Congress peace, living standards and wages, the deliberations of the Trades and Labor Congress stand in marked contrast. At Victoria, labor’s true overwhelming condemnation of the splitting tactics used by Frank Hall, vice-president of the Brotherhood of ‘Railway and Steamship Clerks, in his efforts to destroy the Canadian Seamen’s Union and divide the TLC on a false anti-communist issue. The roll-coll taken at the conclusion of the first day’s stormy session—345 for, 198 against, 155 absent—was more than a decisive upholding of the executive's action in suspend- ing Hall and his Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship It was a notice served on big business that the majority of the Canadian labor movement, including the Clerks. majority of the CCL membership whese voice was drowned out by the machine-operated anti - com- munist din at the CCL convention, are refusing to follow big business- dictated policies that will destroy the trade union movement. President Percy Bengough, who was accorded a standing ovation by the more than 900 delegates attend- ing the largest Congress Conven- tion since 1919, struck the keynote, in his opening address when he stated: “This Congress will strive for the cooperation of all, but it will strenuously resist dictatorship from any. The policies of this Congress must be determined at our conventions by the properly elected delegates and not through the medium of a St. James Street- controlled press.” Scoring the “red bogey” as a threat to labor’s right to‘ organize freely and bargain | collectively, Bengough denounced stupid, un-| true accusations that the Congress was sympathetic to communism, ‘describing this as “a direct invita- tion to the replacement of free trade unions by corffpany-controlled unions,” _ This was the question that the convention must decide, he con- tinued, because the real issue in the Canadian Seamen’s Union’s Struggle was: “Does this Congress agree that workers should be free to organize and insist on - protection of that right?” * * x The long and often bitter debate that followed Bengough’s speech gave a decisive answer to the ques- tion he placed before the congress. Hall, who challenged the Congress. by engineering the merger of Pat Sullivan’s company-sponsored Can- adian Lake Seamen’s Union with the AFL Seafarers’ International Union to destroy the Congress- chartered Canadian Seamen’s Un- ion, was censured. And with the motion of cen- sure delegates contemptuously rejected Hall’s attempts to foist upon the Congress ‘the divisive, destructive policies desired by the big business circles that approv- ed his bid for leadership. The debate opened after Hall and 14 of his union delegates had been admitted to take part in discussion ef the executive’s recommend- voice has been heard in the committee on officers’ reports to approve the executive’s action in supporting the CSU’s_ struggle against Great Lakes shipping com- panies and condemning the com- panies’ lawlessness and violence was .adopted without challenge. But the second proposal to uphold the executive’s refusal to recognize the Seafarers’ Internationa] Union brought Archie R. Johnstone, vice- president of the Hotel and Restau- rant Employees’ Union, Toronto, to his feet to contest it. Johnstone maintained that the resolution ‘adopted by the Congress last year to recognize only the CSU and declare the SIU a dual organizaticn was contrary to the Congress’ constitution, » Bengough, who was on his feet constantly during the debate, cut his argument short by reading the constitution and pointing out that when the CSU was formed there was no SIU. When other international repre- sentatives argued that internation- al unions had the right to jurisdic- tion and therefore could not be termed dual organizations within the Congress, Bengough produced correspondence with AFL Presi- dent William Green to prove that the AFL had agreed to the prin- ciple that the Canadian center must have broad autonomy. - “We want no quarrel with the AFL,” he said, “But we do want _ to be masters in our own house.” Despite the weight of opinion against him and the resounding de- feat administered by delegates} through the 5-2 roll call vote, Hall} remained defiant. | But the majority of Beaten! had decided that communism was not the issue. Having repudiated Hall’s actions by upholding the ex- ecutive he challenged, they voted) to cemsure him and forward the} motion to his grand lodge for what-| ever disciplinary action it decided) upon. They also voted to refer to the coordinating committee between the TLC and AFL the question of the SIU’s entry into Canada. Then, having reinstated the Brotherhood of Railway and’ Steamship Clerks and seated its delegates, the con- | vention got down to a discussion of the real issues facing labor—wages, and prices and big business profit- eering, organization and _ labor's rights. -* ation. The first proposal of the Plenty Of Work Clothes age prepaid. You'll