i

i

{
f
i

t

THE British Columbia Federation

of Labor at its forthcoming con-

Ption faces many grave and

Mgent problems which can be

“S0lved only by united, decisive and

“‘Nilitant leadership.

' Organized capital has thrown
‘ own the gauntlet to labor, challeng-
NB its right to exist. The challenge

NaS reiterated less than two weeks
BEO"by the Canadian Chamber of
®Mmerce convention in Montreal,
MAE, “Dal” Grauer of the B.C.
Wer Corporation appearing as
Me of the chief advocates of anti-
bor Measures.

~ This attack upon labor has been

Stead; : ;
mly mounting for some time.

me corporation heads who
and Immense power themselves
labo use it ruthlessly argue that
fa is becoming too powerful,

Curbs are needed so that its

ytgth and influence may be

mained. Tory, Socred, and Lib-

and Fepocans echo this sentiment

ina €sign new legislative dog col-
Or organized labor.

. Why this attack at this particular
‘ime?

*

mite €conomic crisis in capitalist

| 2

| ave

oe Uction, accentuated in Canada
Potic; S. domination and suicidal
conti €s of nuclear “brinkmanship,
aS eo to deepen. The symptoms
titin ous everywhere. There is a

Ng tide of unemployment. An or-

Einized monopoly cabal (support-

to «2 8°Vernments) with its clamor

Bits Old the line on wages,” is re-
ting to

foe mass lockouts and every
fie of strike provocation in an at-
th Pt to place the full burden of
0

e . oe
‘of €Conomie crisis upon the backs

Rherally, and the working people

Ried te war threats, accom-
Y staggering expenditures
amaments, in recent months
iy p_°*Ploded into open aggression
ang yt, Jordan, Lebanon, Quemoy
iad coastal waters of People’s

Pacific Tribune

Phone MUtual 5-5288

Editor — TOM McEWEN
'. “sing Editor — HAL GRIFFIN

Subscription Rates:

One Year: $4.00
Six Months: $2.25

Published weekly at

4 Room 6 — 426 Main Street

Vancouver 4, B.C.

tog tadian and Commonwealth
Me — (except Australia): $4.00
tq se Australia, United States
1 other countries: $5.00 one
year.

EDITORIAL PAGE

On these grave problems of war,
unemployment, the attacks on estab-
lished labor standards, which can-
not be separated, organized labor
has remained comparatively silent.
Only on the wage front, and then
by no means in a coordinated man-
ner, has organized labor spoken
out vigorously.

A number of resolutions adopted
by the last Canadian Labor Congress
convention on such questions as un-
employment, wage increases and ex-
panded trade, were fine documents.
Without corresponding action how-
ever, these resolutions, or any re-
iteration of them, will not provide
jobs and adequate pay envelopes or
defeat the attempts of big business
to hogtie labor. Worst of all, CLC
endorsation of NATO policies is
hardly likely to advance the cause
of peace or hold the hands of the
nuclear warmakers — the same in-
terests that are now making war
upon labor.

The objective of federal and pro-
vincial governments in their phoney

“control” of CPR and Blackball
steamship lines must now be obvious
to all workers. It was that of smash-
ing a strike for justified wage in-
creases, thereby ensuring that the
profits of either company would not
be jeopardized by the wage demands
of seamen or other ship’s personnel.
It was open strikebreaking, yet there
was scarcely a murmur from organ-
ized labor.

Recently Prime Minister Diefen-
baker, speaking on behalf of the
Red Feather campaign, declared
that “charity and welfare” had be-
come a permanent part of Canada’s
“way of life.”

To those who recklessly spend
billions of dollars for nuclear war
armaments at U.S. behest it may be
considered good politics to reduce
such social needs as health and edu-
cation to a charity level, to substi-
tute the soup line for gainful em-
ployment. It is hardly likely how-
ever, that outside of a small hand-
ful of labor bureaucrats whose ac-
tions dovetail with Diefenbaker’s

Comment

| The urgent issues before the BCFL convention

words, organized labor in B.C. or
throughout Canada will accept the
conditions which breed the need of
“charity” as a way of life.

