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Nal. 7, No. 28 cS 25

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Vancouver, B. C., Friday, July 9, 1948

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Price Five Cents

Tell Humphrey Mitchell

YOU ARE

TO BLAME

This is a demand from British Columbia
for you to act, Mr. Mitchell.

There’s no fooling’ about this demand.

We're holding you responsible out here
-—as labor does from coast to coast—for the
fact that union seamen are facing the armed
violence of piratical shipping companies on
the Great Lakes.

We're holding you to blame for the
fact that provincials and RCMP are attack-
ing and arresting Canadian Seamen’s Union
members while protecting the hired thugs of
Canada Steamship Lines and Colonial and
Sarnia Steamships.

We hold you to blame for a brutal at-
tack on every one of the trade union locals
in B.C. That’s because the lawless violence
on the Lakes is aimed at destroying the
collective bargaining rights of all Canadian
labor,

You're to blame because you, Mr. Mit-
chell, are the minister of the crown whose
Sworn testimony it is to the people of Can-
ada to uphold the laws administered by your
©wn department of labor. The Canadian
Seamen’s Union is certified by your depart-
ment as the collective bargaining agency for
the companies. But the companies have
armed their vessels and sought to sail short-
handed with scabs supplied by their Sulli-
van agency. ‘This is defiance of federal
labor legislation and a string of other laws.

You know all this.

Your own Industrial Disputes Inquiry

Commission, L. J. Brockington and J. D.
McNish, reported to you that the companies
were entirely wrong and the seamen en-
tirely right. They told you the companies
were using “the worst possible weapons any
employer could use in a dispute with the
legally constituted bargaining representatives
of his employees.”

Yet you have done nothing, and thus you
are to blame. You have told the people
that this is just a “jurisdictional dispute” and
helped the companies use the red bogy to
cover lawlessness and violence that strikes
at the roots of Canadian democracy.

The Trades and Labor Congress has of-
fered its good offices to settle the strike, but
you haven’t taken a step.

The whole labor movement of Canada
andthe majority of the people stand behind
the seamen. That certainly goes for B.C.

So act now, Mr. Mitchell. Do your
duty. Recommend to your government that
the companies’ charters be lifted for defying
the government and public opinion. Take
over the companies and enforce collective
bargaining

Your reply in terms of action is expect-
ed immediately. The people will not toler-
ate the labor methods of facism.

(Whether as an individual or on behalf
of an organization, sign your name above,
tear off this page, place it in an envelope,
and mail it to: Hon. Humphrey Mitchell,
Ottawa, Ont. No postage is necessary.)