[LABOR FRONT BY WILLIAM KASHTAN I came across the following editorial in the December 1961 edition of the Alberta Public Employee, official organ of the Alberta Federation of Public Employees, National Union of Public Employees, a CLC affiliate, and thought it would be useful to:bring it to: the attention: of readers: of this column. Entitled “The Cancer of the Labor Movement’ it says: “The labor movement teday is faced with a cancer .as serious as the cancer which faces medicine. This cancer, raiding, is éating into the body of labor; Sapping it out of its strength and wasting it away to the point that in sections of our ‘country today, the worker is at'the mercy of management. “Tt is to the disgrace of the trade union movement that this cancerous action has not-been ‘stopped. Raiding isnot like the cancer of medicine, there is a ¢ure and a way to stop raiding. Let the control of the unions: go into the hands of the member- = ship. They will see to it that there will be no money spent to raid. The membership’s prime aim is to build the trade union movement, to strengthen it and to bring new members into the circle of labor in order to ‘strengthen their position in society-and-in order to help their fellow men. oS sd * “One of the prime examples of raiding today, is that of the Steel Workers Union against the Mine Mill Union in Sudbury. Many thousands of dollars of dues money of the Steel Workers has been spent in raiding this union. “The ironical part of this so-called liberation is that once they are taken away from Mine Mill, Steel has nothing to offer the workers of Sudbury. Mine Mill has the best contracts in Canada covering the workers in the hard rock mining and ore reduction industry. “In Canada today, we have less than one-fifth of the workers organized. “Would it not be much wiser to have spent the money, that Steel has spent, to organize the unorganized and add to the strength of the labor movement, than to have weakened the labor movement by spending the worker’s money on these useless non-productive raids? *% a * “Though we condemn the Steel Union for its action today, they are ‘not the only people who need their knuckles rapped for wasting the workers money on useless, non-pro- ductive raids. The Canadian Labor Congress itself- and -its top brass, including Claude Jodoin, have a severe reprimand coming for their actions in this raiding. “They have blessed and condoned the actions of Steel and in fact have moved in to assist them in their action in Sudbury, leaving many of the critical problems: of the CLC unattended. They are spending our per capita money to dis- rupt the labor movement, rather than to organize it. To this. we strongly object, as was voiced in the Alberta federation of labor convention in October 1961. (Special resolution. against any and all raiding). This same resolution was passed by our own national union convention last, September. “The question of union jurisdiction and organizing in the Canadian labor movement has now become a farce. We have unions raiding the ‘organized, unions moving _ into fields where they have no license to be, as example, the rail- way workers organizing hospitals in Nova Scotia without the ability to properly service them. We have even come to the point where Mr. Sefton, a high official of the Steel Workers in Canada, states that it is the right and duty of Steel to raid smaller, weaker organizations because of their (Steel’s) strength. The joke of this is that they have nothing to offer these unions in the way of. better negotia- tions. In fact, in many cases their existing contracts are not as good as the agreements of the locals they are raiding. * " * * “What can*be done about this situation?’ There is only one solution. That is to'go to the CLC Convention in April and-pass 2 resolution directing the CLC and all affiliates to stop all raiding and direct our efforts to organizing.’ Then, procéed to take action to stop the raiders,-by the CLC pro- tecting any and all organized labor and by bringing those}. unions not in the Congress in; without all the red tape. ““Management* today 1s laughing at the labor movement. We are so busy fighting Gach other that we have no time to ‘fight management for a better way. of life and a more equal share of ‘what-we produce. Management will not have to break unions if we’ keep on raiding, we will.break_ our- selves: We must’ gét ‘together in unity to fight our common cause, not fight eachother: to have the glory of being. the largest “union.” * * aK I am confident the views expressed here are™ widely held throughout all sections of the .trade.union «movement and can only hope that they will. find. expression. in. union locals and in the forthcoming convention.