LABOR FRONT 3 By WILLIAM KASHTAN The Federal Governments decision to set up a commission to inquire into the disruption of Great Lakes shipping, includ- ing the activities of the Seafarers International Union (SIU), establishes a rather dangerous precedent which can do much: harm to the trade union movement. It is true that the decision was made after representations from the Canadian Labor Con- gress, backed by the boycott of SIU ships by the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Transport Union. But this does not make it any sweeter or less dangerous. The board of inquiry is not being called upon to look into the conditions of the seamen. Its terms of reference seem to be directed towards deciding which union may or may not repre- sent the seamen, whilst the democratic right of the seamen to make that decision is thrown out of the window. Herein lies the danger of such an inquiry. * * * In this the government is acting true to form. The sea- men —s asked whether they wanted the Canadian Sea- men’s Union. That decision was made for them by the Canadian Labor Board which declared the CSU a “Communist domin- ated” union which had no right of exist- ence and thus opened the door to the SIU’s entry into Canada. The SIU, it is worth recalling,’ came to Canada not because the Canadian sea- men wanted it but because the shipowners’ federation, the U.S. state department, the Canadian government, the American Fed- eration of Labor and, not least, men like Frank Hall, wanted it. The SIU was forced down the throats of Canadian seamen because it suited the purpose of the cold war and its main ad- vocates. Now the right wing is having second thoughts about the wisdom of its actions and is trying to get rid of the SIU. But the ways and means of doing this are rather dangerous. In- stead of relying upon the seamen it is asking the government, in effect, to decide for the seamen which union may represent them. * * * If the government is given the right to decide for the seamen, what is to stop it deciding which union may or may not exist in any other industry? It is common knowledge that knives have been sharpened in some quarters to ‘“‘get” the Teamsters. Will they be next on the list? And after them, who else? Today it is “gangsterism” and ‘corruption’ that is ostens- ibly being attacked. What will it be tomorrow? Those unions which advocate reduced hours of work? Those which oppose the austerity program of the Diefenbaker government or try to protect their members from its effects? Or which oppose: speed up? All unions which stand by the trade union principle of defending the conditions of their membership? The Globe and Mail in an editorial last week has already made clear what it hopes the board of inquiry will do. It has been calling for legislation in Ontario to make unions legal. entities and therefore sueable. It has called for legislation which would make it possible to decertify unions. Ostensibly this is to be aimed against criminal acts of violence but it re- quires no stretch of the imagination to see that trade union rights are under attack. We hold no brief for the SIU but the board of inquiry proposed by the CLC could well become a kind of Pandora’s Box with all sorts of unpleasant surprises for the trade union movement. ' Solutions to the complex inner problems of the trade union movement won't be found in courts of law, or in hand- ing over to government the decision as to which union the workers ought to belong. What is needed is the restoration of the principle of trade union democracy, reliance on member- ship, the restoration of trade union unity and the elimination of jurisdictional squabbles which in fact open the door for anti-labor legislation. * * ” Now that the board of inquiry has been established, with one of its purposes to look into the activities of the SIU, it would be rather useful to broaden its scope. Why not include in its terms of references: Who were the parties responsible for bringing the SIU into Canada in the first place? What were their reasons for so doing? Who gave the order — the U.S. state department? the shipowners? the Canadian govern- ment? Mr. Frank Hall? If one is really serious about going into criminal activi- ties, who were the real criminals and what was the nature of their criminal activities? -Let all the correspondence be brought to public light. Were this to be done, it would show a terrible picture of corruption, of betrayal, of U.S. domination over the Canadian trade union movement and the evils of anti- Communism under which the SIU was brought into Canada. It would show also the need and solidarity and for a fully aut- onomous Canadian trade union movement. ‘Soviet spaceman Sere Titov, left, =< Yuri Gagarin last week strongly protested the U.S. nuclear test in space. ‘ " ment. ’ the matter of hammering out tion, or will it miss the op- COMMUNIST NAT. CTTEE. MEETS Broad people's uni The Communist Party’s policy in the recent federal election has passed the “acid test” of practise and has been proved to be correct, Leslie Morris, national leader of the party, told its national committee meeting in Toronto over the-weekend of July 7-8. ” ae Hones pelle ee SORBED NONE : tion—that of rolling up the oe me oR SEAS DY, Rogie Credit in Quebec, Morris said biggest-eve i oe pepe pews the it may be that the party erred old-line parties—is seen in . it timati f hod the fact that one-quarter of acbihd des skeeey red prea & velopment, the electorat i - “4 Bie eevee eeinst He said the party should the Liberals and Tories, and feontion toaentich two-thirds of those voting DB eae 55 Ey HOuRe movements in Canada and cast their ballots against : = that as the left grows the peers. Tory asevern right can also be expected to grow. The Social Credit vote, HOWEVED, must not be dismiss- The election results, he continued, have faced the two old-line parties with a zeae dilemma in the operation of 2 the two-party system, and this creates a fluid situation with great new possibilities of political struggle opened, up. Comparing results of this election with previous ones, he noted that the Liberal- Tory vote had dropped from 87.2 percent in.1958 to 74 percent this year. Two million Canadians had voted against the two old- * : line parties last June and this eo. was the greatest such vote 9." 