BAGE 14
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Can Dougla

s Win In

Nanaimo-Cowichan?

By TOM McEWEN

NDP national leader T.C.
“Tommy”? Douglas has been
chosen to contest the federal by-
election in Nanaimo-Cowich-
an-The Islands, left vacant by
the death of its NDP sitting
member, the late’ Colin
Cameron.

Prime Minister Trudeau who
determines such matters has not
as yet seen fit to set a date for
this by-election. That brings up
another required parliamentary
reform, viz; a statutory time-
limit beyond which the people of
any constituency may not be
deprived of parliamentary
representation at the whim of a
prime minister or his partisan
henchmen.

Already, however, the welkin
begins to ring with such
exhortations as, ‘“‘We need
Tommy back in Ottawa,” etc.
We sure do need Tommy back in
Ottawa, but ‘‘we,” meaning
labor generally, need to take a
long hard look as to why he isn’t
there now; and why he may not
even get there when the
Nanaimo-Cowichan votes are
finally counted.

In the first place, in this by-
election Tommy Douglas faces
an additional handicap, which
the staid Tories, Liberals and
Socreds in the constituency
clutch to their breasts like a
fossilized chicken wish-bone;
viz, that a “socialist” politician
defeated in his home province,
and cannot win twice in an
adopted constituency, is easy
game for their individual or joint
shenanigans to block success ina
third constituency try. It’s in the
“Canadian tradition,” they say,
and any working man or woman
elector who doesn’t realize they
will play it to the limit, hasn’t
learned one damn thing from the
Burnaby-Seymour loss.

What basically was the cause

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of Tommy Douglas’ defeat in the
June federal election? The
“‘superiority’’ appeal or program
of the Liberal mediocrity Ray

Perrault? Not on your life. That:

would be an easy and totally
phoney excuse. The ‘‘charisma”’
of Trudeaumania? Partially, but
only partially. Working men and
women do succumb sometimes
to the mesmerism of political
charlatans, but the failing is
neither chronic nor permanent.

The prime cause for the defeat
of Tommy Douglas resulted
from a number of factors: a too
long and close association
between the top brass of labor
and the old-line parties of big
business; an association which
prohibits labor from delivering a
vote commensurate with
numerical and economic
strength, plus an unwarranted
“‘cocksureness’’ in labor and
NDP ranks that Tommy would
carry Burnaby-Seymour,
Perrault or no Perrault, so why
get into a sweat about it? A
“‘cocksureness’’ which greatly
contributed to labor’s inability to
get the lead out of its political
pants and go all-out to win. Only
during the last few days of the
campaign did labor realize,
despite repeated warnings, that
it had been ‘“‘too little and too
late”’ in realizing the imminence
of defeat, thus depriving the
constituency - and the country of
an able voice in Parliament.

That and more, in this writer’s
opinion, is why Tommy Douglas
is not now in Parliament, and
unless some of these home truths
sink in and are taken to heart by
a more politically united labor
movement, able to set aside all
cold war and or other spurious
divisions, Tommy Douglas is not
likely to get there this time.

If as and when this by-election
is called it may be taken for
granted that the
Trudeaumaniacs of every
political stripe will be in there
like a swarm of locusts, working
for another feast on an NDP
defeat. :

For organized labor and the
people — and the NDP itself, the
lesson is obvious; ‘‘go thou and
do likewise”’ but do it a hell of a
lot better than before. Then
Tommy Douglas will be in
Ottawa.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 18, 1968—Page 12

LABOR SCENE:

Bill 33 body wants unions
to stool on themselves

Highlight of the Vancouver and
District Labor Council session
this week centered on the Socred
government’s Mediation Com-
mission, a high-priced body set
up under the provisions of Bill 33.

In a letter to the Marine
Workers Union (and undoubtedly

other unions) this Mediation ~

Commission over the signature
of commissioner Pen Baskin
(late of the SteelWorkers
Union) writes; ‘‘The commission
requests your union forward to
this office at least one copy (two
if possible) of each collective
agreement currently in effect
between your union and every
company with whom your union
enjoys a collective bargaining
relationship. Please be sure to
submit with the agreement any
amendments or ancillary or
memoranda which may affect
the agreement.

