Coast District Council, LW.of A. NION BULLETI Published Bi-Weekly by the B.C. VANCOUVER, B.C., AUGUST 23, 1939 > No. 215 OTTAWA, Ont. — Current gossip on| Capitol Hill has it that a Federal election ean be expected before the end of Oc- tober. With this atmosphere of interest to migratory workers is the recent an- nouncement by the Chief Election Officer for Canada, to whom falls the job of setting an interpretation of the Elections Act. _ Questions about the arrangements for absentee votes for lumber workers by LW.A, officials brought forth the follow- ing extracts: _ “I wish to state that, in my opinion, "any person who is engaged in the pur- suit of his ordinary gainful occupation ‘on the day of the issue of the writ with the expectation of continuing to do so for a reasonable time thereafter, is en- itled to be registered as an elector and vote at a Dominion election in the district in which he is so en- even if such electoral district is ney the one In which he has ordinarily ssided, provided that such person is qualified as an elector. ‘name of such person has been _ Official Definition On ® Logger’s Voting Rights name appears on the list of electors for the polling division. “This applies to any person engaged in private work, such as farming, lum- woods and Veneer Workers, Local 1-: the mass meeting a business meeting BUSINESS MEETING LOCAL 171, I.W.of A. Fifth Floor, Holden Building 16 Hast Hastings St. FRIDAY, AUG. 25, at 8 P.M. Special Business: Election of delegates to the Third Annual Convention of the LW.A,, to be held at Klamath Falls, Ore., on October 18, 1939, It is anticipated that H. J. Pritchett, International President of the 1.W.A., will address the meeting. ALL MEMBERS PLEASE ATTEND a MILL WORKER SERIOUSLY INJURED NEW WESTMINSTER.—William Day, 22, K.of P, Block, was admitted to the Royal Columbian Hospital Aug. 15 suffer- ing from a fractured leg received when at work at the P. Bain Lumber Mill, (Continued on Page 3) Queensborough, Day was struck by a log. ‘Deathless Days’ The loggers’ “Deathless Days Cam- paign” got off to its fifth start in less than two weeks, with the following fatalities and too many accidents to men- tion reported since our last publication 20 eee Workers have | William Ferguson, been killed in | 28, was killed from in- Derr ae, juries received while lent since January | loading at AP.L's Ist, 1939, Camp 1. Ferguson, who had just been married five weeks, died a few hours later in the West Coast Hospital, William Wortendyke, second loader at ‘the Tansky Logging Co.'s operations at Buckley Bay, was killed when he was igen on are head by a piece of loose Makes Fifth Start In Two Weeks planking while riding a crew-truck. Ernest Lindestron died in Mission Hos pital on August 14th as a result of in- juries received in an accident at Agassiz, The fourth dieath reported is that of 24, graduate, who was drowned near Frank- lin River, about seven miles down the canal from Port Alberni, Pierce had been working four seasons as a fire patrolman on the Island. The camp at Franklin River, owned by the Bloedel, Stewart and Welch Co., has been shut down since the first of July, but “spark chasers” were retained to guard the fire. According to local paper reports it is believed that he had stopped for a dip in Corrigan’s Creek and overcome by excessive heat, collapsed and was drowned. William Pierce, young university completed for an open meeting of Plywood workers which will be addressed by Harold J. Pritchett, International President of the I.W.of A., in the Greater Vancouver, New Westminster Trades and Labor Council Hall, 529 Beatty Street, next Sunday, August 27th, at 10 a.m. Following be held at which the charter will be installed by President Pritchett, officers elected for the coming year, and an or- ganizational program for the plywood workers discussed. The new local, which was born out of the recent “shut- NEW WESTMINSTER, B.C.—The request of the employees of the B.C. Plywoods Limited for a charter from the International Woodworkers of America has been granted, according to a letter received by the tem- porary secretary this week from International Secretary Bertel J. McCarty. The new local will be known as “Ply- 217.” Plans are now of the new local will Harold Pritchett out” of fifty employees, already boasts of ninety-four paid-up members, and is resolved that “Czar” MacMillan shall be forced to recognize labor’s ®democratic right to bargain collectively through a bona fide trade union in the lumbering industry, just as he has been forced to in the fishing industry, Or- ganization of the fishermen this spring brought job security, better working con- ditions and higher wages to the men through union agreements with the Sal- mon Purse Seiners Union nad the Pacific Coast Fishermen’s Union, just as organi- zation into the I.W.A. will bring these same union conditions to the wood- workers, H. R, MacMillan, who holds a comparative position in the fishing and lumbering industries, was forced through unionization to grant these benefits to the fishermen and “sign on the dotted line” of a union agreement, in common with. other operators, The plywood men are also resolved that the company stooges on their “Charlie McCarthy” Company Commit- tee must go, and be replaced by a demo- cratically-elected one, which will not be dominated by the management into helping to “put across” the machina- tions and phoney “adjustments” of their “profit-hungry” employer. The unusual “friendliness” of certain foremen, and in particular the “soup,” who has recently developed a habit of patting the employees on the back, is not fooling the men, Activity and interest of the men in their labor relations, and the growing sentiment for a union forced the company to grant a general increase in pay, and in some cases several increases, The need to build an organization to pro- tect this improvement in conditions is keenly felt, the opinion being prevalent that unless a union is organized the com- pany will in a few months find some ex- cuse—if there is no threat of a union—to slash the wage scale back to the old stan- dard, ‘The charge of intimidation arising out of the dispute over the replacing of fifty men with boys under twenty-one, is sched- uled to come before Magistrate Mackenzie Mathieson in City Police Court next Fri- (Continued on Page 3)