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Organized labor, 175,000-strong,
mainstay of Israel in struggle |

Organized labor is the backbone of the new Jewish state of Israel.

By ARTHUR MOORE

—TEL AVIV
On both ‘the

military and home fronts, the 175,000 members of the Histadrut, the Jewish labor federa-
tion, supply the bulk of the manpower. _ About 80 percent of the army are men and women

who left factory and field to keep their country free.

farmers, the rest workers.

“The labor movement of Israel
stands in the center of everything,”
Pinchas Lubianiker of the Histad-
rut secretariat told Allied Labor
News. “Its organized power is de-

cisive, And in contrast to the U.S.,
the organized workers exert a great
Political influence.”

In Jerusalem, he continued, the
Histadrut played the principal role
in mobilizing civilians for essential

Some 60,000 Histadrut members are

war work. A special session of the
local labor council devoted full
time to recruiting workers for the
building of fortifications and other
important tasks. Despite the in-
tense bombardment of the city, the
workers stayed \at their jobs.

Long before general mobilization

orders were issued in Tel Aviv and
Haifa, skilled members of the build-

ing workers’ union were busy lay-
ing foundations for fortifications,
without pay, on their two days off.

While working and fighting, the
Histadrut members are also paying
for the war. Responding to a plea
for one-half week's wages to help
meet a $20 million government loan,

they are expected to fulfill their
$1 million quota shortly.

‘Flood victim’
Julia Eaton,

Mrs.

fired from
her civil service job for exposing
the role of Oregon housing and
welfare agencies in the recent
Vanport flood disaster, is being
backed by AFL and CIO unions
in her appeal for reinstatement.

Mosley to make U.S. trip
to scheme with G.K. Smith

eS

—LONDON

Britain’s top fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley, is expected to
reach the U.S. shortly to attend the convention of: Gerald
L. K. Smith’s Christian Nationalist Crusade in St. Louis on
August 20 and 21, Allied Labor News learned here. Mosley’s
Meeting with America’s leading fascist rabble-rouser and his

backers plan joint strategy for
Whipping up propaganda for war
with Russia in both nations.

Long head of the British Union
of Fascists, now called the British
Union, Mosley is reported convinced
that it is impossible to gain a mass
following for his party in Britain.
He therefore plans to base his
Movement in the U.S., Germany and
South Africa where the recently
lected government of Prime Min-
ister Daniel Malan has just freed
Convicted Nazi traitors. ;

During the war Mosley was in-
terned, Since his release, his organ-
ization has resumed public meet-
ings without government interfer-
€nce. In London, Manchester, Bir-
Mingham and Liverpool, the Union
_—_—

Soviet union
Protests ban

—TOKYO.

Charging g violation of a Far

‘Eastern Commisison policy deci-

Slon, the Soviet Union has demand-
€d that General, Douglas MacArthur
tetract his directive to the Japan-
“se government to ban strikes by
Sovernment employees. In Japan,

1S category includes railwaymen,
“Communications ‘workers, tobacco
Workers and teachers.

At the same time Major General
th Kislenko, Soviet member of
© Allied Council for Japan, also
Yemanded that Premier Hitoshi AS-
hida withdraw “his order barring
lective bargaining and strikes
red the workers. Ashida had swiftly
inteated the MacArthur directive
© an enforceable order.

eeislenko made his objections
ee in a letter to MacArthur point-
ten Cut that the ban contradicted
one of the Potsdam declaration
Ta fundamental policy toward
so after surrender.” Far East-
uni Commission principles on labor
Vion, he added, had also been
lolateg,

Un
Wrot
Part

der the FEC rulings, Kislenko
®, workers are allowed to take
in politics and to strike with-
oth nterference from police or

‘t government agencies. Spying
bor, breaking strikes or £uP-
Prohie, Union activities are also

ibited, he recalled.

has received police protection while
conducting. anti-labor and anti-
Semitic rallies. Demands by labor
leaders that the government out-
law the Mosleyites have gone un-
answered.

x

=-

SPENT $10 MILLIONS

Could you spend $18
did just that last spring,

ous foreign investment.
went on while his three

famine.

Ruler splurged--people starved

even at taday’s inflated prices?
Well, hard as it sounds, the Maharaja of Baroda

legislature, which is demanding that the 42-year-old
ruler abdicate and repay the nation from his numer-

pointed out that the Maharaja’s misuse of state funds
(The Maharaja has reportedly been in New York

since July 28, where he continued his lavish spending
in Broadway night clubs.)

