TLC backs

Bengough

on Hall suspension

Vancouver's Trades and Labor Council Tuesday night
unanimously voted concurrence with the actions of Trades
Congress president Percy Bengough and the Congress ex-
ecutive in expelling the Brotherhood of Railway and Steam-

ship Clerks on the basis of activi-
ties of that brotherhood’s inter-
national vice-president Frank Hall
in hanging an outlaw SIU charter
on Sullivan’s Great Lakes scabs.

Significantly the Vancouver
News - Herald, which regularly
headlines attacks on labor’s unity,
gave the council’s action the big-
gest tribute it could get by not
reporting a single word of it.

The stand was taken when dele-
gates adopted an amendment to
an executive recommendation that
the council should “note” expres-
sions of support to Bengough from
the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, Plumbers and
Steamfitters, -United Fishermen,
Vancouver Converters, Civic Em-
ployees Local 28 and Canadian
Seamen’s Union. Executive mem-

‘bers asked the council to hold
the matter in abeyance till the
Congress convention October 11.

Civic Employees (outside work-
ers) delegate Jack Philips pointed
out every local had official com-
munications from the Congress
which left no excuse for “sitting
on the fence.”

“Brothers, take your stand,” he
Said, “which side are you on? I
know which side I’m on.”

Council secretary R. K. Gervin
opined there was fo doubt Hall
had violated the Congress consti-
tution and should be suspended,
_ but raised another issue by stat-
ing he was not satisfied that the
‘Seafarers’ International Union was
a dual organization in the coun-
cil.

“Frank Hall did a despicable
thing on the Great Lakes,” he said.

“Our local is on record support-

ing Percy Bengough, one of the
greatest labor statesmen to come
out of the labor movement,” stated
Building Service delegate Pat
Ryan in moving the amendment.

“The issue is not throwing out
the SIU from the council but con-
demnation of Frank Hall and sup-
port for the action of the Con-
gress council,” pointed out CSU
vice-president Jimmy Thompson.

Tom Alsbury, council delegate
to the congress convention, asked
not to be instructed on this par-
ticular issue, stating he wanted a
chance to support justice and good
trade unionism, while not wanting
to be committed to any splitting
tactic.

Before a vote was taken,
gates voted the floor to Alex Gor-
don, Congress vice-president, who
reported there was only one dis-
senting vote in the emergency
congress executive session that
suspended the Railway Clerks.
“Two days before the announce-
ment of the merger, Hall spent
24 hours at the home of W. H.
Coverdale, president of Canada
Steamship Lines.

“This is an issue of the auton-
omy of the Congress—the rela-
tionship of the AFL and Con-
gress cannot be a master and
Slave relationship. Hall has been
leralded by the capitalist press
—but if Congress is to continue
exist this* kind of action can-
not be tolerated.”

Meanwhiie a fresh letter has
been sent by’ the Congress to all
locals condluding, “One doesn’t’
find any suggestions in the daily
press that there should be a clean-

dele- |

Island labor body
elects delegates

By J. M. WAINSCOTT |
—VICTORIA

There was a record turnout
of delegates for this year at
the regular monthly meeting
of the Victoria Labor Council
(CCL) September 15.

Resignations of president T. A.
Mitchell and secretary T. Fan-
thorps were accepted with regret.
Both are delegates from Marine
Workers Industrial Union Local 3.

G. P. Taggart was elected as
president and J. M. Wainscott
secretary. Taggart and Wains-
cott are delegates from IWA-CIO
Local 1-118. :

Delegates elected Taggart to re-
place Fanthorps as delegate to. the
B.C. Federation of Labor execu-.
tive board, and chose Fanthorpe
to speak for them at the CCL
convention in Toronto.

Council requested the CCL to
reinstate the recently suspended

Well-earned pension -

International. Union of Mine, Mill
and Smelter Workers.

Delegates were seated from the
International Union of Brewery
Workers, Local 280.

