a decision which, despite

Premier Bennett, with

Under mass pressure for bas
was nearly six years ago. Its

session the amended act got as

it.

Both the B.C, Federation of
District Labor Council have stron

long-overdue legislation, But all

The government rushes to close

dustrial casualty list — which

Also last week in Ottawa a
ternational Pulp and Sulphite

paper workers on the issue

the whole issue of the union’s
under “another year of study’’.

as Canadians,

EDITORIAL .

é “ 3
The ‘hoist’ crews
uring recent days tai widely separated bodies arrived at

each have a direct bearing on the well-being (or otherwise) of
countless thousands of Canadian wage earners.

In Victoria the B.C. Legislature was prorogued by Socred

long-overdue changes in the B.C,
Workmens Compensation Act given a hoist for another year.

administration the Tysoe royal commissions was set up. That
Socred government for nearly two years. During the recent
the Socreds gave it the grand hoist — not to improve its pro-

visions on behalf of injured and disabled workers— but to give
big business in B.C, the time and opportunity required to scuttle

action in terminating the legislature before passage of this

Big business says the proposed amended WCA will be too
“costly” for them. Working people say “there is nothing too
costly where the life and safety of workers is concerned”,

that monopoly’s political dynamiters can get to work.

The only thing that won’t have a hoist is the appalling in-

prive of their just compensation.

discuss the future of their union in Canada, Faced with wide-"
spread dissatisfaction and breakaways of Canadian pulp and

independence; the right to run their own union affairs without —
dictatorial interference and domination by an international
bureaucracy resident in the U.S.

That conference also decided to give progress a hoist; to put

crude stall on the WCA, Canadian pulp and paper workers in
this Centennial Year of 1967 must also submit to a “delayed
action” stall — on an issue that could, and should have been
solved years ago. The right of Canadian members in U.S.-
based international unions to administer their own affairs,

What such hoist crews fail to grasp is that the inevitable
may be delayed — but not eliminated.

the wide remifications of both,

ic changes in the WCA and its
report has been tabled by the

far as second_reading. Then

Labor and the Vancouver and
gly protested the government’s

to no avail,

the legislature doors in order

the WCB will continue to de-

nation-wide conference of In-
Union representatives met to

of the right of autonomy and

Canadian membership status
Like Socred Bennett with his

“press release of some

1,200 words dated March

10 from the office of Prime

Minister Pearson in reply to a

group of professors and univer-

sity faculty personnel on the sit-
uation in Vietnam.

In some six foolscap pages of
profuse wordage, the PM's reply
to the professors is more in the
nature of an apologia thanareply
by the head of a government
deeply involved in the criminal
U.S. war upon the people in Viet-
nam, . ’

The PM concedes the right of
Canadians to hold diverse views,
of ‘‘different assessments of the
rights and wrongs of the various
positions represented in the con-
flict . . . providing of course
that the differences of opinion
are genuine and based on the full-
est possible range of facts”, Ob-
viously the PM has never heard
of Washington’s credibility gap,

The inference here is that uni-
“versity” professors ‘or lesser
breeds protesting U.S, ruthless-
ness in Vietnam, don’t know all

the “facts”, hense their protests
cannot be regarded as “genuine”.

“We have spoken publicly,”
says the PM, “about our belief
that a military solutionis neither
practicable nor desirable and we
have encouraged the two sides
to enter into direct contact to
prepare the ground for formal
negotiations at the earliest prac-
ticable time”.

The PM didn’t say the earliest
possible time, which is NOW,
nor did he mention that the ‘‘en-
couragement” of his government
towards that desirable end might
be accepted as more genuine by
both Canadians and Vietnamese,
were his government to halt the
shipment of some $300-million
annually war materials to the
U.S, to assist its “war needs”
in Vietnam, It would also be an
additional “encouragement” to
have Paul Martin stop talking out
of both sides of his mouth.

Moreover, in his wordy dis-
sertation about ‘‘the two sides”
getting together under the ageis
of Paul Martin’s “quiet diplo-

‘End classes over 40’
teachers parley demands

One thousand delegates to the
B.C. Teachers’ Federation con-
vention in the Bayshore Inn in
Vancouver this week gave ex-
pression to the new militancy
prevalent among the province’s
18,000 teachers when. they
adopted a strong resolution de-
claring that no teacher in future
will teach a class with 40 or
more pupils,

Delegates also adopted a reso-
lution calling on the BCTF fin-
ancially and morally to support
any teacher who, on the advice
of his local teachers’ association
or the federation, walks out in
September rather than accept a
class of such size,

The action to pledge full back-
ing came in a lively debate in
which the executive’s original
resolution to pledge *moral and
financial support for any teacher
who refuses to teach a regular
class of 40 or more pupils” was
amended, The affect of the
amendment was to place final
responsibility for a teachers’
walkout on the federation or local
teachers’ association rather than
on the individual teacher.

B.C. teachers have waged a
strong campaign for more than a
year to reduce the size of classes
to manageable levels so that more
individual attention can be given
to children.

