Page 2 — April 28, 1945

LPP Candidate Has

NEW WESTMINSTER.

International Woodworkers of America, by

5 to 1, elected Jack Greenall
yoted for a man whose leader-
ship and untiring efforts for the
workers have brought results
In organization ~— organization
which has meant increased pay,
better working conditions and job
Security te thousands of work-
ers

area. :

. for behind Jack Greenall’s
quiet unassuming character,
there lies a keen mind, a

determined will to go forward
to better things for mankind, a
will that has led him to the top
leadership of the trade union
movement’ and shown him the
read to follow for the general
good of the Canadian people.
Because he feels the Labor-
Progressive Party has something
to offer the people more than
empty promises, Jack Greenall
bas become the standard-bearer
of the party in the New West-
minster provincial byelection and
if he is elected, he will prove
that the reasons he joined the
Labor-Progressives hold good for
all other people too.
.When “the Gréenall family
came to Vancouver in 1910 from
a small cotton’ village in’ Lan-

_ cashire, England, his father little}

dreamed that his first big job
at carpentry in the new country.
—construction .ef the Holden
Buildine—would in the future
years hold his sen as district
secretary of one of the largest
unions on the Pacifie Coast.

Greenall himself regards New
Westminster as his native city,
as he went fo school here in 1919
and since then has jooked upon it
as his home. Here he learned the
carpentry .trade tnder his fa-
ther’s expert eye and entered
the trade union movement 15
years ago when he joined the
Brotherhood of Carpenters and
Joiners. z

Like thousands of others,
Greenall learned a lot during the
-depression days when he was
one of the “dispossessed unem-
ployed,” riding the rods, trying
to make a go of chicken farming
and doing the odd job in relief
camps. Then it was that Green-
all began casting around for a
realistic program, “something to
correct the obvious contradiction
of a land such as Canada, rich in
natural resources and wealth, but
unable to give her people any-
thing but a handout.”

In 1940 Greenall was able to
go- back to his own trade. He
went to work at Pacific Veneen
as construction millwright. Be-
coming intensely interested in
trade union activities, he as-
sisted in Star Shipyards to or-
ganize into what is now the Ship-
wrights, Joiners and Caulkers’
Industrial Union.

“One day later,” Jack told me,
“just after the P.V. foreman had
given me detailed instructions
for a big job he wanted done, I
was called into the office and.
told they needed me urgently at
the Eburne sawmill—in a distant
eorner of the plant away from
the rest of the gang. I quit that
after two weeks and went to
Alaska Pine where I thought my

By KAY GRIFFIN *

in the New Westminster

B.C-—When members of the
a yote of nearly
as. their. district. secretary they

labor, sympathies were not so
well known.’

But here even before he had
been on the payroll a few hours,
the foreman ‘sauntered by and
casually remarked that they’d
only want him till the end of the
week—“what did he think he was
anyway, a red?” Jack left two
days later.

Just at that time a new force
was looming on the labor hori-
zon, the youthful, strong CIO-
affiliated International Wood-
workers of America. Encouraged
by the solidarity of loggers and
millworkers in the QCI and Van-
couver Island, a group in Fraser
Mills, led by Percy Smith, now
president of TWA Local 1-357,

in B.C. Weakness of the act be-
came s0 apparent during “our
fights with Mackin that the peo-
ple generally became aware of
the necessity for a change.” —
Yet through all this Jack was
still looking for a program—=s

realistic political program. Hel}

found it. when the MLabor-=Pro-
gressive. Party was organized
and he became a charter. mem
berate 2 Roe
=I. recognized in the Labor-
freeressive Party somethine
which. was sorely needed in
working class organization,”
Jack declared, pointing out
that his own organizational
work has *proved vividly: how
much labor can gain by united
strength for the common good.
“One thing is outstanding in
my mind,” he said. “I have seen
employers definitely change
from an attitude of antagonism,
from outright threats of violence,
to one of cooperation—where an
employer would have had me
thrown out of his mill, he is now
willing and eager to sit down
with me and discuss not only
wages and hours, but the effici-
eney of his plant; improved work-
ing conditions for his men, and
increased production. This proves
that labor has become a mighty

government to
able them to get
urday, April 28.

vassed were not on the voters

acquaint the citizens with the
ting registered.

