UNION WAITS FOR NEW PREMIER
BCGEU strike short-lived
       Citizen news services VICTORIA - The B.C. Government Employees’ Union will end the strike it began Thursday, as Premier Bill Bennett has demanded, but is refusing to resume negotiations until a new premier is chosen later this month.
  Union president John Shields told a news conference today that a picket line affecting about 160 clerical workers in Victoria will remain up until Monday.
  But he said there is still too much confrontation so the union will wait until a new premier is chosed at the Socred leadership convention July 28-30 before returning to the bargaining table.
  “Conditions at the bargaing table are not that good even if we do go back,” union spokesman George Reamsbottom said earlier today. “The advantage now swings to the employer, thanks to the premier’s ultimatum.”
  The strike had been scheduled to escalate into Prince George today with one worker ready to walk off the job, said area representative Brian Parker.
  He would not say which department would have been affected, but he did say government revenues, and not the public, would have felt the impact.
  No Prince George workers were off the job during the first day of the strike Thursday, but employees at sites around the city quit work for one hour to be briefed on negotiations and strike strategy.
  In a 25-minute, closed meeting Thursday afternoon with union president John Shields and chief government negotiator Bob Plecas, the premier said he would not allow either a strike by civil servants or a lockout as long as Expo 86 is on. The world’s fair, which opened May 2, ends Oct. 13.
 But the union has said that it would not picket Expo. And it is unlikely that Expo would be affected by a strike since only 20 Expo workers are members of the union. They work off the site in a computer facility keeping track of provincial sales tax collections at tne fair on a daily basis.
 Plecas said the premier told Shields that the province’s “fragile” economy can not cope with a government-labor crisis.
 Plecas also said that Bennett urged the union members to “be good British Columbians" and return to work for the sake of the province.
 Shields refused comment following the meeting, except to say that the union would let Bennett know its position by 8 a.m. today.
 The union then scheduled a news conference for 9:30 a.m. to make its position public.
Plywood mill workers approve strike action
by DIANE BAILEY Staff reporter
  Workers at North Central Plywood voted 95 per cent in favor of strike action Thursday over employer contract concession demands, say officials of the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, Local 25.
  The Prince George plant, which employs 230 workers, is a subsidiary of Northwood Pulp and Timber Ltd., one of the Noranda group of companies.
  Al Kotts, a member of the union negotiating team, said the company wants to eliminate automatic overtime on weekend shifts and cut
LEADERSHIP HOPEFULS
Socreds invade city
  Campaigning among Social Credit leadership candidates in Prince George has intensified.
 Provincial Secretary Grace McCarthy made a brief stopover in the city today, talking to party faithful at an Elks Hall luncheon.
 On Thursday, candidate John Reynolds opened a regional campaign office in the city.
  The office, in the Yellowhead Inn, is one of two the West Vancouver MLA has opened outside of headquarters in his home riding. The other is in Victoria.
Earlier this week, candidate and Human Resources Minister Jim
Neilsen courted potential Socred delegates during a brief visit.
 Reynolds, Lower Mainland MP Bob Wenman and former cabinet ministers Bill Vander Zalm and Stephen Rogers have confirmed they will appear at meetings here Tuesday to select leadership convention delegates.
 Candidates are scheduled to speak at 7:30 p.m. before delegates are chosen at the Prince George-North Socred meeting in the Simon Fraser Inn. They will speak later at the Prince George-South meeting, at the Inn of the North, after delegates have been chosen there.
  Opposition leader Bob Skelly was not available for comment. But Liberal leader Art Lee said the ultimatum was not appropriate.
  “I think you have to call it what it really is and that is that the government wants to ban public sector unions and end their right to strike,” he said. “The government wants to make public sector unions, public enemy number one.”
 The government had been offering a three-year contract with no increase in the first year, one per cent in the second and two per cent in the third.
  The union wants 2.25 per cent in the first year of a two-year contract and three per cent in the second.
 The average union member is now paid $28,280 in salary and benefits, according to government figures. That includes paid time off.