Last January the BCTF warned
that unless the provincial govern-
ment moved promptly to reduce
class sizes, “drastic action”
would be taken. Federation offi-
cials charged then that B,C. has
one of the worst records in Can-
ada for large elementary
classes — in 1965-66 there were
2,900 with more than 35 pupils
each and 500 of them had more

_ than 40,

In a gesture aimed at placating

macy”, the PM forgot to mention
that it was the U.S, that was
invading, killing and destroying.
the people and land of Vietnam,
and not the other way around; a
vitally important point to all
Canadians, if not toMr, Pearson,

With profuse mumbo jumbo the
PM would hope that ‘‘the parties
could, in quite confidential ways,
move out beyond their establish-
ed positions, abandoning where
necessary, tacitly or explicitly,
those aspects of their positions
where compromise must be made
in the interests of a better ac-
commodation”. The plain English
of that “quiet diplomacy” gibber-
ish is quite simple: that the Viet-
namese should crawl to the ‘ne-
gotiating’ table under a rising
crescendo of U.S, bombs, to com-
promise their country, their
people, and their sovereign des-
tiny to the dictates of U.S. war
criminals, Just like that.

In his alleged reply to the pro-
fessors the PM stresses, “other
less conspicuous efforts” inpref-
erence to public outcry which tend
to be “formulated in maximum
terms”. Please gentlemen let’s
have more of the ‘‘quiet diplo-
macy” of the backroom order,
where offense to the real crimin-
al can be held down to a mini-
mum, where conspiracy against
a sovereign people can be incu-
bated without fear of public op-
probrium, and where the carnage
and horror of intensified murder-

growing criticism, Education
Minister Leslie Peterson re-
cently announced an improvement
in the “teacher entitlement form-
ula” used to calculate provincial
salary grants to school boards.
The “improvement” amounted to
altering the formula so that
grants will be paid by Victoria
on the basis of one teacher to 36
elementary pupils instead of 37
as before, This was branded
a “stop-gap” measure,

The BCTF complaint is that
large classes prevent individu-
alized instruction or imple-
menting the new curriculum, It
takes all their skill just to con-
trol the classroom at present.
“We have simply become over-
paid babysitters and not educa-
tionalists,” is the feeling of most
teachers.

Striking the keynote
growing militancy among B.C
teachers, J, Harley Roberts
president of the BCTF said that
«massive infusions of money are
absolutely essential to develo?
educational system adequate
the future.”

of te F

“But we cannot hope to PF
suade the government to shiftth?
financial emphasis from bY -
development to education withol
taking the lead role ourselve
Teachers have to show they
longer wish to be cast into@
missive role in education. «
professional teacher is the m
tant teacher, because he refl
to tolerate conditions which ser"
iously hamper his effective
as a teacher...”

‘West German warship
not welcome’ —Rankil

Alderman Harry Rankin said
last week he voted against the
Vancouver City Council’s deci-
sion to spend $500 to entertain
the crew of the West German
Naval Training Vessel “Deutsch-
land” when it docks in Vancouver
harbor April 13-18th,

‘My action did not arise out
of any -enmity to the German
people. When I went overseas in
1939 I recognized that our
enemies were not the German
people, but the Hitler fascists
who had éstablished a brutal
dictatorship in Germany, unfor-
tunately with Western support.”

“But,” said Rankin, “I don’t
want to see history repeat it-
self. West Germany’s industrial,
political and military leaders are
again preparing to expand the
borders of Germany through

ous bombing can neither be heard
nor seen,

In short, as-the PM says: ‘‘The
more complex and dangerous the
problem, the greater the need for
calm and deliberate diplomacy”.
No wonder the mothers and chil-
dren of Vietnam weep.

On the use of Canadian arms
by the U.S. in Vietnam, the PM
disposes of that in a couple of

pages of Pearsonian flub-dub on _

the joint nature of U.S, Canada
‘‘defense’’ agreements of 1959
and 1963,

Our $300-million arms con-
tracts are just a part of our ob-
ligations “to meet U.S, and con-
tinental defense requirements”
and nothing more, “There is so
far as I know,” bumbles the
PM, ‘‘no way in which the Cana-
dian government — and perhaps
even the U.S. government — could

force, Such action could event
ally lead to another world

cove!”

poll
d wi

“The West German
ment, the judiciary, the
and the Army are riddle
former Nazis, includingaam
known war criminals.

“The present Chancellof
West Germany, Kurt
Kiesenger, was a Nazi
member, No, 2,633,930, andvt
uty-Head of the Radio Poll
Department of Hitler’s fore
office, in charge of subveh
nazi propaganda,

‘It seems that West Ger
leaders have learned nothine f
defeats in two world wats ;
we going to let them try itath
time? These are someof
sons I feel so strongly abou
act of welcome to the West
man Government,” said

ascertain the present
abouts of all items of
equipment purchased in
by the U.S,”

whe s
iit 3
cana

So in the PM's perverted
our conscience and our
are clean. We salve the
with our ‘‘ quiet diplomacy
latter by the excuse that thee
we sell to the U.S. to Kill ¥
namese mothers and babie® i ih
“goes into the general inv
of the U.S, armed forces
be used for such purpose>
such parts of the world 2°
U.S. government may Se

form

Like Pontius Pilate te
washes his hands of mu
Vietnam with Canadian an’
his startling admission th? b
same arms -may be ¥s® tf
murder in any ‘‘..-. such fi
of the world . . . as the —
government may see fit.”

Editor—TOM McEWEN

Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E, Has
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.

Subscription Rates: Canada, $5.00 one year; $2.75 for
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~ Pacifie Tribu.

2 Mest Coast edition, Canadian Tribu

Associate Editor—MAURICE RUSH

nt

tings?

six monty

ar
Ge post

March 31, 1767—PACIFIC TRIBUNE=