—BOMBAY

million in six weeks—
according to the Baroda

Premier Jivraj Mehta

million countrymen faced

Letting Congress know

Paul Robeson, world famous singer, towers over this group of lobbyists, some of the 4,000 who
converged on Washington in the closing days of the special session, to protest congressional inaction
on inflation, housing and civil rights.

PEASANTS WARY OF PROMISES

Armed truce in Philippines uneasy

—MANILA.

With August 15 the deadline for
surrender of guerrilla weapons in
the Philippines, only ten of an es-
timated 200,000 members of the
Hukbalahap (wartime anti-Japan-
ese peasant forces) have turned in
their arms, according to govern-
ment officials. The fierce fighting
between Huks and Philippine
troops, which lasted 2% years and
took thousands of lives, ceased car-
ly in July.

these conditions, the am-
ie Bante by President El-
Quirino and Huk leader Luis
o months ago re-

nesty
idio
macub some tw

mains an armed truce. And no one |

knows how long the peace will
last.

Despite the Quirino-Taruc agree-
ment, the peasants in the Hukbala-
hap are suspicious. They have long
and bitter memories, They remem-
ber that the late President Manuel
Roxas once issued an order de-
signed to improve tenancy condi-
tions. He failed to enforce his own
command and the farmers contin-
ued to live in misery, which an Am-
erican traveller described as “mak-
ing sharecroppers look like pros-
perous planters in comparison,”

They saw the landlords, many of
whom fled or joined up with the
Japanese when Luzon was invad-
ed, form private militias to con-

tinue the feudal system and crush
the National Peasants Union
(PKM). They know that the same
Congress which once barred Turac
from taking his rightfully-elected
seat is still in power.

If the Quirino administration
takes the path of democracy far
enough down the road so the pea-
sants can see it in their villages,
the Huks will turn in the weapons
they won in bloody combat from
the Japanese. If foreign pressure
wins out and the government re-
sorts to the mailed fist, the arms
now in hiding will be taken out and
civil war will come again to Luzon.
This time, however, it will spread to
all the islands.

Campaign
for peace
in Britain |

—LONDON.

A powerful demonstration of the
strength of anti-war feeling in Brit-
ain and the part being played by
trade unionists in mobilizing it for
peace has been given here by the
Conference for World Peace‘ con-
vened by the Daily Worker. The
wide representation at the confer-
ence from the trade unions, which
are at once the main support of
the Labor Party and the main ob-
stacle to the dominant right wing
leadership’s plans to fit Britain in-
to U.S. imperialist war plans, show-
ed that Britain’s organized work-
ers are sharply aware of the threat
to peace.

Despite resistance from the right
wing~social democratic leadership,
ten trade union executive commit-
tees were represented at the con-
ference among them civil servants,
foundry workers, firefighters, elec-
trical and tobacco workers. Other
unions, particularly the Amalga-

mated Engineering Union and the
National Union of Miners, were
heavily represeted by branch and
district committees,

Sixty-eight trades councils were
also represented, including the Lon-
den Trades Council which has an
affiliated membership of 700,000.

In all, the 1,054 delegates attend-
ing the conference represented 668
organizations with a membership
of 3,448,880.

The support given to the confer-
ence was more aq reflection of the

anti-war feeling than the actual
influence of the Daily Worker it-
self. The mass of the working class
realizes the threat to the very ‘ex-
istence of the British Isles in the
event of another war. Arrival of 70
U.S, super-fortresses made it obvi-
ous that the British Isles have al-
ready been earmarked as the ad-
vance base of imperialist aggres-
sion against the Soviet Union and
the New Democracies. >

All conference speakers, led by
the Dean of Canterbury, récogniz-
ed that this imperialist poli¢y was
the basic cause of the present war
threat.

Prof. J. B. S. Haldane pointed
out that the Americans were con-
emplating the use of bacteriolo-.
gical warfare. They had deliber-
ately selected Europe as their
base because it was far removed
from the U.S., which would thus
be safe from the risk of infection
arising from their use of bacteri-
ological weapons, he declared.

Decisions reached by the con-
ference were:

Fullest reporting back of the
_conference,

Organization of similar wide,
united, anti-war conferences in
the localities.

Campaigns in all represented
organizations in support of the
views of the conference.

Resolutions, on the lines of the
conference, to be sent to news-
Papers and MP’s.

Continuous and vigilant expo-
sure of the warmongers in the
Press and on platforms every-
where. :

' Consideration of a national pe-
tition to mobilize the great anti-
war feeling in the country.

Maximum assistance to the
work of all existing organizations
working for ‘peace.

- Get the conference views direct
to the workers in the factories;
realize that the labor movement
has the responsibility and the
power to decide the question of

war or peace,

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 20, 1948—PAGE 8