Indian unions score strike curbs

By NERGIS BATTIWALA

BOMBAY-—Strong opposition to government attempts to introduce compulsory arbitration and thus “deprive the
workers of their legitimate weapon of strike” was expressed by the general council of the All-India Trades Union
Congress, which has concluded its meeting in New Delhi.

Under the industrial disputes
bill recently introduced by the
government, strikes would be out-
lawed if they were called with-
out proper notice or if “human
life and public safety were in-
volved.” If such restrictions are
to be placed om workers’ action,
a council resolution asserted,
then the industries concerned
should be publicly owned and the
government should assume re-
sponsibility for speedy redress of
workers’ grievances.

The only way to maintain in-
dustrial peace, the resolution
said, is for the government to
support labor demands for a
minimum living wage, provision
for housing and introduction of
social security.

The council session endorsed
demands by the World Federa-
tion of Trade Unions for broader
representation in the United Na-
tions. AITU Vice-President
Dange, a member of the WFTU
executive committee, was author-
ized to make known the AITUC
stand to government leaders, af-
ter he pointed out that Indian
U.N. delegates had been opposing
the WEFTU demand,

AITUC membership. has _in-
creased forty-four percent in sev-
en months to an alltime high of
735,000, the council revealed. It
expressed confidence that mem-
bership would reach one million
by the time the annual confer-

ence convenes in February.
AITUC Gen. Sec. N. M. Joshi,

hailing the militant wage fight

which spurred the organization's

N.

M. JOSHI
“ . . complete unanimity’
2

rapid growth, condemned the use
of police against workers in. re-
cent strikes. He revealed that in
the past three months the police
had opened fire in seven indus-
trial centers, killing 44 workers
and wounding more than 400,
Many union leaders were among
those killed. The council con-
demned local Congress govern-
ments -for failing to investigate
these assaults.

What gave additional weight to
council deliberations’ was the fact
that all three political trends
within the labor movement were
represented and, on every one of
the 19 resolutions passed, there
was complete unanimity among
congress, Communist and Liberal
representatives. —

US ex-cop leads union
busting troops in Iran

TEHERAN, Iran—An American ex-cop has just been
thanked by the Iranian government for his part in the mas-
sacres of democratic and union leaders in Azerbaijan prov-

ince, the industrial northern
Brig. Gen. Norman H. Schwartz-
kopf, once chief of New Jersey’s
State police and now commander
of the Iranian corps of gendarmes
(police troops),

The sack of Azerbaijan is the

second great blow the Iranian
progressive movement has _re-
ceived in recent months. The
first owas suppression of a
strike in the Anglo-Iranian Oil
company’s fields and refineries in
the south, carried out by feudal
tribesmen paid and armed by
the British.

This was followed by the set-
ting up of fake government and
company sponsored unions to re-
place those which had been
smashed. Goons known as nation-
al guards have been recruited to
terrorize the workers. .

Reeling from these _ setbacks,
many leaders of the popular Tu-
deh party, which has 300,000 mem-

part of this country. He is

bers throughout the nation, have
come to the conclusion that they
were too trustful of Premier
Ghavam’s government, which gave
them false promises and even
posts in the cabinet while it was
preparing its coup.

Interviewed “by Allied Labor

News a few days ago, a Tudeh
spokesman said: va trouble
starts here, it is important that

the world should realize that we
are not Russian puppets, as the
reactionaries accuse us of being.
We are Iranians. We want free-
dom, We want bread. We want
friendship with our Soviet neigh-
bors in the north. We also want
friendship with the west but we
would like to see some evidence
that the British and Americans
are interested in the people of
Iran, not in the landlords who
control our oil.”

Franco Spain,

Greek unions,

worth,
mittee.

BEVIN

TUC demands break with Franco

LONDON—A 4-man delegation of the powerful Brit-

ish aoe Union Congress will meet with Foreign Secre-

tary Ernest Bevin to express the TUC’s strong
dissatisfaction with the Labor government’s
icy towards Greece and Spain.

After reviewing the behaviour of the British
~representatives at the United Nations general as-
sembly, the TUC general council at a meeting
December 18 decided to press Bevin into break-
ing all diplomatic and economic relations “with

The TUC will also ask British government
aid in obtaining freedom of organization for

Members of the delegation who ‘will confer
with Bevin are TUC chairman George Thoma-
-son, vice-chairman Charles Dukes, General Sec-
" retary Vincent Tewson, and Sir Joseph Halls-
chairman of the TUC international com-

pol-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 2

Chinese people know
world political issues

By ANNA LOUISE STRONG
YENAN—The common people of China know about

world politics.

