~ UNITED ACTION NEEDED

Unions must take lead
to fight unemployment

By OBSERVER

The Edmonton, 1970
convention of the Canadian
Labor Congress adopted a good
program to deal with
unemployment, but there was. a
Serious omission. There was no
proposal to mobilise the member-
ship, employed and unemployed.
Suggestions from the floor to
organize an On-To-Ottawa lobby
were smothered by the bureauc
racy.

The recent convention of the
provincial arm of the CLC, the
British Columbia Federation of
Labor, was more constructive.

While recognizing that long
range stability of employment
requires more social planning
and the development of manu-
facturing industries, the
convention called for provincial
and federal governments to
implement a crash program to
meet the immediate crisis and a
low-cost housing program.

In terms of organizational
Steps, it adopted the following
program:

1. Organizing unemployed
committees in all unions
affected, with their activities

being co-ordinated by the Federa-

tion.

2. The incoming executive to
work with Lower Mainland labor
councils and, if necessary, to
hire a full-time person to co-
ordinate the activities of

unemployed committees,
including all unemployed
workers.

-3. That, all labor councils
Outside the Lower Mainland
Should encourage the establish-
ment of unemployed com-
mittees in their districts and set
up liaison through the labor
movement.

What needs to be done now is
to apply these excellent
decisions, starting with local
unions where there is a serious
unemployment problem. In the
~ Lower Mainland, the labor
councils should call meetings of
unemployed committees from
their affiliates and work out a
number of action projects. This
should be done in co-operation
with the officers of the locals
concerned and the officers of the
Federation, because the
unemployment problem is a
social problem which cannot be
solved by the unemployed alone.

Delegations should be sent to
municipal councils to urge exten-
sive low-rental housing projects

organized to go to Victoria from
all over the province during the
early days of the next session of
the legislature. Such a lobby
should be organized by the
Federation and the labor
councils and led by Federation
officers. :

ULTRA LEFT

This would be on a much
higher level than small
confrontations with cabinet
ministers organized by ad hoc
committees. It appears that
certain ultra-left and anarchistic
elements who have no faith in
the mass labor movement are
attempting to establish a base
among the unemployed. If the
trade union movement and the
progressive forces fail to give
leadership, they will leave. the
field wide open to these adventur-
istic and disruptive elements.

The organizers of the recent
demonstration at the New West-
minster campus of Douglas
College have boasted that they
put the run on Premier Bennett.
Unfortunately, it will take more
than demonstrations of 100
people to make cabinet
ministers tackle the unem-

“You should be proud to be in the vanguard of

Trudeau's fight against inflation!”

ployment problem in a serious
fashion. ‘

As one delegate to the Van-
couver Labor Council put it:
“We have to judge such demon-
strations on the basis of whether
or not they assist in mobilizing
the broadest public pressure on
the main culprit, the federal
government and on its
provincial accomplice, the
Socred government in Vic
toria.””

It was obvious that the
majority at this labor council
meeting agreed with the speaker
and they demonstrated their
feelings by voting to call upon
the Federation to organize a
lobby-demonstration to go to
Victoria in the early part of 1971
when the legislature will be in
session. This project should be
endorsed by every local union,
along with the demand for a
national lobby to Ottawa.

responsibility for dealing with
unemployment rests with the
Sederal government. Hence the
aeed to prod the national leader-
‘hip of the CLC to get moving.
Wiiat about those unemployed
workers who do not belong to
trade unions? What about young
people coming into the labor
market without being able to
find jobs? What about university
graduates who cannot find
employment? What about the
needs of those in receipt of
welfare payments? What can the
labor movement do for these
people? I will deal with that in
my next article in the Pacific
Tribune. :

VITAL READING

The following books from the
People’s Co-op Bookstore, 341
West Pender, 685-5836, are
recommended as gifts:

Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia, _

by Farley Mowat—$10.00.

The National Dream — The
Great Railway, by Pierre
Berton— $10.00.

Look on Canada, Now— Selected
writings — by Leslie Morris —
$3.95 paper— $10.00 cloth.

Hard Times, An Oral History of

the Great Depression— by Studs
Terkel—$10.95. :
Poems in Wood —Boxed—lavish
art book on old Russian’ wood
carvings— orig. $22.50, Special—
$14.00.

