Page 4 — Saturday, February 24, 1945

P.A.

PEOPLE’S VOICE FOR PROGRESS

JUASUITASENSCEUEOUUSSRICESCSENSTZELECREPOSESESEACESRENNEASEEREOCLESEOSERDIELEOES

PACIFIC ADVOCATE

*RORCEOURESSIOCUSUSUESESTRRRSUENURUCTGP STEEL NC EREHEARECERSAEREEASLUSTSsEERI<EAE3

Published every Saturday by The People Publishing Com- *
pany, Reom 104, Shelly Building, 119 West Pender Street,
Vancouver, British Columbia and printed at East End
Printers, 2303 East Hastings Street, Vancouver, British
Columbia. Subscription Rates: One year $2, six months $1.
Editor

Associate Editor
Cc. A. SAUNDERS

MYER SHARZER

Labor Lobby

FDUE*s the next few days the provincial government will

hear representations from organized labor requesting cer-
tain changes in the labor and compensation laws of the prov-
ince. labor will back up its demands with a mass lobby, and
interviews with all MIA’s on their position with regard to
labor’s proposals. Main issues presented in the submissions
of both the AFof L and the CCL briefs have teceived the sup-
port of both councils, and although the two centres will make
their representations on different days nevertheless labor is
united in the demands it is placing before the legislature. The
AFL will present their demands Friday of this week backed
up by a strong delegation from local unions.

Employer opposition to the check-off and other demands
has been evidenced by a huge lobby in Victoria representative
of the main employers of the province including the BCElectric,
BClLumber and Shingle Manufacturers’ Association, Canadian
Manufacturers’ Association, and the Building and Construction

_ Industries Exchange.

The BCFederation of Labor are to be congratulated on
the organization of the labor lobby. It has been evident in
past years that organized groups of employers have succeeded
in blocking promised reforms by pressure groups and lobbying;
the action of the CCL group is a definite step forward in labor
politics and brings labor into a position where it cannot only
make its desires known in a positive fashion but also find out
at first hand not only where their elected representatives stand
on these important questions, but observe how they work to see
that they are put into effect.

s The brief of the employers is, as usual, full of the well
worn flagwaving propaganda which seems to affect these
individuals when dealing with the requests of labor. It says
in part “The government should ensure that no change in
industrial relations is permitted which might prejudice the
rights of those thousands of employees now serving in his
Majesty's forces overseas.” :

We rather think that these members of his majesty s
armed forces overseas will have more faith in the efforts of
organized labor to gain union security and progressive changes
to our labor laws than it is likely to have in the tender mercies
of the Canadian Manufacturers Association.

Opposition

Opre current sessions of the Provincial legislature have pro-

vided much of interest to the voters of British Columbia.
Among other things we have been able to observe a very dif-
ferent approach to the propositions advanced by the govern-
ment by members of the official opposition, stretching from
the calamity howling and damning of everything, from the
meeting of the Big Three at Yalta to the program advanced
in the speech from the throne, by CCF MLA Dorothy Steeves,
to the open praise of the coalition government by CCF MLA
Bernard Webber.

One of the suggestions to come forward at this session
of the house, introduced by the CCF MLA’s themselves, is
that the reason for the reforms introduced by the present goy-
ernment can be found in the fact that there is a strong opposi-
tion in the house. Well this is a backhanded way to say the
least of trying to grab the credit for measures introduced by
a government in spite of and in the face of obstruction and
Opposition.

If we take the case of the amendments to the ICA Act
alone the record will show that these were gained because
of the efforts and independent action of organized labor.

This is obviously the position of Mrs. Steeves who not
only is convinced that nothing can be progressive unless in-
troduced by the CCF but extends this point of view to the
world arena and damns and sneers at everything. However
it is encouraging to see some of the CCF block in the house
depart from this point of view and applaud and support the
constructive measures brought forward. :

Representatives of labor should be in parliament whether
it be federal or provincial to work in a positive manner to
ensure enactment of progressive legislation and not to be an
opposition for opposition’s sake.

In Passing By C. A. Saunders

Fon PARK is in Vancouver. Eamon Park is
the appointed organizer of the CCL-PAC.
He is also incidentally the CGF Ontario organizer.
He is also the man who, in conjunction with GC. H.
Millard, was responsible for
splitting the CCL-PAG na-
tionally and causing the with-
drawal of several of the most
powerful unions from par-
ticipation in that body.

I don’t know what his.
specific mission to Vancou-
ver is, but a suess would not
be far out. And that guess
would give the direct lie to
his statements as reported in
the daily press. Eamon Park
is quoted as Saying (of course
there is always the POSssi-
bility that he may deny it to-
morrow) that the program
of the CCL-PAC is support- ae :
ed by over ninety percent Saas =
of the membership of the Ga-
nadian Congress of Labor. 2

Park knows this is not true, if it were so
he would not be in Vancouver this week.

The program of the CCL-PAG as laid down
at its last meeting, and repeated by Hamon
Park in Vancouver is not the program endorsed
at the Quebee convention; it is not the program
agreed upon at the PAG meeting following the
convention, it is not in any Way the program
desired by the majority of the unions affiliated
to the congress, as the resolutions submitted to
the convention on political action will bear out.
What it is in actuality is a program foisted on
the affiliated unions by the CGF clique in direct
contradiction to the expressed wishes of the ma-
jority of the membership and now openly op-
posed by CIO affiliates representing a proportion
of the membership large enough to stamp as out-
right misrepresentation Park’s claim.

s S

AMON PARK has noright to speak for the

membership of the CCl. Even as organizer of
the PAC he has no right to state in the name of
the 250,000 membership of the congress that they

Around Town By Cynthia Carter

| ESS week two womenspoke of their hopes for

the future. Their views, widely opposed, were
reported in the press and so recorded for note
when history has proved the one right, the other
wrone.

