A threat to labor's rights ABOR MINISTER Humphrey Mitchell’s L Industrial Relations Bill 338, which is now be- fore parliament, paves the way for the legal strangula- tion of Canada trade unions, It seeks to establish the very things against which the trade unions have fought since their inception. ‘ If enacted, it will make it possible for anti-labor big busi- ness to prosecute and persecute unions; to entangle them in crip- pling court actions; to destroy them financially, and to prolong settlements of indtstrial disputes until the unions—the bulwarks of Canadian democracy — are crippled financially, demoralized and destroyed. If enacted, it will most likely become. the pattern for provin- _ cial legislation such as the In- _ dustrial Conciliation and Arbi- _ tration Act already in force in - British Columbia. Bill 338 is, _ therefore, a national menace. Under the guise of ‘equality before the law’ the King gov- ernment will pit the unions against the high-powered legal machinery of billion-dollar cor- porations. It is a cynical excuse for the introduction of a law that will place all the cards in the hands of the industrial cor- - porations. It is a poisoned dag- ger aimed at the heart of or- ganized labor. | Labor and the people of Canada must defeat Bill 338. : The~ “pill, in its over-all con- tent, is restrictive and punitive in character so far as the trade unions are concerned. It is in line with the general offensive of reaction against labor, and democracy which we witness on this continent. It is a Canadian version of anti-labor legislation which American big business is pressing for in the United States. HE anti-strike clauses of Mit- chell’s bill will become a straitjacket on the body of Can- adian trade unionism. No trade union strikes for the sake of ‘Striking. The record of Cana- _ dian trade unions belies all alle- gations of ‘recklessness.’ Strikes, wherever they took place, were forced upon the workers by die- hard, viciously anti-union em- ployers who résist the forma- tion and existence of trade - But while trade unions re- sort to strike action only as a last resort, the proposed anti- strike clauses of the new bill— the so-called ‘cooling-off period’ _ —rob the unions of their most effective weapon—the righ to Strike. ‘They will make it possible for ates sections of industry not to bargain in good faith, but to prolong negotiations and to _ form company unions and splint- er outfits with which to chal- lenge well established trade - FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1947 J. B. SALSBERG 7s ‘unions and and thus weaken and demoralize labor’s strength. . The clause in the proposed bill which states that a union will have to prove that a major- ity of workers in a given plant are “in good standing” in the union which seeks certification as the bargaining agency, is an- other chain which the new leg- islation seeks to place upon trade unionism. 7 At present it is sufficient for workers to sign authorization cards selecting their bargaining agency and the majority of such cards is considered The new provisions will enable employers (and this was experi- enced in Quebec) to discharge workers under all sorts of ex- cuses, when the workers begin their organization efforts, to continuously engage new people and thus make extremely diffi- cult the securing of a major- ity “in good standing” in a given period of time. P i N view of this and other clauses in the new bill, it should be clear to all people that this bill must be defeated or entirely rewritten. - The growth of trade unionism will not be facilitated under the provisions of Bill 338. On the contrary, attacked, weakened and retard- ed. Bie : Bill 338 cannot but weaken labor’s struggle for economic security. It is significant that . in the face of looming economic crisis the King government pro- poses to hand to big business labor crippling and strikebreak- ing legislation. Mitchell’s will undermine the bargaining power of organized labor and, as a result, not only the industrial workers but the entire nation will be the sufferer. It would be calamitous for any section of the organized work- ers to dull its struggle against this bill because “it might have been worse” or because not as bad as the Taft-Hartley Bill in the United States.” The Mitchell bill is bad. Bad enough to call for the mobilization of | the full strength of labor and of Canadian democracy in a bat- tle to defeat it. Canada needs a national labor code, It sorely needs a code si- ‘miliar to the Wagner Act in the sufficient. — trade unions will be bill — ‘Atcis