school boards — undercuts Medicare; Bill 8 disbands the Alcohol and Drug Commission; Bill 9 will control key education decisions until 1987. School board budgets will be set eliminates regional planning. . by Victoria, based on centralized formulae, not local needs. Similarly, Bills 19 and 20 would allow a cabinet minister to decide what courses will be given at Basic Employment Rights Eliminated our regional colleges and institutes. All community and school board represen• Bill 3 would give government wide, arbitrary powers to fire employees, tation is removed from college councils. without real cause and without real appeal rights. All semblance of employment security is eliminated. Public employees face permanent wage controls Student Aid Cut which allow the government to end real collective bargaining by simply setting While tuition fees are rising between 15 and 50 per cent, and it is next to budget levels. Bill 26 takes away the guarantee of even minimum possible to find summer work, the government has cut SIO million from employment standards for all employees, and abolishes the Employment student grants. New rules make aid unavailable to those who need it Standards Board. most.

And Taxes Go UP! Educators Could be Fired at Whim The budget puts new taxes on meals and long-distance calls, and Bill 3 would allow the indiscriminate firing of teachers, college instructors, and raises tobacco and minimum property tax payable, tronicallu. the social university professors no matter how long they have taught, how well they services tax is raised'. Renters'and personal tax credits are eliminated —asare have taught, or how important their program is. There would be no the minimal "price" controls: the 6 per cent rate increase for B.C. Hydro and appeal on the merits of these firings, leaving wide possibilities for other public corporations is ended. Overall government spending is up over 12%! abuse of these sweeping powers.

"This is NOT about 'Restraint'— This is about losing our RIGHTS' A Message from the B.C Teachers' Federation TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

Kube defended Operation Solidarity's leadership and said they could negotiate only Time for union issues, and not social issues. The two most contentious pieces of legislation, in the eyes of the Coalition, are Bill talking 5, which abolishes the Ren- talsman's office and lifts rent By Keith Baldrey controls, and Bill 27, which Solidarity union leaders are replaces the Human Rights happy about the B.C. Govern• Commission with a one- ment Employees Union's con• person board of inquiry. tract, but they're taking a wait and see approach to Operation Kube told the meeting he Solidarity's agreement with didn't think a further escala• Premier Bill Bennett. tion of the public sector strike About 250 union leaders would result in the withdrawal gathered in Burnaby Nov. 14 of any legislation. "Some peo• ple think that we should have to hear the details of both Media hounds howl at settlement announcement. agreements, and sources inside stayed out until the legislation the meeting said there was BCGEU agreement is about all was withdrawn. That was not plenty of "restrained that was accomplished. The the case." criticism" of the deal with community groups have been Earlier in the day, Munro Bennett. let down," said Jim Sloan, Coalition told reporters outside an But International Wood• president of the Pulp, Paper Operation Solidarity member• workers of America regional and Woodworkers of Canada. ship meeting that "what we president Jack Munro, who "The job isn't finished. But had on the table didn't justify made the deal with the we'll all keep together because calling out workers again." premier, said he is confident you can't fight by yourself." upset Kube's comments did not the government will take the Jess Succamore, spokesper• appease those who were upset consultation process seriously son for the Confederation of By Keith Baldrey about the lack of consultation and that the deal will produce Canadian Unions and a Anger, shock and disap• with the Coalition before results. former member of Operation pointment. Operation Solidarity made the "I don't think you can trust Solidarity's steering commit• Those were the general reac• deal with the premier. Socreds," said Munro after tee said, "There's no settle• tions of Solidarity Coalition "There was obviously a lack the meeting. "But I think that ment. The whole mobilization members to the agreement of democracy involved in the Bennett will not renege on the was basically a fight to have reached between Jack Munro negotiations," said Stephen deal we made. It's not a total the government move on the and Premier Bill Bennett Nov. Learey of the Canadian victory, but it's not over yet." social issues. It appears now 13. Federation of Students. Coalition members said they Solidarity chief and B.C. that, after all the fears that the Kramer told reporters out• expected something more con• Federation of Labor president labor movement would look side the meeting that despite crete than the formation of a Art Kube said he did not con• out for itself and turn its back the "disagreement" between consultation process between sider the agreement to be a on the old people, the poor the two Solidarity groups, the them and the government. major victory, but said it was people, the handicapped and Solidarity movement will not the best deal possible at this the sick, have come to pass." And they're angry they fall apart, and said there will weren't consulted before be more communication bet• time. "Expectations are At press time, the exact Operation Solidarity sent ween the two groups in the always high in a fight like this. details of the agreement had Munro to Kelowna to strike a future. But sometimes difficult deci• not been made public, but ac• deal with the premier. sions have to be made," he cording to the B.C. Teachers "As much as don't agree on "We want to be treated as said. Federation, the pact includes: everything, we're still alive equal, not as battered wives," and well. We recognize that Kube said he hopes the • Education funding for said Women Against the each other is not the enemy," government is serious about 1984 at levels close to 1983 Budget spokesperson Stella he said. "We made an error the consultations. "I hope the levels. Crampton at a stormy Lower not consulting the coalition government will be forthcom• Mainland Solidarity Coalition enough. We learned a lesson." • The development of a ing, I hopt they're serious. I membership meeting Nov. 14. And while the Coalition is rent review process to replace will recommend to the Operation Solidarity leaders critical of Operation Solidari• the office of the Rentalsman. Solidarity Coalition that they said later they regretted the ty's agreement with the make their presentations as • The restoration of Com• lack of consultation. government, and the way it quick as possible." munity Involvement Program "The agreement settled the was made, they vow to con• But Solidarity's leaders grants for handicapped peo• labor end of the issues, but it tinue their fight against the warned of further job action if ple, through 1984. didn't settle ours," said Shane restraint legislation. the consultation process fails. Simpson, coordinator of the The meeting unanimously They said the process will be • Amnesty for provincial Lower Mainland Solidarity endorsed a statement calling reviewed at the B.C. Federa• employees and a committment Coalition, after the meeting. for consultation backed by tion of Labour's annual to urge other public sector "I'm shocked and disap• "mass political pressure meeting Nov. 28. employers to provide the pointed," said Tim Stanley of directed against the govern• same. the B.C. Organization to Fight ment," and said any consulta• "We'll re-examine the Racism, a Coalition member. The BCGEU's settlement tion must "serve as a whole thing in two weeks. We "There was an appalling lack exempt its members from Bill mechanism for further don't have an absolute settle• of consultation with the Coali• 3, the Public Sector Restraint mobilization" of the Coali• ment. The strike has been tion before the deal was Act. The government assured tion's forces. suspended," said Larry made." Kuehn, president of the B.C. Operation Solidarity that Publicly at least, the Coali• Teachers Federation. similar protection will be ex• Although the meeting was tion is saying they are willing tended to most public sector closed to the media, sources to wait and see if the consulta• Kuehn said it is up to the workers. If those exemptions said Operation Solidarity ex• tion process has the desired ef• government to bargain in good are granted, most layoffs in ecutives Art Kube and Mike fects, before taking stronger faith, and said the deal pro• the public sector will have to Kramer were jeered repeatedly action. duced "substantial gains" for be based on seniority. by the 350 people packed into "We now have to explore his membership and for the the union hall. the political arena. There will the province. "We had to find Teachers will have to "I don't think I sold out the be more consultations," said a way to accommodate negotiate their status under coalition," Kube told the Ed Lavalle, an LMSC ex• everyone, and to allow us all Bill 3 with individual school crowd. "I called the shots as I ecutive. But, he added, "I to live together." boards. Already, the Surrey saw them and as the steering don't think you can rule out But not all union leaders school district has refused to committee saw them. This the trade union movement not were confident the consulta• waive the legislation for their wasn't an easy decision to taking job action in the tion process will work. "The teachers. make." future." Kelowna between Premier Bill Bennett and International Woodworkers of America Teachers head Jack Munro. They in• cluded a promise from Bennett to funnel the $18 million to $20 million saved in the teachers' strike back into 'cynical' education funding for 1984 to Teachers have called a truce head off most of a planned with the provincial govern• $27 million education budget ment. But the war for the cut. Several school boards "quality of education" is not meanwhile negotiated layoff over, says B.C. Teachers' and seniority clauses with Federation vice-president Pat teachers to avoid the arbitrary Clarke. firing permitted by the govern• "The strike has been ment's Bill 3. suspended. It has not been Clarke said BCTF members called off," Clarke said Nov. are "cynical" about the Nov. 15. 13 pact. "We have pretty high expec• "Given that distrust, they're tations about what's going to not going to give it a lot of happen now. We're expecting time to resolve itself. They are the government to make com• probably more prepared than mittments about funding ever to go out and do it again. education on a long term "It's a good faith arrange• basis." ment. We are taking the The BCTF claimed substan• government at their word and tial wins following the Nov. 13 our friends in Solidarity at Wimpy Roy roars new "General Strike" tune MIES PHOTO verbal agreement made in their word," said Clarke. General Strike Six hectic months in Lotusland single to be Here are the highlights of six-and-a- August 10 exemption from Bill 3, and provides half hectic months in B.C.: Solidarity Coalition holds a rally of vague assurances of consultation on as- May 5 45,000 at Empire Stadium in Van• yet unpassed legislation. released soon Premier Bill Bennett and his Social couver to protest the budget package. November 1 Credit Party are re-elected to a third Similar demonstrations occur Despite 10 days of negotiations, the If you're in the market for term in office, defeating Dave Barrett's throughout the province, in Kelowna, BCGEU is unable to achieve a contract souvenirs of these turbulent New Democrats. Despite a four-year Kamloops, Victoria, Nanaimo, Ter• settlement as their old contract expires. times, Vancouver taxi-driver record of scandals, an ineffective race, and elsewhere. In the course of negotiations, they in• Joe Keighly and his friends response to a major recession, and a sisted that the preservation of seniority Brian Goble, Dave Gregg and refusal to bring in a budget, the September-October rights must apply not only to their Gregg James may have some• Socreds increased their margin of seats While the Solidarity Coalition keeps members, but to all workers in the thing for you. In his guise as to 35-22, a gain of four, and share of up the pressure in the streets with public sector. Operation Solidarity an• Joey Shithead, Keighly sings the popular vote 49-45 per cent, an in• weekly demonstrations focused around nounces a schedule of escalating public and plays guitar with s local crease of two per cent. To many, the particular issues and a petition cam• sector walkouts if agreement is not combo, DO A, who are set to turning point came when challenger paign, the NDP opposition in the reached. On Halloween midnight, release a 45 RPM record entitl• Barrett said he would eliminate Ben• legislature resists the government's ef• 35,000 BCGEU workers hit the bricks. ed "General Strike" on Nov. nett's so-called restraint program. forts to railroad the bills through the Talks continue. 21. The tune is decidedly house. NDP MLAs engage in energetic and up-tempo and July 7 November 8 filibustering talkathons and other legal expresses the indignation After two months of basking in the With no resolution in sight, the pro• delaying tactics to give Solidarity many British Columbians feel sun, the cabinet holds a major meeting vince's teachers, who had earlier voted breathing space to continue the ex- with the government. "Stand 59 per cent in favor of a protest in the Okanagan and is given economic traparliamentary side of the battle. The up, stand and unite," Joe walkout, join the strike. With them are advice by Michael Walker, head of the government is forced to bring in sings, "what we need is a 15,000 college, university, and support right wing Fraser Institute. The closure a record 20 times and to hold general strike." government then introduces a startling all-night sittings. NDP leader Barrett is staff workers. The teachers' strike, a package of budgetary legislation. dragged from the house in the middle first in the province, is a surprising suc• Of particular note is the Among the bills: proposals to wipe out of the night and barred from futher at• cess as more than 90 per cent of all "lightning fingered" guitar collective bargaining and seniority tendance. schools are shut down. playing of Dave Gregg. General Strike is backed by rights in the public sector, elimination November 10 of the human rights commission and October 15 DOA's updating of Old Blue Protesting BCGEU members and Eyes' standard, "That's the rentalsman mediating process, Despite repeated press an• teachers are joined by Crown corpora• heavy cuts in educational funding, nouncements of the disintegration and Life," wherein Joe waxes tion employees. Two sets of negotia• philosophical in his best elimination of regional planning in death of Solidarity, on the second day tions are underway, those involving the warbling growl. A treat for favor of speculators, changes in health of the annual Socred convention at the BCGEU, and another set dealing with young and old alike. care, centralization of government Hotel Vancouver, more than 50,000 the broader demands of Operation There will only be 1,000 power, and a raft of cutbacks in social Solidarity supporters take to the streets Solidarity. services. „ . _ . in the largest political demonstration in copies pressed, so snap yours m November 13 Mid-July the province's history. The march past up quick. DO A will play Public opposition to the extremist the Socred convention takes more than The BCGEU announces a tentative Cariboo College in Kamloops Bennett package quickly develops and two hours. The government is clearly settlement, a "no concessions" con• Dec. 1, to make up for the takes organizational forms. A Lower taken aback at the vigor of the protest tract that preserves seniority rights. Nov. 10 date they cancelled Mainland Coalition Against the despite initial denials. Two school boards, in North Van• because they refused to cross Budget, led by fishermen's union couver Coquitlam, also agree to picket lines at the institution. representative George Hewison holds a October 20 guarantee teachers' seniority rights. Their next Vancouver date is massive demonstration outside B.C. Premier Bennett takes to television B.C. Federation of Labor first vice- Dec. 9 at the Commodore Place. Operation Solidarity, a coalition to make a speech that reiterates his president Jack Munro flies to Kelowna Ballroom, where they will be of trade unions, also forms, and determination to "stay the course," for a four-hour meeting with Premier joined by Wailin' Walker and demonstrates in large numbers in-Vic- and at the same time offers some con• Bennett. With less than 90 minutes to the Houserockers. A 19-song toria. By month's end, Solidarity cessions to those opposed to his go before the deadline of the next album, "Bloodied But Un• Coalition, bringing together trade package. He invites the B.C. Govern• escalation of the strike, Munro bowed," will also appear in unions and community groups has ment Employees Union back to the emerges to announce an agreement December. A DOA profile will taken shape. bargaining table with the promise of an that will end the strike. appear in the Times in a few weeks. TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