Present were George Home, new-

ly-elected secretary of the B.C.
Federation of Labor, and Percy
Lawson, CCL representative.

up of the representatives of such
industrial combines as the Canada
Steamship Lines and their galaxy
of directors; only the labor move-
ment requires cleaning up accord-
ing to big business and its con-
trolled: press. What they are
trying to put over is that the labor
movement is all wrong and big
business, both in industry and fi-
nance, is represented only by fair
haired simon-pure 100 percent
Canadians with: the interest of the
people at heart. As Ripley says,
“believe it or not.”

The first pension check drawn on the United Mine Workers’
Union (unaffiliated) bituminous retirement and welfare fund is
presented by President John L. Lewis (1) to Horace Ainscoubh
of Rock Springs, Wyo., retired after 53 years in the mines. $100.00
mohthly pensions were won for soft-coal miners after a 3-year

battle by the UMW.

Trail paper attempts

to split smeltermen

Special to the Pacific Tribune

sd RAID BG

The Trail Times, notorious mouthpiece of the views of
Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co., seized on the border
ban on focal Mine-Mill delegate Jack Scott, to lay out a
front page spread of red-baiting smears whose only purpose

Not LONG AGO it was my
good fortune to take part in
one of the best party confer-
ences I've attended in a long
time. A gathering of comrades
from certain industrial clubs in
Southern Ontario, it was con-
vened by the Ontario LPP ex-
ecutive. What was good about
it was not only the fact that it
was well organized, that there
was full and lively participation,
by the delegates and that many
of these came from important
industrial plants; it was most
of all the fact that the problem
of the fight for the party in in-
dustry was tackled in a striking
and effective way.

In his introductory report,
Comrade Jack Taylor struck the
keynote that was to be main-
tained and amplified throughout
the two-day discussion: the idea
of the party as the vanguard of
the workers, the fight for that
idea and for its realization in
life.

In their discussion, comrades
came to grips with’ this theme in

their experience. “Where had
the red-baiters gained command
of a situation? —in a plant
where we had no party group.”
So, let’s build the party there.
“Where had an opportunist split
suffered a stinging defeat?—in
a plant where a party group,
though still far too small in
aumbers, had conducted activity,
and given leadership.” So build
the party, make it stronger.

Problems that were brought
to light: confusion as to the role
of the trade unions and the role
of the party; uncertainty about
the function of the industrial

terms of their shop, their area,

club; how to combine Marxist
education with the practical
tasks of the club; leadership of
youth work; and more besides.

What conclusions was it pos-
sible for us to draw from this
lively and above all self-critical
discussion? In very sketchy
outline, these:

1) The need for a much
stronger fight for party con-
sciousness among our trade
unionists; a better, more con-
sistent fight for party theory.

2) The need for more poli-
tical clarity on our concept of
the role of the industrial club.

3) Greater . organizational
efficiency, in planning, execu-
tion and check-up in relation
to our tasks. x

4) A stronger fight for cri-
ticism and self-criticism in the
party.

In this and succeeding col-
umns, I’ll try to touch on each
of these questions—in some in-
stances in relation to our gen-
eral, not only industrial, work.

e ‘
THE MOST serious criticism,
that the conference registered
was that it took such a gather-
ing as this to bring so many ex-
perienced comrades—trade un-
ionists—to a new and fuller
awareness of the political short-
comings in their approach to
the question of the party,
Understanding of what the
party is and what it means isn’t
a verbal question, but a practi-
cal‘ one. Comrades who in prac-
tice, e the party for granted”
demonstrate thereby that for
them the concept of the party
as vanguard, as leader of the
working class, is an abstraction,
not an urgent reality. “How,”

| The LPP column
The strongholds

‘ism, in living relation to the

‘By STANLEY RYERSON

wondered, one comrade, “with all is
the multitude of union. questions
that I have to keep up with—
how can I find time to recruit
new members to the party?” Ww.

