TENTATIVE PACT REACHED IN 38-DAY DISPUTE
Mail could flow early next week
The Citizen
               Friday, August 7, 1981 Prince George, British Columbia	^
  OTTAWA (CP) — The 23,000 striking postal workers will be back on the job on the midnight Monday night shift if they approve a new tentative two-year contract reached Thursday, a spokesman for their union said today.
  The members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers are to vote on the settlement Sunday and Monday and results are to be announced by president Jean-Claude Parrot Monday evening, the union said in a statement.
  The settlement was announced on the 38th day of the strike by a beaming Alan Gold, the 64-year-old Quebec judge who mediated the dispute for three weeks.
  “We are all happy with the result and collective bargaining is alive and well and living in Canada,” Gold said.
  Official details of the contract were not released but union sources said they won partial victories on maternity leave, vacations and shift premiums but lost a bid for a 12th annual paid holiday. The contract provides a 70-cent hourly raise each year. The average hourly rate now is $9.33.
  Conservative leader Joe Clark ttok time out from campaigning in the federal byelection i Joliette, Que. to claim partial credit for the breakthrough in the postal talks.
  He said the party's action in prolonging the last session of
Parliament led to the appointment of a mediator.
Union leaders meet today to set dates for the vote, which president Jean-Claude Parrot says will take less than a week to complete. The strikers will stay off the job until the contract is formally accepted.
Union sources said the contract would provide a 17-week maternity-leave subsidy but not a full wage supplement to unemployment insurance maternity benefits as demanded bv the uniOT.
They said they got a four-week vacation for employees with less than 10 years’ service but not as few as five years,
as demanded. They got increases in shift premiums of eight cents hourly for night work and 10 cents for weekend work, less than they demanded.
  The sources said the contract continues the previous cost-of-living allowance that could add roughly 40 cents more hourly. Wages weren’t in dispute when mediation began.
 Treasury Board President Don Johnston said he was relieved and pleased but hinted the government felt it made significant compromises by saying he doubts “that either side is entirely happy.”
  “I must thank the Canadian people who have endured hardship and suffering." Johnston said in a statement to reporters, adding thanks to the laid-off letter carriers union whose members delivered pension and other social security cheques last month.
  Neither Johnston. Gold, nor Parrot would discuss any details of the accord.
  One union spokesman said he estimated between 60 and 70 per cent of the strikers would vote to ratify the contract but many would be disappointed that such a long strike didn’t produce more benefits.
  The strike has almost reached the union's record 42-day walk-out of 1975. The settlement came three weeks after mediation began under Gold, who has a long record of intervening in tough labor-management disputes.
  It comes as the business community was renewing pressure on the government to legislate an end to the strike or provide an alternate mail service to small business.
  Postmaster-General Andre Ouellet prompted anger in the business sector last week by saying: “I can't accept that businessmen have to rely on the post office to make a living. If they do. they better find other ways."
IT'S NEW TODAY
No folding, cutting
  The Citizen’s new TV Week is included free in today’s edition for the first time.
  The new format eliminates the need for cutting and folding the television schedules and it will not fall apart as it is stapled for readers’ convenience.
  TV Weeks contain listings of all channels available in the Prince George area as supplied by the stations and networks.
  TV Week will be part of each Friday’s Citizen.
Mm
(’ii izc*ii
WEEK
Hiah-interest
poli icies fa     il 
to c tic 1 d loll ar 
   OTTAWA (CP) — In spite of previous predictions, the Bank of Canada’s decision to raise its interest rate to a dizzy 21.24 per cent has had little effect on the value of the Canadian dollar.
    The dollar dipped slightly Thursday to close at 80.73 cents U.S., compared with Wednesday’s close of 80.90. It opened at PA.47 today.
   Some money traders said Wednesday the sagging Canadian currency would be bolstered by a substantial increase in the central bank’s interest rate. But the move appeared to have no effect on the dollar.
