Linked to giant U.S.

monopoly

WHO Is 1

HANDING OUT INJUNCTIONS. Photo shows Sheriff's of-

?

ficer reading injunction at'Lenkurt picket line. Later he gave
them out like leaflets for mass distribution.

‘Make Council negofiate
to settle civic strike’

Full responsibility for the
present crippling Outside Work-
ers’ strike must be borne by Van-
couver City Council. It has been
obvious since the first stages of
collective bargaining that Council
had embarked on a_ collision
course with the union — and the
public be damned!

This was the charge made
Tuesday by William E, Stewart,
city secretary of the Communist
Party, in a statement issued on
behalf of the party’s Vancouver
committee, The statement con-
tinues:

Working hand in hand with
anti-union corporations in B,C.,
City Council has undertaken to
spearhead a movement to deprive
the working people of this prov-
ince of wage increases which will

The Civic Workers’ Union
dropped its demands from 70¢
over two years to 40¢ for the same
period and delayed strike action
from March 29 to May 6 during
which period every effort was
made by the union to meet across
the table to work out a mutually
acceptable settlement,

This is clear evidence of the
unwillingness of Vancouver City
Council to seek an honorable
basis for an equitable settlement
of this dispute.

Every homeowner should phone
the City Clerk at TR 6-1313 and
make such a demand; write a
letter to the Mayor: ratepayers
groups and local unions must put
the heat on City Hall, Delega-
tions from communities should be
organized, all around the demand

accord with increases in pro-
ductivity and spiralling living

Negotiate.”
costs, 2

“Settle the Strike, Sit Down and

What is this company that has
discharged 257 employees in a
dispute about overtime, and pre-
cipitated the present crisis inthe
labor movement, together with
arrests, injunctions and police
action? :

First, Lenkurt is not a Can-
adian company, Its voting stock
is 100 percent American-owned,
It pays no dividends to Canadians,
Although it is in the business of
supplying public utility equip-
ment, and is an integral part of
our public utility network, it
publishes no financial state-
ments, and does not even disclose
to the Board of Transport Com-
missioners, responsible for set-
ting telephone rates in B,C., how
much profit it makes out of the
telephone business,

Lenkurt Electric is a wholly-
owned subsidiary of General
Telephone and Electronics, of
New York. General Telephone
and Electronics isa holding com-
pany controlling telephone com-
panies and manufacturing com-
panies in Canada and the United
States, Its total assets at the
end of 1964 amounted to $3,377,-
896,000, not counting indirectly
controlled assets. Its netprofits
after taxes amounted to 12,1
percent on invested capital, orin
dollars $136,530,000.

In British Columbia, General
Telephone owns outright the
Automatic Electric Company,
Sylvania Electric (Canada) Ltd.,
and Lenkurt. It is also the ma-
jority owner of Canadian Tele-
phone & Supplies and of Dom-
inion Directory Co, Ltd, Finally,
through an intermediary holding
company, it controls B.C, Tele-
phone Company, by ownership of
28 percent of its stock,

B.C. Telephone, being a regu-
lated public utility, isnot allowed
to make a “high” profit, Opinions
may differ as to what constitutes
a “high” profit, but the point is
that if B.C. Telephone Company’s
profits become notoriously ex-
cessive, the Board of Transport
Commissioners can be compelled
by public opinion to reduce tele-
phone rates,

On the other hand, there is no
such restraint on the profits of

They are trying to misuse their
elective offices to smoothe the
way for the introduction of com-
pulsory arbitration into labor
disputes in this province.

Notwithstanding the fact that
the large majority of voters in
Vancouver are working people,
the Council is using its chamber
as a forum to depict civic work-
ers, and by implication the entire
organized labor movement, as
greedy and over paid,

Meanwhile, Vancouver home-
owners are paying the shot,
Garbage is piling up; parks are
closed; litter clutters the
streets; civic flowerbeds are
going to pot and much-needed
city repairs and maintenance are
suspended,

Most Vancouver ratepayers
are now paying their taxes for the
current year, which includes
substantial increases, for these
very services of which they are
being deprived,

S CONFUSE US WITH FACTS. J?

