Sitdown and campaign answer to ship sales Sale of five Vancouver freighters to Greek interests by Western Canada Steamships will throw 220 crew members “on the beach”’ including 150 members of the Canadian Seamen’s Union. CSU crews of ten Canadian ships in British ports went on a token strike this week against dis- charging of Canadian crews to be replaced by non-union men at lower wages. The Vancouver-hired crew of the SS Seaboard Pioneer has lodged stinging protests with the British and Canadian governments: It is reported without confirmation that 17 members of one crew have undertaken a stay-in strike against discharge. Seek wage increases Local foundry workers, members of Metal and Chemical Workers’ Local 289 (Mine-Mill affiliate), voted 114 to 53 to strike to enforce a unanimous conciliation award of 12% cents and up. This move headed up Coast ac- tion on the wage front, which saw the following additional develop- ments: Police Federal Union, represent- ing 650 underpaid Vancouver po- licemen, has voted to demand a $50 monthly boost for all ranks. ‘This moves them up alongside the Civic Employees’ Union (Out- side Workers) Local 28 which led off the wage. drive for civic employ- ees by proposing a 25-cent hourly boost, and 600 workers inside the city hall who want a five percent hoist. Wage demands of B.C.'s 5,000 coalminers were announced in the daily press as $3 a day. Actual de- mand is for the elimination of con- tract, which would boost the straight wage rates that amount, though in most instances take- home pay would not be increased. Contract work has long been ‘a scourge of the mines. Miners also want operators toi up their contribution to the miners’ welfare fund from 5 cents to 20 cents a ton. City seeks union shop amendment » Vancouver City Council’s finance committee this week decided to recommend that a charter amend- ment be sought giving the city power to grant to its employees whatever forms of union security are permissible under the ICA Act. The 1948 agreement with Civic Employees (Outside Workers) Lo- eal 28 specified that such a request ‘would be made but not all aldermen were in favor of living up to the agreement. Alderman George Miller said, “We're on safe grounds. We should leave the charter the way it is... the union might force us into a closed shop with yeh an amend- ment.” eecel it (Local 28 is eanltug a union shop clause in its 1949 agreement.) Alderman Alex Fisher said per- haps maintenance of membership Should be allowed, but voted against the motion. _ Speaking for the motion were _ Aldermen Birt Showler, R. K. Ger- vin, Laura Jamieson, J. D. Cornett and. H. D. Wilson. JOBS but will demand action on such proposals as those already put for- ward by the Labor-Progressive Party: ‘@ Open new markets for our in dustries! “Trade where they need what we produce and we need what they produce and to hang with the Ameri- can dollar! Launch the works projects in B.C.’s_ Rehabilitation Council report! @ Stop importing DP’ s! @ lake decent care of those now unemployed ! Greater Vancouver MP’s were interviewed Monday by CSU vice- president Jimmy Thompson and Marine Workers’ President Bill White who sought fresh pressure to have Ottawa guarantee main- tenance of a Canadian merchant marine, Vancouver’s postwar freighter fleet has now dropped- from 43 to 26 ships. Previous recent sales in- cluded three MacMillan ships, two from Kerr-Silver and one from Johnson and Walton. Full effect of layoffs will be felt when all crews return home. Even larger numbers of ships have been sold in eastern ports. Under terms of sale by which companies obtained ships from the government after the war at fire- sale prices, with Canadian taxpay- ers footing the balance of the bill, boats re-sold are supposed to be replaced with new tonnage. But, with thousands of ship- yard workers unemployed, not a single replacement keel has been laid. Marine Workers’ local 1 is demanding that this be done at once, or that the government itself take over the and main- tain a full-strength and’ efficient merchant marine. “We've got to have assurance that our country will maintain a merchant fleet,” adds seamen’s spokesman Thompson. ‘The pro- portion of our trade carried in Canadian bottoms has got to be jacked up. “So far the only solu- tion cf the operators is to ask the seamen to bear the brunt of the whole situation through wage cuts.” (Thompson leaves this week to attend conciliation hearings in the east on the deepsea contract). In a’ recent brief to the govern- ment documenting the need and practical possibility of maintaining a Canadian merchant marine, the CSU showed that foreign registry such as Panamanian and Greek is being used by some Canadian firms to break down conditions and wages. : CCL says bosses can pay but hits union instead wyqe OTTAWA Buckling to pressure we below after earlier attempts to head off a wage drive, Canadian Congréss of Labor executive council has stated that “general wage increases . . are justified.” Council then launched an attack in the opposite direction, by demanding that the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (CIO-CCL), surrender its charter in the Timmins area to the Congress or face