LPP Protests Disfranchisement
Of New Westminster Voters

: In a statement issued today Fergus “McKean, Provincial
Leader of the Labor-Progressive Party, charged that thousands
of New Westminster citizens. were in danger of being disfran-
chised in the May 10 by-election because of the failure of the

provide adequate publicity and machinery to en-
registered before the voters list Closes on Sat_

_. McKean stated that “canvassers of his Party in New West-
minster were amazed to learn that 95 percent of residents can-

McKean claimed, “were found to be confused regarding the pro-
cedure to get on the voters list for
ing the enumerators for the Federal election were registering:
them for the Provincial by-election.”

He announced that his Party, on behalf of their candidate.
Jack Greenall, was forwarding a formal protest to the government
at Victoria on the inadequacy of the apparatus established by the
Registrar of Voters and the publicity used by the government to
procedure to be followed: in get-

list.” “Most potential voters,”

the by-election, many believ-

and several others, started agit-
ating. for union’ organization in
the largest lumber mill in the
country.  .. ».

With a tough boss ‘stubbornly
refusing to acknowledge any un-
ion in his private company town-
Site, the LWA faced a hard strug-
gle to win over Fraser Mills.

Greenall volunteered to help.
For two weeks he put in day and
night work without pay, then the
IWA Local 1-217 voted to pay
him and his career. as labor or-
ganizer was started.

An outstanding character-
istic of Jack Greenall is his
determination to stick to any
job he undertakes and do it
well Within four months of
his appointment as organizer
by the Local in June 1942, there
were more than 1,000 mem-
bers in the New Westminster
area and the IWA had opened
its own office in that city.
Greenall was then appointed
international organizer and
was busy getting members all
over the area—Hammond Ce-
dar, Hope, Mission, even thou-
sands of loggers in the Harri-
son Lake, Pitt Lake area.

“JT am convineed that demon-

strations of the Fraser Mills
workers,” Jack told me, “were
largely responsible for the

amendments to the old IGA act

force in the world today, a force
upon which lies a tremendous re-
sponsibility of leadership to pro-
vide the program for jobs, homes
and security in the postwar
world.”

“This same unity of purpose
which is winning the war for
us can also provide us with a
secure and happy life after the
war. We have the program
to achieve this—now let’s put
it into effect.”

In each of the three civic elec-
tions that Greenall has contested
as labor candidate with united
trade union support, he has poll-
ed a substantial vote. A walk
down Columbia Street with Jack
Greenall is one long series of
hand shakes, hi-ya’s and friendly
salutes, while there is not a mill
in the New Westminster area
where some of the workers do
not know Jack Greenall.

The very same qualities which
have proven Jack a popular and
fearless labor leader are those
which the people’s representa-
tives need most in the difficult
postwar period.

In Jack Greenall, the people of
New Westminster will have an
honest and courageous repre-
sentative in the legislature, who
will fight for policies that will
bring industries and jobs to New
Westminster and advance the de-
velopment of B.C. as a whole.

Three main proposals are em-?
Ecdied in the program:

@ Adapting Royal City saw-
mills to meet demands of the ex-
port market, particularly the
needs of European countries in
rebuilding their devastated cities.

@ Establishing a chemical in-
dustry in New Westminster to
utilize mill wastes and supply the
chemicals needed in radically
new methods of treating and pro-
eessing wood.

@ Building up a secondary
woodworking industry by assist-
ing establishment of woodworkng
shops. :

“Most of the iNew W estmnster
mills engaged in the export trade

though the biggest demand in the
European countries is for -one-
inch cut lumber,”
plained this week.

