Se

c.

LUMBER WORKER

Vindicated

month-old strike has completely vindicated the policies

pursued by the IWA.

The firm adherence by the IWA to the resolution, “no
contract, no work”, and mounting pressure of public opin-
ion forced the employers to the mediation of matters in
dispute.

*_ The employers’ attempt to cloak their real intentions
behind the ery of “‘illegality” has been torn away by the
common sense of the man on the street.

Any so-called “illegality” was deliberately staged as a
smoke screen to conceal anti-union désigns.

The strike has demonstrated that lumber workers have
needs so urgent that men and women are prepared to
suffer temporary loss of income to secure adequate con-
sideration of those néeds. -

-It was a great moral victory for the IWA to establish
the fact that those needs must be dealt; with fairly and
objectively at the conference table, and in proper balance
with the claims of the employers.

Likewise it has been a great gain for the IWA to prove
that the Union possessed the unity of purpose to fight one
of the most determined battles waged in B.C. labor
history.

It has knit the membership of the IWA into a compact
fighting force with which the employers must reckon, and
which more than ever may be relied upon to defend the
welfare of those who pin their faith to the organized
strength of brotherhood. A

Reward Certain

strike which lasts beyond the thirty-day period is a

trying experience. No one realizes the truth of this
more clearly than the man on strike and the members of
his family. It is not easy to budget household expenses
on no income,

Men and women find endurance to meet this test, when
they realize the purposes for which their sacrifices are
made. The present IWA strike has written into the history
of the working class another example of the steadfast
courage with which workers have always won a larger
measure of social justice.

What the IWA is fighting for and will eventually gain,
far outweighs the temporary discomforts of holding a
picket line for a few weeks without pay.

“IWA members on strike are fighting for their right to
decent living and working conditions. They have made
the choice of free men. As weaklings, they might have
submitted to a form of industrial slavery. As free men
they are determined not to work until their work is re-
warded as it can and should be.

Their present struggle will win better conditions of
working and living, as such struggles in the past have
always brought the workers richer and brighter living.

. Without struggle, nothing would-be gained. The indus-
trial system is geared to deal with labor as a commodity,
to be bartered for at the lowest possible cost.

With struggle, nothing is lost and'everything is to be
gained.

In the years ahead, lumber workers will soon-forget
the belt-tightening discomforts of the days on strike, in
the enjoyment of a higher status of citizenship in industry.

The Culprits

/THE trade union movement of British Columbia has

warned the public of a grave strike situation, involving
more than fifty thousand workers. It required expenditure
for half-page advertisements in the daily press to make
the point. ‘

At the same time, the trade unions gave the causes
and the remedy, in language that might well be heeded
by those in authority. ;

The machinery for bargaining and conciliation had
broken down. It had been stalled mainly because of the
resolve of the employers: to use all their economic power
and the might of the law to accomplish their own selfish
profit-making ends. =

When the organized workers are denied justice because
the administration of the law is dominated by the employ-
ers, they have no recourse but to use the strike weapon.

The existing strike-situation in British Columbia does
not exist because of the irresponsibility of the workers, or
the reckless or grasping decisions of a few leaders.

It exists because the employers who exploited price
inflation to the limit during recent years, agreed this year
to resist any adjustment of wages to the higher price levels
in protection of their own future profits.

The remedy asked by labor lies in the field of mediation
conducted with justice and equity, and directed to strike
a fair balance between the conflicting claims of labor and

anagement,
- The remedy will be found when those in authority re-
alize that one essential factor for expanding prosperity in
the province is the expanding distribution of income
through wages. : 4

The claim of the workers is a claim against the pro-
duction of the province for a larger share of goods and
services produced, and which, when more equitably shared,

ws
&

_ MINUS

ee
LA

OTTAWA (CPA)—Stubborn
employer resistance to the
wage demands of Canadian
workers has been reported
from all sectors of Canada’s
labor front. None of packing-
house workers, steel workers,
railway workers, nor building
trades employees have found it
easy to obtain the wage con-
cessions to which they feel they
are entitled because of the in-
creases in the cost of living
since their last round of wage
boosts and because of the in-
creasing productivity of their
membership. British Columbia
woodworkers have already had
to resort to strike action in an
attempt to enforce their de-
mands for a 35-cent wage in-
crease,

