he said.

THE WESTERN CANADIAN

THEY VOTED 100% FOR STRIKE ACTION. Members of Local 1-217 IWA
employed at the Vancouver Casket Company struck the firm April 12 to
secure better wages and conditions. The Company, controlled from back
East, turned down both the majority and minority reports of a Conciliation
Board. Both these reports, while differing in the wages recommended, agreed
on the need for improvement in the fringe benefits. Wages paid to the em-
ployees prior to the strike were $1.80 per hour for males and $1.50 per hour
for females. The Union is seeking a 20c an hour increase per year over a
two-year agreement. Officers of Local 1-217 pictured with strikers are Tom
Clarke, Ist Vice-President, and George Kowbel, 3rd Vice-President, who
handled the negotiations for the Union.

FROM PAGE 1

“Strike”

arrange a series of confer-
ences with the employer’s sol-
icitors, These conferences fail-
ed to result in a settlement,
when the employer agreed to
the standard Southern Inter-
jor agreement, but refused to
reinstate all the strikers.

The angered Local Union

delegates gave top priority to

the strike issues. One resolu-
tion required IWA members
in adjacent operations to help
strengthen the picket line. As
a result, during off-shift hours,
30 or more IWA members
have been walking shoulder
to shoulder each day before
the strike-bound operation.
Sympathetic citizens have

_ been asked to support.

Another resolution request-
ed individual employed IWA
members, able to do so, to
“adopt” a family of the strik-
ers to ensure that their hard-
ships would be alleviated.
This revived an old IWW
strike tactic which invariably
ensures community sympathy.

Settlement Nears

Public opinion in North
Kamloops, aroused by the
publicity given the strike is-
sues by the IWA, has proven
to be a potent factor in com-
pelling the employer to con-
sider a_ settlement. Radio
talks, newspaper advertise-
ments and pamphlet distribu-
tion have been used to inform
the public and have won a
large measure of public sup-
port. ;
As explained by Bob Ross
to the Kamloops Labour
Council, the plant manager,
who is a son of the principal
owner, and his solicitor have
agreed to satisfactory settle-
ment terms. The actual own-
er, 80-year-old George Frolek,
stubbornly refuses to reinstate
strikers who have incurred his
enmity with their militancy,
Technical reasons
have been seized upon for

R ee seernttion. Said Bob Ross,

five men are good

Loggers
Reject
Terms

IWA members employed at
the Revelstoke Building Mat-
erials Ltd. (Logging Division)
Coleman, Alberta, who have
been negotiating with the
Company for a collective
agreement, voted overwhelm-
ingly by secret ballot April
17, to reject settlement terms
proposed by a Conciliation
Officer.

The operation was recently
certified to Local 1-206 IWA
Blairmore, Alberta, which
also holds the certification for
the Company’s sawmill and
planer mill.

Chief negotiators for the
Union were Regional Ist Vice-
President Jack MacKenzie
and Local Financial Secretary
Tom Spriak. In announcing
the rejection, the negotiators
listed five points in the settle-
ment proposal not acceptable
to the Union,

These were: the terms of
the bargaining agency clause,
wages, travel time, hours of
work, and statutory holidays.
The base rate for the loggers
is $1.54 an hour. The top rate
is $2.24 an hour for fallers
providing their own power
saws.

The Union contends the
Company is taking advantage
of its employees by paying
these sub - standard wages
when just across the border in
B.C., where the terrain and
timber are the same, the rate
for loggers is at least fifty
cents an hour higher.

The employees are well
aware of this and are deter-
mined to better their own
wages and working condi-
tions.

CBC NOTE

s CBC is televising on its
% television series “Other
%; Voices,” a programme on
" the life of labour martyr ;
=. Joe Hill.

The programme will be
%: televised in Western Canada
“i Tuesday evening, May 4, at
=: 10:30 ne : :

<

TOM SPRLAK

LUMBER WORKER

FROM PAGE 1

“McNiven”

such a remark. In any event
he had no information that
would have warranted such a
statement.

