Idled Versatile workers
protest outside auction

Demand severance pay; seek shipyard inquiry

LAID-OFF Versatile Pacific Shipyards Inc. (VPSI)
workers protested outside the North Vancouver-based

shipyard Saturday morning while

the company

prepared to auction off some of its equipment inside.

The workers, who were laid
off a year ago, have lobbied
since that time for severance
packages.

They are also demanding a
public inquiry into the opera-
tions of Versatile and its parent
company, Shieldings Inc.

Said Joe Brown, a
spokesman for the laid-off
workers, ‘‘If we're not going to
be employed, we should be
treated like decent citizens,’’

Brown, 50, had worked for
Versatile for 22 years before
being laid off last March.

VPSI laid off most of its
employees in March 1991 after
running into serious financial
difficulty.

Under the collective agree-
ment with the Marine Workers
and Boilermakers’ Industrial
Union (MWBIU), which has
yet to be ratified, workers
would be entitled to ‘‘retire-
ment allowances’? within 30
days of ratification. The term
of the agreement expired Aug.
“31, 1991.

MWBIVU president George
MacPherson said the contract
would pay laid-off workers
severance of one day’s pay for

By Kevin Gillies
Contributing Writer

each year of company service.

“When the federal govern-
ment closed the eastern Canada
yard at Collingwood, Ontario,
workers were paid severance of
1.6 weeks’ pay for each year of
company service,’? MacPherson
said.

Another laid-off worker,
Tom Conway, claims his
asbestosis — a lung disorder
caused by inhaling asbestos
fibres — was contracted while
he was employed at Versatile.

Conway, who had worked
for Versatile since 1972, said,
“‘We want the same settlement
as back east. They were offered
retraining and early retire-
ment.””

Versatile spokesman Bill
Evers has said the issue of sev-
erance packages is between the
union and the federal govern-
ment.

“There’s certainly no such
thing as severance in the ship-
building industry under the col-
lective agreement,’’ Evers said
in a Nov. 24, 1991 News story.

Marion Ahern, who joined
the protest in moral support of
her husband, said, ‘*Older men
were promised early retirement
with dignity. 1 want to know
where this retirement with
dignity is.’"

Brown calied on North Van-
couver-Lonsdale NDP MLA
David Schreck to take action to
convince VPSI to pay its
displaced workers severance
packages.

“1 think it’s time for David
Schreck to do what he was
elected to do rather than just
sit on the fence,’’ said Brown.
‘*P’m getting pretty
frustzated.”’

MacPherson met with B.C.
Finance Minister Glen Clark on
Tuesday to discuss the sever-
ance package issue.

In a news release handed out
to the public during Saturday's
auction the former VPSI
employees said they will con-
tinue to lobby for severance
packages and a public inquiry
into the operations of VPSI
and Shieldings Inc.

‘Versatile has offered us,
the dispiaced workers, a pit-
tance of a day’s pay for each
year worked to keep our
mouths shut. Why is this com-
pany being allowed to sell off
assets that belong rightfully to
the taxpayers of this pro-
vince?”* said Brown.

NEWS photo Stuart Davis

VERSATILE PACIFIC auctioned off equipment in-
side its North Vancouver facility on Saturday morn-
ing while laid-off workers protested their treatment
by the company outside. VPSI laid off most of its
employees in March 1991 after running into serious

financial difficulty.

Unions want coalition to combat budget crisis

| Teachers, CUPE address District 44 board

REPRESENTATIVES FROM
Teédchers’ Association (NVTA) and Canadian Union of 1992.93 budget.

the North Vancouver

Public Employees (CUPE) Local 389 called on North
Vancouver District 44 School Board trustees March 10 to
form: a coalition to combat the looming budget crisis that
threatens programs and jobs in the district’s school system.

: Distiict- 44 faces a current -

budget ‘deficit of about $5.5 mil-
_ lion; that shortfall is expected to
~ almost double come September.

The “district’s 1992-93 block
funding increase from the provin-
cial government, however, is only
about $2.5 mitlion over its 1991-
92 level.

In his opening statements,
board chairman ‘Richard Walton
said the: district. is ‘‘facing the
most signifi icant reductions in the
last 25 years.”’

In- his presentation to the trust-
ees,-.Local 389 -president Mike
_. Hocevar said his 650 members are
overworked and bracing
themselves for layoffs.

. He proposed the formation cf a
broad coalition that would include
North Vancouver city and district

‘ councils, parents’ group repre-
sentatives, the NVTA and:
members of CUPE.

