B.C. LUMBER WORKER Not Just Bragging EVERY IWA man who sat in at the B. C. Federation of Labor Convention, came away with something to think about, The IWA men who couldn’t be there should hear about it and do some thinking along the same lines. : Drop a stone in a pond and see the rippling circles spread to the outermost edges. If the ideas and plans worked over at the Conven- tion are dropped into the minds of the lazy and the unorganized, they might get agitated to the point of moving in their own in- terest. It did us all good to see the I- WA back in the Federation con- vention at full strength. The IW- A was in the centre of the picture in more ways than one—in nu- merical strength — in debating skill and in trade union solidar-, ity. _ The IWA members, as we real- ized, are 60 percent of the Feder- ation membership. The [WA men were pulling their weight, with- out trying to dominate the smaller unions, ‘This is not just bragging. It was more proof that the IWA has been re-established in the trade union movement. Our Union is playing its part in the struggle to raise the living standards of * the workers in this province. ig ee Down to Brass Tacks WwHt I saw and heard means so much to me, after what we've been through, that I can’t wisecrack about it. The longshoreman who said that everything was too tame— too much like Sunday school — missed the whole point. The Convention was going about the workers’ business in a business-like way to get results for the workers. If he was longing for the old Commie-staged fireworks, he should also have remembered that those fireworks were usually staged.to cover up Commie shen- anigans, Men who are determined to get down to business have little pa- tience with the flannel-mouths. ‘The LPP spy at the press table tried to make out in his report that every big decision was ma- chined. Little does he know. If any- body had tried to promote any- thing like the old Commie O’- Brien-Pritchett-Murphy machine, he would have been kicked down- stairs, The Commies don’t seem to realize how. fast decent folk can get together on a sound demo- cratic purpose. They always in- sist that they know more than the ordinary joes, and take a dim view of the intelligence of the rank and file. So no wonder, they can’t be- lieve that the rank and file are able to act intelligently on their own when all the cards are on the table. po ees They Had It "THE Convention had something that the handful of Commies there couldn’t drive a wedge. into —trade union solidarity. The thinking of the Convention was so far ahead of them, that they had to tag along, at the tail end of the parade, It meant something to all of us, that steelworkers, packing- house workers, railway workers and woodworkers could work so well together, for the common good. It meant that they realized that their combined strength was re- quired to get legislation for the greater security of all the work- ers. It was shown once more that all we have in the way of wages and working conditions, we. have had to fight for, every inch of the way. It was shown just as clearly that the trade unions are all that stand between the working stiffs and the government - employer combination to keep labor costs down. (Costs mean us.) We might well federate, if we know which side our bread is but- tered on. he se Who’s Next ‘HIS Convention made us re- member the dirty and hungry °30’s, and how close we are to go- ing through it all over again. Remember how, if we wanted to stay out of the Bennett relief camps with their two bits a day, we had to cut firewood out of pitch-ringed fir at a buck and a half a cord. Remember it took a damn good man to cut, and pack out to the roadside, two ricks a day. Peck’ Dod ; “HI”. WORRIES ABOUT TIMBER; SAYS BOSSES TOO CARELESS That’s what we'll get again, if we don’t jump on this unemploy- ment situation, and some of us are not so spry as we used to be. The man who has a job just now, and doesn’t worry about the 60,000 jobless in B.C., must be crazy in the head. y. Every man added to the ranks of the jobless brings him just that much closer to the same jam. The more unemployed, the less work there is to do to meet the market demand, and so the jobs get fewer and fewer. Mass unem- ployment grows like a snowball rolling downhill, ‘The bosses think a good wallop of unemployment is healthy discipline for workers who want better wages. It’s supposed to frighten us. They feel that they can use the fear of unemployment to keep us in line. When they’ve got plenty of hungry men hanging around the hiring halls, we can start to worry. Two men fighting for ev- ery job and where are we? That’s why the unions in the Federation are putting the pres- sure on to get, first some cash for the needy, then some work going to keep the payrolls on a sound basis, x oR & Tomorrow’s Jobs ‘THE IWA, got the Federation Convention to back a move which will also protect our jobs in. the lumber industry. It’s a point that we’re liable to overlook, because we've been tak- ing it for granted that there’s always plenty of timber to cut. Well there isn’t. At the rate we've been logging, the fir stands are nearly done, and so we're tak- ing the hemlock and cedar a lot faster. Because for years we've logged out or destroyed about 10 times the amount of new growth ready for cutting, we're going bankrupt in timber fast. Logging methods have been wasteful, and the operators have paid little attention to re-seeding, or methods of sustained yield. We might easily say, “O why worry? There’s enough to keep us busy for another 20 years, and by that time we’ll be through anyway.” ‘The danger is a little closer than that. The bosses and the government are well aware of this danger to our biggest source of wealth. Forty cents out of every dollar made in B.C. is made out of the lumber industry. ‘They're going to act on conser- to make better use of the timber, Right now almost 50 percent 0! the log we bring out is wasted. Logging and mill waste can be put to use in a lot of different ways. : We've seen logging and pulp mill waste ground and mixed to make panels, almost as hard and strong as steel. : ‘We've seen waste processed in- to structural timber that will stand up to almost anything. The answer we've got to get works two ways. Farm the for- est land instead of mining it. Plan less wasteful uses for the timber we cut. If we don’t work for these ans- wers the “get-rich-quick” opera- tors will put us on the bread line. «2 Political Action POLITICAL action is an awful touchy subject with some of the boys. I can understand it, after the dose we got of LPP pol- ities in the IWA. It all depends what one means by political action. Almost every- thing they did at the Convention meant some political action. All the big problems of the trade unions have to be settled on the political field. If we do anything about unem- ployment, we’ve got to put poli- tical pressure on the political bosses to get results, The success of our negotiations this year for the Union shop and better wages may hinge on the political action we get on Bill 39, Forest conservation will never be touched unless through a poli- tical government. The same goes for Workmen’s Compensation, minimum wages, annual holidays and a score of problems, The whole point is that our lives, and working conditions are regulated at every turn by gov- ernment, decided upon through political action of which we are a part, whether we recognize it or not. So since we can’t miss _politi- cal action, whatever we do, the most sensible thing to do is to de- cide on the kind of political ac- tion that best suits our book, , There’s one kind of political ac- tion we can’t afford to take. I mean the kind that backs the bosses’ game. We've been suck- ers for that one far too long. f {bargain collectively in jase ag we're bree Rene We've got to find out how collectively on the j It’s when we're split that lower the boom on us, If we together on our own political he ram, and voted accordingly, would sure have to listen to us, ‘8 8 About Strikes PVE hundred prisoners in Cal- cutta, India, went on a hun- ger strike to enforee their de~ mands. ‘They demanded a voice in the selection of their jailers, and also a raise in pay for their guards, oe In Sydney, Austral members did the same job for years. They had to paint a sust pension bridge, which took three years to do, whereupon they had to start all over again. They struck the job on the grounds of monotony.