today ir» brief
A SUMMARY OF secret police files concludes there was no conspiracy in the 1968 killing of Senator Robert Kennedy. However, critics say the summary is inadequate. Page
ALEX BAUMANN tied his own world record in the 200 metre individual medley, despite starting badly and swimming a bad race. Page
THE SOVIET Communist party has made little headway in its 24-year struggle to rid the country of superstitions. Page
13
21
Index
Ann Landers.....
Crossword.......
Entertainment... ......29
Family.......... ......10
Horoscopes...... ......19
International.....
Television .......
From the schools pages 25-27
Sadrack says -fQxS cLLh
Skies will be cloudv Jv'\
Skies will be cloudy with sunny periods this afternoon with occasional rain forecast for Thursday.
Temperatures should reach highs near 8 today and 7 on Thursday with an overnight low today near 3.
There is zero chance of precipitation today, a 10-per-cent chance tonight and a 70-per-cent chance of precipitation on Thursday.
Tuesday’s high was 9 (tying the record set in 1965), the low was 2,
^..un&d&cI
Details page 7
there was no precipitation and 1.4 hours of sunshine.
Sunset today is at 5:55 p.m. and sunrise Wednesday is 6:47 a.m.
The ______405
Citizen
Prince George V—X JL JLAdi ^—S JL J- Wednesday, March 5, 1986
TRUSTEES CITE LABOR UNREST
by BEV CHRISTENSEN Staff reporter
School District 57 is calling on all school districts in the region to boycott the College of New Caledonia if classes are disrupted by labor problems at the troubled institution.
The college administration and the faculty association have been trying to negotiate a contract since November, 1984. The issue flared into the open recently when faculty negotiators first called for binding arbitration to settle outstanding issues, then were successful in obtaining a strike vote from the 135 full-time and 70 part-time faculty association members.
They could go on strike as early as Thursday.
Tuesday, School District 57 trustees decided they’d had enough.
During their regular board meeting they first passed a motion urging the two sides in the dispute to do everything in their power to avoid a disruption of classes at the college.
Then, over Trustee Anne Jeffrey’s objection, they passed a second motion advising the college board, if students’ classes are disrupted at the college, the school district will be forced to begin advising graduating students of the uncertainty of seeking to continue their education at CNC.
“What I am proposing is nothing
short of a boycott because we can’t counsel students in our system to continue their education in a system that is failing, and I say the college is failing if there is that much unrest,” said Trustee Victor Rouse, who, until four years ago, was the school board’s representative on the college board.
He was removed when the provincial government decided it pre-
SPECIAL REPORT PAGE 3
ferred to appoint all the college board members.
Jeffery said, although she agreed with the spirit of the motion, she found its tone “threatening.”
“If we follow it through Jhe college may not exist and there may be nothing,” she said.
“But the students are being threatened with disruption of their education and no one seems have them in mind,” Rouse retorted.
After approving the two motions, trustees also moved to forward copies of the motions to all school districts within the college’s attendance area calling on them to pass similar motions.
“The external pressure has to be as strong as possible if we’re going to get this thing settled,” Rouse sai
Seven more days of talks pledged
by DIANE BAILEY Staff reporter
Students at the College of New Caledonia have won a commitment from the faculty and college to remain at the bargaining table for seven days in an intensive effort to settle their contract dispute.
Michael Podger, one of the organizers of a concerned group of students, made the announcement to the applause of onlookers at the college cafeteria this morning.
He said students met with the college board and faculty negotiators last night and asked them to meet with a mediator for 12 hours a day for the next week.
The agreement postponed by one week the possibility of a faculty strike, which could have legally begun as early as Thursday morning.
A mediator is scheduled to meet with the two sides today. Faculty association president Michael Furhmann had said his side would probably ask him to book out tonight if no agreement was reached.
But with the intervention of the students, plans have changed.
“The students have a real concern and we looked at that concern,” he said this morning.
“I think we have got to try everything possible to avert the strike.”
But he warned this was a “last-ditch effort.”
“If we get nothing out of this, I don’t think there is any doubt what will happen next week.”
College bursar Jim Blake said this morning that the board “assured the students” it was committed to reaching a negotiated settlement with the faculty and will stay at the table as long as necessary.
Although the two sides have been meeting since November 1984, the dispute escalated at the end of January when the faculty delivered an ultimatum to the college.
It asked the college to present its final offer by Feb. 13. Members met two days later and voted 86 per cent to reject the offer. Faculty members sent their negotiating team back to the bargaining table with instructions to ask the college to take the dispute to binding arbi-
tration if a negotiated settlement seemed out of reach.
Several days later, the faculty association presented the college with a letter of agreement that would have sent outstanding issues to arbitration between May 15 and June 15.
But at its regular February meeting, the board rejected the idea, saying it wanted a negotiated settlement.
It called the arbitration process costly, inefficient and the issues too complex to be resolved in one month.
Instead, the board extended its no lockout provision until December in an attempt, it said, to facilitate negotiations.
Attempts at mediation last week failed, prompting the faculty association to hold a strike vote this past Saturday. Members voted 83 per cent in favor of a strike.
Pro-choice
lease
threatened
by Canadian Press TERRACE — The Women’s Resource Centre must find a new location for its abortion counselling service or municipal council will revoke the centre’s lease.
The centre has leased a house from the municipality for $1 a year for the past two years, and in exchange, has paid a total of 126,000 for renovations.
But a month ago, Mark Ruelle, an industrial safety counsellor with the Workers’ Compensation Board, asked council to withdraw a subsidy to the centre as long as it offers abortion counselling.
