a"

)Gntinued from poge 1

M “The BCFL will work
i With the CCF in furth-
ace of the objectives of the
#de union movement. I say
AG anyone outside — in unions
cy Peethe CLC. —— if you
Bh to participate in this
Plitical Action there are only
{Ways to get in; either have
itt union affiliate to the CLC,
pecome a member of the

Debate became bitter from
a Point on, as many dele-
“S objected to the interpre-
- given by Morris. Mat-
h Were brought to a head
tat W. E. Stewart (Elec-
\ Workers 213) asked Mel
ae chairman of the
yj. <2 education committee,
~~ Question:

fps the resolution mean

big adopt the CCF as the
Ital arm of labor? Or that
Support it as the best
Ns of presently obtaining
legislative -aims.”

Mea

os the best means of pres-
ting» Otining our legislative
i, replied Kemmis.

ili Convention floor began
i. 's with delegates fighting
Nalioen mikes, as delegates
th a that the CCF tactic
i A Mterpret the report as
i ing last year’s’ BCFL
__ fal action resolution.

(

mye? Voting on this third
ite 10n report, not on the
ny Convention resolution—
iy OU Can’t read into this re-
iN, St Year’s decisions,” said
ty, “enkins (Marine Work-

5)

Ro
tr, FL Secretary George Home
hent Up with a devious argu-

thse Pech proceeded: along
} nes:

fo

1 Nee Sentence of the com-
oy : : recommends
Ny), tied support to the

; Hig ORS and statement en-
| oy ‘ at the Winnipeg conven-
bit <p te CLC.” The CLC re-
Ming “tains a line urging af-
une Unions, federations and
S “to continue such
Political action or
‘ AS they may have
sts In the past.” This
Hyp tte endorsement of the
| eg ed L resolution which
This. ‘hat “the CCF war-
‘ty in © Support of the work=
Prec,” 28 the best means
Notas obtaining their
a alms,”
the a &n attempt to shackle
Movement to old

a Se

Ths
“Of
scat

Yon
otieg ie

ee. Se Le Le

be MR ce pie

ee: GRILL

a8 Carrall St.
A Capa COOKING
A « x Tolls a Specialty
“Al S8gers Welcome”
ert Truman, Prop.

~

_ POLITICAL ACTION’ -

policies which didn’t work,”
charged Bill Stewart (Marine
Workers). “The report is five
pages long, signed by the com-
mittee. Now some people are
trying to add the appended
resolutions which are not in
the report.”

As delegates sought to speak,
the chairman recognized Bob
Smeale, a member of the reso-
lutions committee, and he
moved “that the previous ques-
tion be put,” thus cutting off
debate.

Chairman Vic Midgley call-
ed for a show of hands, then
announced that the “ayes” had
it.

There was a roar of protest
from the floor and Midgley
backtracked and called for a
standing vote.

The vote appeared to be
evenly divided, but the chair

“announced the figures as 171

in favor, 126 opposed.

A call for a roll_call vote
was defeated, and the politi-
cal education committee re-
port was endorsed by a good
majority. :

The question still remains:
What did the delegates en-
dorse? The five-page report?
Or the report plus last year’s
political resolution?

Officially, of course, they
only endorsed the report. But
in coming months CCF in-
terpretation of the convention’s
decision will undoubtedly con-
tinue to cause confusion in
labor’s ranks — to the deteri-
ment of broad political action.

During the sharp debate on
political action observers from
several unions not in the Can-
adian Labor Congress — Mine-
Mill, United Fishermen and
Allied Workers, Civic Em-
ployees Outside Workers —
were present.

A written appeal to dele-
gates from the UFAWU had
urged action that would “make
it possible for our union to
play the ‘fullest possible role
in future discussions regard-
ing the new political move-

ment.”

The debate in the BCFL con~

vention is: over — but it will
certainly be resumed, and ex-
tended, in hundreds of local
unions throughout the prov-
ince. For in many B.C. ridings,
political action without the
participation of fishermen’ and
miners would only be a futile

gesture.

Automation frees So viet workers
for new jobs - they don't fear it

(In. the first two articles of this series Maurice Rush recounted his experiences in the
German Democratic Republic, in this and succeeding articles he gives his imprs-
sions of the Soviet Union.)

By MAURICE RUSH

A country of more than 200 million people in which everyone is seized with the idea of

catching up with the United States and within a few years surpassing it in per capita produc-

tion: This is the Soviet Union today.