Longest dragged out negotia-
tions are those of the United
Steelworkers of America, who are
asking a wage increase of 10
cents an hour for 16,000 workers
in the basic steel industry. They
also want a job evaluation
scheme which will increase differ-
entials paid to more highly skill-
ed workers, Key to these con-
tract talks is the Hamilton plant
of the Steel Company of Canada,
where the union has set a late-

Wage Fight Spreads

July strike deadline.
40-hour Week

The CIO Packinghouse Work-
ers are asking a 40-hour week
for the same take-home pay as
they now receive, plus other con-
tract changes,

Non-operating railway work-
ers, organized in a score of CCL
and AFL unions, have joined to
ask a wage increase of 45 cents
an hour, pointing out that they
have had no general boost since
the Kellock award of 1950.

Settled recently have been an
AFL textile strike in Valleyfield
and Montreal where workers re-
turned to their jobs with an 11-
cent wage gain, and disputes i
volving thousands of AFL build-
ing trades workers in various
cities, most of whom obtained
substantial increases through ne-
gotiations.

The international officers of
the AFL United Textile Workers
intervened during the Montreal
and Valleyfield strike to replace
Communist leadership of the Ca-
nadian section of their union.
Some of the new Canadian UTW
leaders including Sam Baron, are
former top men in the minority
Baldanzi faction in the CIO .Tex-

tile Workers Union of America.

Canada stands at the bottom
of a list of 10 countries show-
ing real wage gains since 1950,
The figures, listing a total of
14 countries, show three which
suffered cuts in real wages.

The list, compiled by the In-
ternational Confederation of Free
Trade Unions, is based on an
index of 100°for June, 1950, and
shows that at June, 1951, Cana-
dian workers had a real wage
inerease of three-tenths of one
percent,

A cost-of-living index table,
also compiled by ICFTU, shows
that at June, 1951, as compared
with June, 1950, 13 countries had
a smaller increase than Canada
and 16 had a larger increase.

The real wage index listed Ca-
nada at 100.3 in June, 1951, on
the basis of 100 for June, 1950.
Four countries showed losses—
Belgium, 99.8; Dominica, 90.5;
Norway, 97.1; and Italy, 97.5.

Canada’s Wages Low

Other countries listed were:

Australia 104.8
Austria 105.3
Ceylon 122.5
Germany 108.7
Japan .. 116.8
Netherlands 101.9
Sweden ..... 103.8
United Kingdom 104.4
United States .. 101.5

Countries which, from June,
1950, to June, 1951, showed the
same cost of living index increase
as Canada, 11.7 percent, were
Cyprus and Lebanon. Countries
with less increase were: Brazil,
Colombia, Dominica, United
States, Ceylon, India, Pakistan,
West Germany, Luxembourg, Ne-
therlands, Sweden, United King-
dom, and New Zealand, Coun-
tries with a greater increase were
Mexico, Puerto Rico, Japan, Ma-
laya, Thailand, Austria,’ Bel-
gium, Denmark, France, Greece,
Iceland, Italy, Norway, Saar,

BIG STEEL
CONSPIRACY

The CIO Steelworkers asked
the Department of Justice, July
8, to prosecute promptly the “big
six” steel corporations on charges
of conspiring to violate the anti-
trust laws, The union said they
had conspired to prevent collec-
tive bargaining and to intimidate
other firms fronr settling. Five
days before the union had filed
with the National Labor Rela-
tions Board charges of unfair la-
bor practices, alleging conspiracy,
had asked for immediate injune-
tions. The “big six”: US Steel,
Bethlehem, Republic, Jones &
Laughlin, Youngstown, Inland,

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