CANADA

4

Members of Local 213 of the Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
marked the beginning of their third month
of lockout by four cable companies Aug.
29 with a petition campaign calling on the
Canadian Radio-television and Telecom-
munications Commission to return all
revenue saved by the companies to cable-
vision subscribers through reduced rates.

The three-point petition was launched
at a union rally and picnic in Seaforth
Park just outside the Rogers Cable’s Van-
couver headquarters.

It calls on the CRTC to block any
further rate increase to the cable compan-
ies which have locked out their employees;
to return the funds allotted to community
programming to subscribers through
reduced rates if the channel is not provid-
ing full programming; and to return all

wages saved during the lockout through
free cable services to seniors and the han-
dicapped.

“‘We want every local union to take the
petition out and put the pressure on the
CRTC,” IBEW Local 213 business agent
Keith Morrison told the rally.

B.C. Federation of Labor president Art
Kube and Vancouver alderman Harry
Rankin also pledged their support to th
locked-out workers.

Despite a Canada Labor Relations
Board ruling in May instructing Rogers
Cable, Shaw Cable, Delta Cable and
Western Cablevision to bargain in good
faith, the companies stalled at the table for
two more months. Finally, on July 14,
they imposed a contract containing some
97 concessions on wages, working condi-
tions and hours as well as union security.

Union seeks CRTC action in cable lockout |

When union members refused to accept
the terms, they were locked out.

“The concessions went right tq the issue
of whether there would still be a union at
Rogers,” Morrison said. “If we’d accepted
them we wouldn’t have a union left.”

Some 290 IBEW members, have been
affected by the lockout. The companies
have maintained cablevision service with
scabs many of whom were hired just
before the lockout began. Community
programming has been cancelled in many
communities even though it is required
under the cable companies’ mandate from
the CRTC.

The lockout has also come just at the
time when the CRTC has de-regulated the
cable companies rate system. Effective
Oct. 1, 1986 the companies will no longer
be required to seek CRTC approval for

rate increases. Instead, they will be able! |
raise rates annually by an amount eq)
80 per cent of the Consumer Price Ine | 7
“But it wasn’t good enough that they
have a monopoly and guaranteed incre#!
— they wanted to get rid of the umo?)
too,” Morrison said. a
The main player, Rogers Cable, 18 th
Canadian operating arm of Rogers Cab-
lesystems Inc., a huge multinational
systems in Canada, the U.S. and Ireland: i
It also holds a controlling interest in W&
ern Cablevision through another com
pany. — : a
The union has called on cable subse
ers not to have cablevision install
serviced during the lockout, to cancel a0)
pre-authorized chequing plans with the
company, to pay bills on the last po ible

date and to cancel Pay TV subscriptio™

BCGEU BOYCOTT SET

Continued from page 1
At that time, liquor board
supervisors threatened discipli-
nary action against BCGEU
members refusing to handle
South African wines and spirits.
But this time, Shields said, the
union would fight the govern-
ment all the way through the
extensive grievance procedure
of. the union’s collective agree-
ment.
Shields said the union has
_ written to Consumer and Cor-
porate Affairs Minister Elwood
Veitch, informing him of the
union’s intended action and cal-

remove South African products
from government liquor stores.

Veitch, in a statement earlier
this year, invoked “freedom of
choice” to defend the govern-
ment’s support of apartheid.
The government imported some
150,000 litres of wine from

Continued from page 1

When the transit levy was
hiked last April, it drew the fire
of several citizens’ groups,
including the 120,000-member
Council of Senior Citizens
Organizations of B.C., and
resulted in the formation of a
new coalition, Citizens for
Affordable Transit. :

With representatives of those
and other organizations looking
on, the commission — through
motions introduced by Van-
couver Ald. Gordon Campbell,
who is running for mayor this
fall under the banner of the
Socred-backed Non-Partisan
Association — unanimously
voted to roll back the levy
increase to July 1.

Additional motions called on
commission chair Bill Lewarne
to meet with B.C. Transit chair
Stuart Hodgson and Johnson
“and report back to the Van-
couver regional transit commis-

of the (commission) and the
financing formula.” A_ sub-
committee of the commission is
to come up with recommenda-
tions by Dec. | in a process that

tion.”

As such, the process will be
undertaken during the much-
publicized Vancouver city elec-

ling on the government to .-

sion the matters of restructuring .

includes “full public participa-

South Africa ending between
June 1985 and June 1986.

South African wines and spir-
its were removed from liquor
store shelves when the NDP was
in government from 1972 to

~1975. But the Socreds put them

back soon after their election in
1975 and also increased the
number of listings. Even after
other provinces, one by one,
removed the products from

shelves, the B.C. government ~

continued to promote them.

Shields said the BCGEU has
asked the Canadian Labor
Congress “to communicate to
the South African Congress of

‘Trade Union (SACTU) — and

the Congress of South African
Trade Unions (COSATU) our
commitment of support for
their struggle to restore basic
rights and freedom in South
Africa.”

TRANSIT LEVY CUT

tion this fall, and during a

widely-expected provincial elec-
tion.

“That’s not a real solution to.
the problems of transit fund-
ing,” Jean Swanson of End Leg-
islated Poverty told the commis-
sion during the delegation
period. She reminded commis-
sioners that it was ‘the Social
Credit government which abol-
ished the original transit com-
mittee chosen by the Greater
Vancouver regional district
board, and said, “We must have
a commitment that most of
transit’s funding comes from
the provincial government.”

