. Editorial gi :
i
~ Doctors’ Image

® @
Growing Dim
7 HE image of the American doctor is losing that

fresh, scrubbed-up look as he wades deeper
into the unsterilized pit of politics.”

This is the view expressed by a newsman after delv-
ing into the doctors’ activities to defeat President Ken-
nedy’s programme of medicare for the aged last year.

_ _ Inhis article he pointed out that Kennedy’s medicare
plan was merely an innocuous way of financing care
for the old. And yet so determined were the doctors to
retain their status quo, that they spent seven million
dollars to defeat the Bill.

No heed was paid to the fact that the aged faced
‘and still face a desperate situation because of spiraling
hospitalization costs and reduced incomes. The fact was
ignored that under Kennedy's plan the elderly ill would
get much needed attention. To the doctors this didn’t
matter.

All that did matter was the plan smacked of the
“thin edge of the wedge” of socialized medicine and
must be stopped at any cost.

Exactly what this cost amounted to is given by the
American National Council of Senior Citizens who esti-
mated that since the inception of the British Health
Plan, the doctors have invested in the neighbourhood of
TWO BILLION DOLLARS to make socialized medicine a
dirty word throughout the world.

The Senior Citizens state that last year alone the
American Medical Association’s public relations budget

to defeat medicare was $1,300,000.

Much of this budget was spent to encourage state
and country medical associations and doctors and their
wives, to raise more funds at the grass-roots level. Thou-
sands of doctors sent out AMA literature with their bills.

One of the biggest contributions made to the doctors
for their medicare fight, came from D. Jean Johnson,
the largest drug manufacturer in the country.

Between one quarter and one third of the AMA's
188,000 members belong to the Political Action Commit-
tee, paying fees of $5 to $99. Members may also belong
to state committees. It is estimated that these committees

have collected between $2,000,000 and $2,500,000 io
throw into the anti-medicare campaign.

A campaign incidentally, in which the doctors re-
fuse to recognize international boundaries. Canadians
may as well accept the fact that as the AMA's vast
financial resources were used to aid the doctors’ strike
in Saskatchewan, they will continue to be used every-
where socialized medicine is discussed.

PUNT

> ICFTU Scores French
Sahara Atom: Tests

Reaffirming once more the firm attitude of the free
trade union movement in favour of a general banning
of atomic tests, Omer Becu, General Secretary of the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, on
21 March sent a telegram to President de Gaulle in which
he has expressed the disapproval of the free trade union
movement at the resumption of French nuclear tests in
the Sahara. The ICFTU General Secretary recalled that
the peoples of Africa have frequently manifested their
strong opposition to such tests taking place on the African
continent.

= 00

Publication date of the next issue of the WESTERN CANADIAN
LUMBER WORKER is May 2. Deadline for ad copy is April 18,
and for news copy April 19.

Hater Le
Kot UME BS) cl

Published Twice Monthly on the First and Third Thursdays by
INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA
(AFL-C1O-CLC) Regional Council No. 1

Editor . . . Grant MacNeil
_.-.-..---. Jack Moore

. REGIONAL OFFICERS:
ice. Jack MacKenzie

1st Vice-President .......

2nd Vice-President ._.. . Jack Holst
3rd Vice-President ..... ... Bob Ross
Secretary-Treasurer __... Fred Fieber
International Board Members .. Joe Madden, Walter F. Allen

Address all communications to:
FRED FIEBER, Secretary-Treasurer
2859 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C.

TR. 4-5261 - 2

Subscription Rates ....................... $2.00 per annum
Advertising Representative ......... G. A. Spencer

Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post Office Dept., Ottawa,
: and for Payment of Postage in Cash,

27,500 COPIES PRINTED IN THIS ISSUE

Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

British TUC

Investigates

Effects of Automation

LONDON — The Trade
Union Congress has launched.
an investigation into the
effects of automation and
technological changes in of-
fices. Fifteen unions are be-
ing asked to provide informa-
tion relating to redundancy,
compensation for loss of jobs,
training of operators and the
consultation of unions re-
garding changes.

