COLLEGE ACCOMMODATION MIGHT NOT BE AVAILABLE
'Strike
The labor dispute at the College of New Caledonia won’t stop the B.C. Winter Games next week.
Contingency plans to replace CNC facilities that were to be used for the Games have been set in motion, B.C. Games Chairman Ron Butlin announced in Victoria Thursday.
Butlin criticized the striking non-teaching college staff for its uncaring attitude toward the Games but said the strike won’t stop the Games from taking place March 5 to 8.
Games operations manager Gerry Peckham said today that a meeting of directors today will decide whether to proceed with the alternative plans rather than continue to depend on the college.
Meanwhile, both sides in the college dispute were at a labor relations board hearing here to find out whether picket lines which have closed the college are illegal.
The 102-member Association of University and College Employees threw up pickets at the college Tuesday, effectively stopping college activities.
A mediator was appointed Friday by the LRB but the union claims the appointment was irregular.
Butlin said the actions of the union have only strengthened the resolve of Winter Games committee workers that the Games will go on.
"I met Tuesday with the executive of the AUCE in Prince
won't stop The Games'
The
Citizen
Prince George, British Columbia
George and their attitude was they could care less about the inconvenience to the citizens of Prince George and to the 2,600 athletes of B.C.,” he said.
Union officials were not available today to comment on Butlin’s statement.
Peckham said today that about 1,600 athletes are affected by the dispute.
Plans were to house about 700 Games athletes, feed about 1,600 and hold gymnastics and entertainment activities at the
college. As well, food storage and part of the opening banquet were planned for college facilities.
The alternative plan is to house the athletes in four schools, feed them in other locations, hold the opening banquet at P.G. Senior Secondary, use the Vanier Hall for entertainment and run the gymnastics competition at another gym.
Wheelchair athletes who were to use the college are to be housed at the Yellowhead Inn.
Peckham said the contingency plan will be acted on if Games organizers feel that use of college facilities is not 100 per cent certain. He said the Games doesn’t want to face a
surprise picket line at the opening of the Games or anytime during the four-day sports spectacular.
But the college dispute is not the only headache bothering the Games’ committee. If phone lines needed for a communi cations network are installed by B.C. Tel supervisors, striking Tel workers will send in a flying picket squad.
Peckham said today a first-class communications system is needed for the event.
The plan for the Games called for a communications centre to handle all information.
Lines from each of the sport sites were to lead directly into this centre with two-digit phones. A media centre was also to be set up with about 10 telephones to feed results to other areas of B.C.
The plan also called for a medical emergency telephone, telephones as backup for security personnel were also planned.
The transportation system, utilizing courtesy cars, was also to be tied into the communications system, Peckham said.
The Games will now rely more heavily on ham-radio operators, runners and increased use of courtesy cars to transport information from the sites to the centre.
The Games management and board will hold a meeting tonight to determine how communications are to be handled.
College union tells its side to labor board
CITY FEELS EFFECTS
by JOHN POPE Citizen Staff Reporter
Striking non-teaching staff from the College of New Caledonia attempted today to convince a Labor Relations Board hearing here that their three-day-old walkout is legal.
The question of legality centers on the appointment of a mediator, which Local 5 of the Association of University and College Employees claims was unnecessary because the union was prepared to continue bargaining with the college ad-' ministration.
A decision was expected later today.
Events leading up to the strike by 102 members in Local 5, Association of University and College Employees against CNC were detailed this morning.
AUCE negotiating team member Lauma Avens told the hearing the union had made it clear to the college negotiating team “several times” it was ready to return to the bargaining table at any time.
This was also communicated to the College of New Caledonia board at a meeting Saturday along with their (AUCE) view that negotiations had not broken down.
‘‘Our position was that the mediator had been improperly appointed which is why we are here today,” said Avens, when asked about the appointment of the mediator. The union claims the mediator was appointed Monday, not last Fri-
day as stated this week by Labor Minister Jack Heinrich.
Under the British Columbia Labor Code, a strike cannot take place once a mediator has been appointed and until both sides have met with the mediator. The college union served 72-hour strike notice Saturday.
