Low tonight: 10 High Tuesday: 18 k TO&xtAtt (Uuuh. pAQt 2 i
The Prince George
Citizen
MONDAY, JULY 14, 1986
40 CENTS
Arts groups cheer report 3 Stevens probe starting 5 Quake hits California 7
Ann Landers.................8 International ................7
Bridge......................17 Lifestyles....................8
Business.....................6 Lotteries.....................3
City, B.C...................2,3 Movies .....................10
Classified................14-20
Comics.....................24 Na,lonal.....................5
Editorial.....................4 Neighborhoods..............21
Entertainment...........24-25 Sports....................11-13
Horoscopes.................17 Television ..................16
Plywood plant strike averted
by DAVE PAULSON Staff reporter A strike at North Central Plywood in Prince George was averted Sunday night as workers agreed to a 12-month extension of their current contract.
An offer to extend the contract, which expired June 30, was suggested Friday by the company and offered through the mediator, said Ernie Dougan, president of the Pulp. Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, Local 25.
The proposal came only one day after the union asked mediator Phil Phillips to book out of negotiations because of a lack of progress.
Dougan said the offer is the same proposal made
by the union several weeks ago.
Union members voted 66 per cent in favor of accepting the deal at a Sunday night membership meeting, originally scheduled to give members a summary of negotiations and the union position.
The union likely would have been in a legal position to strike by Thursday, by which time the mediator would be expected to have filed his report to Labor Minister Terry Segarty.
The 230 workers at the mill, a subsidiary of Northwood Pulp and Timber, voted 95 per cent in favor to strike two weeks ago.
‘‘We’ve maintained the status quo,” Dougan said
today. ‘‘In light of prevailing conditions that’s about as much as we could have expected.”
The union was unwilling to agree to a letter of intent riding on the one-year extension to study a company proposal to establish a pension fund separate trom tne pulp industry plan.
Local 25 had said it is concerned about the time needed to put a new pension plan in place and about the transferability to other plants of pension points earned under a local plan.
Don Cadman, manager of industrial relations for Northwood’s timber division, said today the separate pension plan issue will be reintroduced to the union
during the next 12 months.
“This has just delayed the issue for a year,” explained Cadman.
‘‘Admittedly we were surprised (by the settlement). We were concerned because we thought if there was a strike it would have been a lengthy strike,” he added.
‘‘On the other hand we’re disappointed we didn't address the pension issue, which could have paved the way to a two-year contract funded by the savings in the pension plan.”
The base rate at North Central Plywood is $14.09 an hour, ranging to a high of $18.77 for mechanics.
City for kids
RCMP Constable John Suttie and Prince George Block Parent Association chairman Shirley Ceal help erect one of four giant signs placed at the four entrances to the city. The bright red and white signs, which clearly show local people care
Citizen photo by Brock Gable
about the safety of the children, were manufactured at a cost of $650, donated by an anonymous person. There are more than 1,900 persons in prince George involved in the Block Parent crime prevention program.
COMMONWEALTH SANCTIONS 'CRISIS'
Iron Lady stands her ground
by JAMES FERRABEE Southam News LONDON — Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher returned home Monday with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s rebuff on South Africa still fresh in her mind, to face threats of more boycotts from African Commonwealth countries and
SOVIET TEST SITE
revolts within her own party.
While she was on a 48-hour visit to Vancouver and Montreal, three more African countries — Kenya. Uganda and Tanzania — pulled out of the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games set to begin in 10 days time, bringing the total to five African countries which are boy-
Nuclear monitoring?
by Associated Press
MOSCOW — U.S. scientists have installed the first western monitoring stations at a Soviet nuclear test site, but say they have no assurance of being able to record any blasts once a unilateral Soviet freeze on testing expires next month.
Thomas Cochran from the Wash-ington-based Natural Resource Defence Council said Sunday his group positioned about a dozen seismic devices last week around the Soviet Union’s primary underground test site in the rugged hill country of remote Kazakhstan.
The non-profit council and the Soviet Academy of Sciences agreed on May 28 to set up three monitoring stations near the Soviet site and at least one near the main U.S. nuclear test site in Nevada. The U.S. government has not objected to'tne idea.
Cochran said U.S. scientists have no assurance from the Soviets that
they will be allowed to monitor any test explosions from the three stations once Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing expires on Aug. 6.
The council has said the aim of the project is not to monitor nuclear tests, but to calibrate seismic instruments by keeping a watch on seismic conditions in the area.
‘‘We will certainly be allowed to stay there after Aug. 6,” Cochran said. “We’ll have to see if we’ll be allowed to record their tests or not.
"Either way, we’d know that a test occurred. What would be lost if we’re not allowed to monitor a test would be additional interesting technical information that could be useful in further calibrating the site.”
Both the council and the Soviets say the experiment should prove that a moratorium on nuclear testing can be verified by on-site monitoring equipment.
cotting the quadrennial competition. India was also reported on the verge of a boycott.
There were strong hints more Africans, and possibly some Caribbean Commonwealth countries, would join the walk-out in protest over Thatcher’s adamant antisanctions policy.
There was also speculation that some African countries would extend their protests to include withdrawing landing rights to British airlines flying to African countries.
