“Sate

wil bphnwnsn ese

A powerful wave of strikes in France recently have forced the De

Gaulle government to make important concessions.

The above

picture shows a meeting of striking electrical workers in Paris.

Spanish miners appeal
for world labor support

Asturian miners and their
wives are being tortured and
ill-treated by Franco’s dictator-
ship in Spain in an effort to break
the miners’ militant strike.

Details of the inhuman treat-
ment being meted out by Fran-
co’s civil guard are contained
in a message from the Work-
ers’ Trade Union Opposition of
Spain, addressed to the interna-
tional trade union movement.

The message calls on alltrade
unions to redouble their efforts
against combined arrests, im-
Pprisonment and torture, and de-
mands those presently in prison
for the ‘‘offense’’ of striking be
immediately released,

The Spanish government, the
message points out, has suspen-
ded until November customs duty
on imported anthracite coal and
coke. An appeal is made in the
message to trade unions in other
countries for a boycott on the
transport of coal to Spain as
an act of international solidar-
ity to pressure Franco to respect
the will of the strikers.

So brutal has been the activi-
ties of Franco’s civil guard that
last week 49 well-known Spanish
artists, writers and scholars as-
sociated themselves with an ear-

lier demand by 102 Spanish in-
tellectuals for an inquiry intothe
torture and ill-treatment of As-
turian miners and their wives.
One of the signers, the world
famous Catholic writer Jose Ber-
gamin, has received anonymous

phone calls threatening his life:

and is reported to be in im-
minent danger of arrest.

Strikers are brutally beaten
and then left in the streets as an
example to other strikers, de-
signed to scare them back to
work. This inhuman spectacle,
Says the message, only serves
to arouse greater indignation a-
mong the strikers.

“The fight for improved wages
and conditions of work, for trade
union freedom and the right to
Strike against the dictatorship
of General Franco has entered
a decisive phase. The Spanish
working class is in motion and
its fight will be bigger and more
profound each day,’’ concludes
the message from Spain.

*‘The strike of the Asturian
and Leon miners is part of the
general fight of all workers for
democracy, against reaction and
fascism, for liberty and world
peace,”

New attack on Br. Guiana

British Guiana’s Prime Min-
ister Dr, Cheddi Jagan, last week
charged the British government
with betrayal of an undertaking
to fix a date for the country’§
independence,

He made the charge after Col-
onial Secretary Duncan Sandys
had announced the terms he was:
going to impose on British Gui-
ana—which did not include the
fixing of any independence date.

Dr. Jagan said: ‘‘I bound my-

DR. JAGAN

self to accept a decision by Mr,
Sandys, providing a date was fix-
ed for independence. Now I do
not feel myself bound by these
decisions,’’

The Sandys terms provide in
the first place for the impo-
sition of a -system of propor-
tional representation in an at-
tempt by the British government
to smash the Jagan government’s
majority, obtained in the last
three elections, 1953, 1957 and
1961.

‘Not to have fixed a definite
date for independence is a bet-
rayal of trust on the part of Mr.
Sandys,’’ said Dr. Jagan. ‘It is
clear that this decision is in keep-
ing with the wishes of the U.S.
government.”’

He said that ‘‘this is the most
unprincipled decision in the long
history of British colonialism.
It is in keeping with the sus-
pension of the British Guiana
constitution in 1953,’’

Jagan charged that Sandys, by

‘insisting on the list system of

proportional representation 4
would deny more than half the
population ‘‘an influence in the
democratic process,”’

LABOR ROUNDUP:

Merchant marine campaign
rolling along in high gear

Labor’s campaign for re-
creating Canada’s lost merchant
marine is rolling along in high
gear, picking up steam as it
moves ahead.

Last week, two delegates from
the Confederation of National
Trade Unions (formerly the Ca-
tholic Syndicates) met with rep-
resentatives of the Shipyard Gen-
eral Workers Federation of B.C,
Meetings were held both in Van-
couver and Victoria,

Discussion centred mainly a-
round presentation of a joint brief
to the federal government on the
question of shipbuilding and the
future of the shipping industry in
Canada.

Resulting from the discussions
was agreement to charge the
Trade Union Research Bureau of
Vancouver with the responsibility
of preparing the brief, which has
already been drafted, and for-
warding it to labor circles in
Halifax and Montreal.

The brief will then be return-
ed to Vancouver for final editing,
Plans call for its printing in
both French and English, after
which it will be presented to the
government — probably some-
times towards the end of
November or eepee of De-
cember. ===

Copies will be forwarded (with
a request for endorsation) to all
city and municipal-councils on the
Lower Mainland and all MLAs

GEORGE McKNIGHT, prominent
labor and community figure in Port
Alberni, announced he will bea
candidate for alderman in the com-
ing civic election. He said the rec-
ord of the present council shows it

is made up of men who fail to
speak up in the people’s interests.

SUGAR

Cont'd from pg. 1

Last week the secretary -
treasurer of the United Electri-
cal Workers Union, George
Harris, demanded a government
investigation into monopoly price
setting. The union national
council is on record, by resolu-
tion, accusing monopolies of pro-
fiteering in sugar,

In Toronto Alice Maigis, chair-
man of the Fair Prices Cam-
paign, suggested rising prices
were due to speculation, not shor-
tages, Her view was reiterated by
A. E. Beeby, executive vice-
president of Salada Foods Ltd.,
who said speculators rather than
world shortages were respons-
ible for sugar prices.