And two, don't forget there mingled feelings of goals at• are two sides to every story." tained and battles to come. Paisley immediatedly hung up And there was uncertainty, a UBC student leaders the telephone, however, and lot of uncertainty. refused to give his version of Few canvassed by the Times the incident. Nov. 14 knew the details or the But AMS finance director implications of the agreement James Hollis says Paisley was between Premier Bill Bennett to hire scab workers being illegally obstructed by and woodworkers' union By Brian Jones But a Solidarity Coalition the picketers. "Bruce was just regional head Jack Munro, Pickets are down from the meeting was told about the trying to carry out his job," and none yet knew the details 16 entrances to the University AMS/OTEU conflict, said Hollis says. of the tentative contract be• of British Columbia, but one Hebert. "Everyone was quite Not all students have been tween the government and its still stands around the Student surprised, but no one moved a treating the OTEU with such employees' union negotiators. Union Building this week. motion to boot the AMS out." disregard as the student coun• Few were prepared to trust Despite the B.C. Govern• Picketers have also been cil and AMS executive. Many Bennett though, and many ment Employees' Union ten• harassed by AMS programs students have volunteered to were prepared to walk out tative settlement, Alma Mater coordinator Bruce Paisley, help with picket duty, and again if promises are unkept Society employees were back who physically threatened staff at the student pub, The and changes left unmade in the picketing Monday in an at• several picketers, according to Pit, have taken up a collection government's legislation. tempt to force the AMS to UBC student newspaper The for donations to the OTEU bargain in good faith. The 11 Ubyssey. strike fund. Fired human resources workers, members of the Of• worker Peter Threlfall, a co• When picketers tried, un• ordinator for Solidarity's fice and Technical Employees successfully, to stop the Nov. Union, had asked for a 15 per Kamloops Coalition, explain• 7 Gang of Four concert in ed: "From the union point of cent raise but had only been SUB, Paisley told a picketing Regional news offered five per cent. view I think they are satisfied member of the pipefitters When it was over, when with what they got. But in the And if the AMS manage• union: "Why don't you go agreements were signed and view of the Solidarity Coali• ment has been less than con• and find a baseball team and a hands shaken, the players were tion — and in mine — there ciliatory, the student council baseball bat and stick it up left to tally the results. are a lot of concerns. There's a has been openly contemp• your c ?" Among teachers and feeling that we've got to re• tuous. Asked Nov. 14 if the report government employees and main vigilant if these talks At its last meeting two was true, Paisley replied, "For community spokespeople weeks ago, the council one, she's not in the OTEU. across the province, there were See page 14: DEAL defeated a vote to ban hiring strike breakers. It was then that employees walked off their jobs. Marnie Craft, an AMS employee, said her feeling about the council vote was Bus drivers slam sardine service "part-way between disap• pointment and disgust." By Trish Webb people on Commercial Drive in the oldest bus im• "First they vote to support The Victoria bus sways around the corner from aginable." the Solidarity Coalition. And Hastings Street and hisses to a stop. A few people stagger Eight drivers will be pulled from Victoria-Granville then they try their damndest to out the rear, but no one is allowed on. The driver stares and Fraser-Davie at the route sign-up later this month, break us," she said. blankly ahead, waiting for the back doors to clear. He ig• reducing service by 280 bus hours per week. Aside from allowing their nores the woman banging on the front and eases his "We are operating at the whim of the supervisors, and management to hire scab labor overloaded bus into the late rush hour traffic. Minutes their whims are frightening," Smith said. (which has not actually been later another bus appears, but the scene is repeated. Metro Transit drivers are represented by the Indepen• done yet), several AMS ex• This is one of Vancouver's "work horse" routes where dent Canadian Transit Union, which planned to join ecutive members have been buses almost always carry maximum passenger loads. escalating strike action in Operation Solidarity's war charged by OTEU members They exist only in the East End. Julius Fisher pilots the against provincial government and bring their contract with doing scab work Knight-MacDonald route which spans the city: talks into the fray. Their collective agreement expired themselves. All but one of the Chinatown, Clarke Drive to 41st Avenue, MacDonald March 31 and they are just beginning to reconvene five executive members of the Street to 16th Avenue. negotiations. Talks broke down four months ago in the AMS have been crossing "By the time I hit Campbell Avenue where the sweat• uncertainty about government labor legislation. picket lines to continue work• shops are, there are groups of 10 or 11 Oriental women, "The mediator checked in on the situa *on periodical• ing at their SUB offices. some pregnant, and I'll have to pass them up. The legal ly, but our positions remained unchanged," Smith said. AMS president Mitch Het- passenger limit is 85 people, but you can never tell. I stop "The company wanted to talk about items we do not con• man has been particularly ac• picking up when people can't fit behind the red line sider negotiable." tive in strike-breaking ac• anymore." At the last negotiation session the company moved tivities, personally supervising But it's another story on the west side of the city. "It's closer to the union with a proposal for speedy arbitration the delivery of goods across amazing how many buses and how few people there are procedures. Instead of waiting months to settle a dispute, picket lines to SUB, OTEU on them in Dunbar." an arbitrator would be brought in within days. members charged. Fisher has been driving buses in Vancouver for 10 years This was seen as a major conciliatory gesture by the The AMS actions will strain and has enough seniority to demand good working hours Metro Transit Operating Company. The union claims relations with their staff after and route selection. Others are less fortunate. Bob Smith Metro is insensitive to workers' needs and deliberately the strike ends, said external was hired just two years ago when Metro was planning a frustrates them. Management accuses the union of adher• affairs coordinator Lisa new route for King Edward Avenue. Budget cuts stalled ing overzealously to the collective agreement. Hebert. "This is certainly their plans, however, and they stopped hiring in January, Metro is currently seeking to consolidate parts workers something people can't forget 1982, leaving Smith near the bottom of the list. in one union. The Office and Technical Employees' easily." "Drivers used to expect to work the lousy shifts for six Union represents six parts workers, while the transit Though the AMS has been months and the situation would improve every six mon• union represents 24. suspended from the Campus ths. Now when someone leaves they don't hire a replace• The transit union is applying to have B.C. Transit and Community Alliance, no ac• ment, they cut service," Smith says. Metro Transit considered common employers, which tion has yet been taken against Without drivers being added to the system, junior would restrict them from contracting out work. The tran• them by the Solidarity Coali• employees cannot gain seniority. sit union is appealing the firings of three employees. And tion. When the King Edward expansion was canned, lay-off seeking a ruling on the seniority rights violations which "We have not reviewed any notices were served to 25 drivers. They threatened to caused a three-day wildcat strike in North Vancouver this issues relating to members' ac• strike. The notices were withdrawn. Service on King Ed• summer. tivities," says Coalition ward was eventually started by pulling drivers from If arbitration procedures improve, labor-management volunteer Patsy George. There "work horse" runs. Extra buses were added to relations at Metro could improve considerably. If con• has not been time to deal with Tsawwassen routes at the same time. tract talks break down, ICTU might strike. the AMS's actions, she said, "I worked on a suburban run for six months this "If we lose against Metro it won't be any fun driving a though she would "personal• year," Fisher says. "You're picking up 20 to 30 people in bus," says Smith. "The limited amount of control over ly" like to put them on the a nice plush bus when at the same time there would be 100 the work place we now would be completely gone." Coalition agenda. o TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 15 :

Fire fighter Mark Holland speaks and really, you find out when with John Mackie. somebody says 'take a line inside that I guess the reason I became a building and try and extinguish it from fireman was that I enjoy helping peo• the inside out', cause that's what a ple. It's been something that I've look• Vancouver fireman does. That's really ed for all the time I've been in the job when you find out what you're made force ... I though that if I could do of. Especially when you've only got six something that would help, well, fine. months on the job and you're not too I joined in '73. I played soccer with sure of yourself anyway. the fireman's soccer club for three Most often you'll find that two or years prior to that. It was actually my three guys man a line. So if you're brother who put me onto joining the wandering through a house that's go• fire department. My brother is younger ing, you've got two. or three guys in than I am and senior to me on the job. there with you. If you're inside, you're We work four days on, four days really dependent on what's happening off. Day shifts of 10 hours and night on the outside, on them to make sure shifts of 14 hours. We're allowed to that they're going to take care of me. sleep after 9 p.m. The days are taken The only thing that goes through my up with a daily work schedule, which mind is 'put the fire out.' It's that sim• includes such things as washing floors ple. With regard to fighting fire, I am and waxing floors and washing win• there and committed totally to putting dows, maintaining the rigs and drilling. that out, and I will do anything I can to Inspections. put it out, given the tools that I've got. On the average in this hall, I guess The only thing that'll really push a guy we get three calls a day. There are other out is lack of air or too much heat. halls in the city that aren't quite this Other than that, I know all the guys I busy. There's 20 halls in the city, and work with are capable of going into a each hall has a specific district it building and have shown time and time covers. All the districts overlap. again that they won't back down. As an example, if we were to take an It gets hot enough to blister you real inhalator call, which we do a con• bad. There's one guy had his helmet siderable amount of (we provide basic melt right around his head. That's how life support until the ambulance gets hot it gets. there) we would go in as a single pump. Somebody died when they went up There are three pieces of apparatus out into a fire in an elevator, and for one there: one is a truck, one is a pump, reason or another the elevator door and one is the chief's car. The operator opened on the fire floor. And when it would receive a call from 'John opened, it wouldn't dose. The captain Citizen' and saying that we need an in• was trapped, the heat was so intense. halator, or that somebody has had a The smoke was so thick, they didn't heart attack, and we would be dispat• know which way to go. You can't stay ched by our dispatcher to that address. in the elevator now, you've really got As the driver of the pump, the first only one choice, you've got to go out thing that goes through my mind is and that way or out and that way — 'how are we gonna get there?' What left or right. time of day is it — i.e., what kind of Two guys guessed right, and the cap• traffic I might encounter, given the tain guessed wrong. The captain died. situation and the information given by The other two guys got burnt, one the operator, what will I do when I get more than the other 'cause he went there. back and tried to get the captain. You just generally prepare for what The fire department's an extremely you're going to receive. You don't close-knit organization. You don't just always know what's gonna happen. As work together on this job. You work an example, we've been sent to ac• together on the job and you play cidents where you come upon them and together. You help each other. I guess you think, 'man, there's no way it's camaraderie, as corny as that might they're going to be alive in this,' and sound. I don't think there's a guy on they walk away. There are people who this job that I don't like. That's a fact. literally just walk away from things That's pretty good when you can say like that. that about 800 guys. That includes of• On the other hand, I've seen ac• ficers. cidents where things are so innocuous One of the things this job is based on that you would think nothing could is seniority. As a firefighter, my officer happen, and there are people that are has been where I am. That's all there is dead. You deal with the situation when to it. He didn't come right out of you get there. That's one of the things I school and become an officer. He's guess you have to say about firemen — been exactly where I am. He's been they're capable of responding to the through his probation, he's been situation at hand. through his training period, he's been The thing about this job is that you through being a firefighter and writing learn from the guys that have been his lieutenant's exams to become a around before you. lieutenant, from there to a captain, to a When there's an actual fire, I think district chief, from district chief to of what other companies are coming in assistant chief to city chief. Everybody with us, whether there's life involved, has this opportunity, they can go that and if there's not life involved, just way. Aspire to be the chief. By that time you're 55 years old, so most guys following the officers' orders, cause there is that takes priority. somebody had torched a sofa that was are looking at their retirement. Man• that's their job. They'll tell us what we on the front porch of the middle place, The most spectacular fire that sticks datory retirement is at age 60, with ear• should be doing, and where we should around two in the morning I unders• out in my mind was the King Edward ly retirement at 55. be going, and what exposures they School fire. Hoses everywhere, men tand. By the time the first-in company want protected. An exposure is a everywhere, and lots and lots and lots arrived, it was hot enough that they You've gotta be able to get along on building that is not on fire, but is ex• of time grinding it out, squirting water couldn't park the rig in front. In fact, this job. If you're thin-skinned and posed to the fire and can be ignited on it, overhauling it, getting inside the it melted all their dome lights, it was take exception to somebody poking a simply by being exposed. walls so you can make sure it won't that hot. If I remember correctly, there little fun at you, hey, you're really gon• So what we do firstly is protect life, spread. In fact, it lost the entire were seven lives lost. na be in lots of trouble, you really are, protect the exposures secondly, and ex• building. Running around inside those The first place actually burnt right to because you'll take offense easily at tinguish the fire thirdly. That's our old structures, it's pretty tough to the ground. It was that involved by the what anybody says to you. priorities. chase down a fire. time they got there. The houses, or the One of the things that was said to me The fire's already going. There's The most devastating of all the fires exposures on either side of it, were with regard to getting mad — it's called nothing we can do about that, other I've seen was on the 1100-block totally destroyed as well, and they getting a rack, if you get a rack you're than that we will put it out. But we Nelson. I had just started the job, been couldn't be salvaged. The middle mad ... I had been out fighting a fire, have to protect it from spreading. We on maybe six months. There were three house was just a pile of rubble. That's and when I got back, the dinner that I have to take into account whether or houses involved — all three-storey where I found out, I guess, how much I had made for myself, which happened not there's any life involved, and if homes. What had happened was that could take as far as fire is concerned, to be soup, was gobbled up by these TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

