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, —