12 EDITORIAL THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER OBLIGATION acMILLAN, Bloedel & Powell River Ltd., which late last year invested heavily in Spain, announced recently that it and the United Fruit Company of Boston will shortly construct a $55,000,000 linerboard mill in Alabama. This news should be viewed with grave concern by B.C. woodworkers and Canadians generally. The company, which is the thirteenth largest in Canada, derives its profits from the natural resources of the country. Because of this, the IWA questions the moral right of the company to invest profits from such a source, into low-wage, anti-union areas. Both Spain and the State of Alabama are notorious in this respect. The trade union movement is a mockery in Spain and virtually nonexistent in Alabama. Wages paid in Alabama are the lowest in the United States, averaging from $1.00 to $1.25 an hour. The wage rates in Spain are even lower. The IWA believes M.P.& P.R. owes an obligation to its Canadian employees which it is not fulfilling by in- vesting its profits in low-wage areas of the world. Such investments will ultimately break down the workers’ standard of living here and could seriousiy affect the country’s economy. The IWA suggests that if M.B.& P.R. had any sense of responsibility to its workers, it would help spur the economy by investing some of its profits in the depressed areas of Canada. Failing this, the federal government should tax the company so heavily as to make all foreign investments unprofitable. UNIQUE INJUNCTION The Supreme Court of Brit- ish Columbia has issued an in- junction against McLennan, McFeely & Prior Ltd., pre- venting them from hiring any new employees. The injunction was issued to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union who applied to the Courts for a ruling on a Memorandum of Settlement signed between the parties following a labour dispute in 1964. Retail, Wholesale and De- partment Store Union Inter- national Representative R. Haynes said, “that the case was taken to Court following ihe Company’s discharge of 106 employees who had walk- ed off the job protesting speed-up and poor working conditions back in November 1964.” Two weeks after the walk- out began, settlement was reached which provided that in addition to those who had already returned to work dur- ing the walkout the Company THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER Editor — Business Manager Forwarded to ever accordance with conven $2.00 per year. Advertising Representative | _ would hire an additional fifty- five of the discharged employ- ees. Instead, the Company of- fered employment to fifty-five and when only forty-four re- turned refused to recall an- other eleven employees. Sub- sequently the Union filed suit to have the additional eleven employees reinstated, Justice Brown of the B.C. Supreme Court in his judg- ment stated he was unable to agree to the Company’s con- tention that they had fulfilled their obligation by offering employment. He stated “the obligation was to hire fifty- five.” He then granted an in- junction forbidding the Com- pany from hiring any new em- ployees until employment has been offered to all former em- ployees or fifty-five employ- ees are hired. He also ordered the Company to pay costs of the action. “The issuance of this type of injunction is most unique and will no doubt have far reaching effects in _ future labour-management re- lations,” said Mr. Haynes. WORKER Published twice monthly as the official publication of the INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA, Western Canadian Regiona} Council No. 1. Affiliated with AFL-CIO-CLC 2859 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. Lp? Phone 874-5261 iain ee, Kerr n-ne Fred Fieber .... G, A. Spencer member of the IWA in Western Canada in n decisions. Subscription rate for non-members Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for payment of postage in cash. 27,500 copies printed in this issue. Then... = Z ZB SS WHALEN - back in fifty-four | was pushin’ camp . . . ‘till me old man sold it. 1st Issue Feb., 1966 DIGEST (As Reader’s Digest is one of two U.S. publications getting a “free ride” under federal legislation on adver- tising content, this item should be of interest to Can- adian readers. It is taken from the RWDSU Record.) NEW YORK CITY — A recent article in Columbia University’s quarterly Jour- nalism Review, titled “Report on the Reader’s Digest,” has confirmed more or less offi- cially what many people have known for a long time — that the Digest is biased, one- sided, anti-labor and reaction- ary in its views. The article spotlighted the Digest’s record of distortion, its refusal to publish correc- tions of obviously false infor- mation which it prints, and its refusal to publish oppos- ing opinions. PLANNED The article by Leo M. Christenson, professor of po- litical science at Miami Uni- versity in Ohio and former editor of the Toledo Blade, also points out that about 70 per cent of Digest articles are either staff-written or plan- ned by the Digest and “plant- ed” in other magazines and then picked up by the Digest as a reprint. “These practices help in- sure that the Digest offers its own philosophy, not a sampl- ing of American opinion,” Christenson writes. “The philosophy is avowedly con- servative.” The Digest often publishes articles by ultra - conserva- tives without telling readers about the authors’ private af- filiations. Christenson cites an article smearing the U.S. Employment Service under the byline of Congressman ANTI-UNION Frank T. Bow (R.-Ohio). What the Digest didn’t tell its readers is that Bow has close relations with private em- ployment agencies and thus has some special interest in down-grading the USES. BURDEN The Digest has a long rec- ord of being staunchly anti- labor. Since 1952, Christen- son finds, the magazine has published 49 articles of this nature. Since 1944, it has “published more than 300 articles to give the impres- sion that Federal officials are congenitally extravagant, that deficit spending and the na- tional debt threaten disaster, that Federal taxes are an un- supportable burden . . . and the Federal power is a men- ace to the liberties of every American, great and small.” Many distortions of the work of Federal agencies in the pages of the Digest are cited. To illustrate these instances of distortion Christenson re- calls an infamous Digest arti- cle of a few years ago which charged the Bureau of Labor Statistics with doctoring fig- ures on unemployment. A whole series of falsehoods and. inaccuracies in the article were documented and brought to the magazine’s at- hv) ~ x, bn ~s = ” oS i tention, but the Digest re- ~ fused to print them. It also refused to report the fact that noted statisticians > t nt “ . ° % and economists issued a state- ment upholding the BLS com- pletely and finding the Digest article’s charges “to be with- out foundation.” FAILURE “This sequence of events,” Christenson sums up, “illus- trates what is perhaps the most disturbing Digest policy _ — its refusal to allow rebuttal or correction . . . Its failure to give individuals and agencies attacked on its pages an op- portunity for reply is inde- fensible by any professional standard.” es BIG PROFIT YEAR The Financial Post’s survey of industrial leaders shows that Canada’s businessmen are gearing up for another big year. “Sales and profits are expected to be up in more firms in 1966 than was the case in 1965,” FP says. The survey shows that 79%, against 787% last year, expect bigger sales, that almost 64% of the firms polled, against 57%, expect higher profits, In- creased spending is expected by 47% of the firms, while 33% reported that the price of products will go up. The executives believe that the chemical, rubber and paint industries will make sharper gains this year and that sales and profits in the steel and products industries will reg- ister a lesser increase. As fore- cast at the end of 1964, the oil and gas companies vastly improved their sales and prof- its during 1965 and Similar year] “ES we = ~=f > -x hod a at | —_ ? ££. t s . t i966. gains are expected for —. *