4

the manufacturing and service
subsidiaries such as Automatic
Electric and Lenkurt, These sub-
sidiaries, together with Canadian
Telephone & Supplies and Dom-
inion Directories, make their
profits by selling supplies, equip-
ment and services to B.C, Tele-
phone. General Telephone can
make as much profitas itpleases,
through these subsidiaries with-
out affecting telephone rates,

Thus Lenkurt becomes a handy
pipeline, through which the Am-
erican holding company can si-
phon off profits which would be
curbed if they appeared in the
financial statement of B.C. Tele-
phone, Lenkurt is therefore a
key link in the chain of this gi-
gantic American monopoly.

How big are Lenkurt’s profits?
Nobody outside of the company
knows, At the 1965 hearings on
telephone rates, Lenkurt’s fin-
ancial statements were requested

EDITORIAL

The Lenkurt affair

The arbitrary insistence of overtime work by the Lenkurt
Electric Co., was the prime cause of the “wildcat” strike,
when over 250 of its employees, members of Local 213,
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) walked
off the job over three weeks ago, :

&n an attempt to secure an early and just settlement of the

ENKURT ELECTRIC?

by the Leader of the Opposition,
by the B.C, Federation of Labor,
and by the Attorney General of
‘British Columbia, but were not
forthcoming, It seems that this
Yankee subsidiary isan involable
sanctuary for the profits wrung
from telephone users,

Some clues, may, however, be
found in the parallel case of
Lenkurt’s sister subsidiary,
Automatic Electric, in its deal-
ings with the General Telephone
Company of Upstate New York.
In that instance, the PublicServ-
ice Commission permitted the
telephone operating subsidiary
to earn 6,5 percent of its invest-
ment, However, Automatic Elec-
tric, a subsidiary of the same
holding company, provided the
equipment and supplies for the
telephone subsidiary and earned
over 19 percent in its two least
favorable years, over 30 percent
in its best two years and from
25 to 28 percent in other years.”

dispute, and to head off company discrimination against the
striking workers, which was publicly threatened, the B.C.
Federation of Labor (BCFL) and the Vancouver Labor Council,
(VLC) and their affiliated unions, on the request of the IBEW,
joined forces in support of the Lenkurt workers,

of the BCFL and VLC,

Events have moved rapidly with the Lenkurt Electric se-

Meantime, despite an earlier B.C. court ruling that no
union official had any right to sign a union agreement without
approval of the membership, Local 213 president Angus Mc-
Donald, under instructions from the International, signed such
an agreement with the company, which among other things,
provided for wide discrimination against those workers who had
walked off the job, This ‘‘agreement” was unanimously rejected
by Local 213 membership, as well as by the executive bodies

curing a court injunction coupled with police-provoked violence
against union pickets, Local 213 president McDonald, on
the instruction of the International Executive, deposed union
Business Agent Art O’Keefe, and called for an end to BCFL-
VLC solidarity actions in support of the union’s dispute with
Lenkurt Electric. On a TV broadcast Monday of this week,
McDonald literally stooped to the role of a police “fingerman”
in “identifying” participants in the mass demonstration at
the Lenkurt plant gates,

All of which apparently holds the authorization and approval
of the U.S,-based IBEW international executive, in support of
a powerful U.S. monopoly cartel, its ramifications deeply- -
rooted in B.C, -Every single union-splitting action taken by
president McDonald has been rejected by the great majority
of Local 213 IBEW membership,

At press time, McDonald, under the guidance of the notorious
Jack Ross, was reported to be seeking a court injunction, aS per
U.S. executive instructions, which would give “legal’? sanction
to imposing himself upon the IBEW membership and properties.

Also at press time, efforts were being made by officers
of the BCFL and the VLC to reach a just settlement on pehalf
of the Lenkurt workers, but we can’t help but share with the
vast majority of IBEW members and B.C, trade unionists
generally, their resentment against U.S.- resident international
executive interference inthe internal affairs of Canadian unions.

It was precisely this type of unwarranted interference by
outside union officials which led last week to the breakaway ‘

800 pulp workers at “Harmac” from their international unic

966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page #

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} May 20, 1