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TRIBUNE

Tom McEwen Editor
Ivan Birchard Manager
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Powerful labor lobby needed

Sonar has a job of work to do—the organizing of the

greatest labor lobby in the history of the province, in
support of labor’s. legislative program, which is in a fair
way to being scalped by the Hart-Anscomb government.
Reports from Victoria indicate that ball-and-chain labor
legislation is implicit in the government’s draft labor code.

Top leaders of the CCF and AFL, between whom there
seems to be developing a strange political affinity on mat-
ters affecting labor, are not in accord with the idea of a
powerful lobby. That is highly regrettable—but not de-
cisive. The ‘arguments’ against a labor lobby advanced by
these top officials in the recent meeting of the Vancouver,
New Westminster and District Trades and Labor Council,
upon which they managed to muster an ‘opposing’ vote,
are neither convincing nor in accord with fact. From earlier
support of the lobby, the TLC now backtracks and ‘op-
poses’ the lobby, on the grounds that ‘it will serve no good
purpose.’ Such manuevers must surely have warmed the
hearts of the tories in. both camps of the coalition, who are
also and quite naturally, very much opposed to a powerful
labor lobby.’

The government’s consistent refusal to allow the labor
members of the government-labor committee any voice in
or scrutiny of its proposed ‘labor code’ is not an augury of
good faith. In fact the uncerimonious ditching of the gov-
ernment-labor committee’s functions (to discuss and par-
ticipate in the formulation of labor legislation before intro-
ducing such legislation in the House) indicates that the
Hart-Anscomb Coalition feels that it can bypass labor with
impunity. A powerful mass labor lobby will go a long way
towards correcting this misapprehension.

The war is over and reaction everywhere, including
Victoria, is preparing to reduce labor from the partial status
of partnership it won during the war years, to the pre-war
status of a force to be considered only at election time.
Tory MLA’s like A. J. McDonell (Conservative Vancouver-
Center) has already given voice to this hope on behalf of
his colleagues.

From the experiences of the 1945-46 labor lobbies, no
one can argue that the labor representatives, whether com-
munist or non-communist did not act in good faith—even
at the cost of considerable criticism to themselves from their
fellow-unionists, and especially from those who blocked the
idea of a lobby then, in order to preserve their self-acclaimed
status as the ‘political arm of labor’ and who oppose the
lobby now for the same opportunist reasons.

The Coalition’s actions in bypassing labor through the
scrapping of the committee, by refusing labor an opportunity
of consultation on proposed labor legislation, and by in-
spiring their political Charley McCarthys in sections of the
labor movement to sabotage the organization of a lobby—
all this places greater emphasis on the need of a mass labor
lobby to Victoria. Unity of all unions and central labor
bodies, together with veterans, old age pensioners, and
other progressive forces is now more vital than ever to
block the schemes of reaction to curb labor.

Now is the time for action in a mass labor lobby.

To combat crime - or fabor?

OME alarm was expressed last week by members of
Vancouver City Council when they heard Mayor Mc-
Geer’s unheralded announcement that he would make repre-
sentation in the Senate to have the RCMP assume policing
duties in Vancouver and other major Canadian cities.

The mayor’s concern for the growing crime wave is
shared by most citizens. His methods of dealing with it are
not. His dictatorial attitude in carrying through the recent
‘police reshuffle,’ his high-handed appointment of ex-RCMP
commissioner Lt.-Col. C. H. Hill, who led the RCMP’s
attack on single unemployed workers of the post office in
1938, and his most recent announcement without consul-
tation and discussion in the city council, tend to limit and
restrict the efficiency of the Vancouver police force in deal-
ing with crime, rather than strengthening their efforts. Much
more to the point would be establishment of a metropolitan

police force responsible to the cities and municipalities af-

fected. -

Lt.-Col. Hillis ‘report’ on the efficiency and organiza-
tion of the Vancouver police force, and his recommenda-
tions—arbitrary in the extreme to members of the force,
smack a bit too much of Gestapo methods, both in respect
to organizing the police force and direction of its personnel.

FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 1947 _ ;

Ultimatum

Bevin seeks the authority of the U.N. to
plunge the dagger of the pound sterling

into the Holy Land.

