By WILLIAM KASHTAN

1955 year of great
struggles for labor

OMING events cast their

shadow’ before them. This

is certainly true of the trade

union movement, which has

just passed through a year. of
very intensive struggles.

For labor, 1955 has had its
ups and downs, its credit and
debit sides.

On the credit side have been
the steady, difficult but largely
victorious battles waged by
labor to maintain and advance
the workers’ living standards.
If 1955 was. marked by. sharp
and protracted strike struggles;
it was also a year of growing
working class militancy and
solidarity.

.

The two outstanding exam-
ples were the 112-day Ford
strike which ended victoriously
at the beginning of 1955 and
the historic General Motors
strike over 100 days: long, and
continuing into 1956.

Characteristically enough 3
1956, too opens with 150,000
railway workers determined to
win wage and fringe demands
and achieve a measure of equal-
ity with the rest of organized
labor.

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In all these actions there is
evidence of new qualities. The
workers set themselves new and
higher targets in 1955, among
them being the demand for
supplementary unemployment
insurance benefits paid for by
the companies, company-paid
health and welfare plans and
substantial wage increases. Des-
pite company opposition these
demands have been won.

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All gains however, have not
been achieved without con-
siderable cost, for 1955 was the
year of the protracted strike
when, despite unprecedented
high profits, companies used
every trick in the book to force
cheap settlements on the work-
ers. Among these was the in-
creasing use of strike-breaking
injunction weapon against a.
number of unions, and at the
year’s end, Prime Minister St.
Laurent’s attack on the rail
workers’ right to strike. ~~")

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The past year however, was
not only marked by a growing
militancy. The very conditions
which made it necessary for the
workers to fight also gave new
impetus and meaning to trade
union unity.

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The unanimous endorsation of
the coming merger by both the
Trades and Labor Congress and
Canadian Congress of Labor
conventions was of far-reaching
consequence and opened up a
new chapter for the Canadian
trade union movement. Not
only historically, but also in an
immediate practical sense, the
merger, despite its limitations,
makes it possible to concentrate
the united strength of the trade
union movement on a number
of key tasks in 1956.

Among some of these new
targets are:

Completion of the drive to
organize the unorganized with
the realizable objective of
doubling the membership with-
in a relatively short period of
time.

A united wage movement, in-
dustry by industry, with the ob-
jective of eliminating wage
differentials as between one
province and another.

A nation-wide movement for
the 30-hour work week with no
reduction in take-home pay.

To these economic and other
objectives must be added the
need to strengthen labor’s role
on the legislative and political
fields. ;

A united trade union move-
ment could well set itself the
task in 1956 of winning a
Dominion ~- Provincial Health
Plan administered by the pro-

_ vinces.

In every respect the merger
opens up prospects for great
new advances this coming year,
particularly if it is grounded
on two solid foundations
union democracy based on re-
spect for the political rights of
every member, and the in-
clusion of all unions in the
Canadian Labor Congress.

If 1955 opened up with the
world alarmed at the danger of
atomic destruction, it closed
with the big powers agreeing
to resolve their differences
through negotiation, not force.
That decision has opened up a
new perspective for mankind
and particularly for the labor
movement which must play its
part in ensuring that peace will
be maintained.

The New Year should see a
new upsurge in the demand for
labor exchanges with all coun-
tries and reunification of the
world trade union movement.

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SLAVE LABOUR

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Hitler’s gun maker, Alfred Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach,

fully restored to power

and influence in Adenauer’s Germany is

now producing arms again and garnering in untold millions in

profits. Recently he held a

party at his 300-room Villa Huegel ,
Essen. Among the 640 guests were many of the Hitler “elite.”

The above cartoon by Gabriel of the London Daily Worker depicts

a “masterpiece of art,”
Krupp reception.

as one most appropriate to adorn the

Wherever they went during th
Premier Nicolai Bulganin and Comm
with Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru.

By DAVID COHEN

Visit of Soviet

NEW DELHI

aS Bulganin and Khrushchev

made their last touching
farewells in an airport strewn
with flowers, the last of the

myths spread by the capitalist —

press about “thirteen grim men
in the Kremlin” might be said

‘to have gone up in smoke.

Millions of Indians who had
a glimpse of, or touched or em-
braced the Soviet leaders are
still discussing their visit in
trains, buses, on the street and
in their homes.

“Russians and Indians are
brothers,” has been on the lips
of multitudes who thronged the
cities, fields, factories, farms
and institutes of India and who
spent days on the rdadsides,
balconies, telegraph poles and
treetops to get a glimpse of
the Soviet visitors.

Out of thousands of miles of -

flowers and cheering crowds,
one picks out little demonstra-

tions of affection which show

what Indians really thought
about their guests.

