Page Eight

July 12, 1943

Arthritis and Its Causes

What It Is: Arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease of
the joints which produces pain, swelling, stiffness, and eventu-
ally deformity. There are two types of arthritis—rheumatoid
arthritis and osteo-arthritis. In rheumatoid arthritis, inflamma-
tion of the joint leads eventually to wasting away of the joint
cartilage and later to thinning of the bones at the joint. In

osteo-arthritis the changes which take place in the joint are|

degeneration of cartilage and overgrowth of bone.

What Causes It: The onset and development of both forms
of arthritis are related to the health of the body as a whole,
much as seed is related to the soil in which it grows. Anything
that weakens the constitution—prolonged mental and physical
strain, exposure to wet or cold, poor food habits, chronic con-
stipation, or poor body mechanics—may furnish favorable soil
for the seed, or exciting cause of arthritis. A tendency to de-
velop arthritis also may run in families,

& THE B.C. LUMBER =e

Producing For Victory

By HAROLD PRITCHETT, Pres. IWA District No. 1

The IWA and the CIO are on record unequivocably in favor
of the destruction of fascism; for where Hitler and his satellites
are successful, our democracy is destroyed and with it the trade
union movement, the right to organize and bargain collectively,
free speech, free assembly, the freedom of worship and every-
thing that we hold dear goes by the board. Therefore, if we
are opposed to fascism, we must do something definite about it,
Our fellow workers in the armed forces of the nation are fight-
ing for our freedom in foreign battlefields and they require the
essential sinews of war to win the victory. Therefore, the estab-
lishment of functioning Production Committees in every plant,
camp and mill is essential, based upon full all-out war partner-

HOW ARTHRITIS DIFFERS
FROM RHEUMATIC FEVER.

1. It seldom attacks children.

2. It is a chronie disease rather
than an acute one.

8. It does not involve the heart.

4. It does more damage to the
joints.

REUMATOID ARTHRITIS.

Rheumadtoil arthritis begins, -as
a rule, before age 40, and infection
appears to play an important part
in its onset. Frequently the excit-
ing cause is a localized infection
in the teeth, tonsils, nasal sinues,
genito-urinary tract, or intestinal
tract. Exposure to cold and damp-

- ness, severe nervous strain, or in-
jury to the affected joint may
bring on an attack.

Before definite symptoms of
rheumatoid arthritis appear, the
person attacked may have a feel-
ing of being below par. He may
find his daily task hard, his ap-
petite poor, his digestion not so

good, his bowels disordered. He
may notice that he has less color
than before and that he is losing
weight.

Active disease may begin sud-
denly with fever and inflammation
of several joints, or it may develop
slowly with swelling, pain. and
stiffness involving one joint after
another. The joints in the fingers
and feet are usually affected first.
Frequently there are periods of
illness when fresh joints become
affected, followed by periods when
the disease is inactive.

If untreated, rheumatoid arthri-
ties may progress until finally per-
manent stiffening of the largest
joints results in varying degrees
of helplessness,

The three stages of rheumatism:
Rheumatic fever occurs from 5-15.
Rheumatoid arthritis from 20 to
40. Osteoarthritis from 45 to 50.

These are the three ages in which
the largest number of case of this
disease occurs.

Continued

BENEFITS

lumber industry of British Colum-
bia was obtained two months ago
with the Basco Development Com-
pany of Powell River.

5. The first major arbitration
case, involving eight camps em-
ploying about a thousand men, was
won by the IWA after a two-year
struggle, and a union agreement,
including the check-off, recom-
mended by the government agency.

6. Circulation of the official pa-
per of B.C., District Council No. 1,
“The B.C. Lumber Worker,” has
more than doubled, circulation ris-
ing from 7,600 to 14,500 copnes per
issue.

7. As the result of a brief sub-
mitted to the Government War La-
bor Board jointly by the Interna-
tional, the districtand Canadian
locals, provision of time and one-
half for the sawmill industry was
won last week. Additional appli-
eations are now beinb made by the
IWA for the same provision for
shingle mills, plywood factories
and logging camps.

Al. An

Continued

~ CONFERENCE

tion 4B of Article One which at
present bars members of the Com-
munist Party from membership in
the IWA. Another resoution ask-
ing that the $5 initiation fee be
implemented was referred to all
locals for consideration on the
basis of consolidated membership
and signed contracts.

The District Council was instruct-
ed to call as soon as possible a
conference representative of all
sawmills and logging camps of
Vancouver Island and the Lower
Mainland with the purpose of
@rafting a standard wage scale for
each section of the woodworking
industry. It is expected that the
conference will be called in the
near future and should have far-
reaching effects in stabilizing the
industry.

Before adjournament, the Dis-
trict Council adopted a resolution
to give favorable consideration to
the matter of holding the next an-

nual district convention in the city
of New Westminster.

dersen

General Blacksmithing

ELECTRIC AND ACETYLENE WELDING
HORSESHOEING

A

_ Shop Phone 191

DUNCAN, B.C.

ship between management, government and labor.

