Labor wants economic reform

OTTAWA — “Our position on
voluntary or compulsory guide-
lines is ‘No’,” Joe Morris, presi-

dent of the Canadian Labour:

Congress said at-a news confer-
ence at the close of a three-day
meeting of the 30-member CLC
executive council.

Morris also said that the “CLC
is not ready to accept voluntary
or compulsory wage controls as
an anti - inflationary weapon
without far-reaching measures
to give the working person a
greater share of the national
wealth. :

LABOR SCENE

BY BRUCE MAGNUSON

Some years ago my old friend
Peter Kerrigan of the British
Communist Party explained the
paramount importance of main-
taining the independence of the
trade unions from the capitalist
state and the employers. Failure
to observe this rule, on the part
or the right-wing trade union
‘leaders in the United States and
Canada, is the root cause of class
collaboration, racketeering, gang-
Sterism, and other corrupt and
unsavory practices now appear-
ing in the top leaderships of
some of our trade unions.

Especially since the Second
World ‘War, the capitalist state
and governments have become
key instruments for the imple-
mentation of the unpopular and
unpatriotic policies of the capi-
talist monopolies. The cold war
period made Canada and Cana-
dian monopoly capitalism more
than ever subservient as a junior
partner of the United States
trans-national corporations. At
the same time the state monop-
oly capitalist cabal has sought
to develop and integrate a right-
wing trade union bureaucracy as
an instrument for the imposition
of state monopoly capitalist po-
licies on the working class move-
ment.

Political Corruption

A chief casualty in this pro-
cess has been inner-union democ-
racy. That is what McCarthyism
and the cold war in the labor
movement was all about. All
sorts of bans and proscriptions
have been developed for use
against the communist left. Side-
by-side with this development,
membership participation § in
union afftirs and policy-making
has been dissipated, circumvent-
ed and reduced to zero in many
unions. -

Wherever bureaucrats and
careerists have taken over, play-
ing the bosses’ game according
to capitalist rules, the door has
been opened wide to political
corruption. This is how irrespon-
sible and anti-social elements,
including racketeers and gang-
sters from the bourgeois under-
world; have wormed their way
into some unions. Examples of
this are to be found today in
some U.S.-based building trades
unions, particularly in Ontario
and Quebec. But wherever pub-
lic exposures have forced official
investigations, the results have

to cover up for the real
criminals, to allow them to es-

CLC says no to wage controls

“The CLC is willing to talk
about guides but only in the
context of the broader questions
of economic reform. Such reform
should include measures to sta-
bilize food, housing and energy
supplies and prices and provide
a guaranteed minimum income
and higher minimum wages,” he
said.

Referring to Turner’s budget
speech, Morris said, “Turner

_tells us not to be so pessimistic

— but we have nothing to be

- optimistic about.”

The executive council issued
an ll-page prepared statement

declaring its determination not
to let labor’s wage demands be
blamed for recession. Since the
beginning of 1973 the purchasing
power of the average worker's
income, including non - union
workers, fell 4%. Organized
labor fared “only marginally
better” by keeping pace with
inflation, the statement said.

In contrast, corporation profits
rose 33% in the third quarter of
1974. If the trend continues, the
country will be further divided
between rich and poor, the coun-

cil said.

When did the SIU cease

to be a ‘hoodlum empire’?

cape punishment, and, instead,
to punish the innocent and to
throw abuse and Suspicion on
the trade union movement as a
whole.

x 3B %

The most despicable chapter
in Canadian labor history is the
government « employer conspir-
acy: to smash the Canadian Sea-
men’s Union in 1948-50. For this
purpose the St. Laurent Liberal
Government entered into a pact
with the shipowners, the U.S.
government and Paul Hall, pre-
sident of the Seafares Interna-
tional Union in New York, ‘to
bring a U.S. gangster by the
name of Hal C. Banks into Can-
ada to raid and destroy the
Canadian Seamen’s Union and to
replace it with the gangster-
ridden Seafarers International
Union, (SIU).

It is this, skeleton-in-the-closet
which keeps falling out again
to the great embarrassment of
the Liberal Party and all who
became involved in this diabo-
lical and unpatriotic plot, includ-
ing leaders of the Canadian
Labour Congress and their pre-
decessors. (In 1952, Hal Banks,
despite his unsavory record in
both the U.S. and Canada, was
granted permanent resident sta-
tus here. In 1954, a tribunal re-
commended that Banks be de-
ported, but Walter Harris the
then Liberal immigration minis-
ter quashed the order. The then

president of the CLC, the late.

Claude Jodoin, told a citizenship
hearing that Banks was working
for the good of Canada).
A Rocket, Not A Union

In 1960, Jodoin admitted to
making a mistake and called the
SIU a “hoodlum empire’. The
SIU was booted out of the CLC
and an effort was made to re-
place it with a Canadian Mari-
time Union. That union signed
up the Upper Lakes Shipping Co.
of Toronto. But the result was
open warfare on the Great
Lakes, leading to a blockade of
the SIU ships on the St. Law-
rence Seaway by CLC-affiliated
unions, and a Diefenbaker Gov-
ernment probe headed by a B.C.
jurist by name of T. G. Norris.
The inquiry lastted 107 days,

- during which the CLC officers

told the royal commissioner that
the SIU: “is a captive legion of
dragooned and helpless indivi-

duals; it is a racket; it is not a

unicn.”
Out of that inquiry came a
three-man government trustee-

_ ship over the SIU and four other

- PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1974—Page 6

maritime unions. Nevertheless,
trouble continued for months in
U.S. ports. One Uppér Lake ship
was held in Chicago for six
months and finally damaged in a
dynamite blast.