John. Cashore of Vancouv-
er’s First United Church said
transit should be financed from
the province’s general revenues,
while Jenny Bulman of the
Downtown Eastside Women’s
Centre urged the complete abo-
lition of the transit levy.

“T believe the levy should be
wiped out,” echoed Jo Arland
of the B.C. Old Age Pensioners
Association, while hitting cut-
backs in bus service in Surrey,
Delta and White Rock.

Ian Reid of Citizens for
Affordable Transit said the
government of Premier Bill
Vander Zalm was “playing
Santa Claus at the last minute.”

4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 3, 1986

Public opposition grows tl
NATO Goose Bay base

~

By MIGUEL FIGUEROA

Canada’s participation in NATO’s aggressive
build-up could.soon take on dangerous new dimen-
sions if the federal government’s bid for a Tactical
Fighter Weapons Centre in Goose Bay, Labrador,
wins approval. The new base would become the
first NATO base on Canadian soil, requiring a sub-
stantial expansion of the present airfield, and
would provide aerial training for pilots from most
NATO member states on a year-round basis.

The present facility in Goose Bay has already
drawn sharp criticism for its low-level training
flights. Built during World War II as a support
base, the airfield was converted into a U.S. Air
Force fighter and tanker base in the 1950’s and later
used by the British RAF to train Vulcan nuclear
bomber crews in low-level navigation techniques.
Since the 1980s, the air base has been used to train
British, West German, American and Canadian
pilots on British Tornadoes, F-4 Phantom IIs and
other fighter/bombers. A 1983 agreement with
West Germany allowed for the leasing of Canadian
air space and two bombing ranges to the Luftwaffe
for a 10-year period. By 1984, over 1,500 airborne
sorties were being made each day from Goose Bay.

In an effort to strengthen its NATO bid, the
federal government has already committed $93-
million for a major upgrading of the present airfield,
and the total cost for the proposed NATO facility
could run as high as $1-billion, with Canada footing
the major portion of the bill. f

Opponents of the plan have correctly pointed out
that the type of pilot training currently offered (and

_ planned for the NATO base) has little or nothing to

do with enhancing Canada’s own defence needs.
Low-level tactical flight training is an essential pre-
paration for NATO’s ‘‘Deep Strike”’ strategy tar-
geted against Eastern Europe and the Soviet
Union. In fact, one of the main “‘selling points”’
advanced in favor of the Goose Bay site is its
similarity, both in terms of topography and cli-
mate, to that of the European sectors of the USSR.

Pilots are trained, not on defensive ‘‘intercep-.

tor’’ aircraft but rather on attack fighters and bom-
bers, to fly at super-low altitudes, often less than
100 meters above the surface, at night and in all-
weather conditions. These flight techniques are
designed specifically for underflying radar systems
to carry out surprise attacks. As Betty Peterson, a
Halifax peace activist noted in a recent articles in
New Maritimes, many of the attack fighters act
‘essentially (as) a manned cruise missile’.
These low-level flights, ranging over huge areas
of Labrador and northeastern Quebec equivalent
in size to the province of New Brunswick, are
already having a tragic impact on the Innu and
other Native peoples of the region. Aircraft buzz
the Innu villages, the constant sonic booms trau-
matizing children and families. The jets have also
disrupted the migration and feeding patterns of the
_ caribou and other wildlife in the surrounding areas,

Special extra low-level, a

. Utshimessiu [Davis lolet}
* flying zones for military

Matimckush [Schefferville|
. Pukue-shipu [St.Augustia]
Unamen-shipu [La Romaine]
. Nutashkuen |Natasbquaa|
. Ekuantehiu [Mingan}

. Maniutenam |Maliotenam|

ae

Uashau [Sept-lles]
. Petsiemiu [Bersimis|
10. Esipiu [Les Escoumins|

11. Piakuskemiu [Pointe Bleue]
12. Sheshatehiu [Northwest River|
13. Goose Bay {Goose Bay]

seriously undercutting the hunting and te

the military”, tying their opposition to thé

has pointed out that even if 500 to 1,

incomes of the Innu.
Planes fly particularly low over the fe
lakes and rivers ‘‘leaving powerful exhaust”
to fall on the surface of the water leaving an
slick that looks like paint’, commented #
Innu hunter during public hearings. “‘Many
got sick in the country this fall from drinking
polluted water. ... Before the jets came every”
was in good health’. ve
The Mulroney government meanwhile 15 Wa
ing overtime to promote the selection of GOO” 4
over an alternative site in Turkey. A slick 8°. 196
ment pamphlet was handed out to NATO mit ot
at the May meeting in Halifax, and John cre
then Justice minister, made a recent trip t0° ici
Bay attempting to counter growing public crit
of the proposal. He used that opportunity aS we
ladle out over $150,000 of public money t0 ig
private lobby groups to help finance thet! p
ganda efforts in support of the NATO bas®
Yet public opposition continues to gro™
only in Labrador and Newfoundland but thf
out the Maritimes and across the country. The
people have launched an international camps
unconditionally ‘‘oppose the use of our territ?

*

mand for a just settlement of land claims. 44
Peace organizations throughout the region ’
condemned the proposal, and the campalg? !
been joined by some labor groups including *
John’s Unemployment Action Conn a
jobs are created as a result of the base, the inv
ment would cost one million dollars per job,
Alternative investments in forestry, fishin®:
ism and other industries would yield a much
rate of job creation. is