THE B.C. LUMBER WORKER

October 31, 1939

Secretary-Treasurer McCarty

President Pritchett

Per Capita Increase’

tage main objective of the TWA is to improve
tlie economic lives of our people and to guar-
antee to every man, woman and child a living in de-
cency and comfort,” IWA Secretary-Treasurer B. J.
‘McCarty told delegates to the thira annual convention
of the union at the opening day’s session in Klamath
Falls. 3

Delivering his annual report to the membership
on his work during the past year, McCarty empha-
sized that the issue before the working people has
always been hours, wages and working conditions.
‘The membership insists and demands that we have
a unified international union as a guarantee of obtain-
ing these ends, he said.

“One of the most urgent prob-
lems now facing our union is the
raising of the per capita tax to the
international office,” he declared.
“In order to meet the issues of |
wages and working conditions, the
finaneial position of our union.
must be improved and stabilized
so that we will be in a position to ;
give financial aid where it is need- |
ed.”

The secretary-treasurer praised
the militancy and solidarity of the
membership in meeting attacks
of the employers and paid tribute
to the record which the IWA has

established in holding its gains and making new pro-
gress,

“Never before has a labor organization so success-
fully resisted wage cuts during an economic depres-
sion, at the same time extending organization,” he
“declared, referring to the numerous strikes recently
won and agreements renewed.

Touching again on the issue of boosting the per
capita tax from 25 cents to 50 cents, McCarty showed
where at present over 56 percent of the total income
Goes back into organizational work.

“Why should it be necessary for an organization
established under the principles of the CLO to con-
tinually turn down requests for funds from those
unorganized districts which need assistance?” he
asked. “The answer is lack of funds.”

Calling the TWA dues exoneration program one
of the most useful instruments for maintaining the
full strength of the union even during periods of
strike and unemployment, McCarty however recom-
mended a revision of the constitution so as to guar-
antee fuller protection for the members when they
are unemployed,

He closed his report by again urging the conven-
tion to bring forth “a practical program for increas-
ing the revenue of our organization.

“Only then can we fulfil our promises to the un-
organized and better the working conditions of our
membership.”

‘Tribute to B.C,’

G as his keynote the slogan of “organize
I the unorganized,” and dealing at length with
the problems and the future possibilitles facing the
International Woodworkers of America, President
Harold J. Pritchett, addressing the large number of
delegates and visitors present, officially opened the
third annual IWA convention in the Klamath Falls
Armories on October 18 with a two-hour speech cover-

ing all phases of the international poltical and econo-_

mic scene.

“If we here in United States are going to keep the
country out of war; if the workers in the United
States and Canada are to be successful in resisting
the violent assaults of reaction on our civil and poli-
tical liberties, then we must more rapidly than ever
before drive ahead to organize the unorganized wood-
workers,” he declared amid applause.

Citing the fact that the IWA convention met at
a time of “international crisis,’ he pointed to the fact
that this gives special significance to the threat to
organized labor—in fact to the whole people of the
United States and Canada, demanding that “we keep
the United States out of this imperialistic war.”

The international president stressed the import-
ance of political action on the part of the IWA, “for
as the power of labor grows, employers are resorting
more and more to legislative maneuvering to destroy
the effectiveness of labor gains.”

Supplementing the main convention resolves to
“organize the unorganized” should be the demand
for a dollar a day increase in wages to offset the
“increased cost of living brought about by profit-
hungry Big Business which is taking advantage of
and exploiting the European war,” he declared.

“We must also bring forward,” he added, “the im-
portance of raising our underpaid members to the
general standards enjoyed by the great majority of
our members who have successfully negotiated agree-
ments with the employers.”

Pritchett paid tribute to the work of the BC
District Council under adverse circumstances—the
war and the tendency to curtail civil liberties on
the part of Canadian reaction.

Dealing with the question of CIO-AFL peace, Prit-
chett emphasized that labor unity was badly needed,
but that peace could only be established “with prin-
ciple—not the Green-Hutcheson kind of peace with
all that it would imply; namely, the emasculation
of the CIO into many and various craft unions.”

Concluding his report and forecasting the work
ahead, the international president saw a stiff fight
in store for organized labor against the powerful fin-
ancial and monopolistic groups, warning that they
have no lack of shrewdness, initiative, money or poli-
tical power.

“But,” he said, “labor can match their energy
with more energy, their skill with greater skill; and
above all, we of the labor movement have that
matchless asset—solidarity.”

ntn’| Officers Report Progress

Vice-President Orton

‘Block Disruption’

DS2CPTIVE tactics employed by high officials of

the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners
were responsible for much of the industrial strife in
the Washington and Oregon sections of the lumber
industry, O, M. Orton, IWA vice-president, told dele-
gates to the IWA convention during the course of his
annual report.