“Activities could include joint
lobbying (of education and fi-
nance ministries), public pres-
entations and possibly even a
*‘community response’’ event

- which would be designed to fuel

and consolidate our community’s

determination to fight for our
school system,’’ Hocevar said.

But Hocevar was opposed to
using a hired fundraiser, a pilot
project currently being used at
West Vancouver’s Sentinel Sec-
ondary School.

“It’s (hiring fundraisers) wrong
and spells the beginning of the
end of our public school system,”
Hocevar said.

NVTA president Linda Watson

By A.P. McCredie
Contributing Writer
agreed that a united front con-

sisting of individuals and grours
affected by the budgetary squeeze

would help address the cuts in the

Watson presented the board
with a list of NVTA recommenda-
tions the union wants incor-
porated in the district’s 1992-93
budget considerations:
® provide full consultation,
communication and information
during the budgeting process;

@ continue class size reductions in
the elementary and secondary
Ieveis;

@ provide a full spectrum ” of

support for mainstreamed students
and fulfil the board’s contractual
obligations to integration;

@ maintain and improve support
for the broad variety of educa-
tional programs in North Van-
couver;

@ maintain and improve levels of
specialist support for students and
teachers;

@ restore adequate block budget
and educationa! leadership fund-
ing to schools;

@ maintain levels of support staf-

CCLRC
NORTH VANCOUVER
SCHOGi. BOARD

fing and improve maintenance of
facilities;

@ investigate a reorganization of
administrative services;

@ submit a needs budget to the
Ministry of Education and sup-
port it through a joint repre-
sentation to the ministry with the
NVTA, CUPE, and the Parent
Advisory Council.

The board stated that it would
take all proposals presented by
CUPE and the NVTA into con-
sideration.

Investigation hurt deal with African
leader, former West Van lawyer claims

YET ANOTHER twist in the $21 million tax fraud trial of
former West Vancouver lawyer Gorden Hazlewood occur-
red Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court when Hazlewood
claimed Revenue Canada’s seizure of his company’s

documents resulted

in a multi-million dollar loss of

business with the Chief of State of Ghana, West Africa.

Hazlewood told Mr. Justice
J.E. Hall that his dealings with
Chief of State J.J. Rawlings, who
assumed power in Ghana after
staging a bloody coup in 1982,
went back more than a decade.

Hazlewood said that he was
appointed ‘financial advisor’’ for
Ghana in 1987.

He said he subsequently advised
Rawlings on ‘“‘political and eco-
nomic matters’? and established
joint venture deals with various
West African businesses, including
a $14 million hotel project of
which he allegedly owned a 60%
interest.

But when Revenue Canada ob-
tained search warrants during the
fall of 1987 to seize and examine

By Robin Brunet
Contributing Writer

Hazlewood’s company documents
(45 boxes of documents were ini-
tially taken from various office
locations) because of charges that
Hazlewood’s joint venture deal-
ings were fraudulent, Hazlewood
said he was unable to retrieve per-
tinent addresses and phone
numbers with which to maintain
his business interests and advisory
Status.

“7 still have never been able to
get in touch with them,’’
Hazlewood said of his alleged
Ghana contacts.

Hazlewood claims that his in-
ability to have access to the seized
documents, which eventually led
to 269 counts of income tax eva-
sion and claiming fraudulent tax
losses being filed against him, also
made it ‘‘difficult if not impossi-
ble’ for him to conduct ongoing
local business and also to defend
himself properly in court.

Hazlewood, who is acting in his
own defence in the Supreme Court
trial, also claims that his inability
to have access to the seized
documents made it difficult to
carry out his libel suit against
Revenue Canada’s chief in-
vestigators of the case, Juergen
Leske and Nick Lianza. The suit
was filed in the spring of 1987.

Hazlewood spent most of Tues-
day questioning Leske and Lianza
in detail about the seizures and
Revenue Canada’s ability and
willingness to allow him access to
the documents.

Both Leske and Lianza stated

that the documents were accessible
at all times, upon request.

Revenue Canada began in.
vestigating Hazlewood’s business
practices in 1985.

Hazlewood allegedly operated a .
“four for one’? joint venture
scheme in the early 1980s that at-
tracted clients with the promise
that their investments would be
returned four times over in tax
losses and refunds.

Hazlewood allegedly told his
clients their money would be used
for gil and gas exploration, the
development of a glass washing
machine, a Yukon mining project

.and a Richmond racquetball club

developmeni.

But Revenue Canada _ claims
that the money — approximately
$1.6 million — was used instead
to finance his daughter’s auto
leasing company and Hazlewood’s

own business.

The trial is expected
continue into next week.

to