is *atement,

. PARLIER this year, when big busi-

eg launched its concerted
a Upon organized labor, as the
ce Ine of defense of the people’s

$ standards, the Vancouver
m led the anti-labor clamor.

te fact that the Vancouver Sun
Inds it fitting to praise the

Ne district leadership for its
ata of responsibility and modera-
“a in agreeing to forego any
ae bas this year brands that
Ne 2 tor what it is—a surrendering
7 ©membership’s position in face

© bosses’ attack.

The IWA policy committee’s
ice recommending accept-
bie of what IWA district presi-
ia. ee Morris misrepresents as
ing. sSOnable basis for settlement
tthe present circumstances,”
a pues that the employers had suc-
o. arousing sufficient public
“a Se to demand _government
»y “ton in any strike action.
o° through the Vancouver Sun
Der. €r' monopoly controlled
ta the truth has been shame-
© Perverted. But what did the

rotest tells

.. FACT that External Affairs
“Tes, he’ Sidney Smith, however
General Y, has urged in the UN
titish Assembly that U.S. and
cbano troops be withdrawn from
buted 2 and Jordan may be attri-
he ig eS inajor considerations.
fo, oer force of the movement
ince Stermination and indepen-
ay ae Sweeping the colonial
Africa “colonial countries of Asia,
ther fs Latin America. _The
Seiad force of public opinion
1S country itself.
& Sie 1S no denying that most
tion ek are opposed to énterven-
Drogas € Middle East. But the
8 this opposition are
teman * and letters, the resolutions
Stan, ing that Canada take a
have Rent intervention, that
ted into Ottawa.
; rege set by those who
Wed b yY acted should be fol-
y all,

®,

Pacific Tribune

a MUtual 5-5288
tag, | TOM McEWEN
_ "8 Editor — WAI, GRIFFIN

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€r countries: $5.00 one
year,

Responsibility to whom?

IWA leadership do to mobilize
its own membership, to say nothing
of public opinion, behind the

union’s just demands?

The IWA had a good case for its
original demand for a 10 percent
wage increase. Productivity in the
industry is higher, prices are higher,
profits are: higher — but wages,
measured against still increasing
living costs and shorter working
time, are lower.

Public support could have been
won for this case, for the public, in
the majority, is composed of work-
ing people. But the IWA leadership
failed to conduct the vigorous cam-
paign mecessary to counter the
bosses’ propaganda.

The Vancouver Sun congratu-
lates the IWA leadership on_ its
“sense of responcibility,” citing its
capitulation as an example to other
unions. Responsibility to whom?
Certainly not to the IWA member-
ship whose just wage demands have
been sacrificed to a “moderation”
which is not shared by the bosses
in their drive for profits. And cer-
tainly not to those unions in other
industries whose wage demands are

jeopardized by the IWA leader-

ship’s “example.”

< EDITORIAL PAGE

Comment

Gervin's sorry role

NLY THOSE in the labor move-

while the industrial inquiry commis-

ment whose own political
stomachs have become encased with
the fat of opportunism can have
followed the role played by R. K.
Gervin in the current plumbers’
strike without a feeling of nausea.

sion set up by the government does
its job,” he said. “If union head-
quarters declines to supply — suf-
ficient men, contractors will have
no alternative but to hire whatever
men they can get. We know there
are a great many men anxious to get
back to work after the long layoff.
Any men hired will be asked to take
out a union card and if the union
refuses to supply them, that will be
their business.”

This, it should be remembered,
is the man who sat for years in the
councils of labor, who held high
office in the old Vancouver Trades
and Labor Council and the Trades
and Labor Congress. This is the
man the right wing promoted as a
leading figure in the labor move-
ment, though even while he was still
within its ranks labor had little to
show for his leadership. It was Van-
couver Non-Partisan Association
that placed him on Vancouver
City Council to provide a false labor
complexion for its own seedy old-
line party face.

