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B.C. LUMBER WORKER

LOGGERS

NOW SET

HIGH STANDARDS

By GEORGE H. MITCHELL
IWA District Secretary-Treasurer ‘

eT

had the pleasure of attending the Convention of Local
1-71, held on December 28, in the Arcadian Hall, 2214

Main Street, and it brought back memories of former
meetings of Local 1-71 when it was conducted by the
previous officers of the Local prior to the 1948 break-away.

It seems strange to sit in a
meeting such as this and try to
visualize that it was the loggers’
local who were in session. The
most amazing feature of the
whole convention was the man-
ner in which the delegates con-
ducted their business, Instead of
being instructed from the chair,
the chair simply laid out the
points under discussion and the
delegates then took over and de-
bated it until they resolved what
to do with it by majority vote.

Vast Difference

This is certainly a different
procedure than was followed back
in the early 1940’s, I attended
meetings of this Local at that
time when the officers had to
go out and cruise the beer par-
lors to try to get enough mem-
bers. to make a quorum and many
of those were not in a fit condi-
tion to even answer “aye” or
“nay” on questions that were
placed before them.

The meetings wound up by the
recruits from the beer parlors
going to sleep and the Executive
passing any form of resolution
they cared to. That is why the
organization was so easily con-
trolled by the elements seeking
to use it for political purposes.

Myths Debunked

Tuesday’s meeting would have
proved a great disappointment
to people who, through news-
papers and story books, have
been given the idea that loggers
are a drunken, shiftless, worth-
less lot, who only go out to the
woods to make a stake to come
back to town with only one
thought in mind, that of seeing
how drunk they can get.

They are usually depicted as
men with at least two weeks’
growth of beard, shabby clothes,
and a general unkempt look. I
have always felt that this kind
of publicity given the loggers

TO

through the newspapers and
story books has done them a
great injustice,

No “Pantywaist”

While the logger is no “panty-
waist”, and is rugged both phy-
sically and mentally,‘he is a real
gentleman when treated like one.
They don’t stand any pushing
around, that is true, but I think
it would have done the news-
paper and story book writers a
great deal of good to have seen
the members of Local 1-71, all
loggers, assembled in convention
and to have seen the calibre of
men and the manner in which
they conducted their business.

I think the officers and mem-
bers of this Local deserve a great
deal of credit as well as loggers
in all Local Unions, for the high
calibre of citizenship they are
showing since they have been
handled. by officers who were in-
terested in raising the general
standards of living in the woods.

Local 71’s convention is repeat-
ed in all our other areas where
we have loggers in our organiza-
tion. I want to congratulate the
Local and its membership and
wish them the best in the com-
ing year that it may bring a
greater measure of success to
them.

LABOR ACTS

WASHINGTON— Preliminary
conferences were held the week
of December 15 by AFL Presi-
dent George Meany with Sen.
Robert A. Taft (R, 0) on possible
changes in the Taft-Hartley act.
Meany later conferred with Rep.
Samuel K. McConnell, Jr. (R,
Pa.), who is slated to head the
House Labor committee. Richard
Gray, president of the AFL
Building Trades Department, also

conferred with Taft.

THE PUBLIC... x

Our ottention hos been called to the illegal operation of some
‘of the Dental Mechanics using a DENTAL LABORATORY as an
‘office and making Dental Plotes for the public in Vancouver.

We are now prepared to meet this unfair competition, using
the best of material for the same type of work.

Haye your Dental Plates made by a registered Dentist. It will
0st you no more, and will secure a receipt for money paid for
income tax deduction,

DR. R. LLEWELLYN DOUGLAS

_ Phone: TAtlow 5552
9 East Hastings Street, Corner Carrall (Over United Cigar Store)

As Parliament assembles
this month, labor members of
the House of Commons intend
to renew their demand for a
Federal enquiry into the situa-
tion at Louiseville, Que., where
provincial police have fired
shots, and tear gas bombs
against strikers at the Asso-
ciated Textiles plant.

About 1000 members of the
Catholic Syndicate of Textile
Workers (CCL), employed at the
Associated Textiles Ltd. plant at
Louiseville, Quebec, have been
on strike since March 10, 1952,
after attempts to secure a new
contract with the company had
failed.

Associated Textiles, an Ameri-
can company, with branches in
the U.S., Argentina, Canada and
other countries, operate their
plants mostly in low wage areas.
The rates paid at Louiseville
were between 70 and 73 cents an
hour and the company has a la-
bor relations record which union
spokesmen describe as “deplor-

able”.
Laws Out-dated

A Cape Breton member, Clare
Gillis, M.P., said that: “The total
net profit of the company in 1950
‘was $10,805,290 and in 1951, $16,-
158,186 or an increase of 49%
over 1950... The workers at that
plant, in their wage demands, are
not looking for a 49% increase,
although they would be justified
in doing so,” he continued.

‘The workers are trying to set-
tle their grievances around the
conference table, said Mr. Gillis,
but “the action-taken in that
province with respect to this dis-
pute indicates very clearly that
labor laws and conciliation in the
province of Quebec must be at
least 30 years out-dated.”

Police State”

Mr. Gillis was referring to the
police state, strong-arm methods
used against union members, and
his comments are backed up by
local doctors, the parish priest of
Louiseville and labor leaders.