-of. the:.Canadian Labor Congress in Vancouver. ECM-what does it | mean for Canada? ‘The jobs ‘of Canadian workers, the markets of Canadian farmers are ‘gravely threatened by the de- cision of the Tory government of Great Britain to join the Eurepean Common Market. “To fully:-understand the significance of this British decision it is necessary to have a picture of ‘the deepen- ing market ‘crisis which countrieés.. After the second:world war {the socialist part of the world: was enlarged. to make up a system of socialist states. The capitalist sector of the world was thereby weakened. Furthermore, within the cap- italist sector, there was a shift of economic power in fa- vor of the United States. The aggressive aims of U.S. imperialism were clearly to be seen in the offensive it started against the socialist sector. The Marshall plan, the Truman Doctrine, NATO, NORAD, SEATO, all these pacts and plans were measur- | es taken by U.S. imperialism in an effort to unite world capitalism against socialism, and agairist the movements for national liberation. The United States is still trying. President Kennedy speaks of an economic bloc of the so-called “free world” against the socialist states— under the domination, of course of the U.S.A. But all these efforts to contain and block socialism have failed. Two world mar- kets have developed — one socialist, one imperialist, The socialist market is free from contradiction, trade between the socialist countries is bas- ed on mutual advantage and friendly assistance. The soc- ialist market is constantly expanding. The . capitalist market is rent by conflicts, with one nation or group of nations trying to get the advantage over the other. This market is affecting all capitalist is shrinking as the colonial peoples win their freedom. BRITAIN AND EUROPE West Germany has now come forward with the help of the United States as the strongest capitalist power in Europe. This has weakened the position of Britain. No longer is Britain the core of a great alliance such as it was in the “heyday of the Commonwealth market. Now the British capitalists have to seek new alliances in strong- - BRITISH .VIEW | er markets. The British capitalists tried to organize a new trading al- liance in Europe which was | known as the Outer Seven in order to compete with the Inner Six led by West Ger- many (that is the European Common Market countries— which includes France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg). But the Outer Seven has collapsed. So now the British capital- ist class sees no alternative but to try to get into the In- ner Six themselves. This marks an abandonment of trade patterns followed by Britain for generations — trade patterns based upon the Commonwealth, and includ- ing always the exploitation of colonial peoples. OLD MARKETS GONE The Commonwealth market was an important factor in Canada’s economic develop- ment. Even today 20 percent of Canada’s foreign trade is with Britain; Canadian goods (often the products of U.S. owned. firms) also enter the markets of India, Australia, New Zealand, and the British West Indies .on~ favorable terms. ‘ But now the members. of the European Common Mar- ket on the ‘continent; of Eur- ope will insist that Britain end its system of low prefer- ential tariffs) to .Common-. ‘wealth countries. They. will insist that Britain comes in behind the tariff wall which the ‘Common Market erects against all other countries. - Our markets fer wheat, lumber and salmon will be among the first to suffer. Can- adian industry will be hard hit. Much of that industry is made up of U;S. branch plants built here in the first place to take - advantage of the Commonwealth preferential tarifs. There is danger now that those firms will cut their Canadian production. . Serious as the results of Britain’s entry into the Eur- opean Common Market will be for Canada, the Diefen- baker government only makes itself ridiculous with its loud complaints about Bri- tain’s actions. The Tories followed a del- iberate policy of further inte- grating’ Canada with the ec- onomy of the U.S. They con- sciously adopted this policy as an alternative to closer trade relations with Britain. It is rank hypocrisy for them to°give vent to:wails of anguish, because their Prit- ish counterparts are trying to regain their lost trading pos- ition by shifting from. the Commonwealth to Western Europe. Equally ridiculous is the Liberal talk about an Atlan- tic Free Trade Community, which, even if it could be brought about, would only re- sult in further heightening U.S. domination over Canada. Both the Liberals and Tor- ies try to dodge the fact that the European Common Mar- ket is an economic expression of the cold war, of the politi- cal and military Western al- liance. which is the North At- lantic Treaty Organization and. in which these old par-. ties have entangled Canada. There. are no answers to the problems of the Canadian people to be found in the pol- icies of these parties. The hard facts are that the old system of Commonwealth markets is coming to an’end.- Unless *the--Canadian people ‘| compel the: government to find. new markets for our goods,. the present one-sided, trade with the United States will increase, and our de- pendence. upon the economy of the United States. will be- come even more abject’ than ‘1 it now is. ‘ NEW MARKETS There are-alternative mar-' | kets for “Canadian industrial ‘=| products; ‘raw -materials and) ‘<4 foodstuffs. Latin’ “America; for-*-ex-: ample, and “especially: Cuba.~ oe vt See - ECimiii-pg. 7 - January 19, 1962—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2