  The union planned to escalate its
strike over the next three weeks, instead of having everyone walk out as it did in November 1983.
  If there were a full walkout, essential services would not be affected. But, during the last strike welfare recipients faced long lineups to receive their cheques as about 120 supervisory personnel tried to do the work normally done by more than 5,000 union workers.
  In 1983, people could still register a new vehicle and get licence plates, but they couldn’t replace an expired driver’s licence.
  And registration of things like births, deaths and marriages were affected as were real estate transactions.
  Another side effect of the 1983 strike was that 8,000 woodworkers had to be laid off because log scalers were no longer keeping track of the logs cut so the government could charge its stumpage fee.
the rate of pay to weekend casual laborers by 25 per cent, bringing their hourly wage to about $10.43.
 He said the company also wants workers to pay any increase in benefit premiums above the 1986 rates.
  Les Waldie, vice-president of industrial and public relations for Northwood, said the company is looking for an agreement that is “cost-effective" for the company.
 “There are some premiums for doing the things we would like to do and we think there is room to talk about those at the bargaining table.”
 Another area of concern for the union is a proposal by North Central to pull out of the pulp industry pension plan and set up a local plan in its place.
  “We don’t see any benefit for our members,” said PPWC national union president Stan Shewaga, adding there are concerns about the transferability of pensions to other plants and the period of time it takes for a new pension plan to get established.
 But Waldie said the benefit is clear to the company.
 “It is an opportunity for us to provide employees with the same pension plan at a lower cost."
  Kotts said the strike vote should send the message to the company that the union is not prepared to accept concessions.
 “We are not prepared to go for what they are offering."
  He said the union is focusing on improved job security and seniority protection in its demands.
 The union is not looking for a wage increase above that reached in the pulp industry and at the Peace Wood Products sawmill in Taylor, said Kotts.
 Those agreements called for no increase in the first year and 40 cents an hour in the second.
 “We are pretty well going for what the rest of the industry is getting."
  The two sides are continuing negotiations and had scheduled a meeting for this morning.
 “Where it goes from there we have to wait and see," said Kotts.
ALBERTA TICKET WINS IT!
 KILLAM, Alta (CP) The town of Killam, Alta., is buzzing with excitement after the ticket to the largest Lotto 6-49 prize ever won in western Canada — almost $10.4 million — was sold at a local store.
  The lucky ticket holder has yet to step forward to claim the fortune and rumors of possible winners whirl around this town of 1,000 residents, located about 150 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.
  “There was quite a buzz for a while and the oldtimers got especially worked up,” said Larry Peters, manager of the Killam Country Inn.
  The winning ticket, the largest lottery prize in western Canada and the third largest in the country, is worth $10,372,326.70.
 It was sold at the Town and Country Drug Mart in Killam last Monday or Wednesday.
  Mike Borth, a 19-year-old clerk and son of the drugstore’s owner, said the ticket could have been sold by one of six workers.
 Borth said news of the winning ticket “spread like wildfire" throughout the town after a clerk discovered the winning number Thursday.
  However, he said the ticket may not have been sold to a local resident, since many people from out of town buy tickets at the store.
Budget knife poised over CBC once more?
Southam News
 OTTAWA — The federal government is quietly preparing further cuts in cultural spending — and once again the CBC is emerging as the major victim.
 Unless there is a last-minute
Two beaten in break-in
 A Quesnel couple are in stable condition in G.R. Baker Memorial Hospital after they were beaten by two robbers who broke into their house early Thursday morning.
  Four male suspects are in custody in Vancouver and RCMP are looking for a fifth person in connection with the incident.
 RCMP report the couple’s home south of Quesnel on the Cariboo Highway was broken into at 5:30 a.m. Two men entered the house and beat the man and his wife.
 Names of the victims have not been released by the RCMP at this time.
 The assailants took about $300 cash from the couple and drove off in their 1983 Chev pickup truck.
change in Treasury Board thinking, annual base spending by the Department of Communications and its various cultural agencies will be chopped by a total of $25 million.