The Quebec -provincial police
were sent into the town by the
Duplessis Government and some
of their actions have come in for
heavy criticism, All the five doc-
tors in Louiseville warned police
authorities to “stop all brutality”.
The five doctors blame the nine-
month-old strike and the actions
of the police in “keeping the
' peace”, for putting at least seven
people in mental hospitals and
causing many more to have ner-
jvous breakdowns.

Unnecessary Force

Dr, Marcel Marchand says:
“The provincial police are using
more force than necessary, They
are not ‘keeping the peace’, They
are getting revenge”. Another
Louiseville doctor said that he
has women patients who lost

On DIAMONDS, JEWELRY, SILVERWARE, FURS AND
ALL VALUABLES

for

Immediate Cash!

No Red Tape?

Unredeemed Diamonds for Sale

77 EAS HASTINGS, Cor. COLUMBIA

PAcific 355

their babies because of worries
over their husbands involved in
the str
a terrible thing.
allowed to go on. But what can
we do? We have made protes-
tations to the government but
they are no help.. My people are
not accustomed to brutality such
as we have experienced here.”

Speaking of the reading of the
Riot Act, which resulted in a
dozen strikers being injured
when the police fired on them,
Msgr. Donat Baril, Louiseville
parish priest, termed the action
“an unfortunate incident, an er-
ror of judgment on the part of
all those responsible for it.”

Guns and Clubs

He said: “It was a bad error
of judgment in the first place be-
cause the act itself precipitated
trouble. Union members were
not given sufficient time to dis-
perse, and some youths were
hauled away by police without
knowing what was happening.
They caught on when hit by
clubs, but it was too late, The
workers may have thrown a few
snowballs but those .are poor
weapons against guns and clubs.
None of the policemen was in-
jured.” 4

Maurice Vassart, syndicate
business agent, speaking of the
same incident, said fo the police
action: “They did not shoot to
seare, they shot to kill. I won-
der whether they were drunk or
just cold blooded.”

General Strike

CCCL General Secretary Jean
Marchand, spoke at a meeting of
2,000 workers in Shawnigan Falls
which endorsed a plan for a prov-
ince-wide general strike of the
CCCL’s 100,000 members in an
effort to force Duplessis to with-
draw the provincial police from
Louiseville.

M. Marchand said that Asso-
ciated Textiles had tried to des-
troy the union “under cover of
the law, the judges and the po-
lice.” He continued: “The Riot
Act is being used in Louiseville
just to kill the union. It permits
the police to beat the union mem-
bers who have no protection.
What’s the difference between
Louiseville and Russia? I don’t
see any.”

The president of the National
Catholic Textile Federation, to
which the Louiseville local is af-
filiated, said the government ne-
glected the common welfare, one
of its principal responsibilities,
by letting the parties in the dis-
pute “slug it out until the small
one was felled by the big one.”

Legal Picketing
Federation president, Rene
Goselin, stated that: “The gov-
ernment recognized the legality
of the strike, but it rendered its
exercise impossible by sending
provincial police to Louiseville.
| Since their arrival, police have
| been protecting ‘scabs’ and ren-
ldering picketing inefficient and
impossible.”

Mr. Gillis, concluding his
speech in the House of Commons,
said: “This strike took place last
March, The interval between
then and now is a long time for

‘a dispute like that to drag along.

e. He commented: “It is
It cannot be!

STRIKERS FACE GUNS

[It is reminiscent of what hap-

pened a short time ago in the
asbestos industry in the same
province when the police used
tear gas and batons.

“What is happening in Quebec
today is certainly giving a lot of
aid and comfort to the elements
within the organized labor move-
ment whose job it“is to-foment
trouble. Mr. Duplessis and his
policies are certainly doing a
first class job for them.”

National
Charter
Sought

OTTAWA (CPA)—A petition
submitted by co-operative orga-
nizations across Canada, to Par-
liament will, if granted, lead to
the setting up of a co-operative
loan society on a national scale.

The Co-operative Union of Ca~
nada announced that a petition
submitted to Parliament today
(Dee. 31), for consideration at
the next sitting of the House of
Commons, asks for the incorpora-
tion of Canadian Co-operative
Credit Society Limited,

Final decision to proceed with
the petition was reached at a
meeting of the National Com-
mittee on Co-operative Credit of
the Co-operative Union of Can-
ada held in Witiniyeg on Decem-
ber 13. Representatives of co-
operative credit societies and
commercial co-operatives operat-
ing in eight provinces partici-
pated in the discussions.

Incorporation of the new so-
ciety will be sought under gen-
eral legislation forecast in the
Speech from the Throne deliver-
ed on November 20. The orga-
nizations signifying their desire
to become petitioners includ
B.C. Central Credit Union, Sas-
katchewan Co-operative Credit
Society, Ontario Co-operative
Credit Society, N.S. Credit Union
League, Interprovincial Co-oper-
atives Limited, Canadian Co-
operative Implements Limited
and Saskatchewan Federated Co-
operatives.

Jobless Grow

OTTAWA (CPA) —There are
now more than a quarter of a
million Canadians employed, di-
rectly or indirectly on defence
production work, the National
Advisory Council on Manpower
was told at a recent meeting
here, M

At the end of last year there
were in the neighborhood of
100,000 workers employed in the
plants of prime contractors on
defence production and a similar
number were employed by sub-
contractors and suppliers. Dur-
ing the past year combined de-
fence employment in these two
groups has increased by roughly
50,000 or one quarter.- Nearly
five percent of the total labor
force of Canada is, therefore, di-

rectly or indirectly engaged in
defence production. »

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