THE B.C. LUMBER WORKER Page Five _ r Fight Is Your Fight! Q UR Tri-Sub-District Convention finds it necessary to place be- fore all trade union organizations in Canada the importance assisting the miners of Nova Scotia to send 125 delegates to the ian Congress of Labor convention which opens in Hamilton, io, September 8, 1941. Providing only for transportation, room, board, and a curtailment- icy wage for the delegates, we estimate it will cost us approximately 5,000 to achieve this. It is regrettable that an organization the size of our United Mine forkers of America should find itself at this time in financial straits severe that it must appeal to other labor bodies for assistance in financing the routine function of sending delegates to a convention. We must explain, however, that our dilemma is the result of the pol- icies of our executive officers, the provincial department of labor and the coal operators who have, for the past three years, made our con- ditions so unbearable that we now find ourselves fighting desperately x the re-establishment of trade union democracy in District 26, UMWA, Nova Scotia. | TWO DISTRICT CONVENTIONS. We wish to briefly summarize the basic facts of our case: The 1938 convention cost the miners of Nova Scotia $75,000; it adopted a democratic constitution; a progressive working wage policy and a legislative program which provided for policy committees to sit in with the executive at wage negotiations, and frowned on concilia- tion boards as a medium of settling wage disputes in the mines of Nova “Scotia. Each of these provisions has since been disregarded by the executive officers of the UMWA, the provincial government and the operators. The 1940 convention program was practically the same as that of the 1938 convention except that it cost the miners $60,000, that it amended the wage scale demands to conform with changed conditions, and that it rejected the findings of the McTague conciliation board _ and took President Morrison at his word that these findings would be disregarded. a All this time we were working under a depressed rate—in some _ cases 7-1/5 per cent below the 1926-29 levels. On February 1, 1940, ! our contract terminated and we again found ourselves violating union _ policy and being regimented by our district officers and the operators into continuing work without a contract. Our district officers again applied for a conciliation board. But if the McTague board reassembled in Halifax to review our wage _ structure, this was done only to prevent a 100 per cent strike on Feb- " tuary 28 as planned by a sub-district convention in Glace Bay. On "March 8, 1940, the McTague board submitted its findings, calling for the freezing of existing wage rates in the mines. The miners, anticipating the procedure of submitting such findings 0 a referendum vote of the rank-and-file for their ratification or re- jection, awaited the submission of the McTague board findings to a ndum yote, only to learn that the district executive—over the ead of Executive Member Douglas McDonald, M.L.A.—secretly d a contract with the operators giving full force and effect to the lecision of the McTague board. _ When the miners learned of this betrayal they immediately called | convention of delegates representing all local unions of the UMWA in the Glace Bay, New Waterford, and Sydney mines sub-districts senting 8,000 miners, Operations ceased at the mines for four during which time the miners in their local unions formulated ir production-curtailment policy, which had been in effect since 16 and continues unabated at this time pending a settlement miners’ grievances. : [ATIONS DEMANDED. A few days after selling out the miners, President Morrison and tary McKay of the UMWA attended a general meeting of miners Aberdeen, N.S., the heart of the troubled zone, where they d repeated cries of “Resign! Resign!” In reply President Morrison d, “If the miners want our resignation they can have it.” g them at their word, more than 10,000 miners involved a petition the following Saturday asking these two officers resign—which they refused to do. TRADE UNION DEMOCRACY IS IMPERATIVE NOW A MESSAGE TO THE UNIONS OF CANADA From the Nova Scotia Coal Miners THE INTERNATIONAL COMMISSIONS. * On learning that Morrison and McKay had refused to resign and were persisting in forcing themselves on the miners against the will of the latter, the locals wired International President John L, Lewis to send an independent commission to Nova Scotia to investigate al- leged maladministration of UMWA affairs in Nova Scotia. A commis- sion, headed by Senator Sneed, was appointed and met for three con- secutive days. After waiting for nearly six weeks without receiving the com- missioners’ report, or any word from President J, L. Lewis on the matter, the Tri-Sub-District Convention delegated three of its mem- bers to consult the stenographer to ascertain if the evidence she had recorded had been forwarded to-headquarters in Washington, D.C. They learned, however, that on instructions from Senator Sneed she had forwarded her shorthand record of the hearings to the accused district officers at their headquarters in Glace Bay, to be sent by that office to Commissioner Sneed. Instead of receiving a report from a commission which had met at our request, International Board Member Silby Barrett, liaison officer for John L, Lewis in the district, summoned 13 of our delegates to appear July 15 to answer charges of fomenting dual unionism within the UMWA. This the 13 did, pleading “not guilty.” No evi- dence was submitted against them, yet on July 19 the 13 were noti- fied by District Secretary McKay of their indefinite suspension. SPURIOUS PROPAGANDA. On July 19 the entire big business press of Canada carried full- page advertisements by Dominion Coal Company which purported to treat the production-curtailment policy in the coal mines of Nova Scotia; these advertisements were a misrepresentation of the facts of the case, with one exception where it was stated: “Order-in-Council * P.C. 4061 was passed on June 6, 1941, declaring coal mining to be an essential industry. The purpose of this order-in-council agd undoubt- edly the intent of the Canadian government in framing it was that it would have the effect of eliminating lockouts, strikes and curtailment of output during the period of the war.” We contend that if the word “Jockouts” were deleted from this paragraph it would be the complete truth. Our information is that these advertisements by DOSCO attacking the “slow down” of coal output in Nova Scotia cost them $100,000. To this we say: “Had this $100,000 been distributed to the miners as wage increases to buy more milk and bread and boots and clothes for the miners’ children, perhaps a curtailment policy in the mines would have been averted.” OUR APPEAL TO LABOR. This appeal is directed to you from Canadian workers who have sacrificed everything since April 16 to uphold the principle of a free ~ and democratic trade union movement in Canada. Our fight has de- pleted our local treasury, and our district officers have frozen our assets so that we cannot place special assessments on our members to finance the sending of delegates to the Canadian Congress of Labor convention. We are confident that our fellow trade unionists throughout Canada will fully appreciate how vitally necessary it is for us to participate in the deliberations of this important convention, We desire to bring the facts of our struggle before this high tribunal of labor so that, together, we may work out a clear-cut policy for the restoration of trade union democracy in Canada, : WE THEREFORE CALL UPON ALL TRADE UNION BODIES AFFILIATED WITH THE CANADIAN CONGRESS OF LABOR TO DEAL WITH OUR APPEAL WITHOUT DELAY AND SEND ALL CONTRIBUTIONS TO DAN J. MACDONALD, PRESIDENT TRI- SUB-DISTRICT CONVENTION, DISTRICT 26, U.M.W.A, 221 EIGHTH STREET, NEW ABERDEEN, NOVA SCOTIA. For the Policy Committee, Angus McIntyre, Tim McPherson, Hugh Fraser. TRI-SUB-DISTRICT CONVENTION, DISTRICT 26, U.M.W.A., N.S.