10 B.C. LUMBER WORKER 2nd Issue, May MacKenzie Scores Harsh Customs Forthright language was used by President John Mac- Kenzie, Local 1-118 IWA, a member of the IWA District Negotiating Committee as he gave the Union’s member- ship his forecast in a radio address of the outcome of Conciliation Board proceedings in the contract dispute with the coast lumber operators. The Victoria IWA official said in part: ; No member of this Union should blind himself to the fact that the probable result of Conciliation Board proceedings this year is a strike vote. He should further realize that a strike yote this year must be the most decisive in the Union’s history, whatever may follow. Every alert trade unionist knows that a vote in favor of strike action does not necessar- ily mean a strike. However, failure to carry a strike vote is a humiliating surrender to the dictates of the employers, who are determined to force last year’s contract, without improvement, on the Union for another year. If the probabilities, which I have suggested, are borne out by future events, and the Union’s membership registers its views regarding a settlement by means of a strike vote, the Negotiating Committee will then immediately utilize the opportunity so created to persuade the employers to bar- gain with a more open mind than they have yet shown. It is unfortunate, that owing to the attitude so far taken by the employers this year, such a demonstration of our determina- tion is required to gain the rea- sonable concessions which will make the contract workable. Demands Unchanged ‘The members of our Union may depend upon their representatives on the Negotiating Committee to present the Conciliation Board with a brief which contains their demands in the identical terms stated at the IWA Wages and Contract Conference, and to exert their best effort to win a favor- able decision from the Concilia- tion Board, At the same time, the members of the Negotiating Committee must rely on the general mem- bership to perform two functions of vital importance in these ne- gotiations. These functions must be stressed, for by no stretch of the imagination can the Negotiat- You'll be a WINNER WITH THE NEWS: J PMRacKET the saw with GREATER EARNING POWER CANADA'S FINEST WER CHAIN SAW ing Committee win the day, if the members on whose behalf they are speaking remain silent. This fight must be carried to the employers at all levels of our organization. First Duty The first duty of the mem- bership is to inform all their fellow-workers, all their neigh- hours, and all the members of the community in which they live of their reasons for sup- port of theii Union’s demands. We have a case for a wage inerease, because we didn’t ask for one last year. We deserve the three additional statutory holi- days, because the majority of the workers in other industries are now paid for all of the nine legal holidays. Apart from this we are mainly fighting to wipe out customs in the industry arising from condi- tions which have now changed or disappeared, and which customs are now causing grave hardship to lumber workers. Unfair Customs One such custom, which has now assumed menacing propor- tions is that of requiring loggers when hired to work at distant camps, to pay the costs of trans- portation to and from the job, not once a year, but often several times a year. If the return plane fare should be ninety dollars, and that is not unusual, and if the operator decides to close down at frequent intervals, that logger may suffer a deduction of $360 or more from his annual take- home pay. Nowhere else, but in the B.C. lumber industry, are men so penalized as they try to adjust themselves to the condi- tions of employment imposed by their employers. Another barbarous custom is that which takes a man away from his home before six in the morning and returns him there after six in the evening. Many loggers must spend this time in order to put in eight hours on the job. Much of this travel time is due to lack of housing accom- modation close to the job. The Union does not expect that pay- ment should be made for time spent outside of the employer’s operation, although the effort should be made to improve such conditions. What the Union wishes to cor- rect is the loss of time caused the logger by reason of extended travel from the assembly point Se LIDARITY RESTMORE MANUFACTURING employees and their families, members of Local 1-217, IWA, locked out by the Company, May 10th, gather in the Hastings Auditorium, May 18th, to hear a report on the Union’s position as given by Local President Lloyd Whalen. to his work, Many a logger spends from one to three hours of his own time without pay merely crossing the operation as required by his employer in order to spend eight hours working for pay. The hours spent travelling to and from his home to the as- sembly point is another matter, which must be taken into con- sideration but as further justifi- cation for portal to portal pay to remove needless hardship. “Wipe Them Out” Other customs, which should now be on their way out, are those relating to contract rates for fallers, buckers, pole cutters, shingle sawyers and shingle packers. Experience has shown that the methods used by the employers to speed up this con- tract work, have damaged the health of the workers concerned, reduced their expectation of life, and under the conditions imposed have subjected them to steadily declining income. I could continue with a long list of many more absurd cus- toms, and unfair working proce- dures which can no longer be justified in modern industry by any proper standard of enlight- ened labor-management relations. This is the year when these ab- surdities must be wiped out. They will be wiped out if the Union's members now take pains to ex- plain these matters and enlist the support of the entire working population for our proposed con- tract conditions. » = “4 GB —_ SANDWICH WHITE BREAD WHITE BREAD NOW ENRICHED Another vital function is that IWA members should now or- ganize every operation so thor- oughly that the employer will know, sooner rather than later, that the Union can rely on a solid strike vote, when neces- sary, in support of the Union’s demands. We now know that we must fight. We also know the methods we must use to win this fight. The situation demands not only complete unity of action, but also increased organized effort. ‘This suuggle was ordered by the membership. It can be won by the membership, but only when fully organized to utilize iis maximuy fighting strength. Engineers Back In Fold OTTAWA (CPA) —The In- ternational Union of Operating Engineers has re-affiliated its 9,000 Canadian members with the Trades and Labor Congress after a five-year break, the TLC Executivé Council has announced. The union broke with the TLC in 1950 over a disagreement on the question of paying a per capita tax to the Congress, LABOR LEADER FOUGHT TERROR Contribution made by noted leaders in the fight for social justice as waged on the international front by the world Labor and Soclal Democratic movement in the theme of this series of biographical articles, This week's article presents a brief summary of the life of Eric Ollenhaver, Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany {SPD}, Leader of the Opposition is the West German Parliament. Born in 1901, son of a brick- layer, Erich Ollenhauer entered the SPD by way of the Youth Movement at the age of 14. His intellectual gifts brought him in- to the editorial offices of its headquarters in Berlin at the age of 19 and he became national |* secretary of the Movement, In the early 1920’s he became secre- tary-general of the Socialist Youth International. Hitler Terror When the full range of the Hitler terror in Germany became apparent in 1983, Ollenhauer was included by the SPD Executive Committee among the represent- atives that went into exile in order to preserve a free center of Party leadership. From Prague, and after 1938 from Paris, this leadership group main- tained communications with the Party underground in Germany. After the fall of France in 1940, he went to England. “OLD DOC” Dr. R. Llewellyn Douglas hes moved his Dental Office from 9 Eost Hastings St. to 712 Robson St., Vancouver, B.C, NEW ADDRESS Eric Ollenhauer Ollenhauuer returned to Ger- many in 1946 and joined SPD Leader Kurt Schumacher and the Social Democrats of the western zones in successfully defeating renewed Communist attempts to infiltrate the German labor move- ment. SPD Chairman Mr. Ollenhauer is one of the chairmen of the Socialist Inter- national. He is a German repre- sentative in the Council of Eur- ope at Strasbourg and in the Schuman Plan assembly. Ollen- hauer was elected chairman of the SPD in 1952 following the death of Kurt Schumacher.