Labor unity real

By TOM McEWEN

Isbury target

The Vancouver Sun, in its issues of February 13 to 16, featured a series of four
antiCommunist articles by Tom Alsbury, president of Vancouver Trades and Labor
Council, the real significance of which must be sought in motive rather than in content.

From a literary standpoint these articles are scarcely creditable to a school prin-
cipal entrusted with the task of teaching Canadian youth. From a factual standpoint they

can be compared only to the’

writings of professional stool-
pigeons, red-baiters and rene-
gades who write for a price.’

Taken together, they reveal a
sick mind being utilized by re-
actionary forces to smear a large
section of the labor movement,
to create disunity and discord
and obstruct the coming into be-
ing of an all-inclusive Canadian
trade union movement.

The author of these McCarthy-
ite smears is a leading CCFer,
an avowed “socialist,” a man who
by one of those flukes of history,
holds the important position of
president of Vancouver ‘Trades
and Labor Council . ~

As a guest speaker in a series
of lectures sponsored by the Civil
Liberties Union at UBC, Alsbury
selected this platform to make
his most recent “sensational”
disclosures on “Communist in-
fluence in British Columbia
labor.” And the big business
Vancouver Daily Province, which
only a few years ago ended a
protracted struggle with the In-
ternational Typographical Union,
gave his remarks front page
prominence under a_ headline
which fairly screamed: “Third of
B.C. Unionists Bow to Reds —
Alsbury.”

The first of Alsbury’s feature
articles in the Vancouver Sun
deals with the alleged ramifica-
tions of “Communism” in B.C.
unions.

Of an approximate total of 187,-
000 trade unionists in B.C., Als-
bury puts some 68,000 under di-
rect or partial “Communist con-
trol.”

Alsbury sees the Reds “. . .
planning to use British Columbia
as a springboard to power in the
rest of the nation.” (It is to be
hoped he teaches better arith-
metic in his professional capacity
than he does as an undergraduate
of McCarthyism, otherwise two
and two will no longer add up
to four.) :

Alsbury then proceeds to break
down Communist organization in
B.C., giving the number of “cells”
(“cells” always sounds more sin-
ister than clubs) and so on. Much
of this “information” is publish-
ed in the Pacific Tribune. It is
readily available in Labor-Pro-
gressive party publications. But
by presenting it as though he
had obtained the information
from secret files, Alsbury con-
trives to give it a conspiratorial
flavor.

Had the Vancouver Sun put a
cub reporter to copying lists of
LPP committees and clubs, the
job might have been done more
accurately and presumably at
less cost. :

In his first article on how Com-
munists “infiltrate . every-
thing” Alsbury portrays organ-
ized workers as dopes and dupes
who can. be tricked into giving
the Communists “easy control.”
For instance, at a union meeting
it would seem that all the non-
Communists get ‘“fed-up” with
the proceedings and either leave
the meeting early or stop attend-
ing meetings altogethen . .

“Then the Commies have effec-
tive control.” :
Such an “analysis” of Com-
munist “control” would indi-
cate the need for even the most
conservative of trade unionists
in the TLC to take another
good look at their president.
In his hysterical tirades against
the Communists, Alsbury casts
grave reflections on the integ-
rity and dignity of the union
membership he presumes to
lead, and reduces the basic ele-
ment of trade union democracy
to a farce.

Alsbury’s second article reads
like the testimony of an FBI
“finger-man” at a McCarthy
witch hunt — a sorry role for
an avowed “socialist” and _ self-
styled labor leader.

Following an introduction in
which he acouses Communists of
“lying, rigging, and stuffing bal-
lot boxes, falsifying election re-
sults, forgery, blackmail, viol-
ence, and deliberately. creating
unemployment,” and with hav-
ing a loyalty to none except “the
foreign policy of the Soviet
Union,” Alsbury “puts the finger”
on a number of “leading”. Com-
munists.

Thus Vancouver Sun readers
are informed that Nigel Morgan
is provincial leader of the LPP.
The writer is duly “exposed” as
editor of the Pacific Tribune.
Others are similarly catalogued
as the “brain-trust,’’ presumably
responsible for the Alsburyan
nightmare of a ‘“‘Communist-
dominated British Columbia.”

No less than 14 trade unions
are listed, six of them alleged

In 1950, Tom Alsbury ‘(righ

to be run exclusively by and for
| Communists and eight others
‘reputed to be “Communist-infil-
trated” all the way from the
| “rank-and-file up to policy level.”
| At least one of the unions no
| longer exists and the men nam-
ed as its officials by Alsbury
never held the offices he be-
stows upon them, but that is
a small matter in the art of
smear, slander and falsehood.

Alsbury’s third article gives a
list of all the “Leftist” groupings
and organizations he character-
izes as such, accuracy again be-
ing his least concern; a list of
“Red” newspapers and journals,
a summary of all party “cells,”
where they are located and so
on, and how the Communists
“use capitalism” in various  al-
leged Communist-controlled en-
terprises.

