would

tract was signed
States we warned against its ac-

CCL leadership’s divisive
policies held responsible
for weakening wage drive

TORONTO

An answer to the “labor” commentators of two big business papers, the Financial
Post and the Toronto Evening Telegram, who recently charged the United Electrical,
Radio and Machine Workers with having betrayed its own policy in signing a contract
with the giant General Electric, is. made by George Harris, UE leader, in the Canadian

UE News.
Harris’ article states:

Roland Williams and Fred Jones
are “labor” scribes

ing Telegram. Both papers are top

level mouthpieces of the employ-

ers’ point of view and are rabid-
ly anti-labor on all essentials.

Recently Williams and Jones
wrote articles for their papers in
which they made reference to the
UE-GE contract settlement.
liams’ article appeared in the Post
about a week before the settlement

and Jones’ came a few days after.
that UE

Williams predicted

for the Fin-
‘ancial Post and the Toronto Even-

Wil-

ceptance in Canada. We appealed
in particular to the leadership of
the Canadian Congress of Labor
to fight against it being imported
into Canada.

This appeal fell on deaf ears
and rather than ,oppose this U.S.
formula the- CCL leaders. facilit-
ated it being loaded onto the
Canadian workers. It rapidly be-
came a feature of many CCL
agreements. ,

This was possible because the
CCL leadership and the leadership
of some of the major unions affili-
ated to the CCL had determined on

would not sign agreements which|a course which was’counter to the

contained cost - of\- living adjust-
ments. His prediction was. liber-

needs of the working people. They
had decided against uniting the

ally sprinkled with his usual red-|workers to force the profit-gorged

baiting, and claimed that UE was
interested in keeping the wage
guestion open so that “trouble”
.could be caused at will.

Jones, following the announce-
ment of the GE settlement, pro-
claimed that UE had betrayed “its
own policy by signing an agree-
ment with a cost-of-living clause.
He arrived at this “brilliant” con-
clusion by saying that DE had
been the most outspoken opponent
of cost-of-living bonus plans and
had severely criticized right-wing
union: leaders for initiating such
plans. ‘

In their main conclusions both
these big business “labor” analysts
were wrong. The facts are that

UE had agreements with cost-of-

‘tlement.

These agreements were based on

living clauses before the GE set-
conditions peculiar to ‘the given
situation and where, after explana-
tion as to the disadvantages of
such clauses, the workers concern-
ed nevertheless voted to accept it

as part of their contract,

Such cost-of-living arrange-
ments in UE contracts, as in con-
tracts of any union, refiect the

- general weakness in the whole

labor movement, and not that
UE has abandoned any policy or
backtracked in any way on our
criticism of those labor leaders
who fathered the tying of wages
to a government . cost-of-living
index.

When the first five-year long-
term cost-of-living escalator agree-
ment was made with General Mo-
tors. in the United States the UE
advanced criticism of it.

We said that it was an eva-
sion of the basic and real wage
problem. We said that the wage
question should be kept open so
that workers would be free to
advance their wage demands on
other grounds than to- simply
make up for higher living costs.

We pointed ‘out that ‘such long-

term contracts put collective bar-

gaining on a shelf and that this
was tq the liking of the employers
wh@® through speed-up and price-
fixing saw a rich harvest of profits

in the offing.

We also said that employers
interpret such long-term
cost-of-living agreements as mean-
ing that labor accepted present
wage standards as being adequate,
subject only to adjustment based
upon an anchor point of a govern-
ment price index... .

_ We have not changed our opin-

ion on long-term escalator agree-
ments; and we do not retract one

single word of our criticism of

those responsible for foisting such

restrictive agreements on _ the

workers in the ‘first place.

When the General Motors con-
in the United

employers to come across with real
wage increases. Therefore any
formula was in order so long as it
could by-pass mobilizing the work-
ers to struggle for their full wage
needs.

It should also be recognized that
this was because the top leader-
ship of the CCL had committed
themselves to full and uncritical
acceptance of the war program of
the government. This acceptance
earried with it the financing of the
war program by loading the main
costs on the working people...
Under such conditions, a genuine
struggle for wages was alien to the
thinking of the CCL top brass.