two other clowns who were left behind. They didn't honestly feel that I was coming back because we were there Holding the line on Pandora most of the night. It really wasn't their By Tom Hawthorn Wells: "The door was being opened moved on, working in pulp and paper, fault, but I was as hot as a pistol, and I It was real quiet this Remembrance as I walked around the corner. So I then with Alcan in Kitimat, and for the caught them both eating the soup, just Day down on Pandora Street, so quiet jumped into my car and started up. He last dozen years as a welder for like two rats. And after about 15 that shifting seas of dead leaves could was rolling the truck out, not making Mainland in Richmond. He's only got minutes of me hootin' and hollerin', be heard rustling in the gutter. any noise, you know; started it, stalled nine years before it's pension time and screamin' and yellin' and calling them They'd whip around in tiny whirlwind it. I stalled my car." The chase was on. has got to be worried; but a fellow's complete idiots, everybody else was pools for awhile, before settling "The idiot was doing 65 miles an hour personal money concerns are personal laughing at me. Everybody. The entire against the lonely trailer parked on Hastings. Then he gets to the 401, er and nobody's business except for his hall, 11 guys, laughing at me. And alongside the curb. Highway 1. He musta been doing 80. wife and unfortunately, maybe his eventually, I had to laugh too. Everything eventually settles around Somebody came up on the side of the bank manager. There's no point in staying mad, the trailer. It's been here so long it's a road there and ..." He throws his Their cars were late-models some you've got to work with the guys. You permanent part of the street, like the hands open. "I eventually lost him five years ago. They wear big, have to live with them . . . not like you trees, like the grey walls of the fac• somewhere between Cloverdale and weathered work boots, blue work shirts used to have to in the past, when you tories, like the plastic-covered picket Abbotsford, somewhere in there." and ancient beloved lumber shirts. If had to spend 20 hours in the hall, sign leaning against the doors of That was a week ago and now every they're greedy unionists, they aren't which is really living with the guys . . . Mainland Manufacturing. roar down Pandora, about one each very good at it. They've simply got but for all intents and purposes, you This was once a thriving harborside half hour this day, is checked out. The principles. are in a living situation and you've got neighborhood, where Italian families time is taken up with easy chatter in the Hoisinger tells the story of the day a to get along. So there's no point in grew large in wood houses built before crowded little trailer, with its sink and customer pulled up in front of the Pan• creating bad feelings over something a the Great War. Those families are long gas stove, two person bed, picket signs, dora Street factory. "You're not going silly as a bowl of soup. gone now, moved farther south; and If a guy tries to get to you, and that the houses are just about gone too, happens on this job if you're sensitive replaced by big blocks of buildings about a particular issue, then guys'll housing Kar Collision Repairs Ltd. and hound you, that's all there is to it. Atom Delivery and Hallmark Poultry That's the name of the tune, they bug Processors, who have "the best dressed you just for the fun of it. Gives you birds in town." something to do. And if they can get The chicken slaughterhouse attracts you — it's fun. scores of cats from the docks and this The job can be satisfying. I've been day a tabby has come to settle in the elated to the point where I can't stand trailer on Pandora. It sleeps in Lome myself, because of just seeing a patient Hoisington's jacket. come around. Putting out fire is, Hoisington has come here from especially if we make a good save, ex• Maple Ridge to do his picket duty on tremely satisfying. Especially if we see the holiday. With him is Al Wells, 37, somebody's stuff not shredded in a who grew up not far from here, lives thousand pieces. Getting back to the not far from here, and is now in the one save that I can think of ... it was undefinable middle of a strike here. an inhalator call over by Little Moun• At issue are wages and the length of tain. An inhalator is like an ambulance a new contract. The company wants to — it's basic life support. What hap• end coffee breaks, cut journeymen's pens is John Q. Public phones and says wages and—"I guess you can't blame my wife has had a heart attack, send an them for that," says Hollington—sign inhalator. a three-year contract. The union wants We were phoned up as the closest to tie pay to the cost-of-living to pro• firehall to this gentleman who had had tect its members, and wants a shorter- a heart attack. As well, our rescue-and- term contract in case the long- safety squad came along. The am• promised recovery actually happens so bulance was also called on emergency that 30 years' worth of benefits aren't eliminated overnight. DEB WILSON PHOTO and they sent paramedics. So you have Al Wells four pieces of apparatus coming to that The great Industrial Revolution particular guy. When we got there the lumbers to its grave, creating casualties man was unconscious — supine, and on all sides. It is part of a long drama: not breathing. He was gone. That's all of producer vs. owner, of poor vs. About a year ago Mainland made its there was to it. rich, of (what could once be said We started our work on him — basic without embarrassment) proletariat first layoffs. Eighteen went at first, then cardio-pulinary resuscitation, did what vs. bourgeoisie, the conflicts have we could for the man, called for R and resulted in the bloody strikes of more, some more, and more, and pretty S (rescue and safety) emergency, found Homestead and Paterson and Win• out they were en route . . . EHS arriv• nipeg" and Asbestos. But the last hap• soon the foundry was down to 30 ed, took a look at him and jumped in. pened in '49 and time and prosperity We still continued to work as a com• have tempered the emotions that once workers out of 140. plete unit, the whole batch of us. They moved an entire class. ,This tradition fold-out table, cribbage board, stack in there to do business with them, are called for the paramedic emergency. has been inherited by the humble Hois• of Times, union newsletters and the lit• you? I asked. 'No, no,' he said. He Our rescue and safety squad arrived on ington and Wells. One line in the script ter of a bunch of men who live a work• drove up the alley. They had told him the scene. A police officer arrived on is that no low-down cur can get away ing shift inside a camper. A poster of what door to stop at. So by the time I the scene. The paramedics arrived on with stealing your job: Oahu hangs on the far wall, a bad got to his car, they were loading grates, the scene. Wells: "10:30 at night. It was down joke, as is the newspaper clipping small grates, about this wide and so Count the guys — there's two from by the big door. I had my car parked headlined: "Picket Line 'Passes'? Pop• long," he said, moving his hands the paramedics, two from the EHS, there." pycock". about. four guys from the pump, a police of• Hoisington: "There was one of us About a year ago Mainland made its "I asked him what he was doing ficer, and three guys from rescue and there all night. Either one of us. All first layoffs at its main Richmond there. I told him, 'You're crossing a safety, and we're all doing something night." plant. Eighteen went at first, then picket line. That's bad business.' for this guy. Wells: "We'd walked along from more, some more, and more, and pret• "This is for my private house." We had to work on this guy ... it about 4 o'clock to 10 and we saw ty soon the foundry was down to 30 " 'I don't care what it's for, there's must have been for 45 minutes. We'd nothing. Nothing." workers out of 140. The machine shop other places that make 'em, and you, get a rhythm, and then we'd get Hoisington: "We didn't see anybody went just about the same way. Al Wells you go gettem at another place.' nothing. We'd get a rhythm and then in the office or anything. We could see was a crane operator inithe foundry, "One of the company guys sees; he we'd get nothing. And eventually, the (through a window) a couple of guys moving moulds, but would do gives me a real bad time. Says, 'What's guy ... by the time we left him, he was working, but we didn't see anybody anything to keep working: fork-lift the matter with you, you bunch of responding to stimulus, pain. For in• else around. They must have been wat• driver, filling in for sick guys, "I've radicals,' he says. 'You don't want to stance, you could pinch him and he'd ching us every minute. About 10:15, even cleaned out the lunch room." But work anyways. Why don't you leave flinch, which indicates no brain we decided to come back into the Wells was in the first layoffs and is our customers alone! If you hassle him damage. He was in sinuous rhythm of trailer—it was raining out—and have a now on strike to get back on the recall any, I'm going to call the police.' He his own accord and breathing with a game of crib. Then these guys, about list. No talks are on, none scheduled, was really chewing me out ..." good steady rhythm. And I understand 25 minutes after 10, we saw one guy and no one expects anything to happen Hoisinger looked up. "That really this man is still alive today. Now I got• go, and then another. But we didn't till after Christmas. Wells has three got me when he said we don't want to ta tell you, I was . . . there's just no know. So we finished one hand and Al children. work anyway . . . Bunch of radicals, other feeling like it. That's the part of says, 'Well, I'm gonna go down and Hoisington came to B.C. with his he says." He chuckled softly, shaking the job that makes it good for me. look around.' Just as he was ap• dad in July, 1944, Oakies of a sort his head. proaching he heard the truck starting from Swift Current, Sask. He picked "Radicals," repeated Wells, rolling up inside." fruit for his seventeenth year, then his eyes. m TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 E strike's end: did Bennett bend? In the wake of the strike's end, two who have supported the Solidarity Kuehn have all indicated that the would crack or that the protest of things can be said with some con• movement during the past four mon• social-political issues that go beyond teachers would fizzle, they were fidence amidst the uncertainties con• ths will be carefully watching the strict trade union rights matters will wrong. cerning the details of the settlement. developments of the next two weeks, not be forgotten and must be satisfac• The BCGEU succeeded in defeating First, and most obviously, the as a new round of meetings and torily resolved. the government's intention to fire fightback against Bill Bennett's right "meaningful" consultations unfold. Within the Solidarity Coalition, it 1,600 picked-at-random workers. It wing package of legislation and social Labor leaders Mike Kramer, Jack is a certainty that there will be long suceeded in defending the principle of service cuts is far from over. Those Munro, Cliff Andstein and Larry and vigorous debate, on the settle• seniority, as did all other public sec• ment, on the procedures leading to it, tor workers. Bennett may have Bill 3 and on the outcomes. Within a broad on the books, but like Bill 2, it is in• and unprecedented democratic move• operative. BCGEU chief negotiator ICDMA ment, that's as it should be. It can be Cliff Andstein's assessment that he N expected that there will be criticisms signed a "no concessions" contract and arguments. Those to whom they does not appear to be off the mark. are directed should make a real effort Other specific concerns await fur• to hear them. If criticisms are ac• ther developments. However, if at the 0FOT5E THERE'S cepted in an open way, then the coali• end of the debate, we find ourselves NOTHING ON IT tion will have a future. And it needs with a recognizable and effective ..WIETHE one. For clearly, we are engaged in a human rights commission, if we have wide-ranging social dispute over the a landlord-tenant mediation process SJGNPAINTERS nature of the community we will be that works, if educational funding is UNION.... living in during the coming years. The not reduced to the levels announced coalition provides a forum for trade by the government, if adequate health unions and community groups to care is preserved, and if certain social develop unified poitions on how to services, s'ated to be cut back, such conduct that argument. It should con • as the $50 a month CIP grant, are tinue to exist. To do so will require restored, it would be hard to describe good will and an ability to see the the outcome as other than a success broader picture. for Solidarity. Of course, those are Second, without in any way being many "ifs," and they're big ones. an apologist for the tentative settle• If, however, the results are close to ment, it is important to make a provi• the expectations outlined above, then, sional assessment of the positive from the national perspective, it will things that occurred during the strike. be clear that Bill Bennett, no matter The movement of working people how often he hoists the tattered flag and community groups in B.C. was of false restraint, has backed down, not defeated in any way. If Bennett and significantly. And the rest of the and his advisers thought that the B.C. country will be in no doubt as to the Government Employees Union strike reasons. COMMONSENSE Amway con game pitch not the whole story By George Victor vitamins sold, while it provides detail• speaker stressed the positive nature of for a "return to the individual in• ed guidance within a highly structured "the business" and hammered away at itiative that made this country great." Amway advertising urges viewers to and hierarchical framework that has the idea that "Amway is the key to By this time the audience was whip• "get the whole story." Last week, participants striving to become freedom, happiness, control of our ped up to a frenzy of "positive" en• Canadians got a bit more of the story Emerald, Diamond, Crown or Am• lives and a return to basic freedoms thusiasm and greeted each speaker and when Amway pleaded guilty to bassador distributors. and values." Asked the M.C.: "How stale joke with a standing ovation while defrauding the Canadian government The basic economic relationship in could it be otherwise in an organization the theme from "Rocky" blared from of $28 million. Here's how they Amway is that between a very small that includes Pat Boone, the pastor of the Queen E. sound system. Tales of operate in British Columbia. number of wealthy distributors who the First Baptist Church of Atlanta and instant millionaires, mansions in live off the profits earned by the a Republican Congressman?" Hawaii, chauffered Cadillacs and While thousands of workers in B.C. labor of a large mass of part-time The testimonials were punctuated by travel schedules that included 13 trips staffed picket lines, about 3,500 local retailers and those, usually a well-scrubbed group of young musi• to Hawaii in 15 months, elicited gasp• polyester-suited British Columbians middle-income couples, who earn cians, The Momentums, who sang ingly envious ovations. Each member gathered at the Queen Elizabeth those profits. That few of these about trust, faith and riches. Except of the crowd was vicariously enjoying Theatre on Nov. 5 to -experience an retailers will attain the top level is a for some of the lyrics, they could have the Amway fables and believed that orgy of "positiveness" about the vir• truism that Amway works hard at con• been singing background at a Pat they too would soon be rich if only tues of retailing according to Amway. cealing by staging mass rallies such as Boone Bible service. they had enough faith in "the Amway, or the American Way, is a the one at the Queen Elizabeth The rally headliners were Jim and business." U.S.-based pyramid-like selling scheme Theatre. Nancy Dornan, Amway Crown At the end of the program, an ex• that retails soap, cook ware and The audience of mostly middle-aged Distributors and millionaires from hausted but smiling crowd saw Jim vitamins. Individual retailers induce couples from all parts of B.C. paid $9 Orange County, California. Following Dornan bow his head and, in a solemn• people to sell soap on a person-to- each for the privilege of being told to• the standard opening one-liners about ly sincere voice, look straight at the person basis, receiving a percentage of day's Amway is "bigger and better how Canadians say "eh" and the assembled faithful and declare that each sale. The larger the network, the than ever" over and over again in a greenness of the B.C. landscape, they "God believes that you all deserve to greater the income collected by the thick U.S. accent by an overweight, launched into a well-rehearsed, tight be wealthy because you're all real good original individual retailer. Amway smiling master of ceremonies who was sales pitch. Their arguments were people and you know what to do with corporation is at the apex, profiting clearly a graduate of the Moral Majori• familiar Moral Majority views about it." from every box of soap and bottle of ty school of oration. Speaker after the "evils of the state" and the need George Victor is a Vancouver writer.

Contributors Solidarity Times is a Solidarity Times is published at Bob Blerman, Bob Bossin, politically independent weekly 545 West Tenth Avenue, David Boswell, Robert Campbell, newspaper that supports the Vancouver, B.C., V5Z 1K9. SoMarity Gerry Gilbert, Dale Jack, aspirations of Solidarity Telephones Brian Jones, Ralph Maurer, Coalition, trade unions, (Business) 879-4826 Elbert Rose, Scott Watson, workers, women, ethnic (News) 879-5465, 879-4691, and several Sidney Australias. minorities, native people, the 879-4692 handicapped, pensioners, Printed at College Printers. times Volunteers social service recipients, gays Ivan, Ron, Stewart, Ben, Sarah, and lesbians, tenants, Editor • Brian, Joe, John, Robbie, defenders of human rights, Next issue will be on the streets. Stan Persky Wayne, Cliff, Dave, Ed, environmental and peace Nov. 23. Deadline for letters, Rebecca, Drake, Carol, Don, advertising, and Get Happy! Staff activists, consumers, students, Peter, Charlie, Steve, Susan, notices is, as always, the Friday Keith Baldrey, Bev Davies, artists, and religious people Michael, Pete, Mary, Linda, before publication. Tom Hawthorn, Don Larventz, seeking a socially relevant Helen, Trish. John Mackie, church. It is published by a Ken Mann, Esther Shannon, non-profit society and is not Trish Webb, Deb Wilson, the spokesperson or official Paisley Woodward organ of any organization. TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 o TUP it to been able to attend meetings I Success absolutely Labor vet doubt whether such blatant ir• guaranteed, or your tenure responsibility could have oc• back. says eover curred without at least David S. West members expressing their Vancouver opinion on such a serious mat• work risks ter. l ask you Enclosed please find a che• The only opportunity for Now I ask you: who in their que for $50 to pay for a year's members to currently express right mind would be interested subscription and some for the their concerns and to even pre• in a listing of "proletarian" sustaining fund. When my old tend to have a say is by writing novels from obscure foreign age pension is increased, I'll to the board hoping that their countries compiled by so• send you more. concern will be looked meone out of "some sort of During the past 55 years I at—even then, there is no highbrow" U.S. university have been a member of: auto guarantee. I urge members to who threw away an academic workers, building workers, honor the boycott but to re• job because he thought writing coal workers, shipyard tain their shares so they can "would change the world" but workers, a forest workers vote in the spring elections. wound up pushing a hack? ("Is Albanian Fiction In• organizer and the Relief Camp Susan Harris teresting?", review of Rolf Workers Union. All those Vancouver years I have urged unions to Knight's Traces of Magma, establish and maintain one Times, Nov. 2) publication where we could Regimen Laughable! Surely this isn't find out what is going on Continue your good work. the same Rolf Knight, son of amongst the working people Here's the "New Bennett immigrant migrant workers, of Canada. How many Cana• if ssiifc Super-Socred Weight Loss who grew up in and later dians, or even British Colum• III ifiiisll Diet and Exercise Program:" worked off and on for a bians, know that over 70 Eat all you can afford of the decade in the work camps of workers are killed in our following food group: B.C.? I suspect that that guy's forests and lumber industry macaroni, spaghetti, rice, books are intended as a each year? Many, many more Readers write: don't shortsell Cruis potatoes, home-made split-pea memorial to a people who are are injured. And how many very seldom about the risks in• soup, beans, and hand-outs immortal. are killed and injured in the volved. No surprise from the overstrained food By the way — Albanian fic• coal mines, gold mines and One criticism: your story It should come as no sur• bank. Fee free to use any other tion isn't especially interesting other working places? deliberately minimized the prise to VanCity members that cheap source of starches. which may be why only one Each time that a worker gets Oct. 22 anti-Cruise missile its majority right-wing board You will lose weight. out of 360 pages in Traces of killed or injured, we should demonstration (Times, Oct. joined the Fraser Institute and Get lots of exercise Magma deals with it. Soviet have a photo and the story 26). The march, extending then reaffirmed its member• whenever you can, attending literature is quite fascinating, about his or her life in about two miles, was condens• ship when complaints were protest marches, rallies, and but no more so than the Solidarity Times — for these ed to two young women walk• laid by the Lower Mainland walking on the picket line. greater number of Canadian are important heroes who are ing side by side. My family Solidarity Coalition. When your pants get baggy, and U.S. books described in risking their lives that the rest and I marched there along It has been the practise of replace them from the Sally that guide to left wing of us may live a more abun• with thousands of B.C. this board to hold clandestine Ann. literature. dant life. All we read and hear Solidarity supporters. closed meetings, cutting off Above all, vote Socred, so A. Draegerman in the profit makers' media is Al Grinkus the democratic process for its you can continue to follow this Draegerman Books about the high cost of labor, Vancouver 126,000 members. Had we miracle regimen. Burnaby