During the past 20 years the
same “sensational” balderdash has
been read into Hansard by such
stalwarts of “democracy” as the
late and unlamented Tory Prime
Minister Richard Bedford “Iron
Heel” Bennett, his present suc-
cessor George Drew, Social Cred-
iters Solon Low and E. G. Han-
sell, and similar spokesmen for
reaction.

There, of course, they enjoy
a traditional “immunity” from
the consequences of their non-
sensical and slanderous orations.
Alsbury, having failed to win
election to the House of Com-
mons, may not be so fortunate.

Alsbury’s fourth article ex-
poses, quite unconsciously, the

Continued on page 10
See ALSBURY

issue. Defeated in their attempts to seize control of the union,
only in forming a small splinter group. Subsequently Alsbury

B.C. fishermen invite

Soviet, Japan unions

have been invited to attend the

March 19.
Invitations were sent by the
UFAWU executive board to

Akira Iwai, secretary of the
General Council of Trade Unions
of Japan, and A. Koetkin, presi-
dent of the Sea and River Fleet
Workers Union at Moscow, ask-
ing that one unionist from each
body “be our guests for two
weeks during and after the con-
vention.”

If fraternal delegates come to
Vancouver for the parley, the
union will arrange for them to
visit fishing ports to meet local
fishermen and “to get a clear
picture of the kind of fishing
equipment and’ methods. used.”

Federal minister of fisheries
James Sinclair, who recently

Representatives from ‘Japanese and Soviet fishery organizatiems

twelfth annual convention of the

United Fishermen’and Allied Workers Union, which opens here

visited the Soviet Union and
,made an exhaustive study of
, fishing methods there, has at-
‘cepted an invitation to attend the
_convention and speak.

| Other invited guests include
_ federal supervisor of fisheries A.
| J. Whitmore; Mayor Fred Hume
, of Vancouver; B.C. Labor Minis-
j ter Llye Wicks; Chris Pritchard,
member of the Workmen’s Com-
leensetion Board; and represen-
tatives of the Native Brother-
hood, Native Sisterhood, Prince
Rupert Fishermen’s Co-op, Prince
Rupert Deep Sea Fishermen's
Union, Alaska Fishermen’s Union,
Deep. Sea Fishermen’s Union of
, Seattle, and International Long-
shoremen’s and Warehousemen's
Union.

City Council that no one would
This was. designed to please the
been complaining vigorously ab
centage settlements. |

Max Pierotti, City Hall Em-
ployees’ business agent, said of
the offer: “It wasn’t worth con-
sidering.”

Talks between the council and
the union have broken off.

Vancouver Civic Employees
Union, representing 1,500 employ-
ees is demanding 10 cents an hour
and other improvements. This
week the union appointed Sam
Jenkins, president of Marine
Workers and Boilermakers
Union, as its representative on a
conciliation board.

The police union will meet
again with the police commis-
sion on its six percent demand
; and firemen, who are seeking a
, boost in the same neighborhood
as the other groups, have not

t), president of ‘Vancouver Trades and Labor Council, helped to frame the dictorial demand
served on Vancouver Civic Employees (Outside Workers) that they “clean house”
to the Trades and Labor Congress’ right wing leadership or face expulsion.
dictates and reaffirmed its right to elect its own officers. This picture shows TCL vice
organizer Tom Gooderham, charged with executing the TLC order,

City Hall Employees
reject council’s offer

Vancouver's 800-strong City Hall Employees have rejected
a “suggestion” that they settle for a two percent increase in salary.
The offer was sweetened by a further suggestion from Vancouver

get less than a $5 monthly hike.
lower paid categories, who have
out the effects of repeated per-

‘yet reached the stage of a conm-
ciliation officer.

i In Burnaby, the 400-member
' Civic Employees Union (Outside
and Inside Workers combined)
was offered two and_ three-
quarters percent, provided , it
would agree to give a concession
worth one percent. Its wage
demand is 10 cents an hour across
the board.

A spokesman for the Outside
Workers in Vancouver was opti-
mistic when interviewed by the
Pacific Tribune. “All this adds
up to a picture that holds out
a definite promise of substan-
tial gains in wages and fringe
benefits this year,” he said. “All
we have to do isto be firm, to be
united and to press home the
true facts of the case.”

i
i

of democratically elected officers unacceptable
The union, in a special meeting, rejected the TLC
-president Carl Berg (left) and TLC
shut out of the special union meeting called to decide the

now independent. Berg and Alsbury tried to split it but succeeded
took part in attempts made by the Seafarers International Union

to raid the United Fishermen’s and Allied Workers Union, sim ilarly ousted by the TLC. ©

FEBRUARY 24, 1956 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 2