RI

Britain’s striking seamen

British merchant seamen are shown marching to London's Trafalgar Square fora

‘mass rally. This week the 62,500-member union called on world labor to place

an embarg@ against handling British ships to counteract the strike breaking tac-
tics of British shipowners. The strike is now in its fourth week.

called to

The demand for immediate ac-
tion by U.S. President Johnson
On civil rights was spurred this
week by the shooting of James
Meredith on a highway in Miss-
issippi to halt his peaceful march
through the racist state to en-

courage Negroes to register to
vote,

Ambushed by a white racist
Soon after he entered Mississippi
the shooting of Meredith has
Shocked decent people every-

LABOR

Cont'd from pg. 1

Commerce convention in Pen-
ticton where the head of Lenkurt
Electric was publicly compli-
mented for his tough line towards
labor,

Meanwhile, only a handful of
dismissed Lenkurt employees

have been re-hired, The Lenkurt _

dispute and the increased use of
injunctions in labor disputes is
expected to be a top item at a
Special conference of the B.C,
Federation of Labor called in
Vancouver for June 19.

Also expected to be high onthe
agenda of the crisis parley is
the matter of co-ordinating bar-
gaining strategy among B.C.
unions in negotiations involving

“a major portion of B.C.’s work

force,

The conference will also con-
Sider plans for a stepped up
Campaign to raise a $100,000

' defence fund to help unions. in

difficulties and to fight injunc-
tions, contempt and other court
Proceedings arising from them,

June 10, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3 ~

Bigger march than Selma
protest shooting

where, Civil rights leaders inthe
U.S, have called for a march
“bigger than Selma.” “We are
going to put President Johnson
on the spot,” King told a press
conference, —

“He had a civil rights con-
ference the other day and now
we are demanding immediate ac-
tion from the federal govern-
ment, We need help and we need
it now. His words cannot stop

bullets,’’ said King.

_ All civil rights groups have
joined forces to stage the mass
march _ through Mississippi.
Meredith, who is recovering in

hospital, said this week he will’
‘rejoin the march as soon as he

is able.

LABOR ROUNDUP:

Students back city strike;
Phillips hits ‘distortion’

Under the chairmanship of
Peter Braund, President U.B.C.
Student Council, Vancouver High.
School students were invited by
a circular leaflet to a meeting
Monday at City Hall in support
of Vancouver Civic Employees
Union (Outside Workers),

In the leaflet Student Councils
of both U.B.C. and Simon Fraser
University urged all students “to
respect picket lines of all legiti-
mate strikes,” and emphasized
that “strike breaking by students
will not bring an end to the strike

of Vancouver Outside Workers,” —

At Monday’s student meeting at
City Hall students carried pla-
cards proclaiming “Students are
not scabs,” and “We demand fair
play for labor,”

This was the descriptive an-
swer by students to a handful of
young people who crossed an
Outside Workers Union picket
line to cut City Hall grass,

As one student sharply put
it at the meeting; it. is very
clear that the young people who
crossed the picket line are not
fully aware of their actions, For
instance when many young people
need summer jobs, where do they
go to find these jobs with decent
wages? They go to jobs that are
unionized,

He added that one unfort-
unate aspect to their action is
that trade unions, when. filling
job vacancies, do not take kindly

_to providing jobs for strike

breakers, despite the fact that
they are young and inexperienced
in the struggles that labor has
gone through in this province for
a decent standard of living.

A ‘*message” addressed to
Vancouver students from Van-
couver’s Outside Workers Union
was also widely distributed this
week,

Outlining a number of efforts
the union has taken to seek a
satisfactory and early termina-
tion of the strike, the “message”
states: “We understand that your
rally today is motivated by a de-
sire to prove that students as a
whole are not anti-labor and do
not condone strike breaking,
Thank you very much,”

While last Saturday’s Province

City, union
hold talks

Following the Civic Em-
ployees Union (Outside Work-
ers) application to Labor Min-
ister Peterson for the appoint-
ment of an Industrial Inquiry
Commissioner, ‘‘exploratory
talks” were opened Tuesday
of this week between union and
City Hall representatives with
Chief Conciliation Officer
Roy MacDonald.