Instead of unity the right-wing
went on a spree of raiding all
unions who opposed their “no-
wage-tight” policy. .They deter-
mined to create disunity — to
light other unions rather than
tight the boss—and now, as a
logical extension of disunity, they
are at each others’ throats and
raiding each others’ member-
ships. :

And at this time, when the rank-
and-file of all unions are demand-
ing action for wage increases, these
gentry are breaking their necks.
to avoid giving leadership to the

ers is to plead with the govern-
| ment to make a bargain based on
the CCL agreeing to wage controls
(freezing wages at an unjust level)
in return for so-called price con-
trols.

A few,days ago the press report-
ed that Charles Millard of the Steel
union was calling for drastic action
... “a general strike against high
prices” and, the report stated, he
reaffirmed his opposition to “cost
of living escalator clauses.”

living clauses” he could be remind-
ed that he recently settled a strike
with General Steel Wares Limited
with a cost-of-living escalator
clause in the settlement.

If Millard had called for a unit-
ed wage fight and a general strike,
if necessary, to back up the wage
demand he-would have found gen-
eral and instantaneous support
from the men and women in the
shops. : ‘

Leng-term agreements and esca-
lator cost-of-living clauses are the
fruits of the disunity and weak-
nesses of labor caused by the re-
fusal of such people as Mosher,
Millarg and Conroy to measure up
in a real way to the fight for
wages, and by their substituting
raiding, splitting and disunity for
unity. ,

UE’s agreement with GE is as

_ 00d and better than most union
contracts being made at _ this

time. The average money value

of GE ‘workers amounted to

nearly 19 cents an hour. It was

demands of their own membership.-

The main line of the CCL lead-'

On his “opposition” to “cost-of- |.

won while the paid henchmen of
Millard and Mosher were spend-
ing ‘tens of thousands of dollars

to disrupt the ranks of GE work-
ers.

The settlement could and would
have been much better for the
workers if it had not been for the
CCL-IUE company helpmates.

With, the relatively high offer of
GE, a fight on the issue of a wage-
opener instead of a, cost-of-living
clause would have meant to strike
while the majority of labor or-
ganizations had deserted the ‘fight
on this question. It would have
meant a strike when the CCL-IUE

leaders were doing everything to.

stab the GE workers in the back.
To have led GE workers into a
strike under these conditions would
have been adventurism and mis-
leadership. .. . .

- Substantial wage increases for
Canada’s workers, escalator clauses
or no escalator clauses, can only
be won by a united labor move-
ment and united labor action. Unit-
ed labor can scrap such restrictive
clauses and get back on the path
of freedom of action to struggle
for wage increases over and above
the inadequate standard set by the
price index of the Dominion gov-
ernment. Bre Recenter

This is our challenge: Let the

CCL stop splitting labor. Let the
CCL leaders call for unity, for a
united wage struggle by all sections
of organized labor, as the only way
to fully protect and advance the
wage standards of the workers as
against the all-out profiteering o
the bosses! i '

What is your answer Mosher,
Millard and Conroy? :

DBS ADMITS INACCURACY :

UE wants

TORONTO
A demand that the government
immediately institute a full scale
public inquiry into the Dominion
Bureau of Statistics (DBS) cost-
of-living index was made here by
GC. S. Jackson, president of District
Five, United Electrical, Radio and
Machine Workers of America in
a letter to Prime Minister St.
Laurent.
The demand was prompted by
a press release from the DBS on
May 18 in which it admitted the ¢

Streetcar men
vote confidence
in executive

Members of Street Railwaymen’s
Union, Division 11, gave their ex-
ecutive a vote of confidence in re-
ferendum balloting last week, fol-
lowing an internal dispute arising
from the last contract negotiations
and BCER’s new running schedule.

Curtailment of transit service
has created resentment in union
ranks as well as public opposition.
Split shifts are becoming more
general, and many BCER em-
ployees are quitting in disgust, al-
though «the real remedy lies in
united opposition to new sched-
ules and union action to adjust
grievances.

Youth peace float
barred in capital

“+. WICTORIA, B.C.

Apparently believing that “peace
is subversive,” officials in charge
of the Victoria Day parade here
disqualified a National Federation
of Labor Youth float after it had
previously been accepted and had
participated in the parade for three
blocks. ‘

The float stressed the need for
peace and carried banners advo-
cating “No Conscription.” —

cost of living index

probe of

cost-of-living index was not “an
accurate barometer of living
costs” and that ‘it is a doubtful
guide’ to what is happening to
food, clothing and housing costs
in Canada.”