A report to a recent non-
manual workers’ conference
emphasized that automation

was: spreading rapidly, and
though only certain sectors
of industry could be automat-
ed, routine clerical processes
(basically the same in many
offices) could more readily
be transferred from the desk
to the machine.

"One in Four
On Edge of —

GY 7

Pia i es
Poverty

The Executive Director of
the Family Service Agency
of Greater Vancouver, Der-
yck Thomson, reported to the
Agency’s annual meeting that
one person in every four in
the Greater Vancouver area,
“is living in or on the very
ragged edge of poverty or
economic distress.”

The average person can’t
distinguish the under-privi-
leged, stated Thomson, be-

YOU CUT MORE WOOD WITH THE NEW

OREGON
(GET LE|T ons MICRO- GUARD

SAW CHAINS!

The new OREGON Micro-Bit saw chains give

Ask for Micro-Bit saw chain for
timber cutting of all kinds, in any
weather.

Available at saw chain dealers
everywhere in the world

more cutting power to any saw with less work for
the operator. They have thin “coined’’cutting edges
that slice through any kind of wood faster than
any chain you've ever used. The exclusive micro-
manufacture means a longer, more productive
life. Micro-Bit type saw chains cost less per cord!

In the long run, your best buy!

Industries Lid.

GUELPH, CANADA

First computer in Britain
went into action in 1945 and
within six years there were
300 of them. A British Rail-
ways time-table, prepared by
a $300,000 electronic comput-
er, will be on sale in June.
It is claimed to be the first
railway time-table in the
world to be produced in this
way.

Two girls working for a
week, with the machine op-
erating for 30 hours, can com-
pile a time-table which used
to take five clerks 2000 hours.
This has caused no lay-offs as
British Railways have switch-
the staff to other work.

Computers have brought
with them a whole range of
new titles for British office
workers — programmer, cod-
ing clerk, card-tape converter
operator, and so on.

cause it is easier to be decent-
ly dressed than to be decent-
ly housed, fed or doctored.

Surveys show that most of
the poor are the wrong age to
be seen. Largely over sixty-
five or under eighteen. The
Agency also found that indi-
gents are more inclined to be
fat than those on better in-
comes.

B.C., which boasts of its
prosperity, has 44,000 people
without jobs, another 132,000
earning less than $2,900 an-
nually, 40,000 older persons
existing on government as-
sistance and another 40,000
receiving some sort of social
assistance.

Ask for Micro-Guard saw chain for

safer pulpwood cutting all year
round.

OMARK

ice to private
though all the doctors were—
individualists and jealous of
their independence.

The practices were visited
by a general practitioner and
an architect and details have
been published in the British
Medical Journal.

* Doctor - patient relations
were found to be good and
there was no abuse of the
NHS by patients. Relations
with hospitals were excellent,
but with local health author-
ities they were indifferent.

Doctors’ premises had a
high standard of cleanliness
and decoration, but 20 were
considered unsuitable.

A report on the survey
recommended that an ad-
visory service should be set

up to help general practi-

tioners replan and develop
their practices.

QUOTES

Bert Powers, union leader
who ran the big New York
newspaper strike:

“The only thing that
counts is muscle. If (labor)
disputes were settled by
reason or justice there
wouldn’t be unions.”

Robert Louis Stevenson:
“Politics is perhaps the

only profession for which
no preparation is thought
necessary.”

|

SUPERIOR CUTTING
EDGE PROFILE

OTHER
SAW CHAINS

MICRO-BIT
MICRO-GUARD

The cutting edge forms a sharp corner
to give a smooth, slicing action — doesn't

gougel

SUPERIOR CHIP
CHANNEL

MICRO-BIT OTHER
MICRO-GUARD SAW CHAINS

Coined top plate gives more room for

chips to flow away from the cutting edge. |

SUPERIOR BEARING
AREA

oo op

MICRO-BIT OTHER
MICRO-GUARD SAW CHAINS

Cutters and tie straps are contoured to
ride all around the bar without wobble.

MICRO. BIT, MICRO-GUARD
OMARK, OREGON Registered Trade

be