Said the first: “Even in
the darkest hours, I knew
that in the end we should
win. And now we want
arms, to free our land and
drive on into Germany.” She
went on to declare her faith
in the new world to be built
after the total destruction of
fascism.

Said the second woman,
in effect: “There will be no

brave new world. The econ-
ferences at Teheran and
Yalta are a farce. Here at

home there are no plans, and

what plans have been made

will be destroyed. little has been done. Little
will be done.”

The first woman was Mme. Andree Viollis,
frail, seventy-year-old heroine of the French
underground. The second woman, of course, was
the CCF-er, Dorothy Steeves.

Mme. Viollis, who faced death many times
as writer for resistance newspapers in Nazi-oc-
cupied France is now in the United States as
guest of the OWI. At a New York press con-
ference this gallant French woman told reporters
a stirring story of the secret French writers
group of which she was a member, of the setting
up of committees of National Liberation after the
Allies landed in Normandy.

Mrs. Steeves made her statements before
the B.C. Legislature, where she systematically
attacked every progressive act of the last ten
years. She flailed the government, the Big
Three, and non-CCFers generally. She poked fun
at government surveys and United Nations con-
ferences, sneered at family allowances, and warn-
ed the province that unless her own political party
is victorious at the next ‘election it ean expect
nothing but chaos.

Mme. Viollis is fighting for the kind of fu-
ture in which Mrs. Steevés has no faith, for
Mrs. Steeves sees the future as very black, in-
deed, unless the whole world takes out CCF
party cards. Mme. Viollis sees the future as a

_glorious one, because millions like’ her are fight-.

ing to make it so. :

Mrs. Steeves says, “It can’t be done, unless
you do it my way!”’

And Mme. Viollis replies, “Ah but it can be
done. We're doing it!”

“yiew representative women war workers...

are determined to elect a CCF sovernmea |
coming. federal élections. Least of all
the right to make such a statement i
Columbia where the major unions, repr.
by far the greatest number of worker;
coast, have already repudiated this dist
political action and withdrawn their del

Mr. Park makes the statement ¢
in Canada in relation to the CCF will hy
to the relationship of the CIO-PACE to F
Roosevelt and the Democratic party. Thi
an obvious distortion of the facts thai?
deceive nobody. -

PAC in the USA is a non-partis:
The PAC in the USA did not at any ti,
paign on the basis of “changing the sy:
“Socialism Now”; the CIO-PAC, which
model for effective political action, did
up behind the Norman Thomases or the -
party of the U.S. The CIO-PACE lined Uj.
President Roosevelt and to a great ex:
Democratic party, which if comparisons |
made, approximates far more nearly io -

_ eral party than any other Canadain part

im some states it is actualy a Tiber
eoalition. Effective and correct use of ¢
has placed the trade union movement jp °
celient position in the United States, to7
government and ensure a postwar je
progress. g :
Se -
Waeee is the action of the CCE dc
CCL-PAC leading: the working class

ada? First of all Hamon Park “himsel
that the best the CCF can expect to ag.
at the next elections, if they persist —
present isolationist policy, is to become ©
position to a-government of Tory domin :
action. aa
The answer of course lies in true inde.
political action by the united forces of ol.
labor, such political action as carried on |
CIO-PAC. In this way labor will have a ~
voice and representation in the postwar |
ment, not the opportunity to squawk ity
side lines while reaction robs the Canadia |
of the fruits of victory, which is the on
pect facing a CCF opposition. :

HE radio is a wonderfal invention, bu
times, Mrs. Housewife, don’t you wis
coni had taken up fox-farming, or yogi, |
thing that would not have paved the i |
that black blot em the history of the t
century, the Soap Gpera? }

However, don’t toss your radio in 7
can! Although we daytime listeners mn
pardoned for thinking that long drawn -
is all our receiving set is capable OL ey
before five p.m., there are on the air m
portant, instructive and interesting dayt!
grams. If you watch your newspaper rac.
you will find a definite trend towards mi
ous thinking in programs prepared for

The latest of these programs to hit
Ways is the new Labor-Progressive broad,
women, which is heard every Friday -
over CKWX at 9:30. Under the
“New Worlds For Women,” taken from
Neilsen’s excellent little book of the sam
the series will cover questions of the he
community, and women’s place in the +
today and tomorrow. For the next tw
speakers will discuss women in indust
on the program one week from this Frid
erva Cooper, who directs the series, wi.

ASS speaking of radio programs, jt
much do you know about history?
knowledge begins and endS with Colum!
the Battle of Hastings, or if you ‘are |
those wizards who can name the kings »
land backwards to the days of the Dru’
can still learn a lot from the new radi
on social sciences presented by the Brit
lumbia Department of Hducation. s Thr
gives a realistic insight into the ways anc
fores of democracy. Do you think the
Barons insisted that King John signed the
Charta simply to benefit the poor seris
on your life, declares this program. ‘Th
charter, one of the most important steps
in the history of democracy, came into bé
smart political move by the barons to g
port of the arms-bearing and moneymak

tions of the populace. :

You may not agree with all you hea:
broadeast, but you will agree with ty
Education Department’s stand that the con:
at Teheran and Yalta are among the 7
portant happenings in history. listen ‘i
Monday. It’s fun: 4