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IWA condemns ‘tight money’ squeeze

LUMBER INDUSTRY IN B.C.
HARD HIT’ BY GOV'T MOVE

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VOL. 27, NO. 39

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1966

EB 10¢

‘Inflation’-an excuse
to cut medicare, jobs

This week the Central Executive Committee of the Commu-
nist Party of Canada released an important statement to the
Press bearing on federal government economic and fiscal
policies. Unless speedily terminated, such policies can lead to a
return to mass unemployment and severe economic and social
hardships for th bulk of Canada's wage earners and white-

coliar salaried workers.

The CP statement follows:

If present Government policy is
not reversed we face rising un-
employment and rising prices,

In- the name of combatting in-
flation the Government is arbi-
trarily slowing down economic
expansion and curtailing expen=
ditures on housing and construc-
tion although 300,000 new homes
are required to meet the needs
of Canadians,

With cynical disregard for the
facts the Government uses the
danger of inflation as an excuse
to delay medicare, abandon stu-
dent scholarships, curtail public
works and researchnone ofwhich

has a bearing on inflation. The.

real causes of rising prices —
profiteering, price gouging, the
U.S. war in Vietnam andthe arms
program in Canada — are ig-
nored,

The Government calls for re-
‘straint but the only restraint it
has imposed is on working people
who strive to catch up with rising
prices, rising productivity and
profits and seek a growing share
of the wealth they produce,

In contrast monopoly is given
a free hand, Freight rates have
been increased, So will the price
of cars. Food costs rise, although
little, if any, goes to farmers
in the way of increased income,
Finance Minister Sharp, the Gov-
ernment’s hatchet man, proposes
to limit wage increases to 5%,
But he sets no limit on profits
and prices, Here the sky is the
limit,

The Government is now plan-
ning to impose acompulsory sav-
ings plan on the Canadian people
Supposedly to combat inflation,
Precisely at a time when addi-
; tional purchasing power is needed

to enable Canadians to share
in the wealth they produce.

These policies will neither
combat inflation nor lower prices,
All they will do is make the
monopolies richer while placing
additional burdens on the work-
ing people, the farmers and small
business interests,

Moreover, such policies could
in the end open the door to large
scale unemployment.

These policies need to be re=
jected by the Canadian people,

1, Canada needs an anti-infla-
tion program, but it must be one
which is directed to ensuring
planned, steady, independent de-
velopment and economic expan-
sion, Instead of planned unem-
ployment and rising prices Can-
ada needs a policy of planned
growth and rising living stand-
ards, .

2. Restraints are needed but it
must be directed to curbing the
profiteers and price gougers by
placing a ceiling on profits and a-
freeze on prices. This is why
corporate taxes should be ine
creased anda Price Review Board
established, with labor, farmer
and consumer representation, to
police prices,

3. Unnecessary Government
expenditures must be curtailed,
The place to start is the arms
program and the U.S. war in
Vietnam both of which are basic
factors in accelerating infla-
tionary tendencies,

4, Purchasing power must be
increased through substantial
wage increases as well as by

See INFLATION, Pg. 8

In his keynote address to the
opening session of the 29th Annual
Convention of the International
Woodworkers of America (IWA),
B.C. Western Region, regional
president Jack Moore declared
that federal ‘tight money’ poli-
cies, under the guise of com-
batting inflation, will ‘hit hard’ at
B.C’s basic industry,

The IWA president stated that
these policies now being pressed
by the federal government could
“push B,C, into a recession, and
quite possibly a full-scale de-
pression,” Moore stressed the
fact that because of these ‘tight
money’ policies coupled with
higher interest rates, that less
money will be available for con-
struction, and would result in
fewer homes and other con-
struction projects being under-
taken,

These government decisions
now underway in both the U.S.
and Britain, and now in Canada,
have already slowed down the
economy with its resultant large-
scale layoffs and growing unem-
ployment,

The IWA president stated that
the pretexts given for such poli-

cies is a fear of inflation, ‘it
is not that at all, The real
reason is fear ofunionsand union
members getting a rightful share
of the pie, For once in our
existence, the working people
have been able to get, through
negotiations and economic
strength, a bigger share of the
pie they produce,’

