LABOR’S VOICE FOR VICTORY

“IL No. 17.

5 Cents

Vancouver, B.C., Saturday, May 1, 1943

Now!

kind.

away.

Our supreme task is still before us. The
days and weeks and months rush by and
the second front—the beginning of the
end—is not yet a reality. The giant enemy mobilizes his
Festung Europe to the limit. He scoops the barrel of
Europe’s manpower, terrorizes into his ranks the youth
of the occupied countries. The longer we wait, the conse-
quences for all of us will be more formidable than any can
now imagine. They will be written in terms of men killed
who did not have to die; they will be written in terms
of lost opportunities which could have expedited victory,
shortened the struggle, ended the chaos inflicted on man-

We have the ships, the troops, with which to drive into
the heart of Europe. Labor is ready and eager. From
every industrial center of the country come urgent de-
mands for action. The appeasers who form the strongest
block against invasion will only be licked by an ‘ever-
mounting campaign of resolutions, petitions, meetings. The
lethargy and indifference which the defeatists try to en-
courage is a challenge for more powerful voices to drown
them out, for a renewed and supreme concentration on
opening a second front before this fateful spring ticks

f2 outstanding feature of
5 Day 1943 lies in the fact that
Pmillions who will march in
fy city of the democratic
bi—in Canada, in the Soviet

nm, in the cities of all the
td §©=Nations—will haye as
main demand victory over
Tism this year. This is
ly indicated in the keynote
@ advanced in all Canadian
ws for the immediate open-
of the second front in Eur-
Ti is shown even more sig-—
antly by the fact that, for
econd time in the fifty-seven
i of May Day observance,
traditional slogan: “Down
on May Day,” has been
‘tted by the slogan for vic-
“Back the Attack.’

e
BOR'S May Day has a long
{md splendid tradition — a

tien of victory for the de-
is Which its successive par-
mts have put forward.

Was first celebrated on May
86—born of the demands of
using trade union movement
orth America for the eight-
day. The great struggles and
jes of that historic date; in
tg0, New York and other
TS, set the tone for all the
Days that were to follow.
390 it was adopted by the
ad International and from
date was observed as an in-
tional holiday, and while the
{©0S continued to utilize the
aS part of the eight hours
(Movement, new slogans and
mds were adopted to fit
Situation and the country.
‘a rallying point for eco-
© demands, May Day broad-
to include the general politi-
Tograms of labor locally, na-
My and internationally.

'
cS)
= celebration is traditionally
anadian as well. Canadian
early adopted May 1 as a day
‘tuggle for the eight-hour
and throughout the years an
rtant section of the Cana-
‘workers observed the day
sounding board for their
ie programs. As early as
the workers of Montreal
d May Day parades, some
€M marked by clashes with

s- the long history of this great international celebration.
); likely that the future historian will underline the date,
jinternational labor will celebrate its traditional holiday
year at one of the great turning points in human history
‘© approaching climax of the war for the liberation of man-
| from its deadliest enemy of all time—fascist barbarism.

the police. British Columbia labor
has long observed the holiday,
frequently by meetings, occasion-
ally, and as early as 1913, by par-
ades. And there are thousands
of Vancouver workers who re
member with pride the great May
Day demonstration of 1935. which
marked a turning point in la-
bor’s fight for abolition of R. B.
Bennett’s “slave” camps for
Single jobless,

unsung heroes of the fight for
democracy—the members of the
antifascist underground in the
invaded countries and to the
guerrilla armies of the Soviet
Union and Wugoslavia. And be-
cause the underground movement
is a united movement, compris-
ing Communists, the est ele-
ments among the Social Demo-
crats, Catholics and trade union-
ists, May Day here will also serve
to raise the demand for united
labor action among all sections
of the Canadian working class
movement as a means of strength-
ening Canadian unity for victory,

“pease is another factor that
will influence the slogans to
be carried by marchers this May
Day. Labor is undergoing a peri-

Day 1943

Boards and through the absence
of federal labor legislation guar-
anteeing the right of collective
bargaining.

That Prime Minister King is
apparently aware of the situation
is shown by his move to open
hearings on labor problems
through the National War Labor
Board. Labor hopes that some
conerete proposals for genuine
legislation will come out of these
hearings, and the May Day
marchers will add point and em-
phasis to the general dissatisfac-
tion with Humphrey Mitchell's
anti-union policies. Mackenzie
Fang would be well advised to
pay heed to these May Day de-
mands, because they will reflect
very accurately the real desires
of Canadian workers for a new
deal for labor.

