NEW LIFE FOR CUBAN CHILDREN. These smiling faces of children in Havana tells more than thousands of words can of the new happy life the revolution has brought. Under Batista children were underfed and had no clothing. Now 1,200,000 of Cuba’s 1,280,000 children Against the giant auto empire. ‘Ported to go even beyond ployee will. receive a pen- Under the old contract, GM’s Celebration of the third an- of School age are a he ssa schools. Unity wins large gains for 16,000 GM workers Unity and a determination to win’ paid off last week for 16,000 workers at General Motors plants in five. Cana- dian cities as their 13- hour Strike ended in victory : The strike was the shortest Since the United Auto Work- ers’ union organized GM. Settlement terms were re- those of auto industry agree- ments in the United States. On the major issue of pen- Sions, GM agreed to pay a Supplemental allowance up to & maximum of $55. a month for employees retiring at age 65 until the old-age pension °f $55 becomes effective at age 70, Thus, a, 31-year-service em- Sion of. $141.80 a month be- fore 70, compared to $84.72 bre-strike offer amounted to $96.80 a month. WAGE INCREASES - Wage increases of six cents an hour, or 234 percent, Whichever is greater, were Won for each year of the three-year agreement, applic- JOHN BOYD, above, editor Of the. Canadian Tribune’: left last week for Hayana. He will be. attending the niversary of victory of the Cuban revolution on Jan. 1 a8 a representative of the, Communist. Party of Can- ada. “up able on Nov. 6, 5 and 4 re- spectively. The company had wanted the effective dates to be Dec. 11, 10 and 9. The company will now pay the full cost of hospital and medical expenses beginning in January, 1962, whereas it previously paid only half the costs. Two cents of the 1961 in- crease will be applied toward the elimination of employee contributions for hospital and medical benefits. The diversion of this two cents, however, will also re- sult in the company paying the full cost of group life, ‘sickness and accident insur- ance, U.S. employees - still continue to share these costs. OTHER.ITEMS. WON Other items in the , agree- ment include: é e An improved = supple- mental unemployment bene- fit plan including increased severance pay; e A new income guarantee during short work weeks; © Half the cost of hospital, surgical and medical cover- age for pensioners and their dependents and full payment of these for workers on sick leave up to six months; e Hospital, medical. and surgical coverage for laid- off workers; ® Moving allowance for employees. transferred be- tween GM plants; e An improved vacation plan. George Burt, Canadian UAW director, said of the new BoA eae that ‘‘it’s the best. ever.’ at ~ Last week, workers | Ford Motor Co. in Windsor | and Oakville,” Ont., voted 98.8 and 98.2. percent’ re- spectively in favor of strike| action, with a January dead- line, if agreement is. not reached -on a new contract. A. conciliation board - was. set in November but there has been’ little See eee to date. Union SUPPORT FOR JOBLESS URGED. City labor applauds appeal for militant wage action Vancouver Labor Council has elected Paddy Neale to attend the Wage Co ordination Conference called by the B. C. Federation of Labor for March 3-4 a. the I.W.A. Building, Vancouver. Delegates at the Tuesday, January 2 meeting of the VLC again voiced their cri- ticism of the decision of the Federation to lay the con- ference over to February, 1962 while their instructions from the annual convention was to hold it in December, 1961. Charlie Stewart, Business Agent for the Street Railway- men’s Union, won heavy .ap- plause when he called on the council and its local unions to move into the vacuum of leadership created by the re- fusal of Federation officials to carry out the decisions of the- membership. “We must get out and pro- vide the leadership of. offic- érs who are too preoccupied with raiding to provide ef- fective leadership either for a co-ordinated wage move- ment or to help solve the problems of the unemployed.” Stewart’s reference to the unemployed problem dealt with a stinging criticism lev- eled earlier in the meeting to. the Federation for failing to give support to the B.C. Fed- eration of Unemployed, eith- er financial or otherwise. Marine Workers delegate, Andy Brogan, accused labor of following the daily press in sweeping