In the spring of 1964, the
trustees fired Hal C. Banks. A
deal was worked out with Paul
Hall, president of the SIU in the
USA, guaranteeing continuance
of the union in Canada in return
for an end to harassment of
Canadian ships in U.S. waters.

Following conviction for con-
spiracy in an assault case, Hal
Banks skipped $25,000 bail and
returned to the U.S. Finally, in.
1967, a U.S. court ordered
Bank’s extradition to Canada to
face a charge of perjury before
the Norris Commission. But. the
order was quashed by Dean
Rusk, at that time U.S. secretary
of state.

* Dd oo

That the bringing of the SIU
into Canada was a_ high-level
conspiracy there can be not the
slightest doubt. Nor is there the
slightest doubt that the same
gangsters are still running the
SIU, including the former body-
guard to Banks, who is now the
president of the union here in
Canada.

Why then did the Canadian

Labour Congress succumb to |

pressure from the USA and ad-
mit the SIU back into the Con-
gress in 1968? Why does the
CLC play down blackmail and
threats from U.S.-based building”

-trades union officers who refuse

guidelines laid down by CLC

to. abide by Canadian autonomy

conventions? Why no steps to

enforce these guidelines after .
due warning to those who refuse *
to comply? What is the CLC liai-

son committee with the SIU —

Joe Morris, Wm. Mahoney and

Wm. McGregor — doing now to

clean up the situation with the

SIU?

About the only reason for Joe
Morris saying that he sees no
reason for an inquiry into the af-
fairs of the Seafarers’ Internatio-
nal Union is that he is deadly
afraid of Paul Hail and_ his
gangsters south of the border.
Running away from a problem
does not mean it will disappear.

Eventually Canadian union
members will lose their patience
and will insist on action to clear
out the racketeers. Let no one
stand in the way when that day
come to restore the union to the
members.

U.S. SENATOR
ATTACKS AUTO PACT

WASHINGTON — United
States Sen. Vance Hartke wants

“to abolish the auto*pact and he

is prepared to use any opening
available to him.

The Indiana Democrat intends
to tack on to the administra-
tion’s trade bill an amednment
replacing the Canada - United
States automotive trade agree-
ment of 1965.

Chances that the amendment
would carry in the Senate are
slim but that would not deter
Sen. Hartke, who has a hard
time deciding what he wants.

One of his amendments al-
ready in the bill “urges” the
president to negotiate free trade
with Canada. Yet he is trying to
abolish the auto pact, which is
the closest thing the two coun-
tries now haVe to free trade.

MORE LAY-OFFS
AT FORD

WINDSOR — Ford Motor Co.
of Canada -Ltd. revealed last
week that 66 employees at their
Windsor foundry will be placed
on an indefinite layoff beginning
Jan. 6.

Steve Harris, president of
UAW Local 200, said the men
affected were notified earlier this
week.

He said the layoff is the result
of a reduction in the crank line
to a single shift.

The company is also laying off

nine skilled tradesmen for an in- _

définite period beginning Jan. 13,
said Mr. Harris.

He said most of the workers
involved are eligible for Supple-
mentary Unemployment Benefits
(SUB).

PENSION COLA
CLAUSE WON

OSHAWA, Ont. — Members
of the United Auto Workers
(UAW) union at General Motors
of Canada Ltd. approved a re-
commendation last week to re-
open the pension agreement be-

SPLIT FROM DEMOCRATS ©

- party’s national committee.

‘repeated the firm public position ~

Some 900 longshoremen in the port of Boston struck Dec. 9 aftef
working 2'/2 months without a contract. They are members of the
International Longshoremen’s Association.

tween the company and the —
union in 1976 to add a cost-of-
living clause. a

Tommy Thompson, chairmai” |
of the GM shop committee, said |
the six-year agreement would
not be open for negotiation until ((
1979 but inflation has made the ~
agreement “obsolete in its in- —
adequate proVisions for those on ~
fixed incomes.”

AFL-CIO MAY

WASHINGTON — AFL-CIO
unionists on the losing side of ©
the Democratic Party’s reform
struggle may soon quit the

It was also reported AFL-CIO
President’ George Meany had’
summoned a meeting last week — }j
to discuss a labor withdrawal |
from the party’s ruling body, but —
this could not be confirmed by
federation spokesmen. :

AFL-CIO spokesman Al Zack —

taken by the federation that it
has no formal ties to the Dem0-
cratic Party, but he conceded
some leaders, holding positions
on the national committee “aS —
individuals,” had been “talking :
about disengaging” from the ~
party.

POLICE FIRE ON
STRIKERS IN SPAIN

SAN: SEBASTIAN, Spain — |
Spanish police opened fire of
demonstrators supporting a g&
neral strike near here Dec. Ily
wounding one youth, labor i
ces said.

Some 200,000 workers a
students left their factories an®@
classrooms in three Basque p
vinces of northern Spain in sup=
port of freedom for politica?
prisoners held in Spanish jail§
and of political freedom
general.

The movement, called by le
ist labor and political grow
and by Basque nationalists, W897
thought to be the biggest poli-
tical strike in Spain in 26 years

a

cooperation and social progress.

forces of the revolution
The crisis of. capitalism

The changes in Greece

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Set-backs for Portuguese reaction

Genocide of native peoples in
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