On the ev

tts cy

e of Labor Day

STRENGTHEN
LABOR SOLIDARITY

.

rN INTERESTING feature of the
political scene today is the pow-
erful upsurge in rank and file
action in the working class movement.
I don’t think that we have seen such
developments for many a year.

I think there are three main factors
that are motivating working people to-
day to act the way they are and to
strike plant after plant and industry
after industry in their effort to improve
their living standards.

First is the fact that the cost of living
has risen phenomenally. Well, we all
say that, but sometimes it is good to
look at figures to understand the extent
of the rise in the cost of living. In
terms of actual living costs, according
to the Dominion Bureau of Statistics it
has increased four and a half percent;
but if one looks at food costs last year
alone the price of food rose 10.6 per-
cent and in July of this year it rose
by 1.8 percent. Rents have risen by
16 percent according to official figures.

What does that mean in dollars and
cents? Recently the U.S. News and
World Report drew attention to the
fact that with every one point rise
in the cost of living a working man
in the United States loses $52 a year.

Figure it out for Canada. The cost
of living has risen almost 5 percent.
With due regard to the differences in
cost in the United States and our
country, Canadian working people have
lost about $250 a year, as the cost of
living has risen. Working people in
face of this are confronted with the
overriding need to battle to win wage
increases so as to beat prices, and if
possible get ahead of prices.

The second fact has been the enor-
mous increase in productivity of labor,
that is the increased production work-
ers through their labor make possible
in this country. Increased production
has brought an enormous increase in
profits for the corporate interests. To-
day, Mr. Claude Jodoin, president, Can-
adian Labor Congress, is reported as
saying that between the period of 1961
and 1965 corporate profits after taxes
increased 67 percent whereas wages
in the same period increased only 16
percent. :

Who then, is causing inflation in this
country? Monopoly by rigging prices,
keeping them up, stepping them up,
and through enormous profits is actu-
ally creating an inflationary tendency
while on the other hand working people
who are trying to catch up with the

Exerpts of a speech by WILLIAM KASHTAN

leader of the Communist Party
at Toronto Labor Festival

Saturday, Aug. 27, Palermo, Ontario

rising cost of living are blamed for
the present situation.

Not least, the strong upsurge in
working class ranks today arises from
the fear working people have that with
the technological revolution, with auto-
mation, which should make life easier,
which should create higher living
standards, which should ensure greater
leisure for the people of our country,
they face the reality of job insecurity.

That is why working people today
battle for the right of the worker to
his job. If the employer has the right
to profits, the worker nas a right to
his job. In the past workers could be
satisfied, perhaps, to ask for a 5 or 10
cents an hour increase. Today they
are not prepared to accept these
crumbs from the rich table of mono-
poly. They want substantial wage in-
creases and they need it. They need
it not only to beat rising prices but
also because their requirements have
grown commensurate with the increas-
ed wealth they have produced. What
workers are trying to achieve in this
period is an increased share of the
national income, to raise their living
standards at the expense of rising cor-
porate profits, to have some of the
affluence rub off on them.

This would be in the public interest.
Instead Prime Minister Pearson, on the
eve of a possible railway strike warned
the country that workers’ wages were
responsible for inflation, that workers
should exercise restraint in their wage
demands, that if necessary government
action may be taken to curb the right
to. strike in this country.

Let us look at each of these proposi-
tions. The first proposition the Prime
Minister advanced in effect said that
the government, not the working peo-
ple by their strength and effort, will
determine what kind of wage they shall
receive. He says nothing about profits.
He says nothing about prices. The main
attack is on the labor movement and
in this case the railway workers, tell-
ing them that they have no right to
demand a 30 percent increase in their
wages. Yet.a 30 percent increase would
result in them reaching the level of
wages of other sections of organized
labor... ae

Here there is an effort on the part

‘of the government to lay.down a policy,

a guide-line, which would determine
the extent to which working people
are able through their efforts to raise
their living standards. Working people

today are not only demanding that
they keep up with rising living costs,
they are demanding and rightly so that
the wealth they produce should in part
come back to them in increased wages.

