THE LUMBERWORKER - 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION/ FROM SEPT. 1937 to SEPT. 1987

what CIO is all about.

workers.

proceedings for the delegates

plete, gives some indication of the
amount of debate that went on.
‘The Proceedings

THE TIMBER WORKER had ex-
pected to print the full proceedings
of the convention, without deletion.
More space than is available in one
entire edition of the paper would be
required to do this. Therefore, we
give you the high-lights in a run-
ning account and we hope that noth-
ing is over-looked, or anybody of-
fended. ‘This report is as complete
as we can make it and if we leave
something out that should have been
in, please tell us, so that we can
make the correction, or take care of
the omission in our paper next
week,

Convention Opens

‘The convention was called to order
‘Thursday morning at 10:15 by Presi-
dent Harold Pritchett, with about
500 regular delegates and nearly
1,000 fraternal delegates and observ-
ers present. After calling the con-
vention to order, President Pritchett
introduced Homer L. Haney, presi-
dent of the Tacoma District Council,
which is host to the convention, and
who made the speech of welcome to
the delegates.

Haney Welcomes Delegates
“Brother president, fellow dele-
gates and visitors: It gives me a
gréat’ deal of pleasure having the
opportunity to be the one to welcome

this large body of fellow workers to
this Convention in the City of Ta-
coma.

“It seems but @ short time since
the Lumber and Sawmill Workers
Union came into being, but many
things have transpired since that

GREETINGS EXTENDED

Harold Pritchett extends greet{ngs to Harry Bridges, dynamic longshoreman who was recently appointed
by John Lewis as Pacific coast director of CIQ Bridges made a splendid talk to the Tacoma convention on

The Woodworker Looks
At Politics

By SLIM

There are people in the labor moyement who will blithely tell
us that organized labor has no concern with politics. They will tell

Tacoma Convention Is

Biggest, Most Vital In
Woodworkers’ History

Delegates Expect Many More Days Work In Setting
Up New International And Adopting Constitution
And By-Laws; Partial Report Of Proceedings
Given Here; Remainder To Be Printed Next Week

In session one full week today, the Tacoma Convention
is proving to be not only the largest and best attended, but
the longest and most interesting in the history of the Wood-
Affiliation with the CIO was voted only after four
days and nights of debate and the fact that 80,000 sheets
of legal-size paper was required to print the first four day’s

and these not entirely com-

time. We have had our strikes and
our agreements and our organizing
campaigns, and I believe every ob-
stacle in the past has been overcome,
Not by the pulling of strings, but by
the fighting courage of the men in
our ranks, These men have been
patient and courageous and have
stood behind the leaders in this great
movement from the beginning. In
our strikes they have watched their
families go hungry end without
proper clothing, and have not com-
plained. When they were on the
job they have been liberal in help-
ing their brothers who were not so
fortunate, but they have been watch-
ing with a jealous eye every move-
ment of encroachment on their
rights and membership, and have
gradually built this organization in-
to the best organization the mill
workers and loggers have ever en-
Joyed.”

a

Editor's Note:

Harold Pritchett, (above right),
a Canadian, was First President of
the 1936 “Federation of Wood-
workers” (set up when there was
still some hope of healing the rift
between the A.RofL. and the
C.I.0.) and of the I.W.A. (1937).
Harold had started as a single saw-
yer at Fraser Mills, and was a lead-
er of the three month strike at that
mill in 1931.

He continued as International
President for several years, despite
difficulty in getting permits to stay
in the U.S.

When those problems became
insurmountable, he returned to
Canada as District One (B.C.)
President. In 1937, was elected
President of the B.C. Federation of
Labour, and was defeated in 1949,
as a part of the so-called “Revolu-
tion” of that year.

He died at his home in Coquit-
lam in 1981.

us that politics is the concern of

ganized labor has all it can do to unionize the workers.
What’s wrong with that argument?

To begin with, every time a
group of union men goes on the
picket line, they bump up against
politics; they become engaged in
political action whether they real-
ize it or not. A judge may issue
an injunction against the union.
A mayor, or a police chief, may
send the cops down to break up
the picket line. A governor may
order out the National Guard
against the strikers. That judge,
that mayor or police chief or sher-
iff, or that governor, are part and
parcel of a political machine, work-
ing for the employers, against the
unions.

For organized labor to continue
to allow politics, and political pos-
itions to be used against the unions,
would mean eventual destruction of
the unions.

That’s why organized labor, and
the C. I. 0., first and foremost,
was so vitally concerned with the
passage of the President Roose-
velt’s Supreme Court reforms, with
the wages and hours legislation,
and other important political meas-
ures which would protect organ-
ized labor. Organized labor wants
to see political offices used for
labor’s benefit.

In the Northwest, the political
machines in power have been get-
ting away with actions which
should be of serious concern to the
timber workers.

Should This Be Allowed To
Continue?

Governors like Martin of Ore-
gon and Martin of Washington
have fought organized labor every
inch of the way. They not only
have been hostile to the New Deal
legislation of benefit to organized
labor, but have dealt with the

crooked politicians only; that or-

scabbiest way. Martin of Oregon
spoke of dealing with the mari-
time strike last winter in a fashion if
that Hitler himself couldn’t beat.
Martin of Washington has allied ;
himself with the black fascist

forces of the Republican Party and
the Liberty League, who with
Hearst and Wall Street, backed
Alfred M. Landon for president. -

Mayor Dore of Seattle has turned
out to be a political gangster of
the worst sort, a puppet, along
with Governor Martin, of the Dave
Beck machine which would like to
wreck our International.

The Martin-Dore machine, putty
in the hands of Dave Beck, has in
Washington given Beck every sup-
port, against the lumber workers
in Tacoma, against the C. I. 0.
furriers and’ the Seattle Star strik-
ers of the Newspaper Guild.

Wouldn’t it be suicide for organ-
ized labor to allow these things to
continue? Of course it would.

That’s why the call of the con-
vention of the Washington Com-
monwealth Federation, to be held
in Seattle September 4-5, is of
vital interest to the woodworkers.

We print here a section of the
convention call, so that timber |
workers may see for themselves:

“Tn our state Governor Martin,
although parading as a friend of |
the New Deal, in the last session
of the legislature led the Anti-
New Deal Democrats and Republi-
cans in attempting to put across
a program of anti-Roosevelt legis-
lation. Leading Washington Re-
publicans, such as King County
Chairman George Flood and Rep-
resentative Roy Kinnear are open-
ly urging Republican support for
anti-New Dea! Democrats now in

Continued Page 9