Labor’s Untold Story —New
edition — Boyer and Morais —
$3.50.

The Second Indo-China’ War-
Cambodia and Laos— by Wilfred
Burchett — $2.50 paperback.

The Only Good Indian—Essays
by Canadian Indians, edited by
Waubageshig — $3.50.

How a People Die —
Documentary Novel of tragedy
of N.A. Indians— by Alan Fry —
$5.79.

Russian Wooden Sculpture
—large format — originally
$14.50, special $9.95.

Full line of 1971 calendars, from
$1.25 to $9.95.

19th Annual Collection Norris
Cartoons— $1.00. ;
This Land is Your Land —12”
L/P Record-Songs of social
protest— UAW— $5.95.

{The Horned Lamb— .50 cents.
Ring 0’ Roses — Treasury for
Children—3 to 8 years— $2.95.

B.C. readers please include 5
percent sales tax. Present this
list for 10 percent discount on
any of the above books.

Seasons’ Greetings for a happy
and peaceful New Year from the
.People’s Co-op Bookstore.

on

“Wait till it stops first!”

In the final analysis, the major .

The real ‘lesson
from Active Pass

BY MAURICE RUSH

The report of the Federal inquiry into the collision in Active
Pass on August 2 involving the B.C. ferry Queen of Victoria and.
the Soviet vessel Sergey Yesenin, which was released last

- week, holds some serious lessons for British Columbians.

Readers will recall that when the collision occured an
attempt was made immediately to drag out the red herring.
The media, leading B.C. politicians, and other anti-com-
munist Don Quixotes rode off to do battle against the ‘‘red
menace on our Coast.”

Particularly noticeable was the statement of provincial
government leaders who prejudged the case and immediately
put the blame on the Soviet vessel. Others linked the collision
to alleged “‘illegal activities” of Soviet fishing vessels in inter-
national waters off Vancouver Island. It was a barefaced
attempt to stir up a McCarthyite atmosphere and to panic the
public into a spate of anti-Sovietism.

As for the latter issue, — that of the fishing vessels — this
question was resolved in friendly negotiations in Ottawa to
most people’s satisfaction.

The thing that stood out in those talks was the constructive
attitude of the representatives of the Soviet fishing industry,:
who came to the talks with concrete proposals for resolving the
problem. Those who tried to stir up an anti-Soviet storm found
the wind taken out of their sails by the co-operative attitude of
the Soviet representatives.

Now, the report by inquiry commissioner Mr. Justice E.J.C.
Stewart, should cause a lot of red faces among those who hate
that color, the anti-Communist, anti-Soviet brigade.

The report exonerates the Soviet vessel and its captain and
crew from blame in the near disaster. Blame in the report is
fixed with these words:

“cc

. . the short reason for this collision was faulty
seamanship, inexplicable on the part of Captain Crabbe, under-
standable but inexusable on the part of Captain Pollock;
neither was able to rise to the emergency which together they
had created. . .”

As a result of the inquiry the licence of pilot Captain David
Crabbe has been suspended for 15 months and Captain James
Pollock is left with a black mark against his record. Thus the
blame is fixed. It is hoped that the authorities will take steps to
make the dangerous Active Pass safer for future navigation.

However, it is not our intention to gloat over the fate of the
two on whom blame has been placed. To err is human, even
though in this case the actions of the two captains barely
avoided a catastrophe by sheer luck.

But for the government officials, members of the press,
radio and TV, as well as some naval spokesman, who saw in
this tragedy a chance to whip up a McCarthyite anti-Soviet and
anti-Communist witch-hunt, there can be no excuse. Here there
was no error, only blind hatred of everything to do with the
Soviet Union and socialism.

Unfortunately we still have too many of this element in our
midst, who would seize on any pretext to wage their dis-
creditted cold war against the land of socialism and everything
progressive.

We need to learn the lessons of the tragedy to make our sea
lanes safer. But there is also another important lesson the
public must learn from the tragedy: that anti-Sovietism and
red baiting are devices to mislead the people and should be
rejected. ea

> SOQA9—-OVOl 11 F59745 930 YAGIMA- -34UaIAT PAIDAT

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1970—PAGE 3