LOFTY PHONE BOOTH

A construction worker uses a phone at the 115-foot level of the
British Telephone Columbia company’s new downtown Vancouver
office tower to direct a crew installing a new heavy-route 600-channel
microwave dish. antenna. The antenna will improve radio-telephone
communications to remote coastal points.

THERE WERE 29,000 more workers unemployed in September
of 1966 than the previous September. The increase was concentra-
ted among people in the 14 to 25 age group. In percentages, the
rate of unemployment stood at 2.7 percent of the work force, a slight
decline from the August figure to 2.9 percent. Last September, 2.5
percent of the labor force was registered as unemployed. :

* * *

AT LEAST one section of Canada’s labor force has had no
trouble in keeping up with the rising cost of living. The average
wages of management personnel and executives rose by 26.6 per-
cent between 1961 and 1965 (39.6 percent in Quebec). This year
the wages of the average executive will rise by a further 9.1 percent.

* * *

THE CANADA LABOR RELATIONS BOARD has rejected an
application of the Confederation of National Trade Unions to be-
come bargaining agents for 3,500 workers in the Canadian Pacific
Railway’s Angus Shops in Montreal. In’ denying a representation
vote among the workers the labor relations board upheld the prin-
ciple of national bargaining units in the railways. During the board’s
hearings, the lawyer for the 11 international unions currently hold-
ing certification for the workers argued the national bargaining
units should not be disrupted as they were in the best interests of
the worker, the employer and the economy. This position was sup-
ported by management spokesmen that the shops were not a sepa-
rate entity but vital to the maintainance and repair operations of
the entire system.

Meanwhile at the CNTU’s convention in Montreal the delegates
unanimously adopted a resolution calling on all Canadian workers
to assert their independence from unions dominated from the United
States. The resolution urged that the CNTU’s 200,000 members
take the initiative in trying-to regain control of Canadian labor from
“U.S. labor demigods.”

The Quebec based organization also decided to extend its
organization outside of the province. Marcel Pepin, president of
the CNTU, sees the organization as a Canadian, rather than purely
Quebec movement. The recruiting: campaign outside Quebec is not
envisaged as an aggressive campaign but would be designed to
answer the demands of trade unionists who have expressed interest
in affiliation with the CNTU, he stated.

Not one union visited

A British Labor MP
makes a hit
with U.S. millionaires

By WILLIAM ALLAN
Special to the Tribune

DETROIT

Here where a million union
teamsters and over a million
auto workers will go to the mat
soon for substantial wage in-
creases, defying President John-
son’s 3.2 percent wage guide-
lines, the visit of George Brown,
British Labor Party foreign sec-
retary, and his espousal of wage
freezes was welcomed by 500
industrialists at the millionaire
Detroit Economic Club luncheon.

‘The night before he was the

guest of Henry Ford II and other
industrial tycoons in the swank
$5 million Pontrachain Hotel,
with United Auto Workers pre-
sident Walter Reuther being
somewhat a forlorn figure among
the millionaires headed by Ford.

Brown’s big hit with the em-
ployers was his statement after
a $5 luncheon that, “in Britain
we asked both sides of industry
to keep pay raises to about 3%
percent per year. This, we calcu-
lated, will in the long terms
equal the productivity rate. . i

No labor leaders were invited

to the Detroit Economic Club
luncheon where Brown further

revealed how wages are being ©

frozen in Britain. He said: “We
have taken statutory powers, for
12 months only, so that we can
give directions on both pay and
prices when necessary .. . it will
be followed by a period of re-
straint covering, of course, pro-
fits as well as incomes and
prices . . . both the union and

‘employers organizations under-

stand the necessity for this.”
This also got quite a hand

from the employers.

‘He got further applause when
he said all of this “‘will give us

breathing space we need to al-
low productivity to catch up
with excessive rises in incomes.”

You could just see the broad
smirks on the faces of the auto,
steel, chemical, utilities mag-
nates at this last crack, because
their charge to labor here is that
wages by far outstrip produc-
tion. A favorite theme of auto
tycoons is to tie wages to pro-
duction, sneaking back to the
old piecetime work of the open-
shop days here.