Shown in photo is a section of one of the great May Day parades of the past that has

made Vancouver a traditional center of these annual celebr

qeus May Day will take place,

then, before a background of
often-successful labor struggle
and with a confidence of the ef-
fect it will exert on the general
labor demand for the immediate
invasion of Europe.

Vancouver labor will march in
tribute to the finely-trained and
equipped Canadian Army over-
seas, generally regarded as the
spearhead of the invasion forces;
to acclaim the heroic fighting
men of the Red Army and Brit-
ish Highth Army and the splen-
did fighters of the American-
Australian forces in the South
Pacific.

We will pay tribute, too, to the

od of unrest more serious than
at any time since the war started,
an unrest generated by a federal
labor policy that is too often di-
rected against the interests of in-
dustrial workers. Trade wunion-
ists are being provoked into
strike action to protect certain
basie rights that are consistently
being ignored by Labor Minister
Mitchell. Disputes are on the in-
erease in aircraft, steel, and au-
tomobile plants and mines.

In every case the workers have
been reluctant to take action be-
cause they realize the seriousness
of strikes in war time. But action
has been forced on them due to
government failure to settle dis-
putes hrough its own War Labor

ations.

AY DAY marchers in British

Golumbia will also be cele-

brating recent great advances in
labor organization.

Trade union membership in
BC now totals over 70,000 work-
ers. Thousands of these have been
brought into the labor movement
within the last few months. The
organizing drive that is now
Sweeping the lumbering, mining,
fishing and shipbuilding indus-
tries has been given great impe-
tus by the victory of the united
trade unions in enforcing passage
of the new ICA Act. Open shop
industries such as lumbering and
mining are now experiencing the
benefits of unionism for the first

time. The International Wood-
workers of America has won its
first closed shop agreement. Pas-
sage of the ICA Act amendments
was the signal for a great organ-
izing campaign in Trail which
has already broken the back of
the Consolidated Mining and
Smelting Company’s Workmen’s
Cooperative Committee and has
brought over 3,000 workers into
the international union in that
area within a few weeks.

The significance of the victories
at Trail cannot be overestimated.
For years the heavy hand of S.
G. Blaylock has held the Trail and
Kimberley workers under an in-
tense form of exploitation, only
partly veiled by a vicious com-
Pany union setup. Now that his
grip on the lives of Consolidated
employees has been broken, there
has been a resurgence of union
organization throughout the metal
mining industry as a whole, and
unionism is coming to the mine
and smelter workers for the first
time in 25 years,

A these things will be com-

memorated this May Day.
The fact that these gains in or-
ganizations, these victories for
united labor, have been won as
a result of united trade union
action, will give hope to the mar-
chers, hope and confidence in
the power of labor and fhe pos-
sibilities of greater victories
ahead.

©@

MM“. DAY this year will

strengthen labor's fight
against the fifth column, against
those anti-democratic and anti-

labor forces who echo the lies and’

slanders of Goebbels, echoes
which are unfortunately heard
among certain sections of the
labor movement, as witness the
recent attempt to make martyrs
of two Polish Social Democrats
recently executed by a Soviet
court for fifth column work. The
object, of course, is to create
friction within the United Na-
tions and cast reflections on our
great ally, the Soviet Union. To
all these voices of reaction and
defeat, labor will give an unquali-
fied answer on May Day.

ITH such demands forming

the keynote of the celebra-
tions, May Day will become the
tallying point for labor in the
task of defeating fascism, for a
positive win the war program.
And it is fitting that the support—
ers of May Day should be the
leaders in this agitation. For
there have been other periods in
history when militant unionists
have supported wars because they
were progressive wars. William
Hi. Sylvis, famous labor organizer
of American Civil War years,
whose National Labor Union in
1866 was the first to propose to
an agitation for the eight-hour
day, was himself supporter of
President Lincoln during the an-
ticslavery war against the Gon-
federacy. Sylvis hated war. But
he recognized that certain wars
were progressive in character,
and consequently threw the en-
tire weight of the trade unions
behind the Northern States, there-
by establishing a precedent for
labor’s participation in a people's
war.

e@

1\Y/ Goon DAY 1943 will speak, then,
with the voice of millions of
workers of the past half century
who have used labor’s holiday to
advance the cause of the common
people. Every marcher who takes
to the streets on Sunday will have
behind him all the fine tradi-
tions of this one day of the work-
ing class. They will be strength-
ened by these traditions, heart-
ened by the victories of labor in
the past. They will be making
new history, carrying on the tra-
dition of May Day as a day of
struggle against oppression, con-
fident that their demands for mij-
itary action in Europe must be
heeded, and confident of the ulti_
mate victory of democracy in this
greatest of all wars.

1 ee