Wages and

Editor's Note: The following are the highlights of a speech de-
livered over radio station CJOR last Monday by Harvey Murphy,

Western representative, International Union of Mine,

Mill and

Smelter Workers and vice-president of the B.C. Federation of Labor
(C © L) Murphy discusses the most important aspects of labor’s
legislative demands to the provincial government.

URING the past ‘12

months prices have been
steadily increasing, and the
increases have mainly been
on the basic necessities of life.
Price increases, of course, re-
duce the wages of all wage earn-
ers, because we can buy less
with the dollars that we earn.
At the same time, price increases
automatically increase profits.
Standing against this _ terrific
drive on the living standards of
the people of this country, are
the trade unions. That is the
reason why the trade union
movement is under attack. Make
no mistake about it, the violent,
anti-labor propaganda you read
in the newspapers and maga-
zines is only a cover to smash
the trade unions and disarm the
working people, If the Canadian
Manufacturers’ Association can
succeed in this, we will soon
go back to the hungry thirties.
They have spread the lie that it
is the wage increases which some
workers won last year that is
responsible for the price  in-
creases. =
This simply isn’t true. Real
wages have been reduced since
the war, while the profits of big
business. are higher now than

ever, and it is to turn the at- —
tention of the people away from —

the big profits now being cor-

‘ralled by the members of the

CMA that they seek to divert the
people.

In the mining industry with
which I am most acquainted,

the operators try to direct your
attention to a few small margin-
al gold mines while the fact
is that the big companies in
this province, iny copper, lead
zinc, and silver mines, have
doubled their prices over what
they were last year and you
know as well as I do that wages
have only risen a fraction. In
fact never in history have prof-
its been as high as they are
today.

Or take the great lumber in-
dustry. The H. R. McMillan ex-
port company, biggest timber
exporter in B.C., enjoyed an -in-
crease in profits before taxes in
1946 of 66 percent over 1945 and
88 percent in profit after taxes.

Most of the increase in profits ©

occurred in the last quarter of
1946. Similarly price advances
for other industries account in
part for the rise of 56 percent
in profits. after taxes which 28
of Canada’s largest corporations
enjoyed in 1946. During the same
period average weekly earnings
of industrial workers increased
less than 4 percent. Now do you
understand why it is necessary
for big business, through its va-
rious propaganda channels, to
shout about organized labor?

This year the trade union
movement of British Columbia,
representing over 100,000 organ-
ized workers who, when you
count the members of their fam-
ilies, represent a majority of the
people of this province, submit-
ted its recommendations to the

prices

government, to be embodied in
the Industrial Conciliation and
Arbitration Act, to strengthen
that Act, to plug some of the

_ loopholes whereby the employers

were able to circumvent the law.
We want a labor act that will
really outlaw company unions,
that will make the employers
bargain in good faith, sign agree-
ments that are negotiated, so
that the tremendous power that —
employers have, when they cop-
trol the jobs of workers, will be
recognized, and that unions es-
tablished by the majority of the
workers and representing all the:
workers in the given industry
Shall be fully recognized by law
as the collective bargaining
agency.

Last week there was a billion
dollar lobby in Victoria. All the
employers in this province were
represented, led by the big fel-
lows, and when they met the
cabinet they proposed amend-
ments to the ICA Act which were
aimed at nothing less than to
destroy the whole trade union
movement. They posed as cham-
pions of democracy against the
big, bad unions. Imagine the Con-
solidated Mining and Smelting
Company, the CPR, the McMil-
Jan lumber interests, going over
to Victoria and posing as the
champions of democracy and
speaking about trade unions’ be
ing a monopoly, becoming the
champions of the individual wor-
ker whose rights they are out to
defend, not all rights, but one
right in particular, the right not
to belong to a trade union with
his fellow workers. They cover-
ed up the proposals with all
kinds of talk about votes,

Therefore we appeal to you
trade unionists, workers in all
industry who earn their living
by hand and brain, to join with
us, to insist on the government
living up to its promises made
in wartime to the people of this
country. Because Canada can af-
ford a high standard of living
for' all the people and the best
of social services.

This month the trade — uniod
movement of this province in-
tends to go'to Victoria and to
impress this fact upon the legis~
lators. We expect them to listen.
to the demands of labor and
the common people. We urge you
to write to your member of par
lament. We urge you to act |
now, :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page *