Marjorie in Mexico: don't drink bathwater By Stan Persky quiring concession in the government's act of terrorism . . . Peace through Sun temporary civic columnist Peter About a week before the B.C. hard-line. And in case readers didn't bombing? Kick the weak to help McMartin was equally reticent on the Government Employees Union launch• get the message, there was a corps of them?"; "the morons who run the merits of his colleague's work. McMar• ed Phase One of Operation second-string columnists including: BCTF"; "nothing more or less than at• tin had come to the Times newsroom to Solidarity's massive protest against Bill Denny Boyd, Pete McMartin, and the tempted anarchy"; "blackmailing interview us. I decided to kill two birds Bennett's extremist legislative pro• thinking readers' Jim Keegstra (Les street brawlers." Had enough? with one stone and interview him at the gram, Marjorie Nichols, the Sun's Bewley) to bring up the rear. By contrast, nice Mr. Jim Matkin, same time. chief provincial political columnist, Meanwhile, the working press at the president of the B.C. Employers Coun• I asked him what he thought of decided the dispute was over. Sun provided the actual facts with con• cil (the man who likened a mild- Nichols' column. He haltingly told me "Attempts are being made to con• sistent skill. Across the aisle at the mannered demonstration against "Can I quote you?" I asked sweetly. vince us that a general strike by the Southam Press conglomerate, the Pro• human resources minister Grace Mc• "Huh?" he gulped. foes of restraint remains an ominous vince was more moderate than the Sun Carthy to the tactics of the KKK) was "Well, you're a journalist, and I'm a possibility. Well, it just ain't so," editorially, and its front-line reporters portrayed as a fellow "given to journalist, and we're both talking, so I Nichols confidently predicted Oct. 26. were probably as conscientious as their restrained statements." assume we're both on the record, "The odds are overwhelmingly against Sun counterparts, but it was difficult Having torched her thesaurus with right?" a remounting of the bitter and divisive to tell since the Province, in its bright, an acetylene flame, analyst Nichols "Let's make some ground rules," debate that has rocked the province," new, illiterate tabloid form, doesn't then sailed off on a 10-day holiday in murmured McMartin. the crystal-ball gazing Nichols reported allow reporters to write more than nine Mexico (she'll be back Nov. 21, unless to avid and anxious readers. paragraphs at a time. Nonetheless, the you decide to contribute to a fund to After the ground rules were made, I The rest is history. morning daily did suffer a small staff extend her visit until spring). asked McMartin, "In your opinion, is Perhaps Nichols was miffed that the revolt. When a Nov. 8 editorial de• Even Sun editorial-page editor Nichols' column an extremist, in• Delphic Oracle Award for accurate nounced teachers for "a disgraceful Frank Rutter seemed slightly embar• temperate, hysterical off-the-wall, political forecasting was slipping from betrayal of the children," 45 Province rassed when I called him last week. bonkers, piece of writing?" her grasp. Unfortunately, "the actual editorial staffers signed a letter Rutter took one look at the "Solidarity McMartin: (chuckle) "Er, terrorism events had the audicity to prove her "dissociating" themselves from the goons perpetrating terrorism" headline is too strong a word . . . but basically totally wrong," as one correspondent editorial. rolling off the presses and gave the the position Marjorie has taken is a to the Sun noted last week, while However, it wasn't until Week Two order to change it to "Solidarity correct one." 80,000 protesters picketed everything of the Sun's strike Coverage that col• perpetrating terrorism." "Goons" was Thanks Pete. Obviously, you'll from schools to the Queen's Printer. umnist Nichols dipped into the pure going too far; "terrorism" was ap• make a swell Canadian ambassador to Clearly , hell hath no fury like a colum• vitriol at the bottom of her inkwell. In parently okay. Blessed be fair-minded Upper Volta. After a bit more verbal nist scorned by reality. a column on Wednesday, Nov. 9, editors. scuffling, Nichols' editorial page Whatever the reason, once the strike headlined (in part of the three-star edi• "Sometimes we c nge heads," bedfellow allowed that "obviously, was on, Nichols went wonky, tion press run) "Solidarity goons mumbled Rutter when i. ed him why we're on opposite sides of the fence." unleashing a stream of invectives perpetrating terrorism," Nichols let he revised. He wouldn't be pressed, Meanwhile, Nichols basks in the against government employees, loose. however. "I don't know that I want to Mexican sun. Thank the gods for small teachers and even fellow reporters Among the temperate tidbits to be say anymore." Did Rutter think that mercies. I suppose I should offer her (who refused to cross picket lines) dur• found (mostly aimed at Solidarity) in• Nichols had gone a teensy-weensy bit some helpful travel hints. ing Week One of the protest. Of cluded: "a guerrilla force bent on too far? "Well, it's her opinion. I'm Don't worry about drinking the course, she wasn't alone. A rat-a-tat- destruction"; "blackmailed by an not in the business of censoring her water in Mexico. It's fine. But Mar• tat of Sun editorials could find nothing unelected and irresponsible force"; opinions," he replied. He only censors jorie, remember not to drink your own just in the strikers' cause, and little re• "goon tactics of Solidarity"; "idiotic her headline writer's opinions. bathwater.It's a killer. © TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

scale must be seen as points on New voice a continuum. If we are to sur• Atrocious vive, it is necessary to take ac• supported tion to preserve what is good, Congratulations are due to the Solidarity Coalition for Please find enclosed a che• and to engage in resistance against evil. To do less is to having the foresight to begin que covering my subscription. publishing an alternative Vancouver, until recently, has lend a helping hand to our own eventual destruction. media voice in this most suffered the brutalizing effects crucial period of the of dailies which deal with Ruth Fahlman Vancouver province's history. The com• serious issues in a manner that mercial press has consistently too often engenders confusion sided with the Socreds and and retreat into self. It is my Long life their big business backers, as hope that you will be led by was most recently seen in the the spirit of justice and com• I am sorry to see that one of Sun's atrociously poor passion, and avoid the danger the letters to the editor (Times, coverage of the Oct. 15 and disservice of rhetoric and Nov. 2) felt that this paper Solidarity march. Although ad hominem attacks wherein should be dropped after a individual journalists working the little pharisee in all of us general strike ends. First off, in the media attempt to pre• says, "Thank God I'm not like let's hope that a general strike sent a reasoned look at the other people." does not happen and that the Solidarity Coalition's aims I hope your Get Serious Bennett government comes to and the Socreds' vendetta pages will reflect intelligent its senses, although it doesn't against most of us in this pro• and thoughtful considerations look like it will at this time. vince, the media owners and on the human condition. I am a union member (Inter• their hired editorial hands en• Issues transcending the sphere national Woodworkers of sure that the public is given a of economics and just America), a member of the highly biased view of events. distribution of goods must be NDP, and on the executive of Bill Tieleman treated in your pages, though both in my area, and I do not Vancouver it will be likely to upset some, feel that any involvement I myself included, from time to have with Solidarity would time. If, however, the two or reduce my input towards the Jeopardy NDP or my union; rather, it more sides to fundamental Enclosed please find a che• Portrait of a woman causes me to have stronger issues are fairly treated, your que for $16.50 — as I may not convictions toward all these (dare I say our?) paper can vince. What is being played At the current time in B.C., receive any money this month groups. become a badly needed forum. out on a broad scale we face a turning point. What I cannot joepardize my mor• I look forward to receiving my throughout B.C. is occuring in responses are appropriate? In We have a chance to have a tgage and food budget by tak• next issue of the Times at concentrated, deadlier form in' conditions where there is time newspaper the general public ing a full year's subscription. home and hope others will the case of the Five. Put simp• and a basis for respect in spite can read and have some input I'm a member of the Union of agree that even in this time of ly, the issue in both cases is a of differences, compromise into. When Solidarity types Registered Psychiatric Nurses sacrifice, supporting our new question of repression and may be reached by negotia• buy the Sun or the Victoria of B.C. — no strike fund — voice in the media is of con• response: what tactics are tion. Where there is treachery Times-Colonist, they are put• and even though employed to siderable importance. necessary in the face of inten• and evil, do we willingly ting money into the hands of date, cheques are unlikely to Paul Boire sifying evil? forego our freedom rather the very people who are back• be processed mid-month. Vancouver An irony is evident in the than make painful choices? In ing Bill Bennett in his fight I so enjoy various perspec• relationship between the cur• the case of a possible general against workers, old age pen• tives and articles in issues to rent B.C. Government strike, repression has also sioners, handicapped people, date. 5 examples school children, as well as Employees Union strike and forced choices of conscience Mary Anne Ellens health care and human rights. B.C. inhabitants have grap• the Crown vs. the Five. Since and action. In the rest of the Vancouver pled with questions of morali• the provincial sheriffs are cur• world (whether El Salvador, With the monies that are spent ty, loyalty, and conscience rently off the job, the defen• Afghanistan or Grenada), the buying these types of concerning a general strike. dants are being transferred to effects of power left uncheck• newspapers (plus the resources write in In many ways, the handling and from court by the RCMP. ed results in worse than union that unions, church groups, We want to hear from you. of the case of the Five (Julie The resultant difference is ap• seniority rights lost or in• etc., spend to try and get their Belmas, Gerry Hannah, Ann parent in court: the departed dividuals jailed. message across) we could have Here's how to Put It In Hansen, Doug Stewart and sherriffs may have been prone our own newspaper. Solidarity Writing: write to Letters, Brent Taylor) now before the to bullying; the RCMP seem The case of the Five, the Times is doing such a job. Solidarity Times, 545 W. 10th Ave., Vancouver, B.C. V5Z courts represents a portent of inclined towards systematic general strike, and the effects W.B. Wilson 1K9. things to come in this pro- sadism. of greed and power on a global Sooke

McMartin: afraid to face unions' future? By Paul Kelley the exploitation of child labor, safety Solidarity. He writes: "... the ac• outdated in times such as these, when Peter McMartin's column, "Unions: in the work place, unfair wages, and tions of the BCGEU and the PPWC the present provincial government afraid to face the future?" (Vancouver "equal opportunity for women." The are picayune and do not reflect the threatens to return both labor relations Sun, Nov. 4) appears to be that of a struggle for these advances was a long, demands of a changing and social relations to those journalist who has an obligation to the hard one; blood was shed, and people world . . . Compare that to the respect characteristic of the nineteenth cen• "spirit of free inquiry." The question died for their beliefs and desires. The the unions and the Solidarity move• tury. its title asks is supposed to be the kind unions were, for the most part, vic• ment won by voicing their outrage over According to McMartin's particular of question that sparks discussion and torious in these struggles. the emasculation of human rights brand of naivete, labor organizations "a free exchange of ideas." It is, of Once these victories were secured, legislation at the hand of the Socred in our "progressive" society are re• course, merely rhetorical. We are in• however, the unions became vested in• yahoos. The unions and Solidarity are quired to do no more than voice their vited by this title to read the column ex• terests which protected themselves by rightly to be applauded . . . But the outrage, and they should content pecting to discover if and why unions maintaining an outdated ideology bas• BCGEU and the PPWC exemplify best themselves with this. That they should fear a future which McMartin has ob• ed on the belief that workers were still what threatens unions: they are attempt to do anything about viously already glimpsed. We never do. oppressed, even as they contained the preceived as frivolous, stolid, and outrageous conditions is unthinkable. Instead, we get a rather schematic ac• comforts of the middle class. In short, afraid to face the future." McMartin is yet another "analyst" count of McMartin's History of the world has progressed, but unions Unfortunately, McMartin does not without an analysis. His purpose is not Unions, including his own involvement have not. History has made them ob• bring in the evidence to support all his really to present a discussion of the in them, and his scolding of two of solete. assertions. How he has measured the current issues. Such a discussion would them. According to McMartin, whether world's change? By whom are unions require him to comment in some depth The implications are that McMartin they know it or not, unions belong in perceived as "frivolous?" Moreover, on the nature and the function of the is clearly having his doubts about history's dustbin, along with the steam the logic of "Progress" on which he present state. It would require him to unions, and he offers up these doubts locomotive, the Model "T", and the has elected to base his argument re• come to terms with history as as something we all could share. The cross-cut saw. quires that he overlook a lot of something other than a past tense. theme under which these doubts are Is life really this simple? Having evidence that runs counter to it. The organized is "Progress." established to his satisfaction that it is, truth is that "very real wrongs" are not Summarized, his argument runs as McMartin proceeds to attack the B.C. corrected once and for all. They con• Paul Kelley is a Vancouver writer follows: In the beginning, labor unions Government Employees Union and the tinue to take place. and educator. This article is from a were good things because they sought Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of In fact, even if we accept longer piece, "Hard-pressed politics to correct "very real wrongs," such as Canada, separating each of them from McMartin's premise, unions cannot be and journalism." TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16 WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23 Guatemalan refugees, 7:30 p.m., Oak Bay VANCOUVER VANCOUVER High. Tickets $6. • Committee of Progressive Electors — • People's Law School class on welfare rights • Amnesty International meeting on adopted South's regular monthly meeting, 7:30 p.m., instructed by Marjorie Martin, 7:30 p.m., Kit- Vietnam prisoner, 7:30 p.m., St. John's Crypt Fraserview Library, 1950 Argyle St. silano Neighborhood House, 2305 West 7th (at Anglican Church, 1611 Quadra Street. BURNABY Vine). Free. For more info call 734-1126. SUNDAY, NOV. 20 • Labor lecture on the emergence of public NEW WESTMINSTER • Disarmament Coalition annual general sector unionism by Peter Warrian, 7:30 to 9:30 • Labor history lecture series continues with meeting, 7 p.m., Fairfield United Church. p.m., BCGEU Hall, 4911 Canada Way. For more "Women Workers in the 20th Century" by Sara WEDNESDAY, NOV.23 info call 291-3521. Diamond, 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., CAIMAW Hall, 707 • Film, "Women Under Apartheid." For time 12th St., New West. and place call 383-1691. THURSDAY, NOV. 17 SATURDAY, NOV. 26 • Workshop of Thinking and unthinkable — VANCOUVER VICTORIA The nuclear threat. Sponsored by University of • Women Against the Budget's weekly WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16 Victoria extension department; $5 fee. Call meeting, 7:30 p.m., 320 E. Hastings. • Nancy White in benefit concert for 721-8463 for agenda. • People's Law School class on RHOSP's, a detailed explanation of this plan in light of the April federal budget, 7:30 p.m., Britannia Secondary School, 1001 Cotton Drive. Chartered accountant Harvey Loen will instruct. Free. • Demonstration by Lower Mainland Solidari• ty Coalition at noon. Call 251-1281 for location and other details.