*

The portents are plain for labor.
The question is how labor will be
rallied to safeguard its gains and
its rights.

To face up to these problems the
rank and file of the unions do not
require new resolutions on paper,
but a new resolve to gather their
strength in unity and determination
—to fight the enemies of labor on
all fronts and at all levels.

What is required is unity in the
economic field to win wages, jobs,
markets and the prosperous economy
of peace; unity in the political field
to forge a labor-farmer-people’s al-
ternative to replace the Liberal-
Tory-Socred governments of big
business.

A big job, yet ‘one, given a will
equal to the desire, possible of ac-
complishment.

Tom
McEwen

O THE casual observer, a police
T magistrate’s court might ap-
pear to be just a mumbo-jumbo
of bargain-basement price tags on
“justice,” the most popular lines
being monotonously recited, “Ten
days or ten dollars.”

Such a conclusion would he
highly erroneous. In days of yore
when the futility of looking for a
job became the most futile job of
all, I used to take in what I con-
sidered the best show on earth;
a show much easier on the feet
and eminently enlightening to the
mental faculties—the police court.

There I often found the quin-
tessence of great tragedy, of
pathos, humor, satire, and some-
times unparalleled drama. Some-
times too, when some especially
vile specimen of humanity was
in the dock, I could almost. find
myself wishing I were the “beak,”
clothed with a like authority and
a heavy hand to bear down on the
scales of justice.

Last week, Vancouver Police
Magistrate Oscar Orr had to give
himself time off to “cool down”
before passing sentence on one of
these exceptionally odious speci-
mens of homo sapiens.

Like all great cities, Vancouver
has its own exclusive character-
istics; people, things, and places,
which over the years become an
accepted part of our community.
Not the least of these is an aged
Chinese - Canadian junk man,
Chan You Kung, 72 years of age,
bent double with arthritis and
other human ailments, invariably
in rags, trundling his junk barrow
day and night.

Oblivious alike to traffic lights,
the honking horns of irate motor-
ists, the weather, or the friendly
advice of traffic policemen, old
Chan plods along in his search of
junk — a few bottles, an old
stove, a sackfull of disused rags,
the lot probably worth a dime.
But old Chan is there, harmless
and inoffensive, almost as perma-
nent as the old library building
at the corner of Hastings and
Main. His needs are perhaps few,
but in his search to supply them
Chan ranges far and wide. At
worst, Chan is a hazard to him-
self in the roaring traffic of a
modern world.

What made Magistrate Oscar
Orr and a lot of other people see
red was the action of a pair of
young hooligans, scarcely out of
their teens, who strong-armed old
Chan in a back lane, stripped his
crippled body of its meagre
clothing, beat him to a pulp, and
robbed him of his personal wealth
—one solitary dollar. Small won-
der the magistrate needed time to
“cool off” before throwing the
book at such specimens.

Without presuming to interfere
in the course of justice, I would
like to give the magistrate a hint
of what I would do were I in his
position — advice entirely .un-
solicited.

Instead of sending these birds
to Oakalla which, in present day
capitalist society is no solution
for enforced idleness and its re-
sultant juvenile crime, I would
sentence them to a two months’
stint at trundling Chan’s junk
barrow around its customary cir-
cuit, accompanied by Chan in
the authorized capacity of super-
visor, and with the barrow promi-
nantly displaying the . necessary
public information for such a
safari.

Such a sentence would have a
triple beneficial effect. It would
preserve Chan as one of Vancou-
ver’s septuagenerian celebrities
who insist on the right to work
unmolested. It would have a salu-
tory effect upon young hooligans
with an over-developed urge to
beat-up aged -Chinese-Canadian
citizens. And not the least im-
portant, it would save the tax-
payers the expense of keeping
such people in the hoosegow —
which solves nothing anyway.

Clearly this breed of yeggs who
select aged Chinese-Canadians as
their victims, require a special
brand of justice, not listed in the
code book. Hence the above cure,
(with no fee attached) is worth a
trial. Who knows, it might even
render police magistrates im-
mune from high blood pressures.

October 17,

1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5