A Fight .
For Justice

HEN all the circumstances are taken into

consideration, the IWA had no alterna-
tive but to take strike action in the Southern
Interior. The employers made it clear at last-
minute mediation attempts that they would not
deviate from the inadequate recommendations
of the Conciliation Board in order to enable
their employees to maintain decent living stand-
ards.

It must be remembered that this stand of the
employers was made in the face of offers made
by the IWA negotiators which reduced the orig-
inal wage demands substantially. These were
arbitrarily brushed aside.

The employers have been relying upon the
usual distortion of the facts. Their obvious in-
tention is to depress wage levels in the Interior
to provide themselves with an added profit ad-
vantage in the market for Interior lumber. They
were selling a greater volume of lumber at high-
er prices, when they rejected the IWA offers of
settlement.

The base rate for the Interior is now nine-
teen cents an hour below the base rate at the
coast. Lumber workers in the nearest competi-
tive area, across the American boundary, re-
cently gained a 714 cents an hour wage increase.
There is simply no logic in the position main-
tained by the Interior employers that Interior
workers must exist on depressed wages, that they
may gain higher profits than their competitors.

The ancient myth that the costs of living in
the Interior are much lower than at the coast
has long ago been exploded. The Interior lum-
ber workers are now fighting for the wage rates
which will enable them to keep abreast of ris-
ing living costs awarded workers in other indus-
tries.

The employers’ argument that a reasonable
wage increase will price them out of the market
does not bear close inspection. Productivity has
increased, which means lowered labour costs per
unit of production thus making a wage increase
possible.

The importance of the present struggle to
coast lumber workers is seen when it is realized
that 47% of the total lumber production of the
province now originates in the Interior. Low
wage rates in the Interior thus tend to drag
down wage rates sought at the coast.

Tribute should be paid to the solidarity of
the Union’s members now on strike in the In-
terior. It requires stamina to maintain picket
lines in wintry weather. Strike action which
may extend through the Christmas season is not
a pleasant prospect for the strikers’ families.

Publication date of the next issue of the B.C, LUMBER WORKER
is December 4th. Deadline for ad copy is November 27th and for
news copy November 28th.

fie) AP

EC Louse

Representing the Organized Loggers and Mill Workers of B.C.
PUBLS EO THIRD SHURSDAYS BY
International Woodworkers of America (CIO-CCL) <>
District Counell No. 1

2

DISTRICT OFFICERS:

President Joe Morris
Ist Vice- Joe Madden
2nd Vice-President —- Stuart M, Hodgson

8rd Vice-President
Secretary-Treasurer jeorge H. Mitchell
International Board ‘Walter F, Allen
Address all communications to
GEORGE H. MITCHELL, Secretary-Treasurer
45 Kingsway - Dickens 6261-2
Vancouver, B.C.

Subscription Rates. $2.00 per annum
Advertising Representative. G. A. Spencer
Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post Office Dept, Ottawa

27,600 COPIES PRINTED IN THIS ISS

It stands to the credit of the strikers that
they have seen clearly that unless they faced the
employers on this issue now, they would be en-
slaved by a low wage system for years.

The entire Union stands solidly behind the
strike, and salutes the courage of those now on

the picket lines.

2.00 Workers
Transfer

OTTAWA (CPA)—About 200 workers on the Lachine
canal have voted unanimously to transfer their union mem-
bership from the United Steelworkers of America to the
Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Transport and General

Workers.

The transfer, effective Decem-
ber 1, and made on the recom-
mendation of local Steelworker
officers, was announced here in
a joint statement by Steelworkers
national director William Mahon-
ey and CBRT & GW President
William J. Smith.

Clear Majority

The move means that the
Brotherhood, which now repre-
sents employees on the Welland
Canal, now has a clear majority
of St. Lawrence and Great Lakes
canal workers,

The Brotherhood intends to
apply for certification when the
St. Lawrence Seaway Authority
assumes control of the Welland,
Sault Ste. Marie, Lachine and
Cornwall canals next April 1.