FRIDAY, NOV. 18 VANCOUVER • Second annual conference on unemploy• WEDNESDAY, NOV.16 western style tunes, 8 p.m., La Quena, 1111 ment, from 6 p.m. Friday at the Fishermen's tfTHAPPK' VANCOUVER Commercial. TiGkets $3. For more info call Hall, 138 East Cordova. Friday's schedule in• • Film "The Clockmaker" by Bertrand 251-6626. cludes registration and guest speakers. The Tauernier, 7:30 p.m., runs for two days at the key-note speaker is Charles Paris, former direc• Vancouver East Cinema, 7th and Commercial. SUNDAY, NOV. 20 tor of the B.C. Human Rights Commission and For more info call 253-5455. VANCOUVER current director of the Canadian Council of • Green Thumb Theatre presents "One Thou• Christians and Jews. Also a paper on unemploy• • Vittorio De Sica's Italian film "II Generate sand Cranes," public premiere at 1 p.m., Van• ment and the future of the movement will be Delia Rovere," 7:30 p.m., Pacific Cinemathe• couver East Cultural Centre (Venables and Vic• presented. Saturday's schedule begins at 9:30 que, 1155 West Georgia. For more info call toria). Tickets $4 for adults, $3 for children. The a.m. with 3 seminars: towards a policy of full 732-6119. play will tour B.C. For more info call 682-4664. employment, fromat for a federated unemploy• ment organization, and the future and actions of THURSDAY, NOV. 17 the unemployed movement. After lunch, B.C. VANCOUVER TUESDAY, NOV. 22 Federation of Labor president Art Kube will ad• • Nancy White concert, 8:30 p.m., Ridge VANCOUVER dress the conference and be followed by a Theatre (16th and Arbutus). Reserved tickets • Jazz with Tom Keenleyside quartet at 10 plenary session. This conference is sponsored are $8 and are available at the Ridge from 8 to p.m., Classical Joint, 231 Carrall. For more info by the Vancouver Unemployed Action Centre. 10 p.m. daily and at Black Swan Records and call 689-0667. Organizers ask that each group, organization or Octopus Books East. union send two delegates. Delegate fee is $10 • Film "From Munich to the 'Funny War'" is WEDNESDAY, NOV. 23 each. The unemployed are admitted free. shown as part of Pacific Cinematheque's history VANCOUVER Qualified daycare provided. To register call Mike of French cinema series. Film starts at 7:30 • "Xica" a Brazilian film by Carlos Diegues, or Vic at 688-9001 or 688-9083. p.m. at 1155 West Georgia. For more info call 7:30 p.m. "Montenegro" by Yugoslavian 732-6119. director Dusan Makavejev at 9:30 p.m. Both SATURDAY, NOV. 19 films are at the Vancouver East Cinema, 7th and FRIDAY, NOV. 18 Commercial and run for two nights. For more in• VANCOUVER VANCOUVER fo call 253-5455. • "Living in the Nuclear Age: Despair and • "Living and Laughing in the Nuclear Age • Film "Nights of Cabiria" by Federico Empowerment," a workshop, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., — the Fran and Charlie Show," an anti-nuclear Fellini, 7:30 p.m., Pacific Cinematheque, 1155 SPEC, 2150 Maple St. Pre-register at 734-5393 performance, 8 p.m., Kits Secondary School, West Georgia. For more info call 732-6119. or 253-4012. Sponsored by Women Against 2550 West 10th. Tickets are $7 employed and • Premiere party for "Angles", Vancouver's Nuclear Technology. $5 unemployed and are available at Ariel Books, new monthly gay newspaper, at Buddy's, 1018 MERRIT Octopus Books East and at the door. Child care Burnaby St. This is a fund raiser for the Van• • Renata Shearer and Fr. Jim Roberst speak is available. For more info call 734-5393. Spon• couver Gay Community Centre. For more info on the implications of the Socred legislation, 7 sored by Women Against Nuclear Technology. call Neil Whaley at 681-6437. p.m., Merritt Library. • Canto Latina Americano performs in a benefit for the Nicaraguan boat project, 8 p.m. 3iiiiiiiiiiiiiimimiiimiiMmiwmiiiimiiiiiiiwiiiiiit| MONDAY, NOV. 21 Admission is a tool or piece of equipment that VANCOUVER will be sent to Nicaragua. At La Quena, 1111 • People's Law School class on obscenity Commercial Drive. For more info call 251-6626. laws with instructors Barry Sullivan and Ace ( Blather | Henderson, 7:30 p.m., Little Mountain SATURDAY, NOV. 19 Neighborhood House, 3981 Main St. (at 24th). VANCOUVER E A Tenants' Rights Action Centre, 5 Free. For more info call 734-1126. • Kitchen Syncopators perform swing and | operated by the B.C. Tenants' Rights = = Coalition, is opening in a Vancouver of- = = fice donated by the B.C. Teachers' = = Federation and the Unemployed = = Teachers' Action Centre. | The centre, at 2235 Burrard St., will | = handle tenants' complaints, especially E § those concerning entire buildings, like §j = massive rent increases in an apartment = = block. E W Telephone calls for the tenants' coali- | E tion received at the Red Door Rental Aid 5 E office and the Downtown Eastside = = Residents' Association will be redirected = = to the new office number: 738-0147. E E Lower Mainland Solidarity Coalition = = has opened a support centre at the Ukrai- = E nian Hall, 805 East Pender. The centre E E will work on strike support and provide E E information and communications for com- = E munity groups and people using essen- E E tial services. E HE TALKS E Open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday to = E Friday. Phone: 251-1281. PROGRAMMABLE SP££CH illlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltlllllllllir COMWECTS TO ALL PEP Get happy! as San Francisco comedians Fran and Charlie leave us in stitches with their hilarious COMPUTERS' PLUS- look at the holocaust, on Friday, Nov. 18,8 p.m., at the Kitsliano secondary school auditorium, 2550 •SOLID POLYURETHANE. West Tenth Ave., in Vancouver. Ducats are $7 for the working, and a mere fin for the rest of us. Construction (TAKES LOT'S OF ABUSE) There's free on-site child care. For information call •DRINKS NO COFFEE. 734-5393 or 253-0412. Get Serious the next day at a Living In the •GIl/ES NO ADVICE Nuclear Age: Despair and Empowerment workshop, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., at 2150 Maple St., •GREAT FOR CONVENTIONS Vancouver. Pre-register by calling 734-5393 or 253-0412, or simply arrive early. Both events spon• EXEOU-PAL. INC. 86633 "[BUD. AVE.. BILL.ONT. sored by Women Against Nuclear Technology. 0 TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 rights and landlord-tenants legislation; consultation on other social issues MANX PRESS Although rumors of peace breaking out circulated widely, the deadline Brink countdown toward midnight Sunday THE BUTTON WORKS From page 2 continued as the various negotiating government still can't seem to parties talked on, through Friday, all understand there's a strike going on, day Saturday, and on, into the last 100% Union made buttons and other unions are going out." day. The two sides soon returned to the * Fast delivery * Low prices table, and for the rest of the week re• mained closeted in marathon talks under a news blackout. On the first WEN-DO night of phase two, as Solidarity chair• Women's 1700 W 3rd, Van. 738-2771 man Art Kube urged a New Westminster audience to keep up the Self Defense fight, he was overcome by emotion, ex• haustion and flu. The Members While Kube rested, his place was iff* taken by B.C. Federation of labor of secretary-treasurer Mike Kramer. Like Kube, he was frustrated by the govern• ment. He was also blunt. Referring to Canadian Paperworkers Union the welter of injunctions, LRB rulings, 876-6390 and cease-and-desist orders being sought, Kramer warned, "If there is one move made against any one of us, we will retaliate, and I mean massive retaliation ... an all-out, total war." Late in the week, however, there was MEoU*MloS« again a glimmer of hope. It emerged from a meeting of private sector MOVING unions. Union leaders said that if the completely endorse seniority rights and layoff issues were If it's time to move, settled, and if Premier Bennett agreed do it with to "meaningful" talks on the political people who care! and support questions, the escalating walkouts would end. If not, private sector unions would also walk. Even as they SOLIDARITY spoke, new protesters from Crown cor• 254-5593 porations joined the picket lines, bring the number of those off the job to over 80,000. At the same time, government representative Spector reported "significant progress" in the BCGEU talks. COMMON For the remainder of the weekend, a high level meeting of labor leaders and government was in progress alongside THE the BCGEU contract talks. The broad- JZROUND based talks included B.C. Teachers' Federation president Larry Kuehn, MOTHER Kramer, and Munro; the government's BY B BRITISH COLUMBIA'S NEW RESOURCE GUIDE Spector shuttled between negotiations (his boss, Premier Bennett, was at NOV 17-DEC 4 R Don't miss our First Anniversary Issue. THUR. 8:30P~ E home in Kelowna); and hovering near• Fpl. C The theme will be: by was the representative of big capital SAT. H Communications in the province, B.C. Employers Coun• SUN. -r cil president Jim Matkin. + T FINAL DEADLINE NOV. 21st 310 WATER ST. "°'H00 A Jeaked memo listed labor's RESERVATION PH1681-0818 OR 875-688J4] Distributed free 1st week in Dec. demands for a settlement to avert the $3.00 members $5.00 non members Call Mon.-Thurs. 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. 733-2215 final phase in the public sector's schedule of walkouts: an agreement Messages: 733-4415 allowing all public sector workers to be Write: Common Ground, Box 34090, St. D. Van• exempted from Bill 3; restoration of couver, B.C. V6J 4M1 education financing levels to 1983 stan• -FlPiTVAHCQUVEP THEATRE SPACE SOCIETY^ dards; major changes to, or rescinding of, the government's proposed human CU&C Health Services Society Over 100 members, the board and staff at 22 EAST 8th AVENUE • VANCOUVER. B.C. V5T1R4 • TELEPHONE 879-57I1 East End B.C.'s LEADER IN GROUP HEALTH BENEFITS Food Co-op DENTAL — EXTENDED HEALTH — WEEKLY INDEMNITY Support Operation Solidarity 1806 Victoria Dr. 254-5044

Attention Subscribers —

Change of Address

We want to make sure that you get your copies of Solidarity Times. If you've moved or are planning to move please let us know as soon as , possible. If possible send in the label from your . last issue with your new address. That will en• sure that we can find you quickly on our master subscription list. If you don't have a label or the label information send in the address change, we'll find you, it just might take a bit more time. Health Care is a Right — Not a Privilege TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 ©

Last independent daily spanned Lincoln to Kennedy years COLUMBIAN GOES ON TO BIG PRINTING PRESS IN SKY

Special to the Times bian had $3 million in the bank and As readers compared the Columbian The typewriter later turned up. Weeks of uncertainty ended Tuesday began an ambitious program of expan• with a fat, superficial but satisfying Nov. 14 Selman announced that the as the bankrupt Columbian newspaper sion. Five weekly newspapers were Sun, they jumped for the latter. Cir• Columbian would print its final edition published its last edition. created, each earmarked for a par• culation began to slide. the next day and that over 150 people By this summer a line of creditors would be out of work by Wednesday. After 122 years as a New ticular municipality, bringing the total was forming at the door. The Colum• A last-minute move by Taylor and his Westminster institution, the aging dai• circulation up to more than 200,000. bian was declared bankrupt on Oct. 14 associates to buy title to the weeklies ly finally succumbed to an up-and- But the prosperity was accompanied by and day-to-day operations fell to Don was quickly dubbed the "ship of coming local institution: the Royal an orgy of spending by Taylor and his Seleman, of Peat Marwick Ltd. fools" by employees. Some said they Bank, the lone new building in the dy• buddies. The publisher was often to be bankruptcy trustees. would rather be unemployed than ing downtown of what is ironically found in such places as Thailand and the Caribbean. The trustee immediately began seek• work for the man they see as the author referred to as the "Royal City." of the death of the Columbian. Back at the paper the daily's ing buyers for the assets of the Colum• A $7.5 million debt load burdened the bian but decided to let the newspaper paper for the past four years. Combin• management seemed to need more and The demise of the Columbian brings more money. Hugh bank loans soon continue normal operations. to an end not only the oldest daily in ed with the recession and incompetent Security guards arrived to watch management, creditors decided to pull followed. Then the recession and a loss B.C., but the last independently-owned in ad lineage. over the creditors private property daily newspaper. Sixteen other dailies the plug on the only B.C. paper that after an employee borrowed an ancient covered the assassinations of both Ken• in the province are all owned by one of In 1980, the paper put out 28-page typewriter (probably for the purposes three chains. nedy and Lincoln. editions regularly, and on many days it of typing resumes) and forgot to in• First in line for the assets of the was a 36-pager. Over the last 18 mon• form the boss. It brought fears that Elbert Rose was supposed to have paper are the bank and federal govern• ths, the paper had dwindled to an workers would try to run off with the written this article, but by a strange ment, which is owed taxes arising from average of 18 pages. remaining assets. coincidence, he too died Tuesday. employee deductions. As preferred creditors, the govern• ment stands to gain its share of assets as soon as they are sold. Less lucky are former Columbian employees on pen• sions and those nearing the age of retirement. Their cheques will stop and any money left after bank and bureaucrats dip into the pile will be dispersed in a lump sum payment. Revenue Canada's enthusiasm for the demise of the paper comes from the same government that spent $2 million on a study of the newspaper industry that concluded government legislation is needed to save newspapers from be• ing gobbled up by chain ownership. This same conclusion, in an ironic twist, effectively prevented any last- minute save from Thomson Newspapers Inc. or Southam Ltd., the two largest actors on the Canadian newspaper stage. But the real story is to be found in its own newsroom. Owned by Rikk Taylor, scion of the turn-of-the- century Sen. Taylor (who was active in the East Asian Exclusion League, the Conservative party, and other standard-bearers of West Coast enlightenment), the Columbian served as a small town daily for New Westminster and its sparsely populated surrounding suburbs. With the growth of bedroom com• munities around Vancouver, the paper, with its catholic daily coverage of municipal council meetings — tales in• variably running half a column or more on some obscure zoning change or dispute between neighbors, the paper steadily became a throwback to another age. While the Sun and Province launch• ed mighty sections of lifestyles, cook• ing, and other baubles to attract readers, the Columbian had a women's page with weddings. Never changing, the paper looked till the end like a nineteenth century pro• duct, with long grey columns and no full-color shots of pies and infants. Over the years, the paper accum- mulated a group of hangers-on, yes- men for the easily flattered Taylor. The benefits were many. Trips to far cor• ners of the planet, cars and fishing trips — all paid for by the paper. Things looked pretty good for the paper following the lengthy Pacific Press strike of 1979, which closed both Vancouver dailies for nine months. Advertisers flocked to the Columbian. Circulation, which had hovered at 25,000 or less for a decade, jumped to over 40,000. At the end of the strike the Colum• © TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

the cut-backs in the area of dustrially by the hugh Comin- one union member. "The education." co smelting operation, provid• public will lose its best Deal cancels demo Howden said he was not ed coffee and doughnuts to employees because public sec• surprised that all classes but picketers. tor wages aren't keeping up From page 5 together. There's a feeling that one were shut down in Local members of the Cana- with private sector wages." He don't produce results in the we have to maintain these con• Nanaimo schools during the dian Union of Public said some employees have near future." nections. People were phoning teachers' strike. Employees, who earlier this already spoken about taking He said many Kamloops the coalition this morning say• "I think teachers have to be fall voted against job action to private sector jobs, or even out Coalition members were ask• ing 'you've got to keep this aware of what's going on on a support their own contract of province jobs when the op• ing why Munro was picked to organization going.' " social level, when virtually demands, voted to walk out in portunity arises. strike a deal with Bennett on every teacher in this province support of Operation Solidari• News of the agreements social issues, and not coalition saw a government that put $42 ty. cancelled a planned pro- representatives from outside million extra into schools just Gordon Tits worth, labor U.S. troops poised government march scheduled the labor movement. He said before the provincial election, spokesperson on the Trail in Kamloops for Nov. 14. It A report detailing plans for people should be prepared to then after the election said Solidarity Coalition, was also cancelled a counter- a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua strike again if the promised they would take over $100 reluctant to remark on the demonstration planned by has been leaked to NDP MP consultation produces little. million out." agreements reached with Ben• Solidarity. Pauline Jewett. "Of course nobody likes to And while teachers were nett and government Recent reports from Central be on strike," he said. "But Government employee's happy to be back at work, he negotiators. America say that at least we've had consultation union spokesperson David said, "there's a 'wait and see' "We don't have any 11,000 U.S. troops are station• before." MacPherson was optimistic. attitude." details," he said. ed on Nicaragua's northern Threlfall said Kamloops is "A lot of people who were Howden said while the Some government border, and that U.S. troops more "politicized" now just going along for the ride legislation brought in by the employees who returned to are gathering along the Costa because of the provincial thought we couldn't budge the provincial government and the work Nov. 14 with apprehen• Rican side of Nicaragua's budget and the opposition to government one inch. We battle against it brought peo• sion are finding their ap• southern border. it. moved them a foot. Now we ple together as never before, prehension is turning to anger. NDP leader Ed Broadbent "It seems to have brought a have to move them a couple the splits and polarization Members of the B.C. has stated that the invasion lot of different interest groups more feet." which also resulted will be Government Employees' may well start "within days." . damaging. Union in several northern Last week, however, Jewett "I don't think what happen• B.C. communities, who asked told the audience of a local ed Sunday is closing that gap a for anonymity, said they were fundraiser that increased ten• School pact begs question happy to return to work. lot," he said. sion in Lebanon may tem• While tentative pacts were from the arbitrary firing pro• Many were worried about run• porarily delay a U.S.-backed forged Nov. 13 between the cedures of Bill 3. Trail is open ning short of money if the invasion. government, Operation strike continued, and they In the meantime, Coalition Solidarity and striking govern• Said Jim Howden, Nanaimo The most obvious features said their financial troubles for Aid to Nicaragua con• ment employees, an agreement and District Teachers' of the strike in Trail were clos• were compounded by lean tinues to seek donations of all between teachers and the local Association president: "I ed highways and support for wage settlements in this and kinds of usable goods or cash. school board was reached with guess we prefer to have done strikers. previous settlements with the Drop-off points have been set less fanfare in Nanaimo. away with these arbitrary Few teachers crossed picket government. up until November 21 across The agreement on seniority powers. However, you've got lines, and parents turned up at The tentative contract sign• Greater Vancouver, and other and layoffs was modelled on something that in normal the lines in support more often ed between government and items can be delivered until the North Vancouver agree• times we wouldn't be happy than in protest. Steelworkers BCGEU negotiators Nov. 13 November 28 to 2524 Cypress. ment which exempts teachers with at all. We really question in Trail, a town dominated in• "will hurt the public," said Call 733-1021 for information.

Vancouver Folk Music Festival AN INJURY TO ONE DAVE VAN RONK IS STILL AN INJURY TO ALL

Children Labour Tenants Disabled Women Pensioners Colleges Ethnic Minorities Small Business Patients Local Gov'ts Students School Boards Consumers Gays & Lesbians Unemployed Seniors Unorganized Workers To share an evening with Dave Van Ronk is to experience a sampling of many of the notable styles and streams of twentieth century music. His voice slides from a ragged whisper to a lusty roar through material as diverse as Billie Holiday, Woodie Guthrie and Bertholt Brecht. His guitar stylings range from classic Scott Joplin rags to Jelly Roll Morton tunes. Bill Bennett opened this wound Every visit of Dave to Vancouver reveals more surprises from his eclectic bag of tricks. — Bandaids won't close it. Sunday, November 20

Vancouver Municipal and Vancouver East Cultural Centre Regional Employees' Union 1895 VenableS (^^^ For reservations, phone 254-9578 SUPPORTS Tickets $8.00 tS^T* 8:00 p.m. The Solidarity Coalition Advance tickets at Black Swan Records, 2936 W. 4 Ave., Octopus Books East, 1146 Commercial Dr., and at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, 3271 Main St., 879-2931. TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

What would you do if you found out your best friend was Sam Peckinpah?