   However, the Bank of Canada’s decision to push its rate seven-tenths of a percentage point above the record rate set last week, did force the chartered banks’ interest rates to a new high.
    Eight chartered banks jumped their prime lending rates - charged to their best corporate customers - a full percentage point to 22.75 per cent.
   The reaction by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Nova Scotia, the Toronto Dominion Bank, the National Bank, the Mercantile Bank, the Bank of Montreal and the Continental Bank almost certainly signals increased charges for mortgages and consumer loans.
   The dollar has never dropped below the 80-cent level. Its lowest point was reached in December, 1931, when it slipped to 80.08 cents.
   The closest it has come to that record was last Tuesday when it closed at 80.43 cents.
   Haje said the only reason the dollar rallied Wednesday to 80.90 cents was because Mexico announced it was cutting the price of oil it sells to Canada by $2 a barrel.
ICBC dispute inquiry slated
  VANCOUVER (CP) - Labor Minister Jack Heinrich will appoint an industrial inquiry commissioner into the contract dispute at the Insurance Corporation of B.C., a corporation spokesman said today.
   The commissioner will make nonbinding recommendations on the issues of wages and vacations, said Bob Egby.
   Egby said all other issues have been resolved and are contained in a memorandum of settlement signed by the Crown corporation and the Office and Technical Employees Union this week.
ISSUED BEFORE FEB. 2
 Tickets ruled invalid
   Holders of parking tickets dated before Feb. 2 were winners Thursday in weekly city traffic court.
   Judge R.S. Munro, in a precedent-setting decision, declared all such tickets invalid.
   A new city traffic bylaw, which repealed the former bylaw, came into effect Feb. 2 and the judge ruled all those charged under the old bylaw cannot be prosecuted because that bylaw doesn’t exist anymore.
   Anyone found guilty of parking infractions after that date, who are summoned to court, faces fines of $15 for each offence. Some of the 14 people
 called Thursday had from 17 to 20 offences each, many prior to Feb. 2.
   The old minimum fine for parking tickets — if one forced the city to take court action — was $5. The new minimum is $15.
   The new bylaw was written to plug holes in regulations covering parking offences ranging from not paying the meter to double-parking.
 • Rhys Thomas, in charge of the city’s traffic department, was stunned today when informed of Munro’s decision.
   “I don’t know how many cases this affects but I know it’s a lot,” he said.
HERMAN
  ‘See, I told you daddy only had a 'concussion.'"
FEATURED TODAY
 Summer Games
  A large Prince George delegation will try to set a new medal standard for city athletes at the B.C. Summer Games later this month. Page 11.
 Big sports weekend
  The biggest women’s golf tournament of the season and a women’s provincial softball championship are at the top of the Prince George weekend sports list. Page 13.
 Index
Bridge............................32
Business..........................9
 City, B.C...............2,3,6,10
 Classified..............8,21-29
Comics........................... 16
Crossword....................31
Editorial..........................4
 Entertainment........ 16-18
Family........................... 15
Horoscopeii................... 14
International..................5
Movies...................... 17-18
National..........................7
Religion......................... 19
Sports....................... 11-13
Travel............................31
Wenzel column..............6
THE WEATHER
   The forecast high today is 30 and the overnight low 9. Last year on this date the high was 22 and low 5. Thursday’s high was 28 and the low 8 with no precipitation.
   Saturday’s high is expected to be 29 and although there’s a chance of early morning fog patches, sunny skies will prevail. Fine weather associated with a high pressure ridge over the whole province should hold for about five days.
   Sunset today is 8:57 p.m. Saturday’s sunrise, 5:37 a.m. and sunset 8:55 p.m.
Sadrack says
NOW HEAR THIS
 • Sometimes you just can’t win. The Spruceland Merchants Association held a meeting Thursday discussing security. Minutes were taken and later locked inside the administration office. This morning — you guessed it — somebody had broken in and stolen the minutes.
