_IWA to seek wage hoist

A slogan strung along the wall of the Veterans’ Memor-
ial Center here where delegates held their three-day dis-

cussions set the keynote for

the 11th annual district con-

vention of the International Woodworkers of America (CIO)

last weekend. The slogan read:
“Profits up 187 percent, produc-
tion up 37 percent, living costs
up 19 percent. Wages must come
next.”

The same note “was contained
in the officers’ report in the
warning that “we cannot empha-
size too strongly the need for
wage increases, at once and with-
out price increases,” and carried
over into the decision of the 119
delegates attending the eonven-
tion to seek -wage increases this
spring “commensurate with the
increased productivity and conse-
quent ability of the industry to

Highlights of the lengthy offi-

cers’ report were:
—Condemnation of the govern-
ment’s austerity program which,
because it gears Canada’s econ-
omy to the United States’ in-
dustrial needs, will promote raw
material extracting industries
and curtail manufacturing in-
dustries and therefore “in its
overall effect will only bring
about unemployment and _ the
lowering of the standards of
living, which are too low even
now.” :

—Demand that the government,
“which during wartime exercis-
ed special powers to direct
working forces, and which is
now barring imports, should in
this emergency rigidly enforce
price controls at home, national-
ize basic manufacturing indus-
tries and open up trade with
all countries that need our
goods, regardless of what gov-
ernments the people of those
countries choose to elect and
whether or not American big
business agrees.”

—Warning of a growing economic
crisis with substantial wage in-
creases seen aS a means of
“softening the impact of the

crisis upon the working people {

‘when it does come.”

Elaborating on the convention’s
central slogan, the report point-
ed out that the month of July,
1947, compared with the average
of a six-month period from Jan-
uary to“ July, 1945, showed an in-
crease in productivity of 37.4 per-
cent, with employment in the
same period increased by 28.3 per-
cent.

“Thus it will be seen that in
spite of the reduction in work-
ing hours, the increase in pro-
duction was greater than the in-

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crease in employment, and that
means the number of men re-
quired to produce a million board
feet of logs was less in 1947
with the 40-hour week than it
was in 1945 with the 48-hour
week,” the report stated.

“In other words, the employ-
ployers’ wage cost per thousand
board feet remains practically
the same while the price of
lumber -has soared to new
heights.”

The report pointed to the tre-

mendous profits now being made
by the industry, citing the H. R.
MacMillan Company’s profit of
$5,465,875 after provisions ‘for
taxes in the nine months from
September, 1946, to June, 1947.

“According to our statisticians,
profits of the MacMillan indus-
tries for the first nine months
of 1947 were 137 percent higher
than they were for the full
year of 1946,” the report stated.

An issue at the convention,
upon which the daily press seized
for its headlines, were the sharp
differences between international
and district officers on union
policy as affected by the Taft-
Hartley Act in the U.S. and the
Marshall plan.

A long red-baiting speech, the
main theme of which was criti-
cism of B.C. district officers for
their opposition to the Marshall
plan and, because Jack Greenall,
international trustee, refused to
sign an anti-communist affidavit,
the Taft-Hartley Act, was made
by International President James
Fadling and coldly received by all
but a small minority of delegates.

Fadling was followed by Kar-
ley Larsen, former international
vice-president, who attended the
convention as an official observ-
er for IWA District No. 2 in
North Washington.

Larsen told delegates bluntly
that “the Taft-Hartley Act is
the big stick used at home for
hammering the workers into
line, and the Marshall plan is
the big stick used abroad for
bringing the workers of Europe
into line.”

The place to begin the fight
against these policies was in the
United States itself by American
workers, he maintained, but the
present IWA international lead-
ership, by tolerating, condoning
and complying with the Taft-
Hartley Act, was actually
strengthening those American big
Susiness interests that were try-
ing through such policies to
smash labor both in the United
States and abroad.

For these reasons, Larsen stat-
ed, District No. 2 was instituting
measures to obtain the recall of
Fadling through a _ referendum
vote to be conducted among mem-
bers in the U.S. and Canada.

Fadling’s action in suspending
Jack Greenalt for his refusal to
sign the anti-communist affi-
davit required by the Taft-
Hartley Act, thereby setting
aside provisions in the- interna-
tional constitution to safeguard
members’ rights, was the issue
on which convention delegates
voted, 17,185 proxy votes for,

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Miners win
at Sherridon

An arbitration board has unani-
mously declared in favor of the
union in the dispute between
Sherridon Mine Mill Workers’
Union, Local 695, and Sherrittt-
Gordon Mines at Sherridon, Man-
itoba, according to a wire re-
ceived by Harvey Murphy, wes-
tern regional director here for

Mill and Smelter Workers (CIO).

Sherritt-Gordon mine has been
strikebound since last summer.
Union members voted to strike,
209-19, when the management re-
fused their demands for a 36
cents an hour wage increase, and
they have held their picket lines
firm for several months despite
the sending in of RCMPolice re-
inforcements.

The arbitration award provides
for a wage increase retroactive
to July 1, last year, a monthly
checkoff of two dollars for union
members and one dollar for non-
members as a condition of em-
ployment, and maintenance of
membership.

“We wish to convey our grati-
tude to all our union brothers
in British Columbia who help-
ed to make possible this great
victory for the Mine, Mill amd
Smelter Workers’ Union,” Pat.
Dillon, business agent for Local
695, declared in) his wire ta
Harvey Murphy.

4,370 proxy votes against, for
their international president’s
recall,

Only delegates from New West-
minster and Kamloops and two
from .Victoria voted against the
recall resolution.

The convention also voted sup-
port of the recall referendum
vote sought by District 2.

Greenall, although he was not
a delegate, was voted permission
to address the convention, stat-
ing that his choice when he was
asked to sign the affidavit lay
between “accepting the rule of
the United States government, to
which I owe no allegiance, or, |
as a Canadian, losing my office |
in the union.”

Nominated in the election of
district officers by referendum
vote were:

Ernie Dalskog, Vancouver, and
Stewart Alsbury, New Westmin-
ster, for president; Harold Prit-
chett® Vancouver, and Lloyd Whe-

lan, Vancouver, first vice-presi-
dent; Hjalmar Bergren, Vancou-
ver, and Wiiliam Lynch, Kam-

loops, second vice-president; Mark
Mosher, Port Alberni, and Andy
Smith, New Westminster, third
vice-president; John Forbes, Dun-
can-Lake Cowichan, and George
Mitchell, New Westminster, secre-
tary-treasurer; Mark Kennedy,
Cranbrook, and Ted Day, New

Westminster, trustee.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 8

the International Union of Mine

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