the unemployed question under the rug. “The situation is really worse than it was two years ago,” he said. “It is the same peo- ple who are unemployed to- day and they have had little if any work since then and are literally ‘destitute now.” Lorne Robson, Carpenter’s offical, stated that there were actually 800 more carpenters out of work now than two years ago. The delegates urged the B.C. Federation to. circular- iz local unions asking for fin- ancial help for the unemploy- ed organization in its prepar- ations for a giant march to Victoria next month. President Simms and Sec- retary Neale were elected delegates to the Canadian Labor couver at the Showmart Building of the P.N.E., from April 9, 1962 until its bus- iness is concluded. This will. mark. the first ® time that labor has held: its parliament in since ‘the two centres merged into. one body. ated action in contract. nego- tiations this year also came from Stuart Hodgson of Lo- cal 1-217, I.W.A. He urged that the meeting in February become a rallying point at which labor would show aj Many mere ade in 1] Washington State . OLYMPIA, Wash. — There were more than 131,900 per- sons receiving. relief in Washington state in. Noyem- ber. according, to. latest figures. This total is 4.5. per, cent of the total civilian|. population, The welfare aid bill came to $9,500,000,. new militancy. Hodgson said unions had shown a lack of immediate goals since winning the 40 hour week, checkoff, higher wages and statutory holidays in the 1950s. Nominations for officers of the Council for 1962 were opened and will be concluded when voting is held at the next meeting, January 16. ~~ British action aimed to influence Kuwait election — Shiek Abdullah al Salim who rules the tiny shiekdom of Kuwait by feudal dictator- ship, and who keeps his feu- dal entourage and harem fat with the royalties of British and American oil monopolies who control the rich oil re- sources of Kuwait, faced a double problem in the dying days of 1961. First, the de- mands of Iran that Kuwait be restored, to its rightful owners, the Iranian people; and secondly, an “election” in Kuwait, scheduled for De- cember 2 but “put off” until December 30. With Iranian demands for the liberation of Kuwait from its feudal sheikdom, plus the general fears that the Kuwait people might vote union with Iran, the British fleet steamed post- haste to Iranian. waters, os- tensibly to “preserve order,” but in reality to protect Brit- ish and U.S. oil interests and to intimidate and influence the outcome of the Kuwait elections. Since the Sheik plans to “appoint” ten sheiks of his own choice to the new elec: toral Assembly, the demo- cratic choice of the people in an election influenced by the presence and might of Britain’s naval power it is. hoped will be considerably lessened. The lesson of Kuwait, how- ever, is not lost upon the British taxpayers, whe see their resources squandered, as the British Daily Worker put it, on military and naval operations overseas “to pros tect the fortunes of paras sites.” c ‘Sun’ caught red-handed with sensational headline An example of the kind of cold-war reporting which can be expected from the capitalist daily press was seen Tuesday in a front page story in the Vancouver Sun. The Sun started off its first edition of the New Year with a front page headline “Reds Plant Spies in British Homes.” What followed was a report from London, England which said that “British security agents are reported investigai- ing a Soviet spy ring whose members are masquerading as servants in the homes of British scientists and military men.” ‘Within a few hours the story was proven wrong. From London came outright denials from officials, including British security officers. How did the Sun report the denial? Did it give equal prominence to repudiating the false headline of a few hours earlier? Absolutely not! Buried away on page 6, in a corner where few people would notice it, is a story exposing the Sun‘s earlier headline as false. Congress convention |§ which is being held in Van- |: ‘Vancouver |} Support for strong co-ordin- | : ECUADOR PEOPLE CELEBRATE ‘VICTORY. Photo shows.a huge rally in Quito, capital of Ecuador recently to celebrate their victory in overthrowing the pro American clique and defeating an attempted militam coup d’etat by reactionary groups. January 5; 1962—PACIFIC -TRIBUNE—Page 3.