Citing the Bellingham situation
see] as an example, Orton showed where
: the C, and J, had entered opera-
tions already 100 percent TWA and
through collusion with the employ-
er had secured fake agreements
without the consent or support of
the workers.

Orton lashed the C. and J. for its
collusion with the employers, sub-
stantiated by the fact that “a few
closed shop contracts were entered
into where the workers have been
divided,” and declared that “such
contracts were mainly for the pur-
pose of attempting to completely
smash the IWA and the CIO in
those operations. Some of these contracts are definite-
ly of a company union nature inasmuch as they pro-
vide that the employer shall determine whether a
worker shall be employed or not.”

“To our knowledge,” he went on, “no C. and J. local
has been able to sign a legitimate closed shop agree-
ment where the question of jurisdiction has not entered
the situation by action of the workers.”

“The C, and J. and thelr disruptive tactics, contrary
to the welfare of the workers in the industry, have
recognized company unions attempting, in cooperation
with the employer, to enforce wage cuts; have char-
tered company unions and condoned and encouraged
the attempted breaking of picket lines established to
maintain wages and conditions, or to improve and
bring them up to uniform standards.”

In recounting the organizational gains made by the
IWA since its 1938 convention. Orton pointed to the
28 local union charters which have been issued and the
establishment of one new district council in the State
of Alabama.

To attain a higher degree of organizational efficiency
Orton expressed the opinion that the per capita to the
International Union and the broadening of the adminis-
tration personnel by the creation of another vice-presi-
dency should, among other things, be considered by the
delegates,

“Workers are susceptible to associating themselves
with us,” he said. “Let us provide the ways and
means.”

With labor's immediate problem the organization
of the unorganized, Orton said the nation’s main prob-
lem is to stay out of the European war and to provide

economic and social security for its workers,

The IWA vice-president warned of the threat to civil
liberties which comes in time of war.

Voicing the demand of labor to stay out of war,
to organize the unorganized, Orton went on to say,
“We demand an end to unemployment and insecurity
with all its attendant evils and miseries. We demand

the right of a voice in the highest councils of our nation
and on all boards and governmental agencies whose

activities and decisions affect our day to day lives.”

‘Organize Unorganized’-- Convention Slogan

‘and administrative steps to check and |

eliminate wartime profiteering.”

‘Turning to the present European war,
the TWA was emphatic in its demand
that United States remain out of the
conflict,

Great Britain, France and Germany
were condemned by delegates as en-
gaged in “another military conflict
having imperialist aims,” terming the
conflict as merely “a continuation of
the last world war, kindled by mono-
polists, financiers and war-mongering
statesmen for reasons of political, eco-
nomic and military supremacy.” The
convention urged President Roosevelt
to use his moral influence and pres-
tige “to bring the warring powers to-
“gether at the conference table for an
immediate termination of the war.”
he initiation by both the Canadian
d U.S. governments of a program of

tation occupied much of the at-

tention of the convention, while the im-| ceedings, however, and was the out-| legal department attached to the inter-
portance of this matter to the future] standing point upon which all delegates | national office; (4) eléction or appoint-
welfare of the industry was sharply | agreed. ment of political welfare committees in

brought home by the speech of an offi-
cial representative of the U.S. Forestry
Service.

Attempts to promote harmony with-
in the convention on several basic
questions of policy, made difficult by
refusal of a small group of opposition-
ists to compromise, and much "sensa-
tionalized” in the employers’ press,
were finally achieved during the clos-
ing hours when the unity proposals of
a special committee comprising the
CIO Regional Directors for California,
Oregon and Washington — Harry
Bridges, W. Dalrymple and Richard
¥Francis—were almost unanimously en-
dorsed, the convention closing on that
note of inner unity,

The main slogan—“organize the un-
organized”—dominated the entire pro-

‘As a, means of removing the principal
stumbling block to extension of organi-
zation—lack of finances—the convention
voted by a big majority to place on a
referendum ballot a proposal to raise
the per capita tax to the international
from 25 cents to 50 cents a member, and
most of the delegates were of the opin-
jon that passage of this constitutional
amendment would be the biggest contri-
puting factor to building the union.
Sponsors of the proposal pointed out
that no other CIO international union
received less than 50 cents per capita,
some higher.

Other practical organizational steps
taken—subject to approval by referen-
dum—included (1) election of a second
vice-president; (2) placing of more or-
ganizers in the field; (8) creation of a

every local union and district council,
such committees to carry out the deci-
sion of the convention in the matter of
taking a more active part in political
activities to ensure the passage of pro-
gressive labor measures by state, pro-
vinelal or federal bodies; (5) a more uni-
form method of exoneration for unem-
ployed members; (6) improvement and
building of circulation of the Timber
Worker; (7) establishment of coordinat-
ing committees between the IWA and
other CIO unions.

Delegates adopted a resolution re-
commending to all “affiliated district’
councils and local unions to institute
preparations for coming negotiations

(Continued on Page 6)