Much has already been written and said by others about the great industrial’ advances
of the first socialist land. You see signs of it on all sides. In factories. and on farms, at

educational institutions and on
the streets, everywhere there
are graphs and charts showing
the progress being made to-
wards the goal of overtaking
the most advanced. capitalist
country. Even a box of matches
I bought had a graph showing
the progress being made in the
match industry.

The first experience I had
with Soviet industrial develop-
ment was when I stepped
aboard the famous TU-104 jet
passenger plane at Prague and
flew to-Moscow in 140 minutes
—a speed of around 500 miles
an hour.

I saw it again when I visited
the much publicized Moscow
ball-bearing plant and watched
a completely automatic pro-
duction line where steel pipe
is fed in at one end and fin-
ished ball-bearing parts: come
out the other, packed and
ready for shipping.

The guide took me through
the plant told me that a group
of experts from a U.S. ball-
bering company recently visit-
ed the plant and were so im-
pressed by the automatic pro-
duction line that they. gathered
information on it in order to
instal a similar systemxin their
own plants.

When I asked one of the
handful of workers who oper-
ated the line what had happen-
ed to the other workers who
were replaced by automation,
he replied: -

“There’s no problem here. In
our country there is work for
everyone. The workers are
now working in other parts of
the plant. They have been re-
trained for other jobs without
any loss of earnings and they
have -benefitted, because our
plant has now been able to go
over to the 7-hour day without
any reduction in pay. We are
always looking for new ways
to introduce automation in
other parts of our plant.”

What a difference between
capitalism and socialism. In
our own country automation is
seen as a threat by many be-
cause it means loss of employ-
ment. Under socialism it means
a higher Standard of living,
shorter hours and better work-
ing conditions.

xt x it

When I visited the industrial
exhibition in-Moscow I saw
on display the ‘most modern

These Soviet workers no longer have their jobs in Mosxow’s

fully automated ball-bearing plant. But they’re not worried, for
they have been retrained for other and better jobs. ___- ____ —

stantly expanding Soviet in-
dustry—and a most impressive
display it was. In a whole after-
noon I was still unable to see
no more that a small part of.it.

Here on display was a model
of a walking crane built to one-
tents scale. The guide explain-
ed it to me and demonstrated
how it walked by pressing
buttons. It was like watching
a huge robot taking a step of
about one yard at a time.

This machine is us€d on very
large construction* jobs where
huge amounts of earth must
be removed. It is completely
automatic and operated by one
man sitting in a cabin with
two television screens and a
panel of buttons before him,
My guide explained that it
would do the work of more
than 20,000 manual laborers.

It. must have been this ma-
chine or others like it that
prompted the Canadian engin-
eers who visited the Soviet
Union last spring to say that
if Soviet techniques and equip-
ment had been used on the St.
Lawrence Seaway it - would
have been built more quickly.

The two exhibits which.drew
the largest crowds were the
new automobiles,- motorcycles
and busses and the display of
three Soviet Sputniks, exact
replicas of those fired into
space, My guide patiently des-
cribed how Sputnik 3 worked
but*it was too complicated for
me.

In the display rooms, - all
decorated with wall paintings
showing. various experiments
in space, were examples of the
equipment carried by the three

equipment produced by a con- S.putniks,> accompanied by

October 24, 1958 —

charts, graphs and explaina-
tions of the function’ of each
piece of equipment. —

I had gained an impression
from the Vancouver daily
press that the Soviet Union
was keeping much of this
equipment secret and was sur-
prised to find it all on display
in a public exhibition with
scientists on hand anxious to
explain details to questioners.

Se Se

If anyone were to-ask me
the symbols of the Soviet
Union should be at this time I
would say the building crane
and power line. These dot the
skyline wherever you looked
around Moscow.

There’s no doubt that. the
rate of industrial growth in
the Soviet Union is very high.
As Nikita Khruschev, Soviet
Communist Party” secretary,
observed when he spoke
to the Socialist Unity Party’s
congress in Berlin, “We have
surpassed all the advanced
states'and we are now rapidly
advancing on the leading capi-
talist state, the United States.”

He pointed out that in the
first quarter of 1958 Soviet
industrial--production expand-
ed by 11 percent over 1957
while U.S. production declined
by 11 percent.

A visitor to the Soviet Union
comes away with a strong im-
pression that the Soviet peo-
ple will achieve their goal of
surpassing the ,United States
in per capita production as
they ~have already surpassed
the: other leading industrial
countries. That’s what’s driving

the. capitalists frantic.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 3

eo

man