Over 5,000 GI dead —
35,000 are casualties

More than 5,000 young American GIs have already died in
South Vietnam in President Johnson’s dirty war. And the total
casualty list is getting very close to 35,000. Almost all these
casualties have occurred since Johnson escalated thé war last
September, The figures released by the Defense Department
give 5,064 dead, and total casualties of 34,279.

In Washington it is reported that President Johnson is pre-
paring to launch an all-out military offensive against the Viet-
namese people, including an invasion of North Vietnam in
November, when the Congressional elections are out of the
way. This week a Republican Senator charged that all the
preparations and logistics are going ahead in South Vietnam
for a major escalation of the war after the elections,

Present plans call for doubling U.S. ground forces in South.
Vietnam now totalling 309,500 men,

Parley to seek amnesty
for Portuguese prisoners

A widely-representative Cana-
dian sponsoring committee has
issued a call for a Portuguese
Amnesty Conference to be held
in Toronto on Friday, Saturday
and Sunday, October 28-30. Aim
of the conference is to bring Cana-
dian and world-wide attention
to the plight of all political
prisoners in Portugal and to call
for their release,

The conference will focus
attention on the nature of the
economic, social and political
oppression now being intensified
inside Portugal and its colonies,
and the iniquitous legal and ju-

dicial system contravening the.

Universal Declaration of Human
Rights,

The conference will also urge
the adoption of measures to
strengthen the world movement
for amnesty. The world-wide
pressure has already won a big
victory with the release this
week of the news that Jose Vito-
riano, long-imprisoned trade
union leader in Portugal, had won
his freedom,

Vitoriano, a 49-year-old cork
worker, spent 16 years of his
life in jail — a victim of the
Salazar regime’s iniquitous legal
device called “security mea-

sures” which permits indefinite
imprisonment after prisoners
have served their original sen-
tence, His family and lawyer
have attributed his release as
being due to the world-wide

campaign.

The committee sponsoring the

Canadian conference foramnesty —

announced this week it will pursue
its campaign for the immediate

freedom of four other long-term *
political prisoners, Sofia Fer- :

riera, Varela Gomes, Manuel
Serra and Jose Bernandino,

The public is invited to take
part in the conference by attend-
ing in person, as a delegate or.
observer, or by sending a mes-
sage of greeting to the confer-

-ence. The Committee has also

urged Canadians to promote local
support for the campaign seeking
amnesty for political prisoners

in Portugal,

Included among the long list
of sponsors from across Can-
ada are Rev. G.V. Kimball, H.L.
Keenleyside, Therese F, Cas-
grain, George Burt, T.C. Douglas,
Dave Broadfoot, Barry Mather,
M.P., James G. Foulks, Ken-
neth McNaught, Rabbi W, Gunther
Plaut and Pierre Berton.

2643 East Hastings Street,

Planning a trip?

LET US MAKE ALL YOUR ARRANGEMENTS

Vancouver 6, B.C.

‘AGENCY

Telephone 253-1221,

UNION LEADERS CONVICTED. These prominent labor
leaders were among the 22 trade unionists found guilty
in Supreme Court this week of contempt of two injunc-
tions issued in the Lenkurt dispute. They are from left to

tary, Marine Workers and Boilermakers Union; Paddy
Neale, secretary of the Vancouver and District Labor
Council; and Tom Clarke, vice-president Vancouver local,

d September 30.

IWA. Sent

right, Jeff Power, president and William Stewart, secre-

LABOR SCENE

is to be p

VLC charges Lawson
with labor betrayal

- In the wake of a court convic-

tion of 22 trade unionists on
charges of contempt arising out
of last spring’s Lenkurt Electric
dispute, Vancouver and District
Labor Council (VLC) this week
heard charges that Teamster
Union president Ed Lawson had
assisted Lenkurt Electric of-
ficials in “identifying” a number
of the union leaders and members
now under conviction,

Part of a letter read to VLC
delegates, written by C, W,
Hunter, president of Lenkurt
Electric, stated Lawson had
, “identified persons” in a film
taken by company officials of the
‘picket-line demonstrations,

_ thereby enabling the prosecution.

of specific persons.

IWA Local 1-217 president Sid .

Thompson and VLC Secretary
Paddy Neale, (one of the convicted
labor leaders), strongly substan-
tiated the charges of “labor be-
trayal’’? by Lawson, while the in-
dignation of VLC delegates was
expressed in continued “boos”
for the Teamster president.

Thompson’s charge that the
Vancouver press, the Province
and Sun for aperiodof years have
been giving Lawson a big “buid-
up” as the real “voice of labor”

labor ‘leader’
not been able to do a job on the »

U.S. Spending
‘Restrains B.C. Building

Attorney-General Robert Bon-}’

in B.C, This was well illustrated
in Wednesday’s ‘Province’, with
Lawson’s~branding of the VLC
charges as “an outright lie”,

Lawson, however, had toaumit:
he “had seen the pictures”, but
only “after” charges had been laid
against union leaders and others
for their injunction “violations,”

A Carpenters’ Union member

told the PT following the VLC

Lawson expose, “now that ex-
R.K, Gervin has.

Carpenters’ Union for the build-
ing contractors, maybe they’ll
fire him and put Lawson on the
job. He seems to be the kind of
person the bosses are always
on the lookout for.”

* * *

Joint collective bargaining
negotiations by the Marine Work-
ers and Boilermakers Union cov-
ering all trades in B.C. ship-
yards have been scrapped in this
year’s effort to win a new and
improved wage contract.

Shipyard Electrician and
Plumbers’ unions have decided
to “bargain on their own” rather

in V

let

than through the traditional joint
negotiating committee, demand-
ing rates 10-cents anhour higher
than the rates for other ship-
yard trades,

Two years ago the shipyard
electricians and plumbers con-
tinued their strike in B.C, ship-
yards after all other unions in
the industry had accepted the
wage contract won by a joint
negotiating committee, ;

Marine Workers Union spokes-
men have stated that this “go it
alone” by the electricians and
plumbers in the industry will not
only make negotiations for 2
satisfactory wage agreement
more difficult this time, but
serves “to weaken the traditional
unity of B.C.’s shipyard workers
at a. time when a maximum labor
unity is most urgent for all
unions,”

Seeking wage parity for all
trades in the industry, which
shipyard operators have termed
“impossible”, the Marine Work-
ers Union has applied for a con-
ciliation board. Shipyards af-
fected include Burrard Drydock
and B.C, Marine Shipyards in
Vancouver and Victoria Machin-
ery Depot and Yarrows Ltd, in
Victoria,

am

ner, QC, said Wednesday the
war in Viet Nam is one of the
reasons .B.C. must apply re-
straint in building its dynamic
society.

Bonner told the annual meet-
ing of the women’s committee
of the Vancouver Symphony
Society the U.S. decision to
pursue both the Great Society
and police action in Viet Nam
has caused a credit squeeze.

FOREIGN EARNINGS

“The U.S. is financing the war
out of foreign earnings,’ he
said. “There is now an em-
phasis on repatriation of foreign

dividends.”

The above news sta of a speech by Attorney
General Bonner appeared in the Vancouver Sun
on May 12/66, It proves what the PT has long
contended: that the Vietnam war was one of the
major factors in creating an inflationary situation

in Canada,

Bonner says: “The U.S, is financing the war out
of foreign earnings. There is now an emphasis on
repatriation of foreign dividends” and this “has
caused a credit squeeze.”

Ending the Vietnam war and U.S, domination of
the Canadian economy are two ways by which in-
flation can be fought,

September 23, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 8