MARK VATNSDAL GRAPHIC By Dale Jack Sam Peckinpah should have air in• jected into his brain. With its advertisements that say things like, "What would you do if you found out your three best friends were Soviet agents?" The Osterman Weekend seems to be an attempt to cash in on the neo-Red scare. But once you get past the box of• fice it becomes painfully obvious that the king of movie mutilation had pro• blems translating the cowboy cut-em- ups into the twentieth century. The old black cowboy hat/white cowboy hat method of separating the good and bad guys is thinly veiled. You can tell from the start that the hopheads, the coke fiends, and the anonymous gunmen have got bullets No! Not the jnsor burp gun! You fiend with their names on them. The yoga- practicing "anarchist nihilist", the all- American newscaster and his well- armed family are all keepers, as is the family dog (although they really leave Star 80 far too black and white you hanging on that one). By Bob Bossin But despite Hemingway's perfor• ingway's cosmetic breast surgery. Bob Aside from the scene of a woman While not so weighty as the other mance, and Cliff Robertson's avun• Fosse is outraged that the press should getting a hypodermic needle jammed things up for consideration this week, I cular Hugh Hefner — a daring ap• focus on such a thing. It is, he says, through her nose (repeated four times, want to correct the false impression, proach in the '80s — the movie dies of totally irrelevant. I am.not so sure. in case you forget it), modern conveyed by the Times, that I liked two mortal wounds, the first inflicted technology offers no grisly goodies to As every movie-goer over 30 knows, Star 80. How embarrassing. In fact, I by leading man Eric Roberts. The compare with a frontier shoot-out or wars are fought so that American thought the movie was a turkey. The pivotal character in Star 80 is not the lynching. heroes have a place to ply their trade. last half of the story was left off by star but the husband, an ambitious This genre is now making a comeback The laser-sensor burp guns are bor• mistake. Here's the original text: grafter named Paul Snider. For the with the risky days and passionate ing. The high-tech overskill puts the The right stuff that Dorothy Stratten movie to work we have to kind of like nights of the press correspondent Grenada invasion to shame. The slow had was something else again. She had him or at least find him complex. Eric highlighted against the background of motion fighting isn't exciting, but it a body, face and innocence of ex- Roberts as Snider, to put it politely, third world revolutions. Under Fire, does make the screams sound really presson that enraptured Hugh Hefner, has difficulty with complexity, he is a set in Nicaragua at the time the San• funny. And, of course, there is waiting who made her his Miss August. It was one-emotion-at-a-time actor, and com• dinistas overthrew Somoza, is not quite to see who is going to get skewered by also the right stuff for Playboy ing in the wake of Robert De Niro's as blatant as in its perspective on what the bows and arrows lying everywhere. readers, if readers is the proper noun, super-groupie Rupert Pupkin in The is important as Reds or The Year of In the end, the real men are reduced to who voted her Playmate of the Year, King of Comedy, Roberts would have Living Dangerously. But it is getting up using baseball bats, pokers, and their and for Peter Bogdanovitch, the film been better to turn down the role. there. It might be less offensive only bare hands. director who took her into his movie, Hemingway wipes the floor with him. Perhaps the greatest mutilation is his heart and his bed. She was because it is so muddled, with motiva• that of the plot, which gets horribly murdered by her cuckolded husband. Ultimately, though, the movie is tions as opaque as Nick Nolte's dic• twisted before its merciful demise. Star 80 depicts the last few years of sunk by Fosse's shallow perspective on tion. Between Nolte and the poorly There are too many loose ends left Stratten's short life and director Bob Stratten's murder. She was killed, he recorded soundtrack, it is often dif• hanging. It is probably no great coin• Fosse keeps things moving along with seems to say, by a bad man, or with a ficult to tell what is going on. When the cidence that the whole thing slips into almost enough verve to cover up the tad of sophistication, by a bad working plot devices do come into sharp focus, absurdity once there are no people left movie's obvious failings. Above all, class man who couldn't make it with they strain credulity. the nouveau super-rich into whose to kill. credit must go to Mariel Hemingway There is plenty of action, with the class Dorothy Stratten had risen. Fosse Characterization goes beyond the who once again plays an ingenue, as movie making maximum use of its two is awfully easy on what may be his own point of being two-dimensional, and in she did in Manhattan and Personal tanks and helicopters, and there is yet milieu. Snider's low-rent wet T-shirt many cases turns into caricature. If Best. God, she does that well. Soon another catchy performance by Ed promotions look appropriately sleazy, Ronald Reagan ever dies, Burt Lan• other such performances will be com• Harris, this time as an American but life at the Playboy mansion is so caster has got a guaranteed job as of• pared to hers in the way that actors do• mercenary, a sort of John Glenn gone clean that it shines. Where is Hefner's ficial understudy. John Hurt does not ing rebels are judged against Brando. bad. There are also unexpected reported relish for inter-species rela• fare so well. He could be the new Hemingway is so beguiling that moments of intelligence and a tions and the other dicy and keeper of the "twisted little maniac" when her Dorothy Stratten reneges on refreshing streak of sympathy for the documented pastimes in this particular role which, a few years ago, would her promise to take care of her estrang• Sandinista cause. "Bennett goes next," heaven? In Star 80, innocence and guilt have been given to Bruce Dern or Rod• ed husband "for ever", and in its place someone in the audience shouted after are a little black and white. dy McDowell. The scene where the FBI offers him a flat $7,000, we are on her the fleeing Samoza. A movie which saves the day is like something out of side, at least until Hemingway is off• Speaking of which, there is the elicits such a response cannot be all Dragnet. screen and we can think about it a bit. sidelight controversy about Hem• bad. © TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 Wacky tales from the hardware right

of coalition government to keep the victed and jailed for criminal con• Co-operative Commonwealth Federa• spiracy to accept bribes. tion (CCF) from power. Mitchell sees What counts to Mitchell though, is Bennett's switch to Social Credit as a "second only to the ice age, he (Ben• result of his distaste for the patronage nett) was the force that did the most to PAPER and corruption of the Liberals and sculpt the face of British Columbia." By Robert Campbell Conservatives. Bennett's distaste for Until defeated in 1972 Bennett and the W.A.C. Bennett And The Rise of the Conservative party did not prevent Socreds ran the province like a hard• him in previous years from running for British Columbia, by David J. Mitchell ware store on a pay-as-you-go basis. its leadership twice and twice seeking a (Vancouver, Douglas and Mclntyre,' federal seat under its banner. What Mitchell does not dwell upon 1983 $24.95). is that the Socreds coincidentally came I can't completely dislike a premier All attempts with the Tories failed to power during a period of massive in• whose political advice included "make and Bennett jumped to the increasingly vestment in the expanding provincial no decisions when you're hungry," popular Social Credit movement, even economy. Under Bennett's guiding and who served Ovaltine martinis to though he had no interest in its "funny hand, the result was ruthless exploita• celebrate the swearing-in of his cabinet money" theories. Harold Winch, pro• tion and foreign domination of B.C.'s in 1952. But I loathe a fawning author vincial CCF leader for many years and resources. His government also entren• who attempts to make an unprincipled the man who coined the name ched the boom-and-bust character of opportunist into the democratic "Wacky", said it best: "I knew him our economy because it was most pro• populist responsible for the rise of first of all as a Conservative. I knew fitable in the short run. B.C. him as a coalitionist. I knew him as an Bennett certainly did not create the independent. Then I knew him as a In spite of David Mitchell's best ef• political polarization in the province Social Crediter. Now, a man who swit• forts, however, what emerges from a but he exacerbated it to keep his party ches politics like that is completely un• careful reading of W.A.C. Bennett is in power — "the Socialist hordes are at principled." the story of a crafty, sometimes the gates." His hostile labor policies brilliant politician who made and In a very close 1952 election, the pale only in comparison with his son's broke rules as he saw fit to maintain his Socreds came to power. According to present government. alliance with foreign capital and to Mitchell they represented a "new peo• What emerges from this book is not keep Social Credit in power. Born in ple's party" which fostered a "reform the portrait of a statesman, but an New Brunswick in 1900, William An• approach" and sought to avoid the 'Second to the ice age? I'm second to astute politician who bid the huge pro• drew Cecil Bennett (Cecil to his "evils of party patronage." Then, for nothing! Say, how'd you like an ovaltine vincial debt in "contingent liabilities," friends) came to B.C. in 1930. Already the posts of attorney general and martini?' sold 30 years of hydro-electricity for a successful hardware merchant after a finance minister, Bennett chose Robert was retained as finance minister until half price so he could build an unneed- decade in Alberta, Bennett and his Bonner and Einar Gunderson. Neither defeated again in a by-election. He re• ed dam named after himself, and family settled in Kelowna where he was in the legislature. He then forced mained as advisor and Socred bagman. damned socialists but nationalized bought another hardware store. two reluctant MLAs to resign, and, Bonner, who now heads B.C. B.C. Electric and the ferries. He even Elected to the provincial legislature against much local Socred opposition, Hydro, became notorious in the mid- rigged an all-party swimming race so as a Tory in 1941, Bennett developed a got his two boys nominated and fifties because he took 707 days to lay the Socred entrant would triumph. reputation as a political maverick, stri• elected. charges against Robert Sommers, the Still, Bennett remains more appealing dent anti-socialist and strong supporter Gunderson was defeated in 1953 but resources minister who was later con• than the author of his biography.

Building Trade Unions Support Solidarity Campaign In Defense Of • Trade Union Rights • Tenants Rights Count us in. • Rights of Minority Groups • Health, Education and Social Services • Women's Rights • Fair and Equitable Treatment for all British Columbians The B.C. Nurses' B.C. & Yukon Union supports s 1 Territory Building Solidarity, and I I** • yp»' Construction Trades recognizing that Council its opposition

to government legislation parallels Bakery Workers Union our own goals and

objectives. Local 468

Wholeheartedly Supports Solidarity

BRITISH COLUMBIA NURSES' UNION Keep Up the Good Work! 700 -1200 Burrard St. Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 2C7 Telephone: 689-4142 Hugh Comber, Financial Secretary TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983 ©

Shaw inspires gut reaction > •'uFfl<

By Ralph Maurer dom out of the phone book, but Acceptable Losses, by Irwin Shaw. neither Damon nor any of his friends Avon, 309 pages, $4.75 think so. "Somewhere in his past People used to ask "Why me?" there's something that happened, when they got sick. Nowadays they ask somebody who wants him to suffer," instead, "What did I do wrong?' If says wife Sheila. you have cancer, it's because you That somebody is Damon himself. smoke or eat too much fatty foods or Shaken from his self-satisfied revery, took the pill, (if you die of it it's Damon is compelled to sift through his because you ignored that lump, that past, reliving all of his worst moments, cough, that bleeding for too long). reviewing all his most regrettable deci• And everybody knows why you get sions, in search of something that will herpes or AIDS. The notion that peo• explain his current dis-ease. Not sur• ple are in some way personally respon• prisingly, under close examination a sible when their bodies break down is little tarnish does show up on his sterl• pretty widely accepted these days. ing character, and the notion of It's this notion that lies at the bot• "goodness" becomes a shade am• tom of Acceptable Losses, and it's no biguous. accident that the main character, Meanwhile, more than his past keeps Jiilll Roger Damon, is almost killed: not by coming up; Damon can't keep his food the kook who threatened him on page down. Oh, no, it looks like a per• one, but by an ulcer. An ulcer—isn't forated ulcer! Roger Damon's hidden that the punishment for a lousy diet, insides are finding all kinds of way to for bad work/worry habits, for a life punish him. lived too fast? But not kill him. When the operation Roger Damon is 65, the head of a screws up and Damon feels like dying, respectable and principled New York his loving and loyal wife pulls him out literary agency (he's genuinely embar• of it. The day Damon leaves the rassed by the one commercial, as op• hospital—surprise!—the mystery caller posed to artistic success his agency's actually pops out from between the had). He makes enough money that parked cars, gun in hand. Fortunately retirement doesn't loom so much as another loyal and loving buddy Tver, beckon. He's honest. He's healthy. (Damon must have been doing ^*lrV He's virile and irresistible even to something right all these years to women a third his age. He's got a deserve such friends) has been on the perfect (the perfect) marriage. lookout for just this eventuality, and And yet here he is, interrupting un• kills the man before he can pull the troubled sleep to take a call from some trigger on Roger. stranger who wants to kill him. Sure, Roger Damon is allowed to retire the caller might be just some crank happily ever after. who picked "Damon, Roger" at ran• Why not? He deserves it. Seifred Roth & Long Criminal Law

Juils Coneault Summary Conviction Charges $375.00 (Through First Day of Trial) Octopus Books Details of services to be provided will be confirmed in writing upon retainer.

Fees for indictable matters May 18, 1944 available upon consultation

Nov. 11, 1983 52 Powell St. (fourth floor) Vancouver, B.C. 669-2336

In Solidarity

B.C. B.C. Ferry & Marine Workers is ailing. Union The crippling effects of the govenment's 'restraint' program have reached epidemic proportions. The symptoms are severe. SUPPORTS The damage may Be irreparable. But a cure is possible. Immediate action by all working people can bring about a recovery. Do your bit to make SOLIDARITY B.C. a healthy place to live. Support Solidarity

HOSPITAL EMPLOYEES' UNION TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

We wish to salute those community groups, ethnic organizations, religious faiths, labor unions and others who have joined in opposition against regressive legislation.

WE DRA W STRENGTH FROM YOUR UNITY. WE ARE WITH YOU.

INDEPENDENT CANADIAN TRANSIT UNION

PUBLIC SERVICE ALLIANCE OF CANADA SUPPORTS OPERATION SOLIDARITY

PSAC CHEQUE PRESENTED

Alliance Vice-President Guy Jacob presents a $100,000 cheque for "Operation Solidarity" to B.C. Federation of Labour President Art Kube (right) and Secretary-treasurer Mike Kramer (left) at the Vancouver demonstration, Aug. 10. TIMES, WEDNESDAY, NOV. 16, 1983

where society most strongly exerts force on the body to make the psyche BUT IS IT "normal". Indeed, most theories of the "normal" individual derive from these uniquely modern institutions. It is rare that the incarcerated are allowed ART? an unmediated voice. Of course, as art, By Scott Watson this voice from hell has been mediated. Every time the Unit Pitt, It must have been Blackbridge's deci• Vancouver's most unkempt gallery, sion to represent the figure in a mo• mounts an exhibition on the theme of ment of triumph rather than pathos. It sexuality, attendance skyrockets. The is, after all, only by slashing herself subject of sexuality, about which little that the subject can gain "control over seems to be known except that it's her own body." We, however, as "mine" or "yours" and rarely viewers, know the gesture is futile. For "ours", is naturally of immense in• this reason the work might be terest in a society overly given to in• suspected of lacking compassion. trospection. This time it's Sexuality If Blackbridge's work is as shrill as a and Seeing (until Nov. 19), for the fire engine siren, Jeannie Kamins' col• most part a baleful meditation on the orful fabric pieces are as gentle as the privacy of desire and the difficulty of summer dawn. Her dancing, love- public gender roles. making figures emanate a joy and There are few surprises here. We've warmth that is hard to resist (I manag• seen and heard most of this before. ed, barely). Everyone is plump and Half the work shouldn't be in an art Rubenesque. Begone the lean and gallery. The organizers of this exhibi• hungry, begone the muscle-bound and tion should realize that it does a disser• anorexic idols of the consumer age. Re• vice to genuine work when it is given joice with the aging, fleshy androgyne. equal time with what someone's friend did yesterday. But, despite the large Vaginas are laughing mouths and contingent from kindergarten, the ex• penises unthreatening handles — and hibition gives us a chance to assess the we are grateful that the cosmos is not state of what is known in the art jour• erupting from these gentle, tame, nals as "feminist" art — a category in• humanized organs. This soft pink flesh to which all erotic art seems to have likes pleasure. Is this paradise? The been consigned. wholesome good will of these erotic Gone are images we've come to ex• pieces is so unusual that one has to like them. However, one must remember pect — no male nudes by women Unlady like Behavior by Persimmon Blackbridge. painters, no young androgynous ideal that wholesomeness is still a banal and practically no humor. As expected estate where smoking, drinking and there are pieces which express a malice have been banished. And generalized hatred of men and sex, ill- wholesomeness, even this earthy, erotic drawn female nudes expressive of Blackridge and Kamins kind, avoids the conflict and complexi• "self", and, of course, a few cosmic ty required of serious art. vaginas. Both Kamins and Blackridge unders• For me, this exhibition, as a tand their materials, something one thoughtful statement, depends almost save Sexuality and Seeing can't take for granted when walking in• entirely on the work of Persimmon first person. The woman is in• tion to a parallel between grooming to the Unit Pitt, and their work is Blackbridge and Jeannie Kamins. carcerated in a mental hospital, trying and self-mutilation. As such it is a por• evidence of the strength of feminist art Blackbridge is represented by several to conform so as to appear "well". As trait of a woman victimized by her in this community. works in clay. They all seem full of part of her behaviour modification society. Her powerlessness is compell• anger. Even her two undulating lovers program she is expected to groom ing. However, the work's real worth is However, wouldn't this have been a seem to emanate rage. The most herself, to take the pains to be ladylike. not in the position it takes on leg shav• more interesting exhibition if it had in• powerful and successful of her pieces, She goes to shave her legs but, sweet ing. Rather, it is that it gives an authen• cluded, as well, work which deals with Unladylike Behavior, is a cast of a tor• reason intervenes (they are mad, not I) tic voice to the incarcerated. (A col• sexuality in more conventional "high so and face (from life) of a woman who and she slashes herself instead. laborator is credited, presumably the art" idioms by artists like Vickie Mar• has just slashed her wrist. On the wall a This is not an easy work to take. The hospitalized woman herself.) For it is shall, Vicky Alexander and Allyson written narrative tells the story in the artist seems to want to draw our atten• in our prisons and mental hospitals Clay?

