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: Ceti
REMEMBER WHEN ..

YN their long struggle to obtain
fully substantiated wage in-
Creases and elementary collective
bargaining rights, British Colum-
bia’s 11,000 civil servants were
forced to an unprecedented
action — they set this Friday,
_ July 12, as their strike deadline.
In this they had the solid
*backing of the 100,000-strong
’ B.C, Federation of Labor, which
earlier had demanded of the
Bennett government that it open
hegotiations with the B.C. Gov-
ethment Employees Association.
It was clear that unless the
Sovernment accepted the idea
that its employees’ organization,
like any other union, had the
tight to bargain collectively and
Ptoceeded to negotiate from
this basis instead of making arbi-
trary offers accompanied by
threats and intimidatory  state-
‘-Ments, then Bennett and _ his
Ministers would bear the ‘full re-
Sponsibility for any dislocation
of the public service.
As an employer, the Social

Credit government adopted

the attitude and resorted to all
the methods of the worst antj-
labor corporation. It disregarded
all generally recognized bargain-
ng procedures and offered a
. Curt take - it - or - leave - it 6 per-

: Published weekly at
Room 6 — 426 Main Street
Vancouver 4, B.C.
Phone: MArine 5288
Editor — TOM McEWEN
“Associate Editor — HAL GRIFFIN
Subscription Rates:
‘One Year: $4.00
Six months: $2.25
~ - Canadian and Commonwealth
Countries (except Australia): $4.00
‘Ohne year. Australia, United States
_ 4nd all other countries: $5.00 one
an year.

s

cent increase. Confronted. with |
an overwhelming rejection of
this offer, it threatened.to fire
all government employees. who
participated in a strike.

More than that, it ordered
the heads of various departments
to inform the cabinet whether
they intended to stand by their
fellow employees in the event
of strike so they could be “im-
mediately replaced.”

Such arrogance in any private
corporation would be condemned
by organized labor. In a gov-
ernment which has recently in- ”
creased its own salaries by far
more than government employ-
ees had asked it betrayed a con-
tempt for public opinion equall-

ES a

ed only by the lately repudiated
Liberal federal government.

The Bennett government is
stripping the shoddy veneer of
“progress” from Social Credit
and showing itself for what it
really is, the agent of big busi-
ness prepared to ride roughshod
over the dignity, laws and needs
of the people.

In face of the united deter-
mination of government employ-
ees to win their demands, Ben-
nett has now been compelled to
effect a settlement. It is a vic-
tory that should serve as an in-
spiration for all white collar
workers, a demonstration of
what organization and unity can
accomplish.

&

. back in 1910, West Vancouver waterfront around 17th Street looked like this.

Give government employees their rights Get cracking

Comment

on wheat crisis

[’ the spring of 1957 Canada

had an unsold wheat surplus
of 725 million bushels. A new
wheat crop, probably 450 mil-
lion bushels, is well on the ‘way
to being added to the pile. This
country has mountains of wheat,
its growers are gripped by econ-
omic hardship, while in many
lands millions suffer hunger and
want!

Trade Minister Gordon
Churchill, like C. D. Howe, does
little about it, except talk. Mean-
time great markets in Asia and
Europe go begging.

It’s time Ottawa got busy —
on wheat!

Tom
McEwen

i" IS ALMOST like an echo of
events now decades behind us
to read that William (Bill) Ivens,
one of the country’s pioneer la-
bor leaders, has died at Shula
Vista, California, a few days short
of his 80th birthday.

Bill Ivens came to Canada from
his native England as a youth of
18 and presently graduated from
Wesley College at Winnipeg to
become a Methodist minister.

As a\minister and later foun-
der of the Winnipeg Labor
Church, labor leader, editor of
the Western Labor News, a prac-
tising chiropractor from 1925
until his retirement in 1940, and
a member of the Manitoba legis-
lature from 1920 to 1936, Bill
Ivens blazed a controversial and
colorful trail in the labor move-
ment. :

He was one of the leaders of
the Winnipeg General Strike in
1919 and with the late J. S.
Woodsworth, founder of the CCF
and others, was-charged with “se-
ditious conspiracy” and served
a prison term in Stoney Moun-
tain penitentiary.

An ardent pacifist, the “Rev-
erend Bill Ivens,” as many work-
ers used to call him, expound-
ed his views fearlessly during
the First World War, bringing
down on his head the wrath
and jeers of the flag-waving
monopoly press. Charged with
preaching “class hate,’ he re-
plied, “I have preached a broth-
erhood based on equity and jus-
tice.”

On the occasion of his 75th
birthday in 1953 the Winnipeg
CCF paid tribute to his years of
effort on behalf of labor. Ex-al-
derman John Blumberg describ-
ed him as “an ardent champion
of humanity, social justice and
world peace.”

He is survived by a brother
Joe Ivens of Okanagan Mission,
also a grand old veteran of the
Canadian labor and _ socialist
movement, who, despite his ad-
vancing years, is one of the most
outstanding supporters of the
Pacific Tribune.

When William Ivens, J. S.
Woodsworth and other leaders
of the Winnipeg General Strike
were on “trial” in 1919, charged
under an infamous Section 98 of
the Criminal Code with “sedit-
ious conspiracy” to establish “So-
viets” in Winnipeg, the court
used the Western Labor News to
“prove” what a crime it was for
working people to own their own
paper.

A lot of things have changed
during those past 38 years but the
struggle to keep labor papers like
the Pacific Tribune going is the
best proof that those who hold
such papers to be “a crime” still
do so.

There is only one cure for such
capitalist hallucinations . . .
more circulation, more readers,
more supporters.

How to apply this cure is best
illustrated by Joe Ivens himself.
He writes for this paper and
about it — and every month, al-
most to the day, extracts a few
dollars from a miserable old age
pension to keep his paper ,going.
In this he believes (and so do
we) that we need a great many
more “criminals” to spread the
ideas of progress, peace and soc-
ialism, the prime job of the Pa-
cific Tribune.

July 12, 1957 ~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5