In addition, and perhaps more damaging, there is a growing revolt among senior Conservative Party members against her policy.
Former Prime Minister Edward Heath said on the weekend that any economic initiatives Thatcher proposes must now include measures which affected trade, eventually moving towards a trade blockade.
He joins former Thatcher Foreign Secretary Francis Pym and former Trade Minister Leon Brittain in calling for sanctions.
Pym said he believed the majority of the Thatcher cabinet supported sanctions and that she had “gone out on a limb" in her stance last week opposing sanctions as “immoral."
Major British newspapers Monday reported the Thatcher-Mulro-ney meeting in Montreal Sunday on their front pages, using such phrases as “crisis talks.”
"Thatcher clash with Mulroney” reported The Times. The Daily Telegraph, a staunch Conservative party supporter, wrote in its lead story on the front page that: “Crisis talks in Montreal last night left Mrs. Thatcher isolated in the Commonwealth over South Africa.”
The new measures by some African countries against Britain, including possible withdrawal of landing rights for British airlines, was hinted at during the weekend.
Speculation is that Nigeria may act against British Caledonian, the country’s second largest international carrier, which flies to Western African countries, including Nigeria. It is reported to be a lucrative route.
.. .and in tomorrow's Citizen...
The Olympics were held in Montreal 10 years ago, but residents are still paying off the debt. On Tuesday, you’ll see how the games helped — and hurt — the city.
Also planned:
■ A preview of the All-Star game between the National and American baseball leagues.
■ A story about a jamboree in Saskatchewan featuring some of the top names in country music.
Lake mishaps: teen missing, man rescued
by SHERYL THOMPSON Staff reporter
Two accidents at lakes near Prince George this weekend left a 15-year-old boy missing and presumed drowned and a 33-year-old man in Prince George Regional Hospital.
A boating accident at Norman Lake is believed to have claimed the life of Mark Terry Greenough, 15. who fell out of a boat Sunday evening at Norman Lake, about 60 km southwest of Prince George.
RCMP said Greenough was boating with two friends and the boat was stopped on the lake when he fell off the back.
Due to a breeze on the lake the boat drifted away from the boy and attempts to rescue him were unsuccessful.
RCMP divers searched the lake Sunday but due to poor visibility in the water they were unable to find the body and the search will continue today.
Meanwhile, fast action by a former lifeguard and sunbathers at West Lake provincial park Sunday afternoon probably saved the life Michael Pamplin, 33, of Prince George.
RCMP said Pamplin was swimming with friends at West Lake, about 22 km south west of Prince George, when he went under and failed to come up.
He was located about one and one-half minutes later and given artificial respiration.
RCMP said Pamplin was taken to Prince George Regional Hosital by ambulance and is good condition there this morning.
Elaine Hoffarth, of Prince George was at West Lake provincial park-and saw Pamplin go under tne water.
“We were sitting on the shore and saw the two men swimming around. We noticed his hand come up and thought he was pretending. We watched and watched and realized no one could hold their breath that long,” she said.
Pamplin’s friend yelled to people on the beach for help and Hof-farth’s sister. Laura Reimer. and four men ran from the shore to help look for him, said Hoffarth.
“When we realized he wasn’t coming up. I ran in with my
Wildfires sear Alaskan brush
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Hundreds of firefighters battled 85 wildfires Sunday raging over about 135.000 hectares of brush and forest in Alaska, and officials said blazes have scorched about 180.000 hectares so far this year.
More than 770 firefighters were fighting the blazes Sunday.
"We're always looking for bright, young, intelligent guys like you."
clothes on and about three other men saw me and came in to help.” said Reimer.
Reimer started artificial respiration in the water as soon as Pamplin was found and continued until she got to the shore when another man came and helped.
“We laid him on the shore and wrapped him in a blanket until the ambulance arrived,” said Reimer.
By that time he had regained consciousness but didn’t seem to know where he was, said Hoffarth.
“It was quite scary,” she said.
Reimer, who was a life guard at the swimming pool when she was a teenager, said her training helped rescue the man.
“I just reacted. . .and everyone helped,” she said.
Municipal employees locked out
by Canadian Press
KELOWNA — Hundreds of civic workers in several Interior communities were locked out today.
Eleven of the 13 municipalities within the Okanagan Mainline Municipal Labor Relations Association followed the lockout edict. Only Kamloops and Logan Lake, declined to lock out their workers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.
The association declined immediate comment but earlier, Tom Smithwick, a Kelowna alderman who heads the association, said such a move was “inevitable.”
The workers enforce city bylaws, fix sewers, collect garbage, maintain parks and buildings and run recreation centres.
Aid. Keena Cartwright of Kamloops council, which voted last week to urge the labor relations association to resume talks, said she didn't want to see tourist-related facilities shut down in a region where unemployment hovers at about 17 per cent.
The association is offering a three-year contract that includes a two-per-cent wage cut in the first year, no change in the second and a two-per-cent pay boost in the third.
The union is asking for a two-year contract with annual wage increases of two per cent.
“The union’s quite prepared to return to the bargaining table,” said Jim Kelly, the union’s chief negotiator.
Union members in Penticton walked off the job June 24.