Canal workers, though organ-
ized now, cannot bargain collec-
tively since they are government
employees. They will be able to
negotiate collective agreements
when the Seaway Authority, a
crown corporation, takes over the
whole system next spring.

Joint Statement

The joint statement termed the
transfer “an outstanding example
of co-operation between unions
in the interests of the employees
and the nation.”

Both unions felt the employees
would be better served by one
union, the statement continued.
Uniform wages and working con-
ditions over the whole extent of
the Seaway “would contribute to
the efficient management and op-
eration of this vital transportation
link”, Smith and Mahoney said.

Top-level discussions took place
in September and October, and
meetings with local officers were
held early this month, they con-
tinued. The transfer was voted
in unanimously on November 12,

Press Reports

Recent reports in the daily press
have speculated on Seaway organ-
ization, with the Teamsters union
and the International Longshore-
men’s Association both being
mentioned as having a possible
interest in the Seaway,

The CBRT & GW, formerly the
Canadian Brotherhood of Railway
Employees and Other Transport
Workers, changed its name at its
national convention last Septem-
ber in Vancouver.

The convention approved an
expansion of the union to include
all transportation workers and
general workers who did not fit
into the established jurisdiction of
any major union,

The CBRT & GW, with a mem-
bership of about 35,000, is Cana-
da’s biggest national union,

Costly
Method

Scored

NEW YORK (CPA) — An

arbitrator here has said that
there is too much arbitration
in current labor relations.

Dr. Emanuel Stein, arbitrator
and chief economist at New York
University, suggested that arbitra-
tion is fast becoming a substitute
for effective collective bargaining,
according to a recent Daily Labor
Report put out by the Bureau of
National Affairs in Washington.

Too Costly

Arbitration, Stein continued, has
grown into a profession with all
the trappings, and has become too
costly and time-consuming. Cases
now take months where they used
to require only weeks, he said.

The practice of submitting “hot
issues” to arbitration rather than
solving them through the collect-
ive bargaining process was also
hit by the arbitrator. Arbitration,
he said, used to be suited to the
handling of a handful of trouble-
some questions, but is now a “gi-
gantic business.”

CBRI.GW.
Awards

Made

OTTAWA (CPA) — Five
scholarships under the Harry
Allan Chappell memorial schol-
arship plan established last
year by the Canadian Brother-
hood of Railway, Transport and
General Workers have been
awarded for 1958, according to
a union announcement.

The winners are attending the
American Labor Education Ser-
vice’s fifth Residential School on
World Affairs in New York this
month,

Union Activity

Awarded on the basis of the
candidate’s activity in the trade
union movement and his commun-
ity, awards went to H. Dickler of
Toronto; Y. G. Lemieux of Ver-
dun; V. W. Spence of Halifax; W.
R. Reid of Winnipeg; and R. A.
Fletcher of Victoria.

The awards, unique among
Canadian unions, are in memory
of former Brotherhood president —
H. A. Chappell, who died in 1955
after three years in that office.

Chappell gave “outstanding
leadership to union education”,
the awards note. A total of $5,000
was available this year.

Human Rights

Theme of the A.L.E.S. school
this year is “Issues of Human
Rights and Fundamental Free-
doms”, related to the tenth an-
niversary of the signing of the
U.N. Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.

Students at the school will see
the United Nations General As-
sembly in session and will visit
other U.N. committees.

Threat
Seen

WINDSOR (CPA) — Local
444 of the United Auto Work-
ers here is afraid that the small
car which the “big three” auto
manufacturers in the U.S. are
said to be readying for intro-
duction next year may be @
threat to the Canadian economy.

The UAW Chrysler local
tooling costs would mean
such a car, priced between Euro
pean autos and the present low-
price range of the big thr
would be made in the Uni
States and imported into C
cutting the market for Canad
built cars. 2

Tax adjustments to favor
adian-made autos were call
in a resolution sent by
to civic officials and m

Parliament, 3h