The Ontario president of the
Consumers Association of Can-
ada, Mrs. A. G, Volpe, said her
organization was asking the fed-
eral government to consider con-
trols,

Strong public support behind
the Vancouver Consumers Com-
mittee demand for action by Vic-
toria to roll back prices on
sugar is expected in the wake of
the latest wave of rising prices,

in B.C. This action will be dup-
.icated in Eastern Canada,
particularly in the St. Lawrence
region from Montreal to Quebec
and the Maritime provinces. Ev-
erywhere, city and town councils
and provincial MLAs will be
asked to support the brief,

The fact that the brief will be
jointly presented by three labor
bodies is of particular signifi-
cance, since this will mark the
first time that united action on the
merchant fleet question is being
taken.

Previously, each body has
acted independently. Together,
the three organizations represent
upwards-of 15,000 workers.

*

Longshoremen all over B.C.
left their jobs last Monday to
attend meetings called by the In-
ternational Longshoremens and
Warehousemens Union. The union
held meetings in most important
shipping centres to report to the
membership on progress in for-
mulating a contract with shipping
companies.

The contract would incorporate
the agreement reached this sum-
mer, which offers widespread
job protection against effects of
mechanization and automation
on the waterfront.

*

The Brotherhood of Railway
Trainmen (CLC), representing
20,000 non-operating employees,
is demanding a 12 percent wage
increase over the current con-
tract expires on Dec. 31 of this
year.

In placing its demands, the
union was reported to have
stated it ‘f‘has no intention of
accepting the delays experienced
during the last round of nego-
tiations,”’

*

Last Tuesday’s meeting of

_ Vancouver Labor Council con-

ducted very little business of a
public nature. Almost the entire
evening was devoted to discussion
of inner-union problems, from
which members of the press and
visitors were excluded.

Peace Congress hits
South African trial

Eleven South Africans will be
tried in Pretoria for ‘‘sabotage’’
on November 12 despite the fact
an indictment against them for
exactly the same charge was
thrown out of court last week,
All face a possible death penalty.

In a press release last Tues-
day, the Canadian Peace Con-
gress expressed its ‘‘shock and
disgust’? at this turn of events.
‘Such things are reminiscent of
the Nazis and Canadians must
not be accomplices by their sil-
ence,’ the congress statement
said,

It wrote to External Affairs
Minister Paul Martin, stating its
disappointment that Canada had
abstained from voting on the
United Nations resolution on rac-
ial discrimination. The absten-
tion makes it all the more nec-
essary that Canada should show

that she is unalterably opposed
to the discriminatory policies of
South Africa, which violate the
UN Declaration of Human Rights.

*‘The African people will take
us for hypocrites unless we are
prepared to back our moral pro-
testations with action,’’ the state-
ment charged, ‘*The slight econo-
mic disadvantage that Canadians
would suffer by stopping South
African preferential tariff rates
would be as nothing compared to
the lot of Negro and coloredSouth
Africans,’’ it continued, calling
for a complete and total boy-
cott on all goods imported from
Verwoerd’s fascist state.

The congress also directed its
boycott appeal to Ontario prem-
ier Robarts, demanding that the
provincial government cease
selling South African wines
through its Liquor Control Board.

Symphony orchestra
needs public support

The announcement of two con-
certs for November 17 and 18
at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre,
aas been made by the Vancouver
symphony Orchestra Members
Association. These concerts will
feature an all Russian program,
with the Soviet pianist, Marina
Moivani, as guest soloist, and
Otto Werner-Mueller conducting.

This event marks the parting
of the ways between the Vancou-
ver Symphony Society as itis now
constituted, and the musicians,
who until now’ were in their
employ. This is the first time
in the orchestra’s 35 - year
history that the musicians have
undertaken a presentation of con-
certs without the patronage of
the society.

This unprecedented action is
being taken by the musicians
in order to continue the very
survival of their orchestra,

What led up to this state of
affairs? The unwillingness of the
Society to meet the minimum de-
mands of the Musician’s Union
for a rate increase of 4% per
service, (a service constitutes
a rehearsal or concert), and an
increase of services from‘107
to 120 for the 1964-65 season.

This would bring the minimum

income for a six month season
from $1,284.00 to $1,500.00, or an
increase of 50¢ per service.

The union was demanding atwo
year contract covering the in-
crease in minimum rates and
number of services for the 1964-
65 season, without any change in
the rate or number of services
for the present season (1963-64),
The Symphony Society refused to
sign a contract which would have
committed them to these con-
ditions for the 1964-65 season,
and so the matter stands,

The crux of the matter is that
the patronage system canno long-
er sustain a major Symphony
Orchestra. Our orchestra is con-
sidered to be the finest organi-
zation of its kind, west of Tor-
onto, and North ofSan Francisco,
and is deserving of, and must have
the support of the people of Van-
couver,

The best demonstration of sup-

“port the people of Vancouver

can make, is to attend these
concerts on November 17 and 18,
making them the success that they
must be to assure the continued
existence of our orchestra.
Tickets may be purchased from
members of the orchestra, or by
phoning Miss Judy Fraser--MU |
5-6189.

November 8, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 8 ._

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