“Tt is of the utmost importance
that the commission not only
have the wage scale but also
rates of pay for each job classi-
fication . . . it is essential that
the pertinent data be shown,
particularly the effective date of
the agreement. and the date of
execution and termination. . .’’

VLC delegate Wm. Stewart
(Marine Workers) stated that
“as far as I personally am
concerned, I don’t want to assist
this commission because I-don’t
think it should be there in the
first place. By this request the
commission is now asking the
trade union movement to stool-
pigeon on itself’’.

Stewart pointed out that all
such information is available to
the commission from the files of
the Labor Relations Board yet
“this man Baskin is getting
$40,000 a year, the other
commissioner Blair is getting
the same scale of wages, while
the chairman John Parker is
getting $42,590. But they can’t go
to the Labor Relations Board and
ask for a copy of the agreements
the unions have signed. They
want the unions themselves to
become involved in the work of
the commission’.

Stewart recommended _ that
delegates to the forthcoming
B.C. Federation of Labor in
November should urge that
under no circumstances should
any union comply with such com-
mission requests. “‘They are

PT SALESMAN
ASSAULTED

Steve Nickyforuk, a Pacific
Tribune salesman, was
severely beaten last Monday
outside the Patricia Hotel on
Hastings Street near Main.
Nickyforuk said the man
followed him outside the hotel
and told him, “I! don’t like
Communists,” and then hit
him.

Charged with assault
causing bodily harm was
James Alexander Mclean of
3772 St. Catherines. McLean is
23 years old. Nickyforuk, who
is 52, suffered bruises and
head lacerations. The case is
due to come up in city court at
‘Main and Cordova, in court
room No. 2 on Tuesday,
October 22.

trying to see how far they can
push the unions, and if this is a
confrontation, then let it be so’’.

Delegate George Kowbel
(IWA) pointed out that if this COPE, ‘“‘be
Mediation Commission request
was met it would take his union
hundreds of hours compiling peoples’ repres
such information from the 75 to Hall”.

80 certifications his union holds.
The IWA delegate said he will
urge his executive not to comply
with the commission’s request. Yarrow in Victor
Other VLC delegates told the PT, new 2-year w
“We are not going to facilitate week, effectiy,
Bill 33 to oblige Baskin or his '1968.. T
commission. Any information of acceptance w.
this kind they want they can get of acce tanec

it themselves, especially since Under the ee Opposed,
they are paid more than enough ~ shipyard Workers sty

to do it’’.

VLC Metropolitan Affairs board the :
chairman Frank Kennedy staged increases ape two
reported on the progress being respectively, Thee “2-percent
made by the Committee of package approximat otal wage
Progressive Electors (COPE) a year hoist. €S a 26-cent
and urged a big turnout at the Other j
COPE rally on October 26 at the _ benefits wae Paeent fringe
Grandview Community Center include ten agreement
where a-slate of candidates and holidays, doub] Ae
other municipal election overtime SE)
matters will be discussed. A provision that ed, and a
notice of motion was also intro-
duced by VLC executive recom- _ receive full Pay, Pr S
mendation for a $1,000 donation made for three Sate es 1s also
to COPE. : the event of death ark days in

The motion will be voted on at family. na worker’s

Peace Council withdraws
from co-ordinating bod

The B.C. Peace Council has withdrawn from the V y
ordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnan, )20CUver Co-
issued this week, Mr. John Beeching, Chairman of ne @ Statement
Council said it was the unanimous opinion of the C
Co-ordinating Committee has changed its char

to put labor and
entatives in City

Shipyards in

“©. Peace
Mbershi
acter, enip that the

functioning as an organization dominated by one See 1S in fact _
Ww:

instead of being a co-ordinating body.
“Furthermore”, he said, “it has ceased to be repr :
shades of approach to the fight against the war in y; ehaative of all
of its actions have been undemocratic and arbitrary » nam a
“The Peace Council’’, he said, ‘‘believes that its
better spent in initiating its own projects and Dari efforts Will be
actions with other groups on an ad hoc basis.”” Cipating in joj

POLICE BRUTALITY IN NORTHERN IRELAND
Protesting discrimation in housing and votin % seman
massive arrests and beatings by police. Over Rrulted
29 arrested. The roots of the conflict go back to “re Wounded
division of Ireland into a majority Catholic South British ; and
controlled North. ery yes san =

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