The letter to the prime minister
pointed out that for many years
the labor movement and other pub-
lic organizations had been critical
of the index as a measurement of
the effect of prices on living stan-
dards. ° Jackson recalled that as
far back as 1948, in a special in-
quiry conducted by the National
War Labor Board, the UE, along

‘| with other labor and public organ-

izations, presented substantial cri-
ticism of the index as a basis of
measuring price moveménts in
terms of living standards, but that
no results were achieved in terms
of improving the index.

The necessity of having an index
giving full reflection of the actual
living standards of the Canadian
workers from month to month was

‘stressed because of the increased

number of trade union contracts

tied to the cost-of-living index, and

because all collective bargaining
was either directly or indirectly af-
fected by the index. ,

The UE urged that a new index
(as apparently planned by DBS)
should not be issued without 4
public inquiry which would have
presentations from all manner of
public organizations—labor, farm,
consumer, welfare, business, etc.
Only from such an inquiry would
it be possible to arrive at an index
which would properly reflect the
effects of prices, taxation, supply
and demand, wages, profits and in-
vestment on the living standards
of working people in terms of net
spendable income; and further that
such a revised index should not b¥
viewed as an instrument for put-
ting a lid on a wage movement.
Nor should it be another vehicle
for depressing living standards as
is the present one. ,

Jackson pointed out that the UE
in the United States!had recently
releaseq a strong and well docu-
mented expose of the inadequacy
of the Board of Labor Standards
index in that country. This expose
has been instrumental in arousing
a strong public demand for a full
investigation of the index in the
U.S. similar study is being com~
menced by the UE in Canada which
will supplement its study and criti-
cism made in 1943. ,

Financial Post tips hand |

in attack on Labor Board's
decision in Steel raid.

Circulation of The Financial Post in Vancouver is fairly well restricted to Howe —
Street brokers and their ambitious young clerks.

N

a

Consequently, not many workers and |

trade unionists will have read the sour grapes editorial and articles on the B.C. Labor

Relations Board decision against the

“There’s something extremely
odd when a Labor Board in Can-
ada goes out of its way to defend
a ‘Communist-run union,”
plains the Post editorial.
Canada’s first atom plant at Trail,
B.C., is involved, it becomes a case
of national importance.”

The editorial goes on in this vein

for some’ length,. then the Bay!

Street editor comes up with his
‘opinion on what should have been
done, by not-too-subtle implication.

“The Canada Labor Board, when
faced with basically the same prob-
lem, acted far more realistically.
It decertified the Communist-run
Seamen’s union on the grounds
that it was no longer a trade union
in the true sense of the word. In
so doing, it virtually eliminated
the CSU from the Great Lakes.
This and individual screening of
seamen minimizes danger on the
Great Lakes.” :

Danger to whom?

“To the ship-
owners’ profits. Pee

‘

com-"
“When.

_| Mine-Mill.

Steel raiders ‘in Trail.

Trade unionists, who regard de-
certification of the CSU as one of
the most shameful official attacks
on a legitimate union ever com-
mitted in Canada, take a different
view of the LRB action at Trail.
They’ greet the rebuff to Steel as
a victory against all union raiders.

“They Got Their Due” is the
title of an editorial in the Mine-Mill
paper, Union News, this week,

Pointing out that the LRB de-
cision, was as expected, a complete
rejection of the Steel raiders in
their attempt to obtain certification
at Trail — where smeltermen had
demofistrated very effectively that
Mine-Mill is their union — the edi-
torial said: ~* d

“For over: a’* year, the Steel-
workers and their allies, Macleans |
Magazine, The Financial Post and
the Vancouver Sun, have been us-
ing blackmail on Local 480 and the
Their only  stock-in-

trade, red baiting, reach the most
ridiculous depths. The Labor Re

lations Board of British Columbia
the Consolidated Mining and Smek

ting Company do not escape their

fed smear. And yet it was a very

simple question for any Labor Re

lations Board, or any person who —

had the evidence before them
see the skin game that was being
worked.” \ :

i ye
Answering the smear tactics, t?

editorial stated that Mirie-Mill #* —
tied to no political party, but res

pects the political and religious D&
liefs of all its members, and doe*
not interfere in these matters.
“We consider this is the }
of the success of this union

building the most powerful unio? —

of miners and smeltermen, 4
those engaged in our jurisdictiO?
‘That is why this union is growins

rapidly across Canada!” the edi

ee “PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JUNE 1, 1951 — PAGE

torial concludes. —