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Labor Relations Act, yet the
police, by herding scabs through
the line, “protect the owners’
right to violate the act.”

Several delegates took the
floor in support of the resolu-
tion, many dwelling on the wid-
er implications of the proposals
of the police chiefs. Henry
Waisbach, of the Ontario Fede-
ration of Labor, stated that the
“first people who get hit by a
police state is the labor move-
ment.” Other delegates spoke of
the need for the labor movement
to take the lead to see that such
conditions do not arise in Can-
ada,

Jail for eight years? What did he
want me to do that. morning
down in Washington, D.C. when
Hoffa was led away by the U.S.

marshals with the handcuffs on.

him—laugh and chuckle like
Clyde Mollinoff of the Des
Moines Registar did?

I have known Hoffa since
1935 in Detroit when I was help-
ing as a volunteer organizer of
Bakery workers and he was
working to get Kroger workers
into a warehouse union. The
Kroger workers were working
for 23 cents an hour.

I stepped forward when Hofffa
was being led away to Lewis-
burg Federal Penitentiary some
weeks ago and shook his hand
as did some other members of
the American Newspaper Guild,
AFL-CIO. The anti-labor Detroit
News sneered on its front page
that “Billy Allan, notorious
Communist, had shaken hands
with Hoffa as he was led away.”
I have had many differences
with Hoffa down through the
years, his methods, the “cult”
that exists and which he en-
Couraged, his exorbitant wages

170 LOSE JOBS

Tip Top experience
proves importance
of protective clauses

By PEARL WEDRO

Recent developments in To-
ronto at Tip Top Tailors prov-
ides a glaring example of the
insecurity of workers, the ex-
treme heartlessness of big in-
dustrialists and of the heavy
responsibility of trade unions
for their almost criminal neg-
ligence in negotiating contracts
without seniority clauses and
provisions for severence pay in
the case of sale and closure.

Fifty-five years ago a small
tailoring shop was opened in
Toronto which developed into
Canada’s largest clothing manu-
facturer of men’s clothes. Tip
Top have outlets in most Can-
adian cities and towns and, as
a millionaire firm, employed
more than 1,000 workers. The
union is the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers Union AFL-
CIO-CLC which carried on so-
called “respectable negotiations”
giving up the strike weapon.
Militant unionists who demand-
ed greater democracy in the
union and the right to strike if
necessary were treated roughly.
They were suspended from at-
tending meetings and expelled
as the union and the shops.

any of these militant fighters
were family men and experienc-
ed workers who were forced to

.

POINT OF VIEW

of $75,000 a year, his conserva-
tive political views. But he is not
a fink.

When the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled he had to go to jail, some
70,000 Michigan Teamster mem-
bers walked off their jobs in
protest. Officers of the Interna-
tional Longshoremen’s and Ware-
housemen’s Union called it a
“dirty anti-labor frameup.” US.
Chief Justice Earl Warren said
the case “is offensive to the fair
administration of justice.”

What does Canadian Team-
ster call the going of Hoffa to
‘jail?

Sure, he’s right when he says
the Teamsters is a vital, dyna-
mic. strong international union,
the proof of that is they number
1,880,000, the largest in North
America. And it won't collapse
with Hoffa in Jail. The fact is
that many are voting against,
may vote down the proposed
settlement, brought back from
negotiations with Truckers Em-
ployers Inc., and there could be
a strike of the 450,000 freight
drivers to win more.

It’s part of a fresh wind blow-

seek work in open shops with
low wages and no protection. In
those years, in the 20’s and
early 30's, it was enough to find
a worker in an Amalgamated
Union shop selling a progressive
paper for him to be immediately
brought up on charges.

Recently, Tip Top sold out to
the Poslum Brothers. It was a
plain business deal and it is be-
lieved that Mr. Dunkelman is
still director of the sharehold-
ers. The new company informed
the union that they will now
produce only 50 percent of the
special orders. This meant that
160 to 170 workers were to be
dismissed. At a union meeting,
the business manager, Mr. Fox,
told the workers that the union
has done all it could and that
new employment will be sought
for the dismissed workers. The
union did try to enforce senior-
ity but was blocked by the con-
tract they negotiated without a
seniority clause. This was as far
as the union would go. It was
‘now the company who ruled on
who was to be dismissed.

Of the 170 workers already
dismissed, a considerable num-
ber are in their sixties and have
worked for Tip Top for 30, 40
or more years. All the insecur-
ity became real as they walked

ing in America, moving the trade
unionists, the peace forces, civil
rights movements into greater
pressure on the rulling class.

Rank and file movements are
springing into life all over the
American labor movement, forc-
ing leaders to stand up and bat-
tle big businéss’s attacks. It’ll
force Teamsters leaders to do
likewise. It sure shifted Reu-
ther’s emphasis from a “guaran-
teed annual income” to substan-
tial wage raises, and it can do
the same in the Teamsters for
more money, better fringes than
the present offer now being vot-
ed on.

Canadian Teamster sees that
“God and his Co-Pilot” (Frank
Fitzsimmons, acting president)
sat down with employers and
cut a deal before Hoffa went to
jail. Just what proof there is of
this wild-eyed charge, I couldn’t
find in his blast.

Some 200,000 American team-
sters were locked out here by
TEI. Senators Robert Griffin and
Senator Dirksen rushed to in-
troduce anti-strike bills banning
national strikes. LBJ was set to

out with only their unemploy-
ment books and scissors after
having sweated out their youth
in Tip Top’s factories as the
company walked away with mil-
lions in profits. The workers
spoke of the heartlessness of the
company for not even giving
token recognition for years of
service.

One of the workers, a man in
his sixties who was recovering
from an operation, collapsed and
died on his way to the unem-
ployment insurance office fol-
lowing his dismissal. At his
funeral, co-workers said that the
loss of his job was the final
blow.

To date, the union has been
able to place some workers in
new jobs, but many older work-
ers will not find employment
again. Those able to retire will
receive $55 per month from the
union. This sum added to the
$75 per month from the govern-
ment which some will receive
still does not meet the high
costs of living.

This example at Tip Top
should serve as a warning to all
workers to press their unions to
fight for protective clauses in
contracts and for a guaranteed

._ income. This should be the goal

today.

)__ Let's ask: why was Hoffa jailed?

use the 80 day Taft Hartley cool-
ing off period. Preceding all this,
Hoffa was railroaded to jail. The
conspiracy was pretty clear, all
aimed at dealing a body blow
at this: great union, the first to
go into 1967 negotiations, and
of course intimidate 314 million
other unionists going into nego-
tiations in ’67.

A pact was reached and the
vote is on the national three
year contract negotiated with
the truckers. The wages part
provides a 12 cents hourly raise
and an additional 11 cents cost
of living increase that became
effective March 31, under the
old contract. On April 1, 1968
the agreement also provides a
12 cents raise, and another 13
cents on April 1, 1969. A cost of
living raise of maximum 5 cents
an hour is permitted April, 1968.
And another nickel maximum
April 1, 1969.

The vote here was- 1,591 No,
and 1,046 Yes. Some 8,000 driv-
ers are affected in Michigan.
The national vote was not com-
pleted as this is written, but it’s
close.

May 19, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5.