Art Gallery opening an orgy of individuality

By Gerry Gilbert tushenko. "Fuck you, you officials are and came out with their own precious science when art was one of the few I joined the old Vancouver Art all the same." thing. places perfection was permitted; and Gallery once, in the early '50s. I liked In the '60s the world had flowed The VAG curators dealt with local the standard that Emily Carr's pain• to go to the lounge and feel rich. through Vancouver. In the '70s we artists individually, but there was no tings and life still set for us. Too bad there ws no children's art in the In that lounge a decade later, as an went back to the end of line and the call among artists for a show of children's gallery. Some mmeticulous artist, I was handing the video camera VAG seemed to be in business primari• solidarity in the face of the new oppor• contemporary native Indian work, but to the Secretary of State, out from Ot• ly to remind us of our place in the tunity at the VAG for their work to be only a few mentions of the second and tawa for a look-see at this notoriously serious art world. seen by the likes of everyone. So, for third worlds and of Canadian ethnic successful civic art gallery. The gallery all the extensiveness of these exhibi• Everything the gallery touched turn• cultures in works done from Anglo- seemed to represent the Vancouver ar• tions, they are just rough sketches of ed to display cases. The city's artists Canadian angles. We could use some tists, who in turn were representing the what's going on, of what's coming, of returned to their ghetto and kept local alternate logics. city's public. what's necessary. The sense of art alive. The money for theatre, possibility is exhilarating — there's so A woman walking past a picture of a Artists banded together in groups publishing and art was reserved for much deeper to go. "resting stone" laughed, "What else like Intermedia. Professional artists ex• mainstream projects. Research that The new gallery gives art a forum in can a stone do?" Art is what else we panded their consciousness and joined, didn't match the sofa dried up. Sud• the city, a place as substantial as the can do. as cultural workers, with anyone who denly no one knew each other any courts and the city hall and the jail. I look forward to the sounds of per• wanted to help wake the city up to more. The fake grandeur of the original ar• formance art hushing the hush. "There itself. The VAG was a resource. It was Now it's the '80s and it's the new chitecture has been handled with are 60 things that can go wrong," the a festival of expression that included Vancouver Art Gallery and it's me humor — escalators always cheer me audio-visual man sighed. The every ism. Even liberal tendencies again, lounging around the gala open• up. The galleries are human-scale, for catalogue quality of the 440-page braved exposure to the radical spirit of ing last month, selling the news that all their decorator whiteness. The art catalogue is artfully heightened by the the times; we all drank together. B.C. is again the place in Canada will get younger as the gallery gets Eaton's sign in the cover picture. Er• ("Give that Canada Council officer a where art, like politics, c*an come true. older and the paintings won't need re• rors of fact and unaccountable omis• toke too, willya.") And it was a living, But looking around the inaugural ex• painting. The art may tend to frame sions make the book even more in• as I remember. Much of the good will hibitions at the VAG (and at the alter• the building now, but the facility teresting reading. that the Vancouver public has for the nate show, The October Show) you can amplifies the art. Visitors are quite The absence of work by artists like VAG stems from that era. see what's missing: co-operation bet• dazzled, as if they'd never realized Gregg Simpson makes some of the ween artists in the making of art. In the '70s, possibly in that same what a work of art was before. paintings in the show look better than lounge, I butted into some gallery The October Show was a good Vancouver: Art and Artists they are. The delegation of crafts to director's apology to the Soviet beginning, with artists collectively 1931-1983 is the big hit, decade by some other time is plain stupid. The diplomats for a demonstration outside presenting their work, but, as at the decade: the perfection in the paintings bicycle racks collect water. The cafe protesting a poetry reading by Yev- VAG, everyone went to the muse alone from the National Gallery — before isn't opemyet. A983

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Solidarity Times, the new kid on the block, is here, and we bet, to stay. But the newspaper industry is a pretty expensive neighborhood. Behind the front page there needs to be a healthy budget. Printing costs, salaries, office expenses, travel for out of town stories and postage are just a few of the places our money goes. in Because the Times is not a newspaper that is likely to name appeal to the independently wealthy we try to keep our subscription costs down. We're sensitive to the fact that, in these times, for many people $33, the cost of our regular subscription, is a 7 major investment. We don't want to put the paper out of reach for our major source of support in the province. hooks The Founding Subscriber is one who can, perhaps, afford a larger contribution. In exchange we supply our Founding Subscribers our with an inside look at how we're doing and what we're doing, via a personal letter. If you become a Founding Subscriber you'll receive the letter six times a year, about once every two months. As well, once a year we'll host a yearly Meet the Times Soiree at our offices. You'll get an opportunity to meet with our staff, s0 discuss the paper and get a real sense of where the Times is going and what we'll look like when we get there. >Ne\\,tf Consider joining Solidarity Times in this unique way. Founding subscriptions are $50 a year. Your contribution will go a long way to making the new kid on the block feel right at home. out you* Stan Persky get Editor books cheque etrf

545 on • • • wS« ^if. £Swsubscriber * a t

r es easa i ^ pSU - ^ p\ease ow

^ r ADDRESS WOMEN AGAINST THE BUDGET - 1 Women Against the Budget

A mother is missing

by Nora Randall Why can't I believe that this is a time of austerity and that we will just have to go without until things get better? One reason is that I read in the newspaper about a company that for $1500 will fly you and your friends by helicopter to the top of a mountain and serve you champagne and caviar. When times are hard I don't mind going without to help out somebody who's got less than me. It's just that I can't shake the belief that I'm being asked to go without to help out people who have way more than they need. I read in the paper that BC's budget shows an increase of 12% which is the second highest increase of any governmental budget in Canada. I look out my front window and see the stadium, I look out my back window and see the ALRT and I cannot make myself believe that this is restraint. I watched a TV report about the Fraser Institute. One of their members said on the program, "If there were no support for single mothers, there would be no single mothers." This at least has been confirmed in my life. I have a friend who was a single mother on welfare who crossed the picket line on the first day of the strike to give her baby up for adoption. I know for a fact that THE STRUGGLE GOES ON without the support of Project Linda Is a single mother with two On July 7th, 1983 two things issue, for the government is Parent, Family Place and her kids who went on welfare five years happened in B.C. spending plenty of money, social worker there is in fact one ago when she and her husband split more money than it ever has less single mother in BC today. up. First the Bennett before. It has committed itself What I can't seem to understand government in the name of The welfare rates are frozen. is, why this is a desirable state of to half a billion dollars for That's one of the ways the budget restraint, handed down an major projects which would affairs. It can't be because it unprecedented package of affects me. I can't afford to buy saves money. The government is create short term construction clothes for me or the children paying for the emergency legislation which ruthlessly cut jobs, mainly jobs for men. The at human rights and social anymore. I've just stopped doing psychiatric unit where she is issue is one of priorities. that. I feel really frustrated, staying. And the government is services yet is the most sending them off to school with expensive budget in B.C.'s As we write, a tentative paying someone else more to settlement has been reached patches and socks that don't foster her child than they ever history. match. paid her to care for it. between the government and Second, though less Operation Solidarity. Operation Before, at the end of the month I talked to my friend this tangible, but in many ways Solidarity represents the trade my check money would run out morning. They changed her about the same time as the more dangerous, on July 7th union movement, including medication. She sounds like a the political climate of our month had run out, but nowadays wall with a mouth in it. She told the B.C.G.E.U., in the I run out about a week and a half me the staff curled her hair. We province changed. Bigots were negotiation process. The strike early. So I have to borrow money. didn't talk about the baby. I heard given permission to act out is officially off and we are told And there's little things — I just an actor on TV once say that all their prejudices. Men were an avenue has been hate it. But the worst thing is not he had to do to cry in a scene given permission to abuse established to negotiate all of being generous with the children. was to think of this really sad their children and their wives. the issues and concerns that That really hurts. thing in his life and it made him Seniors were told to go back have been raised in the last I do welfare rights information cry. I think of my friend and her to their lonely private rooms. months. However we have no work. We're part of the Federated baby, then I think of the Landlords were given guarantee that our concerns as Anti-Poverty Groups of B.C. We helicopter and the caviar and I permission to charge whatever women are being addressed. help people figure out what the start to cry. Maybe I can get a job they could get. Retailers were best thing to do is if they are as an actor. Our experience in the women's given permission to cheat their movement has shown us that having a problem with welfare and I would like to believe that this we also help them go through customers. The rights we have legislation and service cuts is not happening, but everytime I fought hard for were stolen stuff like the appeal process. In turn on the TV, or read a paper, or that affect women are not the Surrey/White Rock area, we listen to the radio, I am assaulted. from us in one day. We have to likely to be resolved by three must have handled 400 cases this I cannot make it go away. There is get them back. men meeting in a room in year. MHR is taking more of a only one thing that makes me feel Using restraint as their isolation. hard line. They're saying no to I can go on. It is fighting back. I rationale, the Socreds are We want this to be a crisis grants and food vouchers. go to Solidarity meetings and trying to fool people into meaningful settlement. We Now CIP is cut out for single Women Against the Budget believing that social services, hope it will be. But the and disabled people. $50 is really meetings, I walk the picket lines a lot when you're on welfare. It and write for pamphlets because human rights and freedoms, struggle continues ... As secure housing, safety from women and as members of the was a way to get out of the house it makes me feel better. I am not and meet people and feel good alone. Besides the stadium, I can sexual harrassment and assault, broad-based Solidarity about yourself. And it's not saving see the pickets outside my access to health information Coalition we will confine our the government that much to cut window and they give me and legal aid are unnecessary negotiations unti< our demands it. strength. That's all I have to say. frills. Restraint is not the are met. continued on page 4 THIS MATERIAL WAS PRODUCED AND FUNDED BY WOMEN AGAINST THE BUDGET 2 — WOMEN AGAINST THE BUDGET

1 Susan Is a 34 year old staff school?" Sanna Is a grade twelve student In assistant at an alternate high school It seems to me that that's part Vancouver. In Vancouver. of the purpose of the cutbacks, The kids I teach have had which is also the purpose of Many people are hard hit by this problems in school. They provincial exams, to get those "restraint" budget: as students the wouldn't survive if they had to go problems we now face are the kids out of the school system. cutbacks and changes in education. back to regular school. Some of Bennett is constantly saying he them live in foster homes and wants to make the climate better It is ludicrous, now that student group homes. Most of them have for investment, and one of the enrollment is rising, to eliminate 5,000 been out of school for awhile. teaching positions and cut back ways to do that is to have a less school spending. This will bring One of the girls in my class educated population. The less classes with as many as fifty told me that her father beats her educated the work force is, the students and much poorer equipment, up, and she never knows what's less confidence they may have, teaching materials and school going to happen. Family support the less money they'll demand, upkeep. workers have all been cut. If I the easier they'll be to Government control of tuition fees, Two women refer them to MHR now, there's manipulate. And that means cutbacks in student loans and limited no one to try to change what's higher profits for investors. enrollment all seem to be geared happening in the family. Colleges and universities are towards stopping students from fight back B.C. already has the lowest having to restrict enrolment. Kids furthering their careers. It almost budget per student and the seems as though the government Teresa Is a 27 year old woman who whose families can afford to send wants students to drop out in grade highest pupil-teacher ratio in them to college will go. Even works for a cablevlslon firm. Sherry Is ten and never advance themselves 39 and a social work supervisor at a Canada. student loans may become more further. If vocational training schools A lot of the one to one attention Ministry of Human Resources office. like a bank loan. So kids from and job training programs are cut Neither woman has previously been that kids get in any school is from poor families who don't have the back or eliminated it will be almost polltlcaly active (except in very small staff assistants, and the City of material assets won't even qualify impossible for a student who has ways). They speak here of how it feels Vancouver alone is planning to for student aid. dropped out to re-enter school or train to become active. lay off 106 staff assistants next I get really scared. Not just for for a career. Teresa—Before I moved back to year. English as a second the kids in my school, but about I feel that as students and as Vancouver I was involved with the language programs are going, concerned citizens it is important for what the province of B.C. is going us to speak out against this. We must Manitoba committee on wife skills assessment programs are to look like. What are these kids abuse. They were creating safe going, and they're talking about act for ourselves and for students to going to do? They're not going to come. Education is one of the most houses and telephone lines for firing a fair number of teachers have jobs. Some of them will be important things in a person's life, it battered women; and it was really and librarians, too. So there'll be on welfare, and the rest out on should be given first priority and an encouraging atmosphere to be a lot more kids in every class the streets. They're going to steal. should not be cut back. in. When I got to Vancouver it room. Enrolment is going up in They're going to deal drugs. A lot seemed like the calendar was elementary schools. And they're of them will end up in jail. The turned back. I found it quite saying they have to close seven streets are going to be a lot more An up among the downs frightening and that's basically elementary schools in Vancouver: violent. what started it. I don't even think The kids in my school feel like All the family support workers On a positive note the Vancouver there is enough as it is (services they're being told to quit school. and people who work with those Women's Health Collective has been given and protections), so what That they don't count. They're kids and change that cycle are $5800 by the City of Vancouver. City Council frightened me is that what we do scared. They say "What's going to just going to be gone. But the voted unanimously to give the Health Collec• have is being taken away. happen to me if I don't finish high tive all of the money left in their 1983 Sherry—The other thing there kids are still there. emergency fund. As well there is a possibili• ty that the City will provide a rent free space is—if they can take away these ^Iliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifiiiiiiii^ to the Health Collective since they are being things, then what happens tomor• forced out of their present building which is row. I mean if they can take away being torn down for development. Whether Transition Houses or destroy pro• I THESE SERVICES HAVE BEEN CUT!... I the City comes through or not, it is hearten• tection for tenants or any of those ing to see one level of government taking other things and get away with it = WOMEN'S HEALTH COLLECTIVE • WOMB • SERENA • DAYCARE SUBSIDIES • POST-PARTUM E some responsibility for the needs of its without us standing up and = COUNSELLING • FAMILY SUPPORT SERVICES • LINDA WILLIAMS COMMUNITY | citizens. The Collective is still active and fighting—what happens tomor• = CORRECTIONAL CENTRE • CHILD CARE CENTRES - SUTHERLAND HOUSE AND MARY HILL = busy these days. For more information or row? support call 736-6696 (1501 W. Broadway). = HOUSE • TRANSITION HOUSE (SHELTER FOR BATTERED WOMEN) • CHILD ABUSE TEAMS • | Teresa—That's where the fear I LEGAL AH) TO BATTERED AND SEPARATED WOMEN • FORT NELSON'S EMERGENCY CENTRE = I FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN • PROJECT PARENT EAST AND WEST • FAMILY PLACES • = comes in. Those things were a | ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE PROGRAMS • COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT PROGRAM • = What good old days? protection for us. There's I PLANNED PARENTHOOD • VANCOUVER STATUS OF WOMEN • STUDENT AID - $10 MILLION = no—there's no conscience left for People keep talking about feeling like we | • RENTALSMAN • CONSUMER PROTECTION CENTRES • AND THE LIST GOES ON! | how you are to operate as a are going back in time with all these cuts. society ... no fair standard. And I But that's not really true. Ten or twenty or nllllllllllltlllllllllllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllfllllllllllllll^ think that is necessary. thirty years ago we didn't have safe Sherry—The choice is one of be• houses or child abuse teams partly because we didn't really think or realize ing active or one of being ab• that wives were getting battered or solutely overcome by despair. But What a way to say thanks children were getting beaten up and one of the consequences of being sexually abused. Now we know it's active, of doing something, is con• The majority of seniors are Like others, seniors will be happening all around us. Now if we don't stantly having to overcome ab• women. The women who worked, subject to eviction without cause, have services to protect and help these solute fear. Look at that fear, raised families and made British and stripped of the protection people we can't plead ignorance. So I acknowledge it.and only then Columbia what it is today are against discrimination formerly guess now they are saying they know it's could I go on to being active. And getting their reward. provided by the Human Rights going on and it's okay . . . ? every day I'd go through that, but The provincial government is Code. the other side was just despair. saying thanks with cuts in It's a poor way to say thanks. Now that fear has certainly seniors' incomes, higher costs Disabled diminished. Now it is very rare. and taxes, and fewer services. Teresa—I find that if I focus on Seniors' income is being handicapped what they are trying to do to me reduced through elimination of as far as taking away my rights as the Personal Income Tax Credit, a human being, as a woman, as a as well as the Renters' grant. further woman who is half white and half Disposable income is also cut A woman In her late thirties black, the anger—takes over the thanks to higher sales taxes, handicapped by myoclonic epilepsy fear. So the fear of what will hap• higher health care user fees, and shares her views on life In Bennett's pen is much greater than the fear B.C. Let's call her Jane. She has not of acting. What else gives me a freeze on rental assistance been able to work for ten years, due under the SAFER program. strength is to see other to her handicap. women—its really encouraging, to Increased hospital charges T- Jane has mixed feelings about what is $8.50 a day for acute care and see other women standing up happening in the province at this time against it too. And it feels good $12.75 a day for extended care — and feels that the government does not hit particularly hard at seniors. understand the needs of handicapped to not sit back. It feels good to be Seniors' lives will be further people. Jane supports the idea of part of the movement to stop impoverished through the restraint but not in the way Bennett has what is happening. It makes me elimination of grants to 23 chosen to do it. She feels human rights feel strong. And it makes me seniors' centres. As well, grants are necessary, as is the Community realize the strength r have as an Initiatives Program (C.I.P.) These cuts individual woman and that women to community groups providing o z hurt disabled women. She'd like to see have as a group. volunteer services have been cut. justice done and believes justice will be The end of rent controls will done. "$50.00 means so much, Sherry—Furthermore when we are mean higher housing costs for why would they cut the C.I.P. eighty we are going to have some many. o when $50.00 means so much?" great tales to tell. WOMEN AGAINST THE BUDGET - 3 HUMAN RIGHTS: Ridden out on B.C. Rail

