THE PEOPLE Published every Wednesday by The People Publishing Co., Room 104, Shelly Building, 119 West Pender Street, Vancouver, B.C. Telephone: MArine 6929. Epiror ... Hat Grirrm MANAGING EDITOR ~.......--.-..----- Kay Grecory Busrness MANAGER ——.............._.. EDNA SHEARD Six Months—$1.00 One Year—$2.00 Printed at Broadway Printers Limited, 151 East 8th Avenue, Vancouver, B.C. ICA Act Amendments Victory for United Labor | ACCORDANCE with its public promise the provincial government has now introduced its Bill to amend the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, and already this measure is being spoken of as a ‘Bill of Labor’s Rights.’ The government is to be commended for taking action at this time to improve labor relations in the province. To get maximum production for war purposes requires the utmost cooperation between labor and management. How is this pos- sible in those cases where reactionary employers adopt the attitude that they refuse even to recognize the rights of their employees to organize into trade unions of their own choice, belligerently insist that under no circumstances will they deign to sit around a table and bargain with a union and hit the roof when it is suggested that they sign a collective work- ing agreement? The government has been under heavy pressure from such employers to refrain from introducing any legislation affect- ing labor relations during wartime, on the argument that such legislation ‘might rock the boat.’ It is a specious plea and the government has acted wisely in ignoring it. To continue to deny to the working people of British Co- lumbia rights: which in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand have been firmly established for many years and which the Wagner Act in the U.S. strongly protects is no more justified in wartime than in time of peace but it is more dangerous and harmful; for it makes it impossible for workers and employers alike to row in the same direction at a time when the utmost degree of cooperation is a primary necessity of total war. © qa amendments to the ICA Act submitted to the B.C. Leg- islature by Labor Minister Pearson will be welcomed not only by the organized labor movement in this province but by the working people as a whole. While the proposed changes do not include every pro- posal submitted to the cabinet by the Joint Trade Union dele- gation they do include the most important and decisive meas- ures required to establish harmonious labor-management relationships insofar as legislation can contribute to that aim. The amendments first of all provide that collective bar- gaining is lawful and “shall be conducted on behalf of em- ployees by bargaining representatives.” The act then clearly and unambiguously states: “Employees may elect bargaining representatives by ma- jority vote, but if a majority of employees affected are mem- bers of a trade union, that union shall have the right to con- duct bargaining. In that case/union officers or such persons as the union may elect shall be bargaining representatives whether union members or not.” HE amendments, in addition to providing machinery for determining what union represents the workers con- cerned, also recognizes the rights of craft unions within a larger group of employees. The second most important measure contained in the amendments is that dealing with company unions. The amend- ing bill prohibits employers from attempting to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any or- ganization of employees or contributing financial or other support. While organized labor will no doubt press for additional changes respecting the time required for dealing with dis- putes and other sections of less importance the major changes should and undoubtedly will receive the support of all sec- tions of the labor movement of British Columbia. : The trade unions of B.C. are to be congratulated on the Sread unity they achieved in presenting their brief of pro- posed changes which contributed in no small way in securing the proposed amendments desired. = Tt is to be hoped that this unity will be maintained not only in securing the passage of the act but in making it of service in extending the benefits of trade union organization to the unorganized and establishing that labor-partnership in B.C industry which is essential to a total war effort. ‘Hurry’, They Cried, ut Death Beat |hem By ILYA EHRENBURG WITH THE RED ARMY AT KURSK. H® WHO has seen Kastornoye will never forget it. It em- bodies Russia’s months’ long dream—the beginning of retribution. The moon casts a greenish, baleful light on the snow. Thousands upon thousands of Germans lie there. A blizzard is raging. The snow sweeps over the corpses, and alongside of them others appear as a gust of wind sweeps away the snowy blanket. death. “Hurry,” the German officers urged on their chauffeurs who desperately gripped the wheel only to be jammed among the thousands of cars trying to break through to the west. They were pulverized by Soviet planes. Abandoned suitcases with labels of European hotels. Automobiles of all makes—Opel, Renault, Bu- ick, Fiat. Trucks at one time used to deliver Danish cream and Duteh cheese. Ersatz felt boots and an elegant sword of a Ger- man colonel. Mouth organs, com- passes, typewriters, bits of alu- minum, briefcases, helmets, crosses, binoculars protruding from under the snow. It began at Voronezh... This splendid city was reduced by the Germans to @ new Pompel. Ex- plosions were still sending sky- high its buildings mined by Gen- eral von Blum. Tke Germans were still prating about the “elas- ticity of their defense.” They moved, urged on by the wind from the east. And suddenly a whirl of snow and storm descended. Russian tanks, tommy gunners and in- fantry swept down via Volovo, via Torbuny. Kasternoye became a fatal blind alley for the Germans. Those who broke through dashed to the west. The Germans haye numbered the roads, and the road to Kursk was number 13—an Hl omen for the superstitious. The survivors will not forget road No. 13. “Hurry,” Division Commander General Bench yelled in impotent fury. He jumped from a smashed car. He ran through the snow- drifts. Death overtook him just as any ordinary Fritz. é : REMEMBER that last summer these gentlemen were listlessly dropping the words: “We had reached the line of the Volga by September.” The word “reach” has slightly changed its meaning. This is what a staff officer, Otto Sinsker, tells about his journey: “Up to January 17, our staff, in charge of General Strom, was peacefully stationed in the rear, in Kastornoye. Suddenly we learned that the Russians had pierced the front south of Vor- onezh. Communications were dis- organized. “On January 27 our corps com- mander, General Strom, got in touch with the army commander then in Kursk. Strom informed him that our troops were re- treating, that there was panic, and he asked for help. ‘Defend Kastornoye’ was the reply. ‘Can’t render any aid. I order all panic- mongers to be shot.’ “‘There is no one to do the shooting,’ pleaded Strom. “The of- ficers have abandoned their units’ ‘Try to break through to Kursk,’ was the advice. “We had no cars, two hundred autos of our staff haying been abandoned at Kastornoye. We Countless numbers of them. A valley of HE skirted the villages and had to struggle through snowdrifts. We had no food. In three days we lost half of our men. @ a WE night General Strom sum- moned me—he was seated on a haystack. “We've got to get some food,’ he said. I could find no car. Coming back I did net find the general. For five days I tramped through the snow. Then almost frozen to death [I walked into a peasant hut, drop- ped into a seat by the stove and told the peasant woman. ‘Call the Russians—I surrender’.” In the meantime the spread to Kursk. -The Hungar- ians rushed there. The German commandant forbade the inhab- itants to let the Hungarian sol- diers come into their homes. And so they roamed the streets beg- ging, and cursing the Germans. Then came battered units of the German corps. “The Rus- Sians are near.” ... they cried, and the Red Army continued its advance. The railway to the north was cut and later also the Kursk-Orel highway. The route of the Germans was dictated by the Red Army. If the Berlin ctrategists engare in speculations as to where the Germans will succeed in halt- ing, we have the right to smile, for we are now directing the panic movements of the German army. e HE most remarkable thine about the Soviet offensive is its rhythm—the Red Army is ad- vyancing without pause. I saw Soviet units moving forward in incredible cold. I saw them mov- ing through blizzards when the roads, cleared in the morning, again vanished under the thick snow in the evening. It seemed as if the men and sleds were sailing the seething waves of a vast ocean of snow. Twenty-five miles daily through snow-covered steppe that is what the Soviet offensive means. The desert regions are as lively as the avenues in a eapital. All night long the peasant women fight the snow drifts. And the Skiers dash forward. Tanks rum- ble. The pencils of the staff of- ficers are barely able to keep pace with the felt boots of the in- fantry. Everybody is in the erip of a sacred impatience. Great is the material strength of our army. Kharkov may now thank Chelyabinsk and Kursk bow to Sverdlovsk. But this alone is not the clue to the Soviet of- fensive. Something must be said about the heart. The soldier is not an engineer or technician. The sol- dier is above all a human being. He knows what “heart” means.. In our day of concrete it is hard to silence firepoints ‘with shells. The heart of a warrior can become-an impregnable pill box in an open field, or vice versa, a miserable hut in a pillbox. Another Of Then A FEW weeks ago we had r gressed so for as to learn fr Sir Bernard Pares that there y! no communism in the Soy Union. In spite of all the soi) of praise sung by Red Army : diers about their communist la. Sir Bernard Pares knows th is no such thing as communi in Russia. : ; Now we have the logical foll« up. A lawyer, Anderson by naz has come out flat-footed and si Stalin is not a communist. This fact, heartening to the b loggers and heart-rending to i timberbeasts, only came to lis during the hearing of the case or against recognition of the uni in the QCI camps In answering a question Stanton, union lawyer, this And son not only contended that Sta Was not a communist but that was a capitalist. Skilled loggers and other use workers are held in contempt the ordinary run of lawyers. Ti never miss a chance to rap the knuckles, figuratively, a poor stiff who is ignorant of th shop talk or jargon, the purp: of which is to confuse the ~ mind. Bald assertions without susta ing evidence bring contumely e scorn on the heads of offend: witnesses. But when Lawyer 2) derson takes the stand the law evidence flies right out the w dow. Es The statements: “Stalin is 7 a communist ... He is a ea} talist,” prove one of two thin The man who makes them either an ignoramus of the fi water no matter how many tick he has to guarantee his kno ledge of law, or he is a vicit perverter of the truth for ulter purposes, such for instance . preventing the growth of unis ism among the QCI loggers. Article 1 of the Soviet Constit tion, which was written by Stal says: “The Union of Soviet § cialist Republics is a _ social state of workers and peasant Wo capitalists there. Hither Stalin or Anderson is | ing. Which is it? Dark Forees ERHAPS no better demonsti tion of the granite-like mi of the obscurantist has been ‘sé lately than in the attitude Msgr. Chaloner, the chaplain St. Paul’s Hospital. With 19 ce turies of human experience b hind him he denounces the pr gram of the Junior Board Trade in the recent health cai paign against venereal disease. Msgr. Chaloner’s reaction a pears mostly, although it has moral alibi, to be the result the use by the Junior Board Trade, of data on V-.D. collect In the Soviet Union. The obscei antist Chaloner thinks it is | insult to B.C. women that the } cidence on these diseases is high here than it is in the Soviet Uni and that V.D. is practically ne existent in the Red Army. - Anyone with a mind free fre 19 centuries of befuddleme would agree with the Juni Board of Trade, that the rig thing to do would be to find c how the result was achieved the Soviet Union and go after t same result here, But not the obscurantist. 1 has been moralizing for 19 hi dred years and intends to go. in the same way to cure venere disease.