POWER MONOPOLY PUTS PROFITS FIRST “BCE distorts strike Since March 3, eoine 1,500 members of Local 213, cal Workers, have been on strike against the B.C. Electr company, Hume and Rumble and Peterson Electric. The B.C. Electric is using large advertisements in the dail ‘the strikers. Both The Vancouver Sun and The Province are using the strike to attack thé labor movement as a whole by edi- torial agitation for repressive labor legislation, The BCE, with the help of Vancouver’s two daily papers, seeks to convince the public that current wages in the in- dustry are high and that their rejected offer was a generous one. Distorted facts and fig- ures are presented. For ex- ample: The BCE publishes hourly earnings of employees rather than the annual take-home pay. The fact is that in most years construction is a seas- onal industry and workers “have te. make it months.” Take the full mands of the striking BCE linemen and work out the “annual” income; then sub- tract a quarter from that figure and you will arrive at an av- in nine erage yearly wage. The BCE says it offered yearly wage increases up to 19 percent. The actual offer was 121% percent for linemen, 4% percent for groundmen and 5 percent for laborers. The ad- ditional offer of 6% percent, 4% percent and 3 percent for these categories was for an ad- ditional year’s agreement. The BCE fails to mention that the job of lineman is a very hazardous one. Linemen work at great heights and on “hot wires,’ and are risking their lives much of the time. Only a third of the workers involved in the strike are line- men. The rest are groundmen ‘and laborers, to whom the 74% percent and 5 percent offers applied. In August, 1955 linemen re- ceived a 3 percent wage hike, and an additional one percent in May, 1956. These are the only increases they have re- ceiyed in the past three years. de-. members of its supervisory staff as strikebreakers, y press to distort the issues and turn public opinion against & « International Brotherhood of Electri- ic and two sub-contractors of that and placing BCE rate quadruple Fdmonton gas charge The rate charged by the B.C. Electric for its natural gas’ is almost four times that paid by customers in Edmonton. This was revealed recently in a pamphlet published by Marine Work- ers Union, which gave these figures, based on the charge toa home using 227,000 cubic feet per year: Pdmonton— $ 89.05 Caleary: 25 sie 95.78 Vanconver: 32-5 3 340.66 The pipeline company de- livers the gas to the BCE for less than 30 cents per thous- and cubic feet. The BCE then adds 93 cents. This 93 cents alone.is more than three times the amount consumers pay for gas in Ed- monton. The Pacific Gas and Electric Company, in San Francisco, ob- tains part of its gas from. the San Juan basin (about twice as far from San Francisco as the Peace River area is from Vancouver) and part of it from British Columbia. The San Francisco company buys gas from the pipeline at 23.5 cents and sells it to the consumer for 55 cents per thousand cubic feet. The B.C, Electric buys it for 30 cents and sells it for an average of $1.23. That, briefly, is the story of the unnatural price of B.C. EI- ectric natural gas. Its electric- ity rates are just as far out of line. Five hundred kilowatt hours in Vancouver cost the consumer $10.29. In Edmonton the cost is $6,384; in Regina (which has no hydro-electric power) $9.78; in Winnipeg, $4.84; in Toronto $6.63; Mont- real $6.01; St. John $9.81; Hali- fax $9.55; Charlottetown $13.40 and St. John’s Newfoundland, $8.37. Read those figures slowly and you get the full impact of the killing Reddy Kilowatt is making in Vancouver. Today smaller percentage goes to wages Wage increases make more employment. Skyrocketing profits mean less employment. Here is the proof: In 1939 consumer spending — in Canada accounted for 68.4 percent of the total Canadian spending (the other 31.6 per- cent being made up of big business investment and gov- ernment spending, including ’ defense.) In 1957 consumer spending accounteg for only 63.4 per- cent of Canadian spending. . In other words, the relative weight of consumer spending ‘Issues This is labor's battle : Me JHE figures published below on B.C. Electric profits and 6 tricians’ wages speak for themselves. Big corporations like the BCE have “granted” wage “ cessions while they could do so without interfering with aa tinual rise in profits, Wages have always trailed far Of , price increases, Now, in a tightening economy, these big re porations cannot “grant” any more wage increases WH é cutting into their super profits. If big business succeeds in denying wage increases in {00 rising costs caused by its own greed for profits and the @ war policies of its governments, the next step will be wag® a This is big. business’ solution in the present “recession” — D ‘p down living standards, hold up profits, compel the workers carry the burden of the crisis. of The working people demand a different solution Re wages. shorten hours. i. the surplus production can’t afford to buy it, will create jobs, Give the people more money 1 bp (which is only surplus because peor. not because they don’t need it): raise living standards. are fighting labor’s battle; — need the full and united support of the labor movemety aa The electrical workers March 14, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE any in 1957 was 5 percent less than %* New installations like these at Bridge River are part of i in 1939. Wages were a smaller the B.C. Electric’s tremendous post-war expansion whit? — proportion of the total money has strengthened it as the most powerful monopoly in oy in circulation last year than province, with political influence reaching into every level in 1939. of government. : } ee These figures tell I st IBEW ‘| BCE net profit Operating expenses Dividends in journeymen ' ‘before taxes _ (Payroll, materials) common shares wages 1947 $ 6,100,000 $21,600,000 $1,600,000 $1.37% 1948 7,200,000 24,400,000 1,600,000 1D0us 1949 7,800,000 24,400,000 1,700,000 1.73 1950 9,400,000 24,700,000 2,000,000 1.73 1951 12,200,000 25,000,000 2,000,000 2.11 1952 15,200,000 27,400,000 2,000,000 2.21 1953 16,000,000 28,800,000 2,300,000 2.25 Ye 1954 18,000,000 29,400,000 3,100,000 2.30 1955 22,200,000 28,700,000 3,800,000 2.37 1956 25,200,000 30,800,000 4,900,000 2.411% Percentage 2 Tnerease 313 42 206 76 Note: BCE profits increased seven times as much as operating costs. Dividends to share holders increased three times as much as wage rates. In addition the number of em ployees fell from 6,000 in 1947 to 5,805 in 1956, although electricity sales tripled, | gas sales doubled, freight carried doubled and bus bassengers were fewer, , 4