As a result of government
tight money policies the IWA
president predicted that large-
scale unemployment in the lum-
ber industry could result, Many
of the smaller logging and mill
operations are already closing
down or cutting back in staffs
and planning lower production
schedules. Moore told IWA con-
vention delegates that a similar
curtailment in building construc-
tion can also result from such
policies,

In its sessions to date the IWA
convention has centered a great
deal of discussion on safety mea-
sures in the industry, and the
need for the union to greatly
enforce safety regulations in an
effort to cut down the high acci-
dent and fatality rate in the lum-
ber industry,

Two important resolutions on
peace and disarmament were
unanimously approved by the 200
or more IWA delegates in Tues-.
day’s sessions.

On peace in Vietnam: “That this.
IWA convention through the B.C.
Federation of Labor and Canadian
Labor Congress make the
strongest possible representa-
tion to the Federal. government
to: (1) Discontinue acting as an
apologist of U.S. aggression in
Vietnam, (2) Discontinue supply-
ing the war hawks in the U.S.
with moral and material support,
and (3), proceed to function on the
International Control Commis-
sion, by assisting to implement
the 1954 Geneva accord.”

The other resolution empha-
sizes for the IWA that “we are
emphatically opposed to nuclear
arms stored in Canada and urge
Prime Minister Pearson to honor
his election campaign pledge to
negotiate the removal of nuclear
arms from Canadian soil,”

The IWA Convention is sched-
uled to end Friday of this week,
A fuller outline on the important
IWA convention will be included
in next week’s edition ofthe‘PT,?

Injunction issue at CLC Labor
Meet still in ‘legal’ snarl

By RAE MURPHY

The problem of relating and
interweaving mass action and
legal legislative positions came
sharply and immediately to the
fore at the Canadian Labor Con-
gress (CLC) national conference
in Ottawa this week on labor leg-
islation.

The conference brought to-
gether the top leadership of the
CLC, affiliated unions and pro-
vincial federations to discuss a
program of action to combat the
increasing use of judicial and
legislative weapons to hamstring
the labor movement,

The first discussion centered
around the question of injunctions
in labor disputes, It should be
recalled that the last convention
of the CLC adopted a resolution
condemning the use of injunctions
and calling upon member organi-
zations to “engage in astrong and
militant campaign to eliminate
the use of injunctions in labor
disputes”, The resolution envis=
iaged a legislative and political
campaign to abolish injunctions,

Introducing the discussion,
lawyer John Osler submitted a
paper entitled * Labor andthe Law
regarding Injunctions’, In his
paper Osler took issue with the
anti-injunction resolution adopted
at the Winnipeg CLC conference,

Stating that the elimination of
injunctions alltogether is a goal
“impossible of ~ achievment in
the reasonably foreseeable
future”, Osler went on to develop
an explanation of legal necessity
of injunctions as such, as well
as a criticism of their use in
labor disputes, He went on to ad=
vance proposals for legislative
action for what he termeda more
“positive” legal position along
the lines of the Norris-LaGuardia
Act. This Act, which dates from
the ‘New Deal’ in the U.S, pre-
scribes serious limitations in
the use of injunctions. without
abolishing them,

Whatever the merit of Osler’s
proposals, and all delegates
seemed to agree in some mea-
sure, that his approach merited
serious consideration, the prob-
lem in the purely legalistic
framework of his thinking and his
approach to the concrete issue
as it affects workers, remains,

The point was made by Dave
Archer, president of the Ontario
Federation of Labor, and others
who question the practicality of
a proposal to ban strike break-
ing, when the labor movement is
as yet unable to win the aboli-
tion of injunctions. Osler replied

See LABOR, Pg. 8

Dr. A. M. INGLIS

_ Dr. Allan M. Inglis, chairman of the
‘Canadian Aid for Vietnam Civilians,
back in Canada following an exten-
sive tour of Europe and the USSR, ex-
pressed himself as being ‘fully satis-
fied’ that the financial and medical
aid forwarded to Vietnam is being
fairly distributed on ‘the basis of
need.’ This valuable aid has been
‘split’ three ways; 45-percent to North
Vietnam, 45-percent to South Viet-
nam under the National Liberation
Front (Viet Cong), and 10-percent
to the International Red Cross, stated ;
Dr. Inglis. se