He explained that the Fed-
eration was solely interested
in advising workers of their
rights under the Canada Elec-
tions Act with special refer-
ence to those employed away
from home. He produced the
Federation’s bulletins issued
during election campaigns and
which quoted the relevant
sections of the Act and regu-
lations.

At the time, he said, he had
no information regarding
double listings, although such
might have easily occurred.
Later, after the Turner charg-
es were made, he had con-
ceded that duplication might
result when workers register-
ed at their places of employ-
ment. This was due solely to
lack of provision for absentee
voting and the official methods
of enumeration, he informed
the Commissioner.

McNiven was emphatic in
his denial that the Federation
had any knowledge of abuses
resulting from duplications on
the voters’ lists. It was virtu-
ally impossible, he said, for
any local union to arrange for
impersonation at the polls. He
was positive that no affiiliate
of the Federation had engag-

‘ed in any conspiracy to im-

personate voters absent from

JOHN McNIVEN

their places of ordinary resi-
dence. ;

As the Commission ad-
journed its hearings for sum-
mation. by counsel, the two

mystery witnesses had given
the only evidence purporting
to substantiate Turner’s alleg-
ation that a well known trade
unionist had accused six trade
unions of fraudulent practices.

The enquiry resulted when
IWA Regional President Jack
Moore requested T. C. Doug-
las, M.P. ‘to demand a full-
scale probe into all the irregu-
larities- with which trade un-
ions had been charged by
Columnist Ormond Turner of
the Vancouver Province.

OLD IWW MEMBER

Albert Rose Retiring April 30
After 22 Years in Local 1-357

One of the real militant pio-
neers of the trade union move-
ment, Albert R. Rose, Busi-
ness Agent and member of
Local 1-357 IWA, who was
blacklisted by the employers
in New Westminster in the
early war years, is retiring
April 30, after twenty-two
years in the IWA.

He is the first official in
Regional Council No. 1 to be
entitled to the IWA Pension
on retirement.

Albert’s first taste of union-
ism came while working as a
tie hacker in a logging camp
at Rocky Mountain House,
Alberta, in 1922. At that time
the old IWW (Industrial
Workers of the World) was
attempting to organize the
camps.

The employers bitterly re-
sisted the organizational at-
tempts and Albert recalls
signing his IWW membership
application behind a stump
so the boss wouldn’t find out
he had joined the Union and
fire him.

In 1924, he went to B.C.
where he spent the next seven
years working as a ranger
for the B.C. Forest Service.
From 1931 to 1943, he worked
in logging camps in the Nel-
son and Okanagan areas
where he actively engaged in
union organization.

Unfortunately by this time
his IWVW membership was
known to the employers and
his name was put on their
black list. In 1943, he applied

for work at Fraser Mills but
was turned down when the
Company checked the list.

The Company was castigat-
ed for its action by officials
of the Unemployment Insur-
ance Commission who were
desperately attempting to
solve the critical labour short-
age caused by the war.

The UIC then sent Albert
to the Alaska Pine Company
where he remained until go-
ing on Local 1-357’s payroll
as a Business Agent in 1957.
While at the Pine, he joined
the IWA and served for a
number of years as a Shop
Steward, Plant Secretary and
Plant Chairman.

During the years from 1947
to 1963, he was elected at vari-
ous times to the positions of
3rd Vice-President, 2nd Vice-

President and-1st Vice-Presi-
dent of the Local Union. He
also served as acting Presi-
dent for one year.

From 1943 to 1946, which
was prior to the Union check-
off, Albert signed up over one
thousand new members into
the IWA. This set a record
which has only been surpass-
ed by the Union’s full-time
organizers. .

Albert and his wife Eliza-
beth, who is herself active in
the IWA Ladies Auxiliary,
are looking forward to his
retirement so that he can de-
vote his full time to his first
love, gardening.

The officers and members
of Local 1-357 and the officers
of the Regional Council wish
Albert a long and happy re-
tirement.

ALBERT ROSE
+ + a job well done, —