“Generally speaking, fewer
timbers are used in construction

beams are required laminated
wood, which is stronger is used.

at. their destination with conse-
quent waste.

be done here, but only two mills
ir the New Westminster area,
Fraser Mills* and Alaska Pine,
are equipped to do it. The other
mills, far from adapting them-
selves to the needs of what can
be a greatly expanded export
trade, have progressed little be-
yond the pioneer days of the saw-
mill industry when rough hewn
timber were shipped.”

Greenall believes that this is
only one aspect of the problem of
expanding export market for the
wood products of New Westmin-
Ster and other cities where the
prosperity of the entire commu-
nity, workers, business and pro-
fessional men, depends to a large
extent on employment in the:saw-
mill and woodworking industry.

is shipping large quantities of
finished and semi-finished lum-
ber overseas, mentioning box
wood as an example, and believes
that if other mills follow suit em-_
ployment in the New Westmin-
ster sawmill industry, now ap-
proximately 8500 men and 500
women, can be doubled in the
postwar period.

Greenall also sees the building
up of a secondary woodworking:
industry in the city as being in-
timately linked up with the prob-
lem of providing jobs for dis-
abled veterans and other disabled
men. Many of them, he feels,
can find employment in wood-
working shops.

“Tf all those who have the fu-
ture interests of New Westmin-
ster at heart are determined to
solve the problem of postwar em-_
ployment, it can be solved build-
ing on the foundation of our im-
portant sawmill industry,”

Greenall states.

Program To Develo;

NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C. — Labor is rallying e
thusiastically behind the practical progrant fer postwar é&
ployment, based on New Westminsters important ‘saw
‘industry, proposed by Jack Greenall, LPP. candidate in
provincial byelection to be held May 10.

are still shipping timbers, al- |

Greenall ex-|

in Huropean countries and where |

is means that timibers import- ee
ed from this country must be cut

‘This cutting could profitably

He points out that Alaska Pine |

“Tt will require the full y.
operation of labor and manag
ment. It will also require ¢,
we break the hold of the clig
which has long dominated at
political and economic life of 9)
eity—everyone khows who the
are—and are concerned less &
the welfare of New Westminst

than they are for their own na
row interests. : j

“This is true of every phase ,
our civie life in which they ha;
a hand, whether development ,
a housing program, moderniz;
tion of port facilities or extal
lishment of new industries,

£1

‘jobs, homies*and security fors
Paes 4

in the postwar period.”

to ‘providé full employmen
vanced by “Greenall in ‘his
gram ares <7 3. Hee

conversion of industry from wi
to peace-time production. |

@ Government assistance —
establishing secondary manufa
turing industries through prox
sien of Cheap hydroelectric pow |
under a scheme for joint provi
cial-municipal ownership of £ |
BCEleciric. :

@ Equalization of freigk
rates to remove the present ha! :
dicap on B:C. manufacturers at
encourage industrial develo;
ment. f :

@ Creation of a steel indust: ©

t

en the Coast. : as

°>,@ Government assistance ta
cooperatives. d

Other demands made by Greer)
all in furtherance of his pledg
to fight for security include: :

@ Full cooperation of Dk
minion, provincial and municipe
governments with the CGanadia
Legion and other public bodies i
every measure necessary to th
welfare and rehabilitation of 6
servicemen and women.

@ A 40-hour week and a mini
mum weekly wage of $25.

@ Amendment of the federe
labor code to guarantee collecti¥ j
bargaining and prohibit com
pany-controlled unions and ad.
ministration of labor legislatio
through a provincial labor rele
tions board with labor repre
sentation.

@ Old age pensions of $50
month at 60 years of age.

@ Increased Workmen’s Gor
pensation allowances. a

@ A national health Insurane”
plan to cover all citizens unde

proyincial administration.