The answer to this very real
question is, that as long as it’s
thought of as “finding time” for
“something else, over and
above,” etc., it won’t be solved.
Why? ‘Because that’ isn’t the
root of the problem. It’s a
branch, got the root.

What is the root? The com-

a considerable amount) be-

tween union and party, comes
in the finst place from weak un=-
derstanding of the party. Only

hen the unceasing struggle

over wages and hours and con-
ditions of work is tackled in
the
“abolish the wages-system it-
self,” ito end the rule of capital,
only then can one work and
fight as a Communist. Only then

light of the struggle to

will the spreading of the! party.

press and literature, the recruit-
: ing , of
rade’s conception of himself or ° strengthening and

new members,’ the
theoretical

herself as a Communist and the training of the members we

pervading of the whole approach
to all work with that conception.
[If you. think of yourself and

have—only then will this - be-
come tissue and substance of
one’s style of work: Communist

your work in that light, and work.

have a real grasp of the mean-
ing and role of tthe party in re-
lation to industrial work—then,
and only then, are you in a po-
sition to solve the problem of
“time”’—of self-organization, so
to speak,

If the vital importance of
trade union work is narrowly
understood, it is only too easy
to become submerged in day-
to-day detail, in “purely” trade
union questions, and to lose
one’s horizon, sense of direction,
revolutionary consciousness,

If the vital importance of
trade union work is understood
in the light of Marxism-Lenin-

fight for a Socialist Canada,
then one can become a real
leader of workers, a better or-
ganizer, a better fighter for the
immediate needs because of
one’s revolutionary conscious-
ness,

e ;
CONFUSION (of which there

‘

A COUPLE of years ago a

leading trade unionist and mem-
ber of the French Communist
Party spoke at an informal get-
together of our Montreal com-
rades. The thing that struck all
of us more than anything else
was this: that as we listened to
him speak of the problems at
home of wages and collective
bargaining,
labor legislation, we were above
all intensely conscious of the
fact that here was a man who
in his trade union work as in
his days in

“movement, was a fighter for
the working class of France, for
the Socialist future of France—
ever and at all times and above
all else, a Communist.

of pensions and

the Resistance

Such is the temper of ithe

people whom we must raise up
by the hundreds in the strong-
holds of capital—in the plants,
in the centres of industry.

can be to sow.dissention in the

ranks of Trail local 480,

Scott is cited as “an active
and often vociferous member of
the Trail branch of the Canadian
Legion.” One Legion member
commented, “Scott only attended
one meeting and was very quiet.”
Another added, “he must have
been more than vociferous during
the war as he was awarded the
Croix de Guerre.”

“Only a few months ago he was
decisively defeated in a bid to
capture the union's _ secretarial
post,” says the Times. The fact
is that Scott declined nomination,
telling the meeting he had not
been a member for the required
period of one year. “Decisive de-
feat”?

The Times quotes alleged union
members as saying, “I don’t know
how he wormed his Way in as a
delegate,” and “the boys all know
he’s a red and it would be pretty
easy to inform the authorities.”
The “worming” of course was done
by due process of open election,
and the Times did not realize that
union men reading its! story would
know that genuine union men—
as distinct from company stooges
—do not “inform.” ’

European lawers to

cover Communist trials

PRAGUE — A delegation of
prominent lawyers from six
European countries will be ap-
pointed to attend the October 15
trial of the 12 indicted U.S. Com-
munist leaders, it was announced
here,

The decision to send the dele-
gation was made at the final
session of the Congress of Inter-
national Democratic Lawyers
meeting at the Charles Univers-
ity. It was adopted unanimously
8S a recommendation to the as-
sociation’s council.

The council, comprising 200 |
national delegates, under the
chairmanship of the noted French —
jurist, Rene Cassin, met imme-
diately afterward and accepted
the plan.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 24, 1948—PAGE 6