The sweeper from Srinagar’s
central market, who. stood be-
fore dawn on the route to hand
flowers to Bulganin and Khrus-
hchev, and was so overwhelm-
ed after his hand was shaken by
the Soviet leaders that he went
back and bought new clothes
and a turban as if for a fes-
tival. -

The old, white-bearded Con-

gress parliamentarian at Palam’

Airport during the departure
of the Soviet leaders, who broke
protocol to embrace and kiss
Bulganin and Khrushchev,

* The Indian newspapermen—
who have seen so many digni-
taries come and go—who swarm-
ed round Bulganin and Khrush-
chev after ‘their. press confer-

-ence on the final morning ‘to

shake their hands. :
' The young couple in a Pun-
jet village visited eby the Soviet
leaders who named their young
son Bulganin Singh.
“The Soviet people are really
independent,” declared a Delta
citizen in a bus queue, “for they
‘speak no English at all,” and be-
hind that naive comment is
Much genuine Indian admiration
fora people which has stood up
to imperialism and won, passed
through the fire of colonialism,
and built a new life.

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_ Who expected 50,000 peasants
in the beginning of the tour to
gather in the early morning
cold in the little out-of-the-way

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railway station of Nangal, some

Miles from the Nangal dam?

Or that in Calcutta, Bulganin
and Khrushchev would have to
travel the last two miles to

Government House in a closed /

police radio van because so
many people, swarming in Cal-
cutta’s streets, on balconies and
rooftops, would want to em-
brace them.

Or that it would be impos-
sible even to buy a stamp in
Bangalore on November 25 be-
cause every man, woman and
child was on the arrival route of
the Soviet leaders.

Those of us who made the
tour will never forget the one
million people who gathered
within sound of the sea break-
ers among a fairyland of lights
in Madras, not far from the
site where Clive and the French
fought 200 years ago for mastery
of this eastern seaboard of
India.

And who will ever forget the
multitudes who packed an area
two miles by half a mile in
the Calcutta fields on the banks
of the Hoogly River, standing
on the top of statues of former
British generals and govern-
ors. : :

There were not enough loud-
Speakers and one-third of the
audience could see or hear
nothing and yet they stood
patiently and silently fér over
an hour. And Bengali house-
Wives who never leave their
homes were in the streets blow-
ing traditional conchshelis of
welcome. :

Never before has the 200,000
Population of Srinagar, in that
Strategic and beautiful valley
of Kashmir, been, out in the
Streets to welcome any visitor
like this.- Bearded patriarchs,
rosy-cheeked children and veiled
women and peasants, as_ far
away as the ceasefire line, 60
miles from Srinagar, left their
homes to welcome the Soviet
guests, ;

‘*You can stand on those moun-
tains and shout out to us and
we will hear you,” said Bul-
ganin and Khrushchev.

503 cod ioe
Perhaps one should be grate-
ful to John -Foster Dulles for
the frankness with which dur-
ing this tour he has brought
out in sharp contrast the differ-
ing attitudes of the United

' vince

eir recent visit to India huge crowds cheered Soviet
unist party secretary N. S. Krushchev, shown here

leaders forged @
‘new ties of friendship with India

States and the Soviet Union
towards colonialism.

For while Dulles was defin-
ing Goa as a “Portuguese pro-
in India,” the* Soviet
leaders were repeating forth-
rightly that the Portuguese must.
quit Goa and the people of
Kashmir will settle their own
affairs without interference
from outside, ~

The reactions to the joint com-
munique have been most ‘favor-
able. At a time when steel is,
we are told, in short supply in
many parts of the West, India
is getting a million tons in an
agreement which is going to in-
crease by about 15 times the

present small volume of Indo-
Soviet trade. 3

_ The new proposed shipping’
line between India and the
Soviet Union will’ remove a
long-felt barrier to Indo-Soviet
trade and aid trade with the

People’s Democracies of Eastern
Europe.

The Soviet Union. will be in
the Indian market for jute, tea;
coffee, shellac, hides and skins,
wool and leather, breaking the
long dependence on Britain and
the U.S. and aiding the de-

' velopment of -Indian national

industries,

The muttered question in the
beginning of the tour: “Who
will the visit help—the Con-
Sress party or the Communists?”
seems to have been forgotten.
The answer is “India.”

Even the questioners admit
that the vital thing which has
made this visit such an his-
torie one is the agreement on
fundamental issues for world
peace and co-existence and pros-
perity for all, while recognis-
ing such differences in approach
as are there in other questions
—a point made by both Khrush-
chev and Nehru.

“The wall that the imperial-
ists built between our two coun-
tries,” wrote New Age, the Com-
munist paper, “has crumbled to
preces and our peoples have
come closer together in an un-
breakable friendship and broth-
erhoad.”

That is a mighty and historic
thing. It will have to be taken

into account in the councils of. —

the world.

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 6, 1956 — PAGE 4

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