Sure was strange talk from a
British Socialist leader, we
thought.

He said all of this is neces-
sary, “if one wishes to keep a
democratic free society.” Never
a word about a socialist socie-
ty, even a British Labor Party
brand; that before
auto millionaires would have
been a shocker but brother

Brown wasn’t here to shock any-

one.

He praised the continuance of
the militaristic NATO, which
“has been to us, as it has been
to you, the shield against ag-
gression in the West .. . and for
preventing war in the North
Atlantic.”

Then he went on an anti-
Communist binge, all about the
“Communist threat in Southeast
Asia and we had for 10 long
years in Malaya we had about
40,000 troops deployed in the
jungles to root out the Com-
munist terrorists.’ He told an
applauding audience that it was
upon this “that the freedom
and prosperity of modern Ma-
laysia was built.”

He said that “the threat of
Communism in the Indonesian
confrontation with Malaysia,
was ever present and that we

Detroit's.

had to increase our provisions
of troops, aircraft and ships
ensure that Malaysia maintail
ed her freedom.” He humbly
thanked “your government” fof
the support they gave.

This led him into saying
“Now you are invol ed, on 4!
infinitely greater scale, facing’
the same threats, that has well:
ed up in Vietnam. We in Brit
ian understand what you 4@
seeking to do. We understand
what is at stake. We understatl
the sacrifices you are making .**
we understand the terrible prob’
lems with which you are com
fronted and how resolutely and
patiently you are carrying ©
your policies. My purpose in all
of this is to help.”

Asked later if he thought U.>:
imperialism should stop bomb
ing helpless civilians in NO
Vietnam, before any peace talks
have meaning, the roly-poly lit
tle man from the British Labo
Party said something about t
aggression from the North stoP”
ping. Before any more could

Ie.

said, a wall of British journal

-ists, Detroit detectives and from’ —

men for the Detroit Economle

Club ran interference and Brow
vanished, lost amid the pala
guard of Big Business.

He didn’t visit one single
trade union here, He didn’t me
with any auto workers, unles
you consider Walter Reuthé
one, and Brown had more
comments” than the averal
celebrity. :

He said he was going to spent
Sunday, Oct. 16, in Ottawa W}
“my friend Paul Martin.

and I have been friends fort

long time and I'll plan to se

the whole day with him #

Lester, (meaning Lester B. Pea,

son, Canadian prime ministe!/”

Scottish miners hit wage freeze

Condemning British. Prime
Minister Wilson’s wage freeze
as “against everything the labor
movement has ever stood for,”
the Scottish section of the Brit-
ish Miners union has called on
the Labor government to return
to the program it advanced dur-
ing the last election.

The union also repudiated the
Labor members of Parliament
from the mining areas of Scot-
land who voted for the wage
freeze.

An editorial in the union’s
paper described a “sore afflic-
tion which has plagued past
Labor governments is an excess

- military

of loyalty — not to principies
but to leaders.” :

The editorial went on to state:

“It is a sad fact that every
Labor government hitherto has
encompassed its own defeat by
ducking a challenge to the
powerful financial and industrial
forces who dominate the econ-
omy.

“And not least is it because
they have failed to operate So-
cialist , policies abroad, entered
alliances hitched to
American aims in Europe and
Asia, and embarked upon mili-
tary spending that prevents

October 28, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page !

Z

pe Se

WEE TAA RR nope,

them fulfilling plans for gocitl
justice at home. ;
up

“Thus they haye ended ‘
nol

pleasing nobody — certainly "
the workers and equally not ©
capitalists who would rat?
have their own boys in chate

anyway.

“Neither misdirected joyalld
nor the power of patronae |
should deter our M.P.'s {rr

fighting tooth and nail for the

Socialist policies alone that ©

: ie
save this country from escala’

: hae : é te,
ing crisis and the inevitablé a

turn to power of the Tories aD

an electorate betrayed.”

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