Avens said the AUCE union
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Posties'
strike
possible
OTTAWA (CP) - The letter carriers’ representative on a conciliation board recommends a 90-cents-an-hour raise in a one-year contract, 25 cents more than the chairman’s recommendation and 30 cents more than that of the treasury board’s representative, a union spokesman said Thursday.
The government’s21,000 letter carriers are in a legal position to strike next Friday following submission of the conciliation report Thursday to the Public Service Staff Relations Board.
The report was given to the Letter Carriers’ Union of Canada and the treasury board, the federal government’s bargaining agent, for review.
Clark to battle echoes of past
by JIM TRAVERS Southain News
OTTAWA — For a dramatic hour here tonight, Joe Clark’s destiny will be in his own hands.
In that hour just before 2.000 Tory delegates cast their ballots on Clark’s fate, the former prime minister will have to make them forget the past and believe in his future.
But the echoes of his past are everywhere here.
He will give the key speech of his career in the same room where his youth arid promise won him the party leadership in 1976.
He will be speaking in the
. SteeShead river closed
Heavy angling pressure has forced closure of the Bulkley River, a popular steelhead run for Prince George fishermen.
Mike Waitley, fish and wildlife biologist in Smithers, said the complete closure went into effect Monday because fishing pressure on the river has been relentless since August.
“With little or no ice on the river this year and with low water, the fish have been hammered for all of December, January and February. They haven’t had a break since August.”
The closure is in effect until the end of June.
Waitley said radio-tagging studies showed the fish often congregate in holes for the entire winter.
‘if anglers luck into one of these holes, they can literally wipe out the whole group. This has happened.” he said.
city that watched in bemused amazement as the Tories blundered through nine months in office.
And, most of all, he will be speaking to the people who waited 16 years to regain power and then watched as Clark and his advisers tossed it away in less than a year.
He must make them forget Jerusalem, Petro-Canada, the "wimp factor”, an 18-cent gas excise tax and the unkept promise of peace with the provinces. Against that backdrop of failure, Clark must convince his party that he can win again.
Some Tories are convinced he can — or at least that’s what they’re saying in public.
Before Clark speaks, every delegate will be given a tabloid newspaper which will carry an endorsement from his former cabinet.
That plug is the brainchild of Clark loyalists who hope it will persuade delegates to give him another chance and force potential leadership candidates to keep a low profile until after the key Friday vote.
The endorsement will not carry the names of Clark’s cabinet ministers but Michael Wilson, former minister of international trade and a strong Clark supporter, said Thursday that they all support the leader.
But Wilson added an odd twist, saying: ‘‘No, we don’t have all the names (in the endorsement) because that might be construed as an oath of loyalty.”
It is no secret here that a number of Clark’s former cabinet colleagues — including John Crosbie and David Crombie — will toss their hats into the leadership race if Clark loses tonight. That oath of loyalty might embarrass them if Clark decided to fight to retain his leadership.
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Games medals
Citizen photo by Ric Ernrt
B.C. Winter Games’ medal presentation chairman Doreen Pitman shows some of the 1,584 medals to be awarded during the Games in Prince George March 5 to 8. Pitman, who has a staff of 27 co-ordinators, holds some of the medals for boys’ juvenile hockey. More than 2,300 athletes from all areas of B.C. have qualified for the third annual Games.
ESCAPE BY HELICOPTER
Convicts soar to freedom
PARIS (AP) - Two gunmen forced the pilot of a hijacked helicopter to pluck two prisoners from a soccer field inside a high-security prison near Paris during a match between two groups of prisoners today, authorities said. The gunmen
and prisoners escaped with police choppers in hot pursuit.
Prison officials said the helicopter landed on the field of the Fleury-Merogis prison near Evry, and picked up Gerard Dupre, 33, and Daniel Beaumont, 40.
'Delay BCR cutbacks'
VICTORIA (CP) - The provincial government has asked B.C. Rail to reinstitute its full passenger service between North Vancouver and Prince George while a financial assistance package is being worked out.
The Crown-owned railway, citing yearly passenger ser-
vice losses of $1 million, announced two weeks ago that it was cutting its service to Interior points.
Starting Feb. 16. rail service to Prince George was reduced to one day a week from three and full meal service was elminated, replaced by two halfhour meal stops.