When Gervin left labor’s side of
the negotiating table to sit with the
employers as spokesman for the
construction industry, labor knew
him as a renegade. Now, from the
statement he gave to the press this
week, labor can see to what lengths
his renegation has led him.

Workers have their own words to
describe such a statement—words
added to the language out of
decades of just such attempts by
employers to smash their organiza-
tions. One is strike-breaking. An-
other is scab-herding. No doubt
Gervin has heard them.

Plumbers, Pipefitters and Steam-
fitters Local 170, from the time it
was. first locked out by the em-
ployers throughout its strike, has
fought militantly for its wage
demands, while standing ready at
any time to negotiate in good faith.
Proof of this is its indication that it
is prepared to accept the 26-cent
package deal proposed as a basis of
settlement by. the special commis-
sion’s majority report.

“We have invited the (plumbers)
union to send its men back to work

A‘ THE RISK of being branded

a “leftist,’ there are some
things .which should be stated,
bluntly, frankly and often, with-
out any bourgeois polish applied
to take the sharp edge off work-
ing class language.

For nigh on a century the
working people of this country
have been putting the Liberals in
government office and kicking
out the Tories or, as they did
earlier this year, kicking the
Liberals out and putting the
Tories in. When they haven’t been

doing that, they have been fol-
lowing equally blind trails chop-
ped out by Social Democracy,
Social Credit and similar politi-
eal “alternatives,” all invariably
ending up in exactly the same
spot. Only on very rare occasions
has a lone and genuine voice of
the working people been heard
in the parliaments of this land.

Worst of all they (we) are still
doing it, and still ending up the

victims of an old political shell

. } ; A -
game; a game in which no matter
who wins, the working people

always lose. All done very demo-
cratically, of course, with all
rights to life, liberty and the pur-
suit of an illusive job preserved
intact—and unrealizable.

It was estimated that in the
federal election last March ever
87 pereent of organized labor
voted for the old-line parties of

= big business.

Take the political action reso-
lution of the Canadian Labor : ;
Congress for a new labor-farmer- by organized labor griping be-
people’s alliance to replace the cause of unfulfilled
political parties of big business.
This resolution (on paper) is a
fine document, full of fine senti-

There is little purpose served

election

promises’ by the “Follow John”
brigade; of expressing disapproval
Sete of Tory disregard for the plight
ments, projecting something bet- of three-quarters of a million
ter than a Tory, Liberal or Socred unemployed; of Tory subservi-
regime of monopoly-controlled ence to John Foster Dulles’
political quacks. But fine words ‘brinkmanship” or concerted
“butter no parsnips,” nor do they Tory-employer attacks upon the
produce political parties founded living standards and organization
on the bedrock of working class of labor. In all these things (and
struggle. more) the Tories, like their
Liberal predecessors, are “doing
what comes naturally’”—to them;
and will continue to do just as
long as working people in factory
and on farm suffer them.

% $03 xt

One month before the birth of
this CLC resolution proclaiming
the need of working people to
forge their own political alliance

to supplant the illusory alterna-
tives of Tory, Liberal and hybrid
Socred rule on behalf of big
business, the CLC issued another
document; an election pamphlet
entitled “Your rights and respon-
sibilities on March 31, 1958.”

What were these “rights and
responsibilities”? Mainly to get
out and vote, with nothing to vote
for in most places save the old
political quacks of the capitalist
shell game. Tory or Liberal,
Liberal or Tory. It didn’t even
say “Vote CCF” or LPP!

If there is a handful of trade
union leaders whose “loyalty”
and affiliations with the political
parties of big business (and there
is) retard the job of putting the
brains, blood, sinew and muscle
on the CLC resolution, that’s just
too bad. But it is no reason why
one million or more organized
workers and farmer shouldn’t get
on with the job of providing an
alternative to the capitalist-per-
fected shell game.

The alternative to not doing so
is more of the same, ad infinitum!

August 22, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5