 • Things are getting hot for workers at the airport terminal. Recent summer weather has driven temperatures inside to the mid-30s and to top that off, when early shift workers come, they open all doors to air the place out — which starts the furnace for a short while. The terminal has no air conditioner.
 Got a news tip? Call The Citizen’s 24-hour news line at 562-2441.
Controllers Some welcome!
worry about 'catastrophe'
   OTTAWA (CP) - The Canadian Air Traffic Control Association appealed in a telegram Thursday to U.S. President Ronald Reagan to prevent a possible catastrophe by making greater efforts to settle the illegal strike by 13,000 American controllers.
   Association president Bill Robertson told Reagan he firmly believes catastrophe awaits air travellers in the U.S. in the next few days.
   He also said it would be a terrible waste to fire the controllers for refusing to return to work and warned that the U.S. air traffic control system could be “in tatters for years to come.”
   The desperation demonstrated by the illegal strike by usually law-abiding citizens “must surely indicate a problem deeper than those that can be solved by dismissal or incarceration.” he said.
    “It is very difficult to appreciate the stress of being an air traffic controller unless you have personally done the job.
   “I would ask you to delve even deeper into the issues."
by JAN-UDO WENZEL Staff reporter
    A thief in Prince George spoiled a "second honeymoon" for an American couple Thursday when he stole one of ’ their motorcycles.
    Drs. T. Alan and Erika Peterson of the San Francisco area, arrived at a local motel Thursday afternoon, unloaded their bikes and prepared to go out for dinner when they discovered one of their machines missing.
    Peterson said a person living across from the motel said a man with a long beard was seen pushing it to the corner before riding away.
    RCMP are investigating the theft. The motorcycle is a 1981 Honda Twinstar CM200T, California licence 5U7770, painted metallic red.
    Peterson said there is a reward of $700 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible.
    The machine is equipped with many extras, Dr. Petersen said.
    The Petersons, both dentists, were on a trip which started at the Lower Mainland and was to take them from here to Jasper, Alta. They came to Prince George, via Vancouver Island, the Inside Passage and Highway 16
 from Prince Rupert.
   Plans now call for his wife to fly to Seattle where they left a trailer and their car.
   “I always thought Canada was so much safer than the U.S. But I guess this sort of thing can happen anywhere, Peterson added.
   The reward offered consists of $200 from the American Motorcycle Association and $500 from Peterson.
   He will ride their remaining bike back to Seattle and plans to fly back here if his missing machine is recovered.
BULLETIN
   NANAIMO, B.C. (CP) — NDP politician Dave Stupich has decided to pay $10,000 in libel damages to Premier Bill Bennett rather than appeal the judgment in the so-called scotch-and-cornflakes libel case.
   "We’ve always said it should never have been in the courts in the first place,” Stupich said this morning. The Nanaimo member of the legislature was found guilty in B.C. Supreme Court of libelling the premier in a constituency newsletter.
Jobless rate 7.2 per cent
   OTTAWA (CP) - The country’s unemployment rate, which Statistics Canada today said was running at 7.2 per cent in July, continues to be the only bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy.
    Adjusted for seasonal variations, the rate is down from June’s 7.3 per cent and the July 1980 level of 7.5 per cent. It is also only slightly up from April’s five-year record low of 7.0 per cent.
   The number of persons unable to find work in .July was 835,000. down from 855,000 in June and 852,000 in July 1980.
   For the past 11 months the rate has been fluctuating between 7.0 and 7.5 per cent.
   However, federal opposition critics and economists have warned the number of jobless will increase as record high interest rates, being used to stem galloping inflation and protect the dollar, put the brakes on the economy and throw people out of work.
    Interest rates continued their record climb with the Bank of Canada rate hitting 21.24 per cent Thursday.
   And in June inflation was racing at 12.8 per cent, the highest levdl since just after the Second World War.
Citizen photo by Brock Gable
 This motorcycle is missing its twin. Thursday, an identical machine was stolen from Drs. Alan and Erika Peterson.