4 B.C. LUMBER WORKER One Fight DELEGATES attending the recent B. C. District Conference, who heard the facts about the IWA-LSW strike in the Pacific Northwest States, quickly appreciated the vital importance of. its outcome. No high degree of intelligence is required to grasp the fact that a victory in the American sec- tion of the industry means a victory for the workers on the Canadian side. Likewise a defeat in the United States would precipitate a still more vigorous offensive against trade union interests ' in Canadian lumber operations. | The Jumber industry is becoming highly’ inte- grated on a continental basis. ; The great industrial corporations now engaged ina highly organized endeavor to eliminate union- ism from the industry in the States are but another face of those interests with the greatest investment in the Canadian industry. Workers cannot afford to be whipsawed across the boundary by corporations which operate with one common policy, and are smart enough to single out for attack one section of the Union at a time. The only way to meet the present onslaught against the Union is by developing the unity of strategy and command that can result in defence in depth along the whole economic front, held by the Union. The struggle in the United States at this time has some very grim and foreboding aspects. The delegates recognized this when they proposed that the International Convention should be postponed. The main business of the Union, they contended, is to win the strike. All other Union business can be held in abeyance to make sure that the Ameri- can woodworkers come out on top. The B. C. delegates said that they would much prefer to send the money already budgetted for delegates’ expenses to the strikers’ families. They were. also very definite in the opinion that the ~ Union’s officials should not be withdrawn from the strike area at this time of crisis. It is the identity of interest in trade union objectives that counts for more than artificial lines of nationalism. The B. C. Local Unions have placed themselves squarely behind the Union’s fight in the Northwestern States. A Sound Job ANNOUNCEMENT that IWA members in the Northern Interior have decided by their ballots to accept a proposed settlement closes out the Union’s negotiations for the year. The IWA is again free to concentrate on other and equally important objectives determined by the District Convention. In this year’s negotiations, the Union may take great credit for securing settlements, accept- able to the membership, without even requiring the completion of conciliation proceedings. Indeed, the Northern Interior agreement has been reached ey consideration of any conciliation pro- cedure. When this outcome is appraised, taking into consideration the results as well as the means, the achievement is noteworthy, especially when con- trasted with events in other large international unions. The prospects predicted for August indi- cate that many unions will be on strike for less than has already been won by the IWA peacefully. The IWA has proved its militancy. The em- ployers now realize that the Union will not back away from a fight when necessary. The requirements of present-day negotiations are those which call for men who forget about efforts to win applause from the sidelines, but who are wholly intent on results for those they represent. ; j Guess Who Said This! The cries of organized labor-since the passage of new British Columbia“labor legislation at_the last session of the legislature have been loud and long. They have also been bitter, and it would appear, with some justification. Without going into the legislation itself, and all its in- tricacies, we can agree that the steps taken by the government place greater*powers in the hands of B.C.’s Minister of Labor, The Hon. Lyle Wicks. One of the cries of the unionists is that Mr. Wicks has been given far too much power. In order to properly evaluate this allegation we need go no further back in history than last fall when the participants of industry, labor and management, were deadlocked in a bitter strike in this area. Mr. Wicks was appealed to by parties on both sides of the dispute to make some effort towards settlement, and when he shrugged off this responsibility upon Premier Bennett (or when the Prentier took it away from him), the provincial govern- ment proceeded to commit the greatest single blunder in the entire three-month strike; the appointment of Judge Arthur E. Lord as a special commissioner with powers to prepare a public report on the case. Judge Lord’s report, as we all know, merely served to postpone the day of settlement. Still Mr. Wicks did not so much as come to Prince George for a first hand look at the situation, and none of his fellow cabinet members came either. It is evident then that Mr. Wicks either demonstrated in- competency because he was not interested in a vital issue, demonstrated incompetency by self-admission in not coming here, or was considered incompetent to deal with the situation by Premier Bennett, who in due course proved himself incompe- tent in the appointment of Judge Lord. The unionists’ charge that Mr. Wicks has been given too much power would seem a just one. In fact it would appear that any power at all given to Mr. Wicks would be too much power. (PRINCE GEORGE CITIZEN.) -“In The Bag” ATLANTIC CITY, NJ. (CPA) | The four unions, which have a —One united “House of Labor” is “in the bag”, William Schnitz- ler, Secretary-Treasurer of the American Federation of Labor, told delegates to the annual con- vention of the Handbag, Lug- gage, Belt & Novelty Workers’ Union here, A major step towards labor unity was taken recently when 94 AFL and Congress’ of Indus- trial Organizations unions, with a membership of over 10,000,000, signed a two-year “no raiding” agreement, Convention delegates also heard Alex Rose, President of the AFL Hatters Union, propose a merger of the four AFL and CIO needle trades unions for joint organiza- tion action. combined membership of more than one million, are the Hat- ters, the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union (AFL), the Handbag, Luggage, Belt and Novelty Workers’ Union (AFL) and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America CIO). Rose suggested that they establish a combined organization depart- ment. BEER — Canada exported 1,- 742,000 gallons in the 12 months ended March 81 last year. Almost 91 percent went to the United! States, 5 percent to Trinidad and Tobago, and the rest to 12| other countries. { ALL VALUABL) Immediate Cash? No Unredeemed Diamond: WASHINGTON (CPA) — A doctor testifying recently before the Senate Finance Committtee, uttered some terrifying warnings of disaster that might overtake the United States if a proposal by the Administration were to be put into effect. The AFL News Reporter notes some of the phrases used by the doctor in exposing the “diaboli- cal plot” to the public. Some of the descriptive phrases from the doctor’s brief may give a clue to the impending doom of which he warned. “An impossible, immoral and fraudulent scheme”; “a mask for the acceptance of the Commun- ist idea”; “Socialistie in philos- ophy, in operation and intent”; “Foreign spawned and nurtured.” The objectives of this terrible scheme, the doctor described in the following way: “Usurpation of individual rights and liber- ties”; “Reducing the previously noble American citizen . . . to the level of a menial, working for the all-powerful state”; will “guarantee complete loss of con- fidence in our government and assure utter tragedy for our children”. Who was this doctor-prophet? His name was James L. Doenges, M.D., President-elect of the As- sociation of American Physicians and Surgeons, Terrible Plot What terrible plot was he seeking to reveal? It was a Proposal that old-age and sur- vivors insurance coverage be extended to certain groups at Present excluded!! 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