AFRIQUE-ASIE/LNS

A new wave of arrests and intimidation has swept through the
Philippines as opposition grows, especially among the Christian Left,
to the imposition of martial law by President Marcos. On Jan. 1
Marcos will continue as president under a new constitution he wrote

maintainin

g his power indefinitely.

Government troops have raided churches, which have put pressure
on the regime. Throughout the country there is growing resistance to
the social injustice, denial of basic freedoms, dependence on the
U.S., and government corruption that characterizes martial law

under Marcos.

‘FLASHBACKS FROM |
THE COMMUNIST PRESS

50 years ago eee
NO SUPPORT FROM
THE CHURCHES

WASHINGTON — Edward Mc-

Grady, legislative agent for the

AF. of L., has just returned from
Maine, where he directed the
recent unsuccesful campaign for

‘adoption of the eight-hour law

for women. It was defeated by
the voters of the state by a con-
siderable majority.

McGrady reports that not one
organization of women nor of
clergymen within the state assist-
ed in the fight. Although the
Federal Council of Churches and

the National Catholic Welfare

Council, from their national

headquarters, Offered their en-

dorsement of the measure, the
local clergy were indifferent —
with one notable exception. One
gentleman of the cloth went out

against the measure, declaring ~

that the modern woman has too
many hours already in which to

go to the devil.
; - The Worker, Dec. 8, 1923

25 years ago...

FORD UNIONISTS
TALK ACTION

DETROIT — Three thousand
representatives of Rouge Ford
workers at a local membership
meeting last Sunday demonstrat-
ed their anger and desire for
militant action against the com-
pany’s mounting attacks against
the union and _back-breaking,
man-killing speedup.

They voted unanimously for
strike action to defend the jobs
of their fellow unionists in the
company’s maintenance and
transportation divisions who face
loss of jobs by company moves
to bring in outside of AFL craft
unions to do maintenance and
transportation jobs.

The company seeks to slice up
the unity of 6,000 Rouge work-
ers combined in one local, by
bringing in outside contractors
to do the jobs of 3,000 construc-
tion, and maintenance workers,
who will be fired or given other
work at lower wages. ;

Tribune, Dec. 13, 1948

Profiteer of the week:

Pacific Tribune

West Coast edition, Canadian Tribun

Total Petroleum (North America) Ltd., Cal-
gary — Total Pete, if you’re on familiar
terms — is singled out for honors this week
at risk of offending other Calgary plunder-
ers — uh, business organizations — who did
equally well, not alone because it neatly
doubled its last year’s profit. (For the first
nine months of 1973: $4,605,000 profit, same
period in 1972: $2,098,000.) The touch that
warmed our judges hearts was the fact that
it “quotes its figures in U.S. funds.” Isn’t
that a nice touch?

Editor — MAURICE RUSH
Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St.,
Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288.
Business & Circulation Manager, FRED WILSON
Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year; $3.00 for six months
‘North and South America and Commonwealth countres, $6.00 one year.

All other countries, $7.00 one year hi

Reo sssessssaias

Second class mail regi:

Terms like “slowdown,” “slackening |

of pee “recession” and even “hor-
rible recession” are creeping into use.
In fact, the senior economist for the
Acres Group of companies forecast on
Dec. 3 that, “We are clearly facing a
recession year” in 1974. He foresaw
“the highest unemployment rate in 13
years.” °

Layoffs piled onto already “intoler-
able” unemployment figures represent
the dirty end of the stick the working
people get while profits continue to spi-
ral out of sight, breaking every pre-
vious record.

Canada’s political system, long in

- definition (state monopoly capitalism)

is short in security for working people,
and has always welcomed a pool of un-
employed. The large monopolies, merg-
ing with the bourgeois state machinery
and subordinating it, use unemploy-
ment to push down wages, promote
splits in workers’ ranks. :

Now, with their system in crisis, the
ruling class tries to saddle the workers
with that burden too. Current attempts
to blame layoffs on a so-called energy
shortage should fool no one; it’s the old
anti-labor system finding a new excuse.

On Aug. 23, Manpower Minister Rob-
ert Andras warned Canadians to learn
to live with unemployment. This winter,
he said, would “see absolute (unem-
ployment) figures higher than they are
now.”