That is what impressed me most in a 30-day

trek through the Communist-led liberated areas which now
have a population of 140,000,000. Their economic life is still

in the middle ages, but their |
minds are in the modern world. |
|

In one village called Crossroads, |
about 20 peasant kids crowded |
inte my room to ask about Am-
erica. One of them, anxious to
show off, told the others that the
Win the Peace Committee had
held meetings in 80 American
citie: against keeping troops in
China. This boy knew everything
the local paper had _ published
about America during’ the past
weeks,

I turned the tables and asked
a youngster 11 years old who
he thought was the best man
in China, He said: “Chairman
Mao Tse-tung because he helps

us keep more grain so we have
plenty to eat, Besides, we elect
our Own government,”

First among village hates was
Yen Hsi-shan, Kuomintang gov-
ernor of Shansi, who still keeps
Japanese troops under arms to
control the people. They resent
him more than they do his boss,
Chiang Kai-shek, because, as the
Chinese say: “You will never
convince the :mouse that the cat
is less fierce than the _ lion.’

Song and dance routines are
among the methods used to in-
form the people of current is-
sues, One soéng was about “Chiang

Kai-shek who sells the country.”

\

Natives treated
as slave labor

SYDNEY, Australia—T he
72,000 native black inhabi-
tants of Australia are “worse
off than slaves or beasts of
burden,” according to the North
Australian Workers’ Union which
has just conducted a = survey
among native workers. The union
organizes white labor in the nor-
thern territory, which holds the
vast majority of the surviving
black population. The native ter
ritory is under control of the fed-
eral government.

Reporting on a visit to a
ranch owned by the British
meat combine, Vesteys, the
union report says: “Some of the
white men here would make a4
Hitler Gestapo agent look like
a saint. Their treatment of the
blacks has to be seen and heard
to ‘be believed.” \

Citing numerous instances of
severe beatings of natives, who
cither died or were maimed for
life, the union report says that
white overseers often boasted
about new methods they devised
for torturing the natives.

The big companies don’t have
to worry about their mative .work-
ers being killed off, the report
Says, because the government
keeps fresh supplies of black wor-
kers flowing to the ranches when-
ever they’re needed, For a single
license fee of $1.30, ranch owners
get full control of as many na-
tives as they need.

USSR Deputy Foreign Minister Acces Gromyko (1).
national control of atomic energy as Bernard M. Baruch (r), listens intently.

a

presents Soviet policy on inter-

In the

centre is Britain’s Alexander Cadogan who appears to be getting some advice from
one of his assistants. Baruch has since resigned as 5 top man in atomic control.

He says his ‘job is sbeibedte

Progressive merger may become
base of new US political party

By GLADYS CARTER —

NEW YORK—The first step toward a possible third party in the U.S was taken here
with the formation of the Progressive Citizens of America,.a new organization linking the
National Citizens Political Action Committee, the Independent Citizens Committee of the
Arts, Sciences and Professions and eight smaller organizations from various states. :

The PCA was formed at a con-
ference here Dec: 28-29 at which
75,000 people were “represented by
300 delegates from 21 statse.

Outlining its political role,
the PCA asserts that the “Re-
publican party has long since
lost any possible claim as a
liberal . party” and that, al- .
though the Democratic party
has served the _ progressive
cause in the past, it is not ciear
“whether this party will recov-
er its progressive tradition or

‘surrender to its own brand of
ignorance and bigotry.”

If the Democratic party follows
the latter path, the PCA _ pro-
gram asserts, progressive Ameri-
cans cannot “rule out the poss-
bility of a new political party,
whose fidelity to our goals can
be relied upon.”

Henry A, Wallace, one of the
principal speakers at the meet-
ing, said that the job of pro-
gressives is to seek control of
the Democratic party and, if
that fails, to form a_ third
party of their own.

The PCA platform coicides with
the “program outlined by the re-
cent CIO national convention on
labor, health, housing, agricul-

ture, civil rights, veterans, inter-
national ‘relations and other ma-
jor issues. Heateq debates on the
issues of compulsory Military

training and atomic energy con--

trol were: resolved by referring

them to a 200-man board of .di-

rectors.

Elected co-chairmen of the new
body were Dr, Frank Kingdon,
former NCPAC chairman, and Jou
Davidson, former

Icc. Among 30
are. C10: Pres.
CIO-PAC Dir. Jack Kroll and
Pres. A. F. Whitney of the Bro.
of Railroad Trainmen.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 1947)

head of the:
vice-chairmen —
Philip Murray,

%