A group called the Pro-Choice Committee uses the centre for counselling on a monthly basis.
“I initiated my request as a private concern,” Ruelle said Monday, “but I was making a moral statement as well.”
Ruelle said taxpayers’ money was being used to facilitate the abortion decision, but “the pro-life groups receive nothing from the public purse.”
Basketball team 'hot'
by Canadian Press
ABBOTSFORD — The Caledonia Kermodes senior girls high school basketball team from Terrace is rated hot — before it plays today at the provincial AA tournament.
The rating comes from the B.C.
Teachers Federation which is asking other teams not to play the Kermodes to show solidarity with the Terrace and District Teacher’s Association’s ban on teacher participation in extra-curricular activities.
The ban is to protest teaching and learning conditions in the district.
“It’s like a hot edict,” said Steve Norman assistant director of bargaining for the BCTF. “We say that teams from this district are hot.”
Kermodes coach David Crawley, citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
an elementary school principal Pete Valenta, second-year College of New Caledonia student, shows who is defying the ban, said the Strike Alert button being worn around campus this week, controversy is upsetting for his 16-and 17-year-old plavers.
“I think it’s unfortunate. We’ve earned the right to play by winning the northwest zone finals.”
Bob Blount, commissioner of high school girls’ basketball, said he has given nis assurance that the Kermodes will be allowed to participate in the tournament. Teams that refuse to play Terrace will default the game.
"We gave our promise that if the Terrace team came down we would see that they are allowed to take part. We don’t want to get involved in politics and see the students used as pawns.”
But president John Eades of the Terrace teachers association said it is the provincial government and not his association which is playing politics.
POSTAL TALKS DRAG ON
OTTAWA (CP) — Talks between Canada Post and negotiators for its 21,000 letter carriers went into the final day today before a 12:01 a.m. Thursday strike deadline that could lead to the first national mail shutdown in five years.
The union says walkouts, if they occur, will begin Friday.
Canada Post remains optimistic a settlement will be reached, averting plans by the carriers to stage rotating local and regional walkouts and escalate gradually to a country-wide strike.
‘‘The longer we’re at the table the closer we’re getting to a settlement,” Canada Post spokesman John Caines said after the two sides bargained non-stop through the night at the downtown Chateau Laurier hotel.
"We’re not looking at the strike deadline. We’re looking at the agreement we’re going to get.”
Union vice-president Bill Findley declined to discuss what was happening at the bargaining table.
SHOWBIZ FOR TRUSTEES?
School trustees want to be on television.
“We’re better looking and we spend more money than city council,” said Trustee Adrienne Radford after proposing Cable 10 be invited to televise school board meetings.
Recently, Cable 10 began televising city council’s public meetings and Radford believes the district, which is wrestling with a $2.6-million deficit in its 1986-87 operating budget, would benefit from the opportunity to make the public more aware of the issues confronting the board.
Trustee Bob Holtby said it would provide trustees with an opportunity to increase public awareness of trustees’ activities, especially during the budget overview which will be presented to the board March 11.
“I have to speak against the motion because my voice is somewhere between Truman Capote and Lassie,” said Trustee Vic Rouse.
Trustee Anne Jeffrey also opposed the motion, saying she joined Rouse in being shy.
But a majority of trustees approved a motion to contact Cable 10 about possible coverage.
College boycott call pondered
Labor organization
censures province
OTTAWA (CP) — British Columbia has become the fourth Canadian province to be censured by the International Labor Organization for flouting widely accepted international labor standards.
The Geneva-based United Nations agency, which has 150 member countries including Canada, ruled Wednesday that B.C.’s Social Credit government went too far in clamping down on the collective bargaining rights of its own employees.
Alberta, Ontario and Newfoundland were censured by the agency last fall — also for overzealous legislation action against their own employees.
Since the passage by the B.C. government of the Compensation Stabilization Program Act in 1983, public sector unions in the province have been forced to submit all negotiated collective agreements to a government-appointed commissioner for approval.
The ILO, in a decision forwarded Wednesday to the Canadian Labor Congress, blasted the province for resorting to "the principle of prior approval of collective agreements before they can come into force.”
In a report prepared by its Committee of Freedom of Association and ensorsed by the agency’s governing body, the ILO declared: "The Compensation Stabilization Program. . .is contrary to the principle of voluntary collective bargaining.
"The committee expresses the hope that the government will at an early date take appropriate steps in light of the principles stated above to restore free collective bargaining between the parties and to remove limitations currently imposed on them by the program.”
The agency has no authority to order changes in legislation it finds
Driver escapes plunge in river
A 69-year-old Prince George resident is reported in good condition today in hospital after the car he was driving ended up in the Nechako River at about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.
RCMP said Joseph Wolczuk of Prince George was westbound on Prince George Pulp Mill Road when he swerved to miss a dog, struck a tree and ended up in the river.
Wolczuk was taken to Prince George Regional Hospital by ambulance, but suffered no serious injuries.
at odds with international standards. It relies on moral suasion and the power of publicity to achieve its ends or hold culprits up to ridicule.
The Social Credit Government of Premier Bill Bennett has been the subject of five complaints to the ILO by Canadian unions since it brought down a wide-ranging legislative restraint package in 1983.
B.C. was originally to be investigated along with the other three provinces by an unusual ILO mission that came to Canada last year to delve into alleged public-sector bashing by the four governments.
B.C. was excluded from that investigation on a technicality because it had not filed a formal response with the agency to all allegations levelled against it.
I