It must be said that production
committees must not be established
for the purpose of sweating work-
ers. Neither must the production
committees be established to take
over management. Rather, produc-
tion committees must be elected by
the workers involved, seeing to it
that key men with knowledge and
skill obtained through years of ex-
perience are elected to the work-
ers’ production committees. This
doesn’t mean that the production
committee the day after it is elect-
ed rushes into he manager's of-
fice without a plan or purpose.
Neither does it mean that produc-
tion committee can be used as a
grievance committee; for the prime
purpose of a production commit-
tee is to increase production. But
the experience of a strong and
recognized bargaining agency is
essential to a successful produc-
tion committee because: (1) Some
machinery for the handling of
grievances is necesary; (2) Union
strength remains as a guarantee
against exploitation in the name
of patriotism; (3) a strong union
gives a worker greater confidence;
and (4) trade unionism brings for-
ward the natural group leaders.

Having elected these key men to
a workers’ production committee,
it is then essential that the pro-
duction committee meet separately
and discuss bottlenecks that may
exist in their operation, such as
labor shortages, absenteeism, whis-
tle-jumping, material waste, repe-
tition of work, health conditions,
safety conditions, introduction of
new machinery and material prior-
ity. Having then agreed on one or
two major problems of production,
set forth preferably in writing, the
answer must be found and then and
only then a proper presentation
can be presented to the manage-
ment.

lf production committees were
esablished along these lines in ev-
ery camp and mill, cooperating
with management in the elimina-
tion of bottlenecks, then we could
consider the establishment of an
industry production council, rep-
resentative of employers, labor and
government. In this connection,
we have made continuous requests
to the Federal Government to es-
tablish a woodworking industry
coordinator whose job it would be
to assist in the establishment of
production committees in every op-
eration, tying these producion
committees finally to the industry
war council, The result would be
that where individual manage-
ment-labor production committees
were unable to solve bottlenecks
because of their industrial nature,
they would be referred to the pro-

duction war industry council. This
council could be representative of
one experienced logging operator,
one experienced sawmilling opera-
tor, and one experienced plywood
operator. The workers could be rep-
resented by one experienced trade
union sawmill worker, one experi-
enced trade union logger, one ex-
perienced trade union plywood
operator and the government co-
ordinator could act as chairman.
Where bottlenecks affecting the
entire industry existed, such as
he shortage of manpower, the
shortage: of materials or shortage
of tug boats, as the case may be,
it could be referred jointly to the
government for action and if ne-
cessary by special order-in-council.
This war doesn’t happen to be
an employers’ war, or the sole
property of the government, or,
for that matter, the property of
any individual. This is a people’s
war, in which all of the people
stand to lose if fascism is success-
ful. Therefore, all of the people
should be permitted to play their
full role and contribute through
war partnership their maximum
effort. It requires that we educate
our membership as to the charact-
er of this war, for it is equally
as important for the workers and
the management to understand
what they are fighting for, as it
is for our soldiers, sailors and air-
force men to have that understand-

ing under their steel helmets to
be good fighters. It requires much
more than streamlined publicity;
essentially, it means giving every
worker in the plant the realiza-
tion of the importance of his par-
ticular job to the war effort; a
very important factor in the secur-
ing of good attendance at work,
safety records and good workman-
ship. Of equal importance are
technical suggestions, making use
of the knowledge and experience
of the workers to improve techni-
cal organization in the factory or
camp as the case may be, to make
better use of labor tools and ma-
chinery and to find new ways of
making the work easier so more
can be produced.

Questions of ‘labor standards
generally belong to the collective
bargaining machinery, bui aspects
which directly jaffect production,
like guarantees to maintain piece
rates, incentive wage rates and
hours of work, are frequently dis-
cussed from the point of view of
production and passed on to the
bargaining machinery for further
action. Supplies of materials, sub
contracting, recruiting and trans-
ferring of workers are also fre-
quently dealt with, even by the
joint committee of the plant or
camp, but solution of such prob-
Jems requires a more advanced
stage of cooperation through the
industry management - labor - goy-
ernment war council.

Joint labor-management produc-
tion committees do not stand alone,
they are most likely to flourish in
a single plant or camp or through-
out the industry when there is
evidence of careful planning of
production, genuine labor partner-
ship and wholehearted concern on
the part of all for victory.

“Stamp Out the U-Boat”...

Buy War Savings Stamps!

Phone 496

115 Kenneth St.

Fred Earthy & Son

Ladies’ & Gent’s Suits, Ete.

General Tailoring

CLEANING and PRESSING

~

DUNCAN, B.C.

\:

| Gaal Cafe

THE LEADING CAFE IN DUNCAN

E. FORREST
Manager

Station St.

OUR FOOD IS PURE AND NOURISHING

DUNCAN, B.C.

BILL MARTIN
Chef

Phone 465