B.C. Packers Profits Increase But Weston Wants Even More
Hie
TiTherman
World Fishing photos
• The German Democratic Republic, which has a modern and expanding deepwater fishing fleet has developed a successful flotilla fishing technique using transport-processing vessels in combination with specially designed catcher stern trawlers. These pictures show (top) the buoy being picked up by the transport vessel; the cod end supported by drums (centre; and (bottom) the cod end on the ramp of the catcher vessel preparatory to being transferred to the transport vessel.
'Don't Leave It to Others'
Margin Small, Claims Creber
Although B.C. Packers' net profit increased seven percent in 1969, despite poor salmon runs, and net income of its parent company, George Weston Ltd., was up 20 percent, Weston president G. E. Creber thinks profit margins are inadequate.
"When I took on the job (as president of George Weston Ltd in January last year), I was dismayed at what I considered and still consider inadequate profit margins in most sections of the businesses we're in," he told the Financial Post in an interview published March 28.
His complaint s range from his claim that "the food industry has given the consumer a far better break on his dollar than any other industry in the country" to his belief that the federal government's Prices and Incomes Commission "should be much more concerned with wages, which make up 52 percent of our gross national product, and government expenditures which make up 30 percent, than with profits, which make up only nine percent."
He concedes that since Weston's was compelled to disclose the full extent of its corporate empire, including its previously concealed control of Nelson Bros. Fisheries, it has been able to effect economies through plant consolidation, rationalization of cperations, centralized purchasing and financial control.
INCREASES NEEDED
But. he says, "there's a limit to how far you can go in those things. Price increases may be required in some areas."
He bases his contention that the food industry is giving consumers the best break, not on actual increases in food prices over any given period or the relation between the prices paid by consumers and prices paid to producers, but on the proportion of wages paid for food.
"The decline in the portion of wages spent on food is apparent to everybody, despite the painful-ness of present costs," he argues plausibly.
Having made that statement and evaded the real question of who, if not the food combines, is profiting from high food prices
See CREBER — Page 12
Vol. XXXIII, No. 7 <*&£^2 Vancouver, B.C., April 3, 1970
Thirsty or hungry?
Toronto Star
UFAWU Scores U.S. Energy Grab
UFAWU Meeting Notices on Page 12
Pacific Ocean' Heads Back With 100,000 Halibut Trip
The Vancouver longliner Pacific Ocean is reported heading for home port after clearing Sand Point, Alaska, on March 30 with approximately 100,000 pounds of halibut taken in the first Bering Sea opening of the year.
Only other clearance reported at Fisherman press time was the U.S. longliner Chelsea, bound for Seattle with about 60,000 pounds.
Reports received from the fisheries patrol vessel Tanu this week indicated bad weather and icing had been encountered early in the opening, with conditions moderating later.
An American longliner was said to have had a substantial amount of gear destroyed by a Japanese trawler in Bering Sea last week.
Participation in Vietnam Protest Urged
A strong appeal for participation by UFAWU members in this month's "days of protest" against the Vietnam war was issued by delegates to the union's annual convention.
Both the officers' report to the convention and a resolution submitted by the union's general executive board emphasized the need for organized labor to play a larger and more influential role in the peace movement.
In a letter to UFAWU locals U»t week, union president Homer Stevens said the convention reflected the view that trade unionist* "cannot sit at home while Students, educators, artists, jour
the burden" in the anti-war movement.
As a first priority, union members are being urged to participate in a candlelight march for peace in downtown Vancouver on the evening of April 17 and, or, in a march and rally in the city on the afternoon of April 18.
Also endorsing the actions are B.C. Federation of Labor and Vancouver Labor Council, both of which are urging their affiliates to participate. By decision of the general executive board, a UFAWU banner will be among those carried in the march on April 18. The candlelight march, organ
nallsU and church ' leaders' carry I ized by the Vancouver Moratori-
um Committee around the theme "Vietnam — Peace Now", leaves Vancouver Court House on West Georgia Street at 8 p.m. on Friday, April 17, and will be followed by a teach-in at a nearby church. No banners or placards will be carried.
The April 18 march, organized by Vietnam Action Committee under the slogans "Withdraw all U.S. Troops Now" and "End Canada's Complicity" assembles at Thornton Park in front of the CNR depot on Main Street at 10:30 a.m. and proceeds to the Court House for a rally at 12:30 p.m.
In another move aimed at strengthening organized labor's
role in anti-war activities UFAWU convention delegates endorsed a proposal that a standing committee of the union be named to "work with other people and organizations interested in ending the Vietnam war."
The officers' report to the convention said Canadians generally have not "added their weight to protests against the war in the numbers required" and large sections of the trade union movement have been "unresponsive."
"As world wide 'days of protest' are observed we must work toward greater involvement of working people with the aim of bringing this unjust war to an end," it said.
Delegates to last month's UFAWU convention expressed "total opposition" to establishment of a continental energy pool controlled by the United States, now the subject of negotiations between the federal government and Washington officials. Endorsing a resolution submitted by Eric Burnell, Fort Langley Local, the convention charged the negotiations are designed to cast Canada in a permanent role as "warehouse for the United States."
With Washington using the lever of freer access to American markets for Canadian oil, the talks are leading toward "continental ownership of (all) Canadian energy resources — oil, natural gas, coal, hydro, uranium and water," the convention warned.
Federal fisheries minister Jack Davis, who addressed the convention March 7, was asked to forward the union's views to Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
(The current round of talks on a continental energy pool originated at a meeting in Washington last spring between Trudeau and U.S. President Richard Nixon.)
'DEPENDABLE' SOURCE
Some of the reasons why the U.S. is desperately seeking full control over Canada's energy resources were again spelled out last month, this time in a speech by U.S. assistant interior secretary Hollis Dale.
Dale, in effect, repeated findings contained in the recent report of the U.S. cabinet level Schultz task force. The Schultz report led to Nixon's ordering commencement of stepped up talks on a "common energy policy" last February.
According to Dale, American requirements for energy and other resources will soar in the next few years. At the same time, mounting resource depletion and environmental deterioration at home will be coupled with a continuing decline in available sources of supply overseas.
Dale said that in these circum-
See GRAB — Page 12