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- REVIEW

—_—

1 mr IN LINE. By Alan Mettrick. Toronto,
S: Sey Porter Books, 1985. Obtainable

nd through the People’s Co-op Bookstore.

_, For more than two years professional
Journalist Alan Mettrick hitchhiked, sought
Work in temporary labour pools, fought

ch Unger in mission soup kitchens, and tried

0! ‘sleep in rathole rooming houses when he

f Could afford them and under trees when he

ja Ould not,
® Mettrick was essentially a volunteer in
‘he lost battalions of Canada’s reserve army
(ot the unemployed. From his frequently
f €xperiences, he has produced a book
y full of anger, fear, humour, hope, keen
MSights and profound sympathy for the

A Men and women abandoned by Canadian

vel Capitalism.

i, In Alan Mettrick’s own words: “I was on

jt "© Toad, with few breaks, from the early

aly SYMmer of 1980 to the beginning of 1983.

yf “© Beography through which I travelled

ef hi in the West because that is where the
‘Tansients head, in their thousands, to
he “Scape the prospect of freezing winters ....

th ut Last in Line is a national story. The
ables, homeless men and women I tra-
it elled with were from all parts of the coun-

: Asserting that, “Most of the people I
: pate about are not tramps and bums but
id en whose skills we no longer think we
ed Mettrick states he wrote his book
a €cause I believe this displacement of peo-
Ple, this upheaval in society, is the biggest
Story in North America ....”
__ In doing so the author became “a tran-
z Sent with no particular skills and no money,
jc\PTOcuring) an existence in whatever way I
| eOuld.”
Mettrick has not given us an overt politi-
“al analysis, although he often makes clear

we connection between profits and the

,
|
/

apa.
Si

ep.

People’s
Co-op
|Bookstore

TOWARD A BETTER
WORLD

By Mikhail Gorbachev
$26.95

(hardcover)

ON THE RUN
By Phillip Agee
$28.95

(hardcover)

SHOOTDOWN: The Ver-
dict on KAL 007
By R. W. Johnson
$9.95 :
(paperback)
SPECIAL
HARDCOVER PRICE
$16.99

(limited quantity)

Mail order catalogue now available.

139] Commercial Drive
ancouver, B.C. VSL 3X5
Telephone: 253-6442

abuse of labour. Of his work in a non-union
chemical plant in Regina, he writes: “... I
was shocked by this initial exposure to the
shabby industrial world behind the numbers
on the big boards of Wall Street and Bay
Street. Was this where the share price came
from — a hundred thousand shoddy,
death-trap subsidiaries like this one?”

Mettrick also clearly shows that the tran-
sient worker’s resistance to such consistent
abuse produces a work ethic of practical
survival. He relates this after observing an
incident at a labour pool office in 1981 when
no one would accept a low-paying job and
lose their labour pool seniority. They
refused it not because of the insultingly low
hourly rate, but because there weren’t
enough hours of work.

“It is in the manner of Aristotle and
Herodotus that these men regard money
.... They work one day to provide money
for two days of leisure. By this archaic value
relationship, seven hours’ work at four dol-
lars an hour is insufficient ....”

But refusing such jobs is a luxury that
belongs to 1981. The author observes that
“A very short time later, as the recession
spawns more and more itinerant job-
seekers, this contempt for certain work will
all but vanish, of course. These labour pools
will become the trenches in which men wait
to hurl themselves on any kind of job, thou-
sands of men all over North America, mil-
ling for a job like blind kittens for a teat.”

Allisn’t grim with Mettrick, however. He
often employs impressive imagery, such as
his description of fighting forest fires: “We
moved along brown, gouged firebreak
roads like a bunch of guerrillas. Trees had
burned right down to the ground and then
some .... Occasionally, four or five trunks,
still standing straight but blackened, rose
together in a regular alignment amid the
greenery, like some abandoned, overgrown
Doric slum.”

And he shows a real appreciation for the
people he meets: “Freddy was beautiful to
work with. We’d get to some desolate,
steaming swamp, and in ten minutes he had
a fire going, a canvas tarp overhead to keep
the rain off, a flat place to sleep, seats he’d
chainsawed, and the coffee on.... You’d sit
in one of Freddy’s camps in the middle of
bush where no man had trodden before,
and you’d wonder why the mailman hadn’t
been yet.”

Mettrick is no socialist, however, and, to
the end retains his faith in the reform of
capitalism: “The challenge inherent in the
system we have chosen in this country is
maintaining reasonable equilibrium be-
tween the riches it will produce for some
and the poverty and hidden suffering it will
inevitably bring to others, if left unchecked.”
Some challenge.

RANKIN
&
COMPANY

Barristers & Solicitors

4th Floor, 195 Alexander St.
Vancouver, B.C. V6A IN8&

— 682-2781

Offers a broad range of
legal services including:

e Personal Injury & Insurance claims
e Real Estate & Conveyancing

e Divorce & Family Law

e , Labour Law :

e Criminal Law

Gritty detail validates
‘book on unemployed

e Estates & Wills

Journey with Canada’s y

But Mettrick’s political shortcomings in
no way detract from the real strengths of
this terrible beauty of a book he has pro-
duced from his own hard travelling, back-

LAST IN

On the road and out of wo

INE

rk..a desperate
nemployed mum

Lie OD. moma OL tos

breaking labour and often luminous
imagination.

— Glen Bullard

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lean group “Ay Muray.” Ben Swankey, noted
labour author, and Alderperson Libby Davies
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Rankin‘s home, 3570 Hull St. Admission free.
in case of rain, event will be held at the Russian
pa 600 Campbell Ave. See you Sunday, July
6!

PORT ALBERNI
AUG. 9 — Plan your summer vacation to
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PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JULY 15, 1987 e 7

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