Editorial Opening Shot TTENTION is directed to the publication in this issue of a letter from a lumber worker in Victoria, challenging statements issued by the employers’ repre- sentatives in the coast lumber industry. This is typical of the critical attitude taken by the great majority of the workers in the industry with regard to the statement. In a number of logging camps, resolutions have been passed protesting the posting.of such statements addressed to employees as a device to by-pass the Union. If harmonious employer-employee relations are desired, Forest Industrial Relations Ltd. was ill-advised to issue the statement in its present form. Some employers seized the occasion to add their own remarks, suggesting that they were 100 per cent right, and the Union one hundred per cent wrong in last year’s negotiations. The statement plus the added remarks can only give the impression that by way of revenge for an automatic wage increase this year, they intend to exert pressure for a new and deadlier speed-up. For the most part, the workers in the industry re- cognize the statement as the opening shot in the em- ployers’ campaign to reject out-of-hand all proposals for an improved contract next year. It suggests that next year’s negotiations will not be conducted in a rational manner across the bargaining table but that the issues will be fought out in the utilization of all types of propa- ganda. Jeers} The Union is ‘conversant with market conditions and is steadily improving its grasp of the economics of the in- dustry. A month-by-month analysis of all the factors since the present contract was signed shows that the employers have as yet little to moan about. The lumber business has always been subjected to fluctuations in demand and prices. Spokesmen for the in- dustry, who deal with the problems of long-range planning state quite firmly that there is little cause for alarm in the temporary set-backs which have recently appeared. The huge reserves accumulated by the lumber corporations are designed to provide for even greater emergencies. It is far from just to suggest that wages should be adjusted downward to every slump in market prices. Un- less wages are constantly revised upward in relation to the rapidly increasing productivity of the industry, the economy will never succeed in bridging the gap between productive capacity and consumer spending power. The implication that wages should be cut back, when prices temporarily drop will not appeal to the intelligence of the average lumber worker. One of the employers’ statements is true. “The em- ployees have a vital stake in the industry.” This vital stake is a fair share of the wealth produced by the industry not just today, but through the years. PANES Es y Resets lod rem 5 oe The Main Problem “Unemployment may well be our main domestic problem in the years immediately ahead,” Walter E. Gordon. of the Royal Com- mission on Canada’s Economic Prospects, told the Canadian Manu- facturers’ Association annual conference on management. “I suggest that it should not be your sole preoccupation and responsibility to safeguard the capital invested in your companies and to increase your profits every year It is even more important that you preserve the jobs of your employees and provide jobs for those who seek work but cannot find it” Publication date of the next issue of the WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER is August 4th. Deadline for ad copy is July 28th and for news copy July 27th. PUBLISHED TWICE MONTHLY ON THE FIRST ; AND THIRD THURSDAYS BY International Woodworkers of America s. (AFL-C10-CLC) Regional Council No.1 to This advertisement is not published or disp! Contro! Board or by th ed by the Liquor e Government pe ee P ee