"B.C.'s Human Rights Legislation flies put in institutions by parents and In the face of Canada's International relatives and friends because the obligations to the U.N. to uphold system states that there is Human Rights." something wrong with us, that we Gordon Fairweather, Head of Canadian Human Rights are sick. And I see from my own Commission experience people growing and learning that these myths are just • Elimination of "Reasonable cause" that — myths. provisions of the Human Rights Code effec• Yet with this legislation, I see tively removes protection against that all being turned around discrimination on the grounds of age, sex• again. To come out (as a lesbian) ual orientation, language ability and other is really a big change in your life. grounds not covered under the Act ex• You've been hiding behind closed plicitly. It is generally considered that doors with your lover, hiding a big discrimination against pregnant women is part of your life. And my concern not covered. is that that promotes a lot of pain. • Complaints under the new Act can only The legislation could very easily be filed by the person discriminated force me to go back into the against, not by the Human Rights workers closet but I don't intend to let Help for new called the crisis line and they or community groups as was formerly the that happen. gave him the number for Post• case. In the context of Human Rights the mothers taken away! partum. I called and for the very person discriminated against is often the first time someone said to me, 'I least able to carry out the case. Lois went to the Post-Partum Depression Counselling program understand what you are feeling. • The Human Rights Commission has three years ago when her son was five You are not crazy. You are been abolished and the Council of Human years and her daughter was 10 experiencing what we call a post• Rights which replaces it, has no explicit months. partum depression and we can provisions for staff. Now when someone In our neighborhoods the help.' I had never, ever heard that. files a complaint there will be no one to support systems for new mothers The relief was just absolutely help her and she will have to either find aren't the same as they were at overwhelming. It (the program) and pay her own lawyer or conduct the one time, when most women did works. It is the thing that saved case herself. This is especially difficult for stay home. You sit in your home me. Saved my family. Saved my immigrant women who may have a and you look out on the streets marriage. language barrier as well as a cultural bar• and there are no children. You They want me to believe that rier to cross. start to feel that you are alone, the doctors will be able to treat that you really are alone in your post-partum depression. The • The new Act covers only intentional psychiatrists will. The public discrimination. Thus for example height and house with your children. The isolation is very very real. health will. The social workers weight restrictions can no longer be con• will. That is Bull Shit! They sidered sex discrimination against women When my son was born I was really into being a mother. I filled haven't. They can't. They don't unless it can be proven that the intention of understand what it is. the regulations is to restrict women. my days with nursing and walking Are you an immigrant? but the days started to get really • The section in the former Human difficult. The same thing sort of Hurting doesn't have Rights code prohibiting discriminatory Are you afraid? happened with my daughter. I advertising has been eliminated. It is now started to be unable to cope with to be a way of life possible to advertise for "Men Only" or Mai has been in Canada for six my daily work. I had a great deal Thousands of children In the province "Whites Only'' or' 'Able Bodied Only" and years. of trouble vacuuming or cleaning so on. Even though I spoke English are regularly beaten with hands and or shopping. And then my crying fists, hairbrushes and belts and a varie• For more information contact; when I first came it was such a started which very soon almost cultural shock. I went into a ty of other weapons. Thousands of Human Rights Coalition, Vancouver Region incapacitated me. children, especially little girls, are sex• 600 West Queens Rd., North Van. depression that I didn't dare take ually fondled and mauled and raped. 988-7115 My older child — he was just the bus. Often I would stay in bed Child Abuse Teams were and get out just before my being a little boy — but I was really picking on him; a lot of created in Vancouver in 1974 and in husband came home because it the Fraser Valley in 1978, to act as was too embarrasssing to explain. yelling. I could sense I was Lesbians lock your doors borderline with my anger. I didn't consultants to and trainers for Right now because of the identify it at the time. I knew one social workers working with dif• Donna is a single mother of two legislation ... I didn't want to day something was going to ficult child abuse complaints. The children and a student. She is also a make myself too visible. If I didn't happen and it would be to my teams were originally formed to lesbian. involve myself I didn't have the children. That is where the real assist with physically abused right to complain but in this I see Solidarity as terror came. And there was all children but enormously increas• situation since it's so heavy for this crying, this ache all the time. ing amounts of their time have being a long term ongoing everyone it becomes so much process in which we have the ^ At one point I did go to my been spent on sexual abuse cases. more scary to be involved in Keeping on top of current chance of reaching people and anything. It wasn't just a question doctor — what I got was a educating them. But as for the prescription for Valium. I didn't go research and relaying this informa• of losing a job, it's a question of tion to community groups as well immediate problem I'm still very losing where you've chosen to back. Things really started to fearful about the outcome. I am a deteriorate. My husband and I as social workers throughout the live. It feels pretty scary and very province was another important woman, I am a single parent, I am uncomfortable and really strange. were getting worse and worse. a lesbian and I see the budget as And he was a good man. I know responsibility. Without the work of affecting me in all areas of my The only thing I have counting suicide thoughts slipped in. these teams Ministry staff will life. I am a student. I'm on a for me looking for a job is that I'm It did reach a crisis, but I work in isolation with limited student loan and living on the white. couldn't do anything. My husband resources and almost no back-up. poverty line and I manage, which In 1982 the Vancouver team absolutely amazes me. alone responded to 1,200 consulta• My future — I'm working in the tion requests, seventy percent in• health field and I want to work volved sexual abuse. Social with children. There are a lot of IN 1983 THE GOVERNMENT SPENT $205 MILLION ON B.C. PLACE. workers have expressed a real myths about homosexuals and RESTRAINT OR PRIORITIES?? need to consult with the children and I would like to see teams ... however the government those myths spoken to. I want to has decided that their work is an be able to live my life and do the undue burden on tax-payers. work that is important to me and In April, one month before the raise my children without being May 5th election, $55,000 was discriminated against. spent on renovations at their 575 Five months ago (before the Drake Street office to accom• budget) I was aware that the modate an expanded service. Human Rights Commission had Psychologists, psychiatrists and proposed changes which made medical doctors were added to the my situation, my future, a little Child Abuse Team which was brighter. For instance, if I wanted renamed Family and Children to rent a house the landlord Assessment Team. Two months couldn't discriminate against me later the government said their ser• because I happen to live with a vices were no longer required. We woman. cannot afford the cost to British In the past lesbians have been Columbian children. 4 - WOMEN AGAINST THE BUDGET Shady deal for battered women PRESS The women who live in privatized on or before 31 March to leave violent situations and Vancouver Transition House, 1984. stay away. Transition house RELEASE some with children, come there What will battered women lose workers are also afraid that a for support and safety. Battered when Vancouver Transition House needs test will be required so the women have few places to turn, is privatized? Other privatized house will not be open to ALL 14 November 1983 few people who believe and transition houses in BC have women and their children. understand the fear and Women Against the Budget today ex• been unable to maintain 24 hour In July the government called tended its congratulations to the BCGEU uncertainty they may have lived staff coverage, childcare Transition House workers with for years. and BCTF for their partial victory on union programmes, educational 'redundant'. In November the demands. At the same time WAB members The women who work at programmes for the community same government declared expressed their concern at the lack of in• Vancouver Transition House want and others who work with Transition House an essential roads made in the fight for human rights, to work there because they know battered women, and follow-up service necessary for the social services and for the demands of about the importance of working work with women and their continued health and safety of women, tenants, students, pensioners, with and for women who have children who have moved out on the women of B.C., so that the the disabled, lesbians, gays and the poor. their own from transition houses house was operating with full staff been physically and "We are appalled that the Solidarity psychologically abused by their Vancouver Transition House during the strike. Which is it? Coalition was not consulted regarding the partners. workers understand from the All women in B.C. are losing negotiations preceeding the settlement and MHR that they would not be something precious. We think the that we were not informed of the conditions Just after 25 July 1983 all the considered for such a privatized government in this province has a of the settlement before the public an• women at Vancouver Transition contract if they formed a society responsibility to provide adequate nouncement was made," said Stella House, including the supervisor, themselves. The reason given was protection for the women and Crampton, WAB representative to the Pro• received letters telling them that that they did not represent a children of B.C. We demand that vincial Steering Committee of the Solidarity because of 'program changes' 'broad base of the community' Vancouver Transition House be Coalition. The demands of the Solidarity their jobs would be redundant. Women at Transition House are maintained at full staff Coalition have not yet been met but they Soon afterwards the MHR worried that they will be blamed complement and that funds continue to be central to the development announced that Vancouver for being battered, and that it will continue to be available for its of any real truce. effective 24 hour operation. Transition House was to be be even more difficult for women "It is clear that the force of the union walkout was largely because the members were not just fighting over bills two and three but for all of the Solidarity Coalitions' demands. Our members and those of many Health cuts hurt other community groups were called out at 4 a.m. to staff the picket lines following the User fees are among the socred attacks on injunction against the teachers. It is this review any medical record of any patient. Entire• §8& health care that will directly affect women. ly negates doctor/patient confidentiality. unity that has been the source of strength • Hospital charges increased from $7.50 to BCMA is negotiating to amend this and to set in the Solidarity movement over the last $8.50 per day. up it's own "patterns of practice" committee. four months," said Sara Diamond. • $4.00 charge for outpatient and emergen• 4. Commission wants to delete counselling WAB said it will continue full support for cy visits. and stress management as a paid service. It ;he Solidarity Coalition and will maintain • $10.00 charge for fetal monitoring for high would then be extra billed. Affects many people its commitment to carry on the struggle risk prenatal patients. especially preventive services. not only for women's rights but for the Significant Points from Bill 24 (Medical Ser• 5. Enabling legislation: These are clauses vice Act) at present under negotiation with the related to detailed regulations, which have yet to human rights of every person in the pro• B.C. Medical Association: be drawn up, that can be introduced by cabinet vince. 1. Restriction of Billing Numbers: supposed order without legislative debate if this bill is A process of consultation is no to decrease the number of doctors in Van• passed. guarantee of anything. Most community couver. BCMA is fighting to delete this. groups have been consulting for years. The 2. Medical Services Commission (has no lay At present with this bill the way it is, doctors government has shown us that these con• representation) may determine itself if service can opt out of the medical plan at any time. Also sultations have had no effect. "Consulta• received by patient is medically required, and the government can put through this legislation tions are supposed to take place before can limit the coverage a patient may have or that as is and ignore BCMA negotiations. legislation is introduced," said Crampton. his/her practitioner may have. All these measures promote incremental "The only possible way to make these con• 3. Disclosure of Information: Inspectors may reprivatization of medicine and will further cen• tralize government control over funding, ad• sultations work is to have them take place ministration and actual practice of medicine. openly, publicly and with a clearly BCMA has been told there is no more money specified time limit." Continued from page 1 to pay doctors for the rest of this year. We used to have places to send people who called us for help. Like the legal aid, and the What you can do rentalsman and all those places. And now we're the end of the Call Phone In Television and Radio Shows. line, just ordinary housewives Write Letters to Editors: who are advocates and all these e.g. The Vancouver Sun or Province, MARSHA ARBOUR people are counting on us. People PHOTO BY HOLLY DEVOR 2250 Granville, Van. B.C. are getting more panicky. It's like Phone in With Comments on Television and your worst nightmare's coming Radio News Coverage: true. e.g. T.V. - CBC, 665-6670; CKVU, About education cuts, it's really Women Against the Budget 876-1344; BCTV, 420-2288 hard, especially with my daughter, Radio - CBC, 665-8060; CK0, Melanie, who has Down's Women Against the Budget (W.A.B.) is The official policy of Women 254-5161; CJAZ, 684-2111 Syndrome and is in a special Start a Neighborhood Phone Tree with needs class. There has to be one made up of many different women, who Against the Budget. meet every Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at 1st 1. The purpose of WAB is to make sure that Friends: to one teaching in a special all womens' concerns are addressed at ' With news bulletin updates needs class. United Church, 320 E. Hastings. Women work hard. Many women all levels of the struggle against the TocallMLA's So what am I doing about all already do 2 jobs: one at home and one in legislative package and for the full To call T.V. and Radio this? Well I talk to people about restoration of social services, and that Put up signs in Your House, Business and the work place. The new budget will make women are part of the decision-making it. And we started a telephone our work harder. It will cut our services for Car network. It's a good thing for process. Wear Buttons you and your family. It will mean worse 2. That all members of society have the people who are in the house, like working conditions and wages. women with young children who right to: can't do picketing or leafletting. If Women have fought hard for these ser• • meaningful work there's a new development or vices. Women have fought hard for better • right to organize and belong to a working conditions and wages. Now the union something in the news that you • a decent standard of living don't like, you call your MLA and government is taking them away from us. We demand the restoration of all the • decent housing complain. And you have three • adequate health care people to call and tell about it. social services discussed in these four pages. These services have not been • personal and physical safety And if they don't like the news, • quality education they call their MLA and they each restored under the recent setllement. The • decent social services have three people and so on. That rights of women and children must not be a • equal pay for work of equal value CLAIRE KUJUNDZIC low priority. We will continue to fight for kind of pressure from ordinary • reproductive freedom Speak Out - at parties, to your neighbors, these services and our rights. people is good. Keep nagging • adequate legal assistance to your children, to delivery people, to col- them so they can't do what they For more information contact: • freedom from discrimination on want to do. One of the women in Women Against The Budget the basis of sex, sexual orientation, age, race, religion, TALK WITH YOUR FRIENDS - we all need the group said, "Oh I could do P.O. Box 65366 political belief or disability support! that while I'm nursing my baby!" Station F And that WAB opposes any policy, legisla• Join the Solidarity Action groups in your There's a lot of simple things we Vancouver, B.C. V5N 5P3 tion or action which restricts the above area. can do and they all add up. (Or the W.A.B. group in your area.) rights for any member of our society. Don't Cross Picket Lines.