  Southam News has learned that $10 million of this amount is to be taken from the CBC’s budget.
  Other agencies affected include Ottawa’s National Arts Centre ($210,000), the National Film Board ($1.6 million) and the Canada Council ($1.95 million).
  Although the CBC’s $10-million cut may seem modest in the context of a total spending budget of more than $850 million, sources say it has serious implications for the publicly-owned broadcasting system.
  The CBC is still reeling from the effect of an $85-million cutback imposed by the Mulroney government in November 1984.
  It suffered a further blow in February of this year when the government’s 1986-87 spending estimates increased its parliamentary appropriation by only $22.7 million
—	or 2.6 per cent.
  The CBC complained at the time that this increase was below the inflation rate.
$30-million jet fighter in airshow
by WENDY KIRSCHNER Staff reporter
  An American F-15 fighter plane will whoosh through the sky at the Vanderhoof International Airshow this weekend.
  It’s not the usual territory for the $30-million plane, which in combat is equipped with gatling guns, sidewinder and M7 sparrow missiles, but it will give the U.S. air force a chance to show off its fastest climber.
  In only two minutes and three seconds, the F-15 can reach an altitude of 62,000 feet and can travel at speeds of up to 1,800 miles an hour. Because of its lightweight aluminum and titanium construction, it has great handling ability and is ideal for combat, says Major Brian Badger, who flew the aircraft to Prince George Thursday.
  “We’re trained to think like Soviet fighter pilots and this is the best plane to be doing that job,” he said.
  The one-seater plane can attack surface targets, but the airforce doesn’t use it in that role, Badger said in an telephone interview from Vanderhoof. “Our only mission is to shoot other planes down.”
  Canada’s F-18s are similar to the F-15, and they “come close” to its handling ability, he says.
  The Americans have about 800 of the twin-engine fighters, and have sold others to the Japanese, the Israelis and the Saudi Arabians.
  Some of the F-15’s functions are controlled by computer, including aviation and radar navigation, but most of the flying is still done by the pilot, at altitudes as high as
102.000	feet.
  “It’s like flying the world’s largest roller coaster,” says Badger, who has been a pilot for the last 12 years, and an F-15 pilot for three years.
  He and Captain Fred Clifton both travelled to Prince George in F-15s, but only one plane will be performing at the air sho\v.
  “They don’t usually break down, but we came all the way out here for the show, so it would be unfortunate if anything happened to it."
  Badger’s trip took five hours from tne Holloman air force base in New Mexico, but he was only cruising.
  “I went through the Grand Canyon, over Seattle and all over B.C.,” he says. “If I went straight from home it would have taken two hours.”
He will be flying at a speed of 600 miles an hour at an altitude of
20.000	feet for the show, doing turns, dives, climbs and rolls.
  His favorite trick is the double Immelmann, in which he climbs in half-circles in different directions to form an S-shape.
         .. .and in tomorrow's Citizen...
  Canadians always take freedom for granted, but it’s valued by refugees from many parts of the world. In the Saturday Forum, you’ll read about three people who have moved to Prince George to escape problems in their homelands.
  Also planned:
  ■	A look at the recent Bluegrass festival in Chetwynd.
  ■	Coverage of the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
 INCLUDES
TV
TIMES
The Prince George
   i • j •
Citizen
FRIDAY, JULY 4, 1986
50 CENTS
Fairgoers praise Soviets 6 Lighting up Lady Liberty 7 Ex-terrorist finds God 15
                                  ......16-19 
                                              
                     .........9   ..........7 
City, B.C........... .......2,3,  .........33 
                                              
                                  ..........5 
                     ........23               
                     .........4   .........23 
Glen Taylor, a firefighter for Transport Canada, stands beside U.S. F-15 fighter plane at Prince George Airport on Thursday. The $30-million aircraft will be doing rolls, climbs and dives at the Vanderhoof International Air Show Saturday and Sunday.	Citizen photo by Brock Gable
Low tonight: 5 High Saturday: 19 TOcaUen eUtaxlx. ft&qc 2
"Does Dad know about this?"