At press time the “talks”
were still in progress, Union
secretary Jack Phillips told
the press: “We arevery happy
to attend such meetings. If
there is any chance to unfreeze
the situation our union will
be most co-operative,”®

editorially “hailed” the handful
of misguided students’ effort at
scabbing and strike breaking, the
main body of student solidarity
with the Outside Workers Union
provides a fitting reply to Prov-
ince scab-herding,

Jack Phillips, Secretary of the
striking Vancouver Civic Em-
ployees Union, today accused City
Council officials of publishing a
lying, misleading and distorted

_advertisement in the Vancouver

Sun and Province of Saturday,
June 4,

The advertisement was illus-
trated by a photograph showing
two swampers loading garbage
into a truck, The heading in big,
bold, black type said: “$1,113.48
more.” Underneath the photo
was the following: “The City’s
present offer will cost the City
taxpayers $1,113.48 more in two
years for each garbage swamp-
er.”

Phillips pointed out that the last
offer voted on by the union and re-
jected was for a wage increase
of 14 cents an hour, With 2080
hours in the year, the secretary
pointed out, this would mean an
annual gross wage increase of
$291.50 over the terminal rates
in 1965. The total gross wage
increase on the basis of this 14
cents, if projected over two
years, would be only $582.40,

“I don’t know,” said Phillips,
“whether or not members of the

COLORFUL DANCES | \
FOLK SINGING _

TOP PERFORMERS _|

PLAN ON JOINING IN THE

Victory Celebration

Sat., June 11 — 8 p.m.
Queen Elizabeth Playhouse

*

PT DRIVE RESULTS

AWARDS
FESTIVITIES

-

City Council authorized the
placing of this ad in the papers,
whether it was put out by paid
officials or a slick advertising
agency, but whoever did it, they
completely misrepresented and
distorted the facts for malicious
purposes,

“This kind of propaganda will
not fool our members into going
back to work and I am certain
that the public, once it under-
stands the true facts, will be
very angry with City Council
for spending money for false,
anti-labor propaganda,’’

* * *

Highlights of Monday’s stormy
session of Local 213, Interna-
tional Brotherhood of Electrical
Workers (IBEW) could well be
captioned, “how to bust a good
union by outside bureaucratic
interference,”

Approximately 800 members
wanted to know “why” the IBEW
local elections of executive offi-
cers, which constitutionally
should have taken place on June
1 had been cancelled?

They also wanted to know “why”
the Local’s pledged contribution
to the B.C, Federation of Labor’s
Defence Fund to protectarrested
and injunction-ridden unionists
had not been honored, and why
no relief or strike pay had been
forthcoming to the Lenkurt strik-
ers, etc,?

Local elections had been can-
celled ‘‘by order” of the Inter-
national office, while the interna-
tional executive board plan to
utilize the interim period of their
re-scheduled election date of July
30, to eliminate all progressive
candidates for office, by the
simple process of bringing
“charges” against them,

Before an incensed meeting of
some 800 local union members,
the international office brass and
their Canadian aides did just
that. John Kapalka, running for
local president, “deposed” busi-
ness agent Art O’Keefe, again
running for that office, and Les
MacDonald, running for local
vice-president, were all elimin-
ated as candidates, by having
trumped-up ‘‘charges” preferred
against them,

' Some 20 others who play an
active role in the IBEW, and who
were active in the Lenkurt strike,
including George Shaw, George
Angus, Stan Shannon, and Donna
Pookay, (a leader in the Lenkurt
dispute) have all been “charged”
by the international hierarchy of
being “involved in illegal work
stoppages,” “creating disturb-
ances,”’ etc,

Following the reading of these
“charges’’ Ladyman’s mouth-
piece Sharkey attempted to make
a speech, but was howled down by
a protesting union membership
and had to leave the local meet-
ing,

In a vote on these “charges,”
21 out of an approximate 800
supported the union splitters,
Evidence as to what lengths these
latter were, and are prepared to
go to serve the interests of the
bosses, was seen in the heavy
“guard” they posted at union
hall doors, and in the Pinkertons
hired to “guard” the union hall
from its membership,

saiiaSiant