find just what you need in work clothing at THE HUB. We carry such well known brands as: ‘ GWG | : ARROW BRAN - WESTERN KING NORTHERN KITCHEN-PEABODY MONARCH They are all Union-Made Order by Mail and get prompt satisfactory service with post- THE Hus 45 East Hastings - Vancouver B.C. WIU asks certification in 3 locals as drive debunks Fadling claims With a barrage of propaganda that abandons even the pretence of being unbiased, Vancouver daily newspapers are using their influence to b olster IWA International President James Fadling and the big lumber operators:in what they regard as a long sought oppor- tunity to destroy militant trade union organization among woodworkers in this province. Distorted headlines based on false claims, coupled in the case of the Sun and the Province with al- most complete suppression of state- ments issued by the Woodworkers Industrial Union of Canada are giving the public a misleading pic- ture of developments. But they have not succeeded in misleading the majority of woodworkers, who see in the big business-press sup- port for Fadling further proof of the collaboration between the Fad- ling clique and the operators that is already apparent on the job. Instances of the collaboration be- tween the Fadling clique and the operators are piling up in many places. At Englewood camp on Vancou- ver Island, Charles Fraser, WIUC organizer, was refused permission to tie his boat up without written authority from Fadling. At Chemainus and Youbou, both MacMillan operations, the com- panies provided free bus transpor- tation for millworkers to attend meetings. At Port Alberni, where only two months ago Alberni Ply- woods refused Mark Mosher, local union secretary, permission. to hold a lunch hour meeting with shop stewards, the company. allowed Fred Feiber, IWA inter- national organizer, to address a lunch hour meeting attended by company foremen and non-union members as well as TWA mem- bers. When the meeting voted on affiliation, union and non-union members and foremen were all allowed to vote. In Vancouver, at B.C. Forest Products mill, formerly Sitka Spruce, Mike Sekora, IWA inter- national organizer, was accompan- ied by the personne] manager, gen- eral manager and superintendent, when he arrived to address a plant meeting, recalling for some em- ployees the company union set-up during the war years. Open collaboration of Fadling’s IWA organizers and the companies on the job was matched last week by the assistance given the sheriff in serving writs on WIUC leaders by Mike Sekora and Tony Gar- grave, brother of Bert Gargrave, CCF MLA. Sekora and Gargrave acompanied the sheriff to identify WIUC leaders, and a writ was serv- ed on Don Barbour, former district hiring hall manager, after he- had been pointed out by Sekora. WIUC organizers reported «this week that this collaboration, cul- minating months of disruptive ac- tivities by the Fadling clique, was swinging to their support many workers who were confused and: hesitant after the district council’s' decision to break with the IWA and form the new Woodworkers Industrial Union. “Fadling is filling the press with false claims that a number of locals have voted to remain with the IWA. The fact is that no single local in the entire province has yet taken such a step,’ a press state- ment issued by Ernie Dalskog, WIU president, and Harold Prit- chett, vice-president, declared this week. The statement pointed out that in one week, four locals, 217 (Vancouver _ sawmills), 71 (Coast), 405 (Cranbrook) and 363 (Courtenay), with a total of 11,000 members had voted to disaffiliate from the IWA and had been chartered by the WIU. Local 217, where a rump IWA meeting of some 300 members was blown up by the press to a rally of 750 people to support Fadling’s claim that the local was remaining in the IWA, is now in the process of implementing on the job its de- cision to disaffiliate, and this week a record meeting of 80 shop stew- ards from 35 operations reported that .hundreds of members were signing up in the WIU. In the three other locals, 71, 405 and 363, the decision to dis- affiliate has already ‘been en- dorsed in all operations under their jurisdiction—in the major- ity of cases by unanimous vote— and the locals are applying for certification. , While Fadling, still conducting a daily press war against the WIU, has* announced that he will meet with Stuart Research, operators’ representative, to discuss loggers’ board increases, the WIU has al- © ready won'a victory for its mem- bers in three logging camps. In these camps; including Hol- berg and Elk Bay, the WIU or- ganization has succeeded in get- ting the 50-cent a day board in- crease rescinded, restoring board rates to the $2 a day rate in force before the recent concilia- tion wage award. CAN YOU TOP Work for the paper that works to dau GET A NEW READER TODAY | THIS? \ from 10-year-old WANDA STEVENS \ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 15, 1948—PAGE 1?