4 e since 1945 election. a The one million votes for Sth = S unity needed to fight Dief’s austerity program the New Democratic Party, Morris asserted, was a good seein: sign, and the potential of the NDP among the working class is to be seen especially in the heavy vote it won in indus- trialized areas such as British Columbia and Toronto. He said the relative and absolute strength of the work- ing class vote against the old- line parties has _ increased. The NDP, however, lost many votes because it failed in a real way to take up and seize hold of the issues of peace and Canadian independence for fear of being called “red.” Because of this, many voted Liberal, and, in Quebec, gave their support to Social Credit. Now, said Morris, the big- gest single obstacle in the way of giving direction to the anti-old-line party voters and all progressive elements is ed as an ultra-right vote, he declared. By and large it was a vote of basic economic dis- content and resulted to a large extent from lack of any effective intervention by the trade union movement or the NDP. ‘The NDP’s weakness on the question of equality for French Canada also played a contributing role, Morris stat- ed. But, he emphasized, we must not give up Social Credit voters to the John Birchites. _He said it was interesting to note that in British Col- umbia and Alberta — where Social Credit is in power pro- vincially—the federal Social Credit vote was insignificant. The Dollar and the Bomb, said Morris, played a big role in the election. The devaluation of the dol- lar showed the bitter fruit of integration with the United States, Canadians against thermonu- clear war made both old-line parties say they would not accept nuclear arms for Can- ada. policy that will correspond to the interest of Canada and Canadians. Will the NDP, he asked, learn the lesson of the elec- portunity? Will it rise to the chal- lenge and will its members make it their own vehicle, or will the right-wing leadership stifle its potential and To a large extent, the NDP growth? vote was a vote against the One factor that should bomb. CORRECT POLICY The correctness of the Com- munist Party’s policy in the election was seen in its slo- gans which are inherently popular and go to the heart of Canadian events by stating forthrightly that the issue is survival and calling on Can- adians to ‘put Canada first’ against U.S. domination. These slogans, he said, must become the property of ever greater masses of peo- ple. If the NDP would pick up these issues, great changes could be wrought in the poli- tical situation in Canada, _ July 20,_ cause concern, he said, was the fact the prairies went Tory and there was a decline in the rural protest vote. This was at least in part due to certain constituent changes in western agriculture. On this’ point he said the party should examine that undemocratic aspect of elec- tions that makes the rural vote stronger than the urban one. The party should pursue more vigorously the principle of representation by popula- tion: Now, he said, it re- quires far less votes to elect in a rural riding than in an urban one. eo ee “Really hard to follow him any further!” —“Frankfurter Rundschau” (West Ge while the feeling of: 19626—PA Morris stated. The issu! NDP missed in the were the issues of the The fight for the nati said, is the political of the Communist Party: to win this fight it is sary for masses of Canadl to take it up. 4 In the election the had brought out the issues and had play® political, educative 4? tational role. It had not barrassed” the NDP ® it votes, and candidates had wel support of the Commul ridings where Com did not run. Diefenbaker’s post-e* austerity measures have illusioned many with line parties, Morris Many Tory and Liberal may now begin to sé for leftward moveme? FIGHT BACK NEEDE The chronic sickne® 4, balance of payments with $17 billion of lars invested in Cana development of an ary situation nitti purchasing power\ 0% dians, the whole Diefe na economic program # oil through order-in- -coun ‘not Parliament, the 10? the International Fund (with U.S. vem stated or not), the wea of the U.S. economy these things, declared af require a broad unité movement to fight b# the party should A this campaign with © vigor. After discussing and sing Morris’ report tional committee als® a message to the 4 people which it agree if tribute in at least hal lion copies throus country prior to thé of Parliament. The committee gurthe™ se ed on the party t? as widely as possible i? ings, picnics and other as activities during the rst to explain and pop¥ message, and to © 4 united peoples’ actio®> port of peace. ty’, It instructed the P# nit tional executive speP “to take into accouD” ‘i sibility of an early election and to Pre the participation of 0 in this next basis of the continu the general policy ~ ed in the last electi jer