The Prime Minister futher stated that
railway workers, transport workers,
postal employees, hospital employees,
other workers, should not use their
right to strike because it is against the
public interest.

I would like to ask the Prime Minis-
ter of Canada what does he consider
to be the public interest? Is it in the
public interest to keep wages of the
working people at a low level? Is it in
the public interest to allow monopoly
profits to rise and rise and rise? Is
it in the public interest to allow mono-
poly to determine prices and raise them
at will? Is it in the public interest that
working people be denied the right to
strike at this period of time?

Then the Prime Minister goes on to
say that it is. wage increases which
lead to inflation. But in face of the
facts that are now available, in face
of the fact that wages lag behind pro-
fits and prices, how can the Prime
Minister say that this is so. And why
does he hide the fact that the U.S. war
of aggression in Vietnam stimulates in-
flation in this country? Moreover if
the 30 percent wage increase the rail-
way workers are demanding is infla-
tionary why did the Prime Minister
agree to a 30 percent increase of
wages for the longshoremen in Que-
bec, why did he agree to the 30 per-
cent increase in wages for seaway
workers? If this is inflationary how
can the Prime Minister of our country
turn around and say that freight rates
should be allowed to rise?

A substantial wage increase for
workers, in-his view, is an inflationary
demand that goes contrary to the pub-

lie interest and should be rejected. I

think myself, and the workers are
showing this. by their actions, that the
Prime Minister’s position should be re-
jected as being unsatisfactory and
against the public interest.

Now you have a contrast of a Prime
Minister who tries to act tough with
labor but who is all sweetness and
honey when it comes to speaking with
President Johnson.

In face. of the ruthless criminal ac-

~ tion undertaken by the U.S. govern-

bent against the people of Vietnam,
when there is world-wide opposition to

this policy, when there is a growing
demand in our country that Canada
dissociate itself from this criminal ac-

tion, when there is a demand that the _

Canadian government condemn the

United States government for its bomb- —

ing of the Democratic Republic of Viet-
nam, the Prime Minister didn’t have
the courage when he met the President
of the United States last week to state
how Canadians feel.

If the United States is looking for
peace hints here is my suggestion,
Get out of Vietnam. Let the people of
Vietnam decide their own destiny.

The threat of escalation of the war
has grave consiquences for our coun-
try we have the good fortune so fat
that Canadian boys are not in Viet-
nam. But as the war spreads, unless
there is a mighty movement of the

people on a world scale and powerful

movement of opposition in Canada, the
pressure will grow upon our country
to become more deeply involved in the
U.S. war of aggression.

That is why it is all the more neces-
sary that we do what we can to buil

up a-world wide wall against which a

U.S. imperialism will break its hea
and .be forced to rereat.

Let us make sure that in our coun-
try there will be no stone left unturned
to extend the movement of the people

in opposition to American policy, t0

strengthen pressure upon the govern-

ment of our country to compel it tO —

dissociate Canada from American ag-
gression, have it pursue a policy com-
mensurate with the real interest of our
country,
peace on a world scale and at the time

a policy in line with the needs of the

Canadian people at home.

I would urge you, on this the eve of
Labor Day, to do everything in your
power to strengthen the solidarity and

unity of working peopie so that they —

can improve their living standards, 5°

that they can win an extension of de- be

mocracy and ensure that the right to
strike is preserved.

We need to win a new policy for our

country, a policy that is not based

upon support of monopoly and its in- : ;
terests but a policy that is based on —

the real interest of our country and

the real needs of our people. This is:

the policy we fight for. We can say,
that our party, the Communist -Party,

will at all times be on the side of the

working class, in the fight to extend
democracy, defend peace and to win
socialism for our country.

September 2, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4

a policy of strengthening —