expulsion. Secretary-Treasurer Pat Conroy’s proposes to place 7,500 Timmins workers under a CCL federal char- ter. The move was made to the oc- companiment of outspoken threats of moving on Mine-Mill locals across Canada. The wage statement cited rec- ord profits, increased productiv- ity, unequal wages, and need for Sorry---no strike at lron River after all Scoop! Though thousands of B.C. work- ers might have gathered from newspaper headlines that there is a strike on at Iron River, they're all wrong. - Sig Wessberg, president of Cour- tenay IWA local, punctured the bubble in the columns of the Co- mox Free Press after Harold Prit- chett spoke to a WIUC mass meet- ing in Courtenay about the imag- inary strike. : “There has never been a strike there,” he said. “No strike vote was taken. The law was not com- plied with. There simply is no strike.” Wessberg did not explain how it was that the Iron River crew could have made the mistake of thinking they were voting overwhelmingly for strike, or how they got the hal- lucination that they had all walk- ed off the job. -Puzzled pickets who thought they were strikers also will be won- dering what it was that the IWA had the labor board declare ille- gal, what picket lines Pat Conroy wanted brushed aside, and whe- ther IWA president Stuart Alsbury ‘was gored by a red bull when he thought he was breaking a picket line. decent living standards as rea- sons for seeking wage hoists. Publication by the Vancouver Sun of a statement by James Byrne, president of Mine-Mill's Kimberley local 651, attacking district union officials by seeking to involve them in a trumped-up case involving woodworkers’ funds, is seen as evidence of a widespread boss- backed campaign to take over Mine-Mill in B.C. from the inside. Timing of the statement, issued just prior to the CCL move, stamps it as part of a co-ordinated attack. It was given front-page treatment by the Sun, whose anti- labor reporter Jack Webster fea- tured the Fadling-Alsbury finan- cial smears during the campaign to disrupt the woodworkers’ union. _ District officers report that at no time had such questions been raised with the district office. The CM & S Company Union in the Kootenays was recently fold- ed up when its officers joined Mine- Mill, and a bloc has been formed in the Trail and Kimberley locals between such elements, right-wing CCF'ers and certain Catholic trade | union influences. Contrary to optimistic expecta- tions of the Sun, it is expected that Mine-Mill’s membership, with the woodworkers’ lessons before them, will fight strongly to stamp out this boss bloc. HONOR ROLL Is your name on this list of Pa- cific Tribune subscription-getters for January? There’s lots of room yet. If it’s not there, look in your pocket. Have you a subscription book there? That’s the first step to snagging subs. -: VANCOUVER: Anne Belenkaya (Kitsilano) ... 4 Harold Pritchett ‘(Forest Prod.) 3 PROVINCE: Edna Brown (Lake Cowichan).. 6 SOU alread ton eae ee 6 MPP URGES OTTAWA TO ACT ‘Bevin’s m.litary display aimed at very life of Jewish state’ Having trounced invading Arab armies trom Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordania and Egypt, Israelite freedom fighters; like above jeep-borne commandos in the Negev have successfully frus-. trated all attempts to date to cripple their independence by force of arms. ~ Their strength in the field, coupled with widespread distaste for the war among poorer Arabs, has now led Egypt to negotiate for peace. Foiled in attempts to use-Arab mercenaries to do its dirty work, the British Labor government has begun massing its own forces close to Israel, and is attempting to intimidate the Jewish state after provocatively sending RAF planes over Jewish lines, five of which were shot down. In a sharply-worded statement, Toronto MPP J. B. Salsberg _has called’ on the Canadian government to demand an end to . Bevin’s military provocations against Israel, and to hasten the = achievement of peace between Irael and neighboring states. q Bevin’s military concentrations, states Salsberg, are “aimed at the very life of Israel, “Bevin’s first excuse’ for rushing shes forces into the fight- | ing zone was the treaty between Egypt and Britain. The Egyp- tian government quickly made it known to the world that it has not involved that treaty, has not asked Britain for assist- ance, and wishes Britain to keep out of the situation since an armistice had been reached and negotiations were about to commence, “Bevin’s military display menaces the peace in that part of the world and challenges the United Nations whose decision it was to establish an independent Jewish and ag state in Ralesting.” ATLA AA STANFIELD’S UNDERWEAR For Warmth and Wear Red Label Combinations (36-46) $5.75 Shirts and $3.25 Drawers, each BLUE LABEL "Shirts and $3,715 » Drawers, each MAIL ORDERS PREPAID STAN FIELD'S Rmshrinkable “UNDERWEAR | URA BLE in HLT 45 E. Hastings Vancouver, B.C NCAA =i Nigel Morgan PROVINCIAL LEADER ‘LABOR PROGRESSIVE. PARTY “Repeal The Sales Tax” PROVINCE WIDE BROADCAST MONDAY, JANUARY 17TH Vancouver _ CKWX _— 6.05 p.m, Victoria — CVI — 645 pm. Vernon — CJIB — 7.30 p.m. Albernj — CJAV —_ 8.15 p.m. New West. — CKNW — 10.05 p.m. Trail — CJAT —_ p.m.