A Sept. 29 cross-country report by
Toronto-based Manpower Temporary
Service, using company estimates, pre-
dicted fewer jobs in the last three
months of this year.

On Nov. 12, Andras said jobless fig-
ures of 10% for the under-25s would

Layoffs reflect system’s crisis

persist for another gloomy seven or
eight years. That is the best capitalism
can offer.

- No wonder Canadian Labor Congress
President Donald MacDonald called it
intolerable that “Canada for the past

five consecutive years had higher, and

in most cases much higher, unemploy-
ment rates than was the case for such
countries as the United States, France,
West Germany, the United Kingdom
and Italy and Sweden.” :

Intolerable is putting it mildly!

And because the Canadian govern-
ment is in a permanent posture of bow-
ing to U.S. pressure, more and more
Canadians face U.S.-dictated layoffs.

That autoworkers and auto suppliers
are among them was demonstrated this
month when David McKinzey, manager
of Hall Lamp of Canada Co. in Cen-
tralia, Ontario, lied that 350 workers
who made Chrysler parts were laid off
on orders from Detroit because of
shortages caused by the “energy crisis.”

It turned outthat Hall Lamp of
Canada Co., like C.M. Hall Lamp Co.
of USA, is owned by Leader Inter-
national Industries, also of USA, and
that Canadian workers got the axe by
order of the absentee bosses. Directly
responsible for this is the federal gov-
ernment which allows foreign intruders
to squeeze profits out of Canadian
workers, then drop them when it is
more profitable to withdraw to the
USA.

The threat to jobs lies not in a so-
called energy crisis, but in the utter
corruption and crisis of the capitalist
system, which everywhere tries to keep
itself alive on transfusions of the work-
ers’ blood.

An anti-labor weapon

Working people know better than
anyone that the police are not a neutral
body, any more than any other part of
the capitalist state is neutral. The whole
works is “neutral” on the side of the
owners, the bosses, the ruling class.

Therefore, when the wiretapping
legislation passed by Parliament earlier
this month puts into the hands of
police the legal means of snooping into
people’s private lives, workers will take
with a grain of salt the talk about its
being used only against drug pushers
and kidnappers. Look at police behavior

. in recent strikes to judge whether they

would stoop to using this “legal” means
against labor — and against democratic
organizations not to their liking.

The requirement that the snooping
victim must be notified within 90 days
about the wiretap, if no charges have
been laid against him in that time,
should prove about as effective and be
abided by the police to the same extent
they were previously restrained by the
illegality of wiretapping. Metro To-
ronto Police Chief Harold Adamson
blurted out that Toronto police, without
_the legal niceties of Bill C-176, had been
tapping 200 telephones a year. __

Nhe effect of the wiretapping Bill is
to legalize what the police have been
doing illegally all along, and to forbid
such actions to anyone else. Beside the
club, tear gas, fire hoses, rubber bullets,
here is a new weapon in the hands of
those who want to keep labor in its
place.

Pressure on Greece

The firm resolve of the people of
Greece to restore constitutional, demo-
cratic order will not be halted by the
changing from one junta to a tougher
one. The fact that the wave of student
demonstrations before the recent coup
were supported by working people in-
dicates a refusal to accept fascist dic-
tatorship.

The coup by which Gyzikis took
power on November 25 was not only a
culmination of contradictions within
the junta, but, as has been pointed out,
put an abrupt end to any talk of elec-
tions next year. ;

It is noteworthy that the new rulers
who are charged with being CIA
stooges, hurried to declare their alle-
giance to their NATO commitments —
only a few weeks before the NATO
meeting which is currently trying to
heal all its internal differences.

Not only are we justified in demand-
ing what are Canada’s commitments to
this NATO partner, but the consider-
able strength of the Canadian trade
union movement can and should be
brought abrupty to bear, demanding
that the Greek junta allow the demo-
eratic exercise of the rights of working
people which, by hard battles, are be-
coming universally recognized.

In these crucial days when mankind
has no rest in the battle for liberation
from colonialism, fascism, from hunger
and war, not only united action, but
action at once responsive to people’s
needs must be the order of the day.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1973—PAGE 3 -

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