New talks set in Tel dispute
Dupre is regarded as one of France’s most-dangerous men, officials said. He is suspected of a series of a holdups, some involving hostages. He was arrested Jan. 7, while allegedly preparing a holdup at the Gare du Nurd railway station in Paris, authorities said.
Details on Beaumont were not immediately available.
The helicopter, chased by police helicopters, set Dupre, Beaumont and the two hijackers down on a sports field on the edge of the inner city of Paris, and the pilot then flew the craft back to its base in western Paris. The prisoners and the gunmen apparently made good their escape from the sports field.
by JAN-UDO WENZEL Citizen Staff Reporter
B.C. Tel and the Telecommunications Workers Union will return to the bargaining table this weekend.
The announcement was made in Vancouver today by the TWU and confirmed by officials of B.C. Tel.
Mediator Mike Collins has been asked to set up the meetings and both sides expressed hope that the current stalemate in negotiations can be overcome.
The company made a new offer earlier this week and Tony Nolli, regional customer service manager in Prince George, said today this offer was made without conditions.
“If the union accepts the terms, we could be back at work soon. There are nostrings attached to the offer. After acceptance we would apply for a rate increase. But the increase is not a condition of settling the dispute,” Nolli said.
He also said the latest offer was close to the Peck report recommendations favored as a contract by the union.
Edward Peck was the federal conciliator whose report was accepted by the union, but not by B.C. Tel.
Meanwhile, effects of the strike are being felt in Prince George and surrounding areas.
• At the Prince George Regional Hospital construction of new facilities is being delayed, but an agreement has been reached with the TWU to allow B.C. Tel supervisors to install temporary telephone lines into the new emergency ward.
The new labor-delivery rooms and the pharmacy area are also without phones and will not be used until the strike is settled.
• The strike is also hurting the B.C. Winter Games, to be staged here next week.
The union refused to let members install a communications system and has threatened to picket if supervisors do the work.
• A new case of vandalism was reported to RCMP today. A repeater box was pulled off a pole nearly Kersely, south of Quesnel. Police said it appeared someone had tied a rope around the box and pulled it down.
• TWU pickets appeared at a Prince George gasoline bulk
, dealer Thursday because of an incident on the picketline in Fort St. John.
Flying pickets had followed a Prince George-based gasoline tanker from south of Dawson Creek to Fort St. John, where pickets were blocking the entrance to a station which supplies B.C. Tel with gasoline.
The driver edged his truck through the picketline and three of the pickets later claimed they had injured their backs trying to stop the vehicle.
BULLETIN
WASHINGTON (AP) — Chrysler Corp. won final federal government backing today for $400 million in new loans to stave off bankruptcy. The approval came as the company reported the largest annual loss in U.S. corporate history, $1.71 billion for last year.
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"That's nice! You show up and all the gorillas run inside."
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Index
............2.S
........8-11
Classified.............. ......25-32
............44
...........27
..............4
......44-45
Family..........................20-21
Horoscopes.......................3fi
International......................5
Movies.........................46, 47
National..............................7
Real Estate section....37-40
Religion........................42-43
Sports...........................13-17
Wenzel column..................6
THE WEATHER
Sadrack says . . .
Expect sunny weather with cloudy intervals this weekend. The low tonight is expected to dip to -8 with the high Saturday 3.
Sunday’s outlook is for little change, with the high about 3.
Last year on this date the high was 11 and the low, 1.
The sun rises Saturday at 7:03 a.m. and sets at 5:45 p.m.
Details Page 2
NOW HEAR THIS
• Former Prince George resident Bob Flitton, a leader in the residential building industry here for years, has been elected secretary of Housing and Urban Development Association of Canada. Flitton is now general manager of Dominion Construction Ltd., Aberdeen Hills development in Kamloops. He is a past-president of the Prince George HUDAC chapter.
• A meeting for people interested in helping disabled people become more active in all aspects of society is set for today, 7:30 p.m., in Room 121 of Prince George Regional Hospital. Adaptive physical education teacher Bob Long, of Harwin Elementary School is an organizer of the meeting, which is aimed at getting both physically and mentally handicapped people involved in the leisure-recreation activities of Prince George. The meeting is part and parcel of the goals of the 1981 International Year of the Disabled.
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