By WILLIAM KASHTAN

William Mahoney, Canadian director of the UnitedSteel Workers
who won the acclaim of monoply interests last year by his statement
that ‘strikes were obsolete’’, seems now to
have shifted his position some what. Addres-
sing a community forum debate in Kitchener
recently he was reported as saying that strikes
will become more frequent and more disrup-
tive unless radically new techniques are de-
veloped and accepted for solving labor-manage-
ment problems in Canada.

It took a few years for Mr. Mahoney to face
up to the facts of life. During the period in
which he declared ‘‘strikes were obsolete’’ the
strike movement gathered strength, grew in scope and intensity and
increasingly took on more and more of a policical character.

Not only that. It is interesting to note that sections of working
people who were considered conservative in their approach and out-
look have likewise been compelled to take up the strike weapon as
a means of redressing the situation.

The strike of teachers outside of Edmonton, the strike of nurses
in one of the children’s hospitals in Montreal, the present strike
of hospital employees in Trenton, all morror the fact that not only
production workers but the ‘‘white collar’’ workers, pressed by
somewhat the same conditions as blue collar workers, are compelled
to react in the same way.

* * *

Thus, notwithstanding Mr, Mahoney’s fondest hopes, the class
struggle continues and extends in scope reaching out to ever new -
sections of the working people.

This is also made evident in the growth of ‘‘wild-cat’’ strikes
which this column drew attention to before and which is now spread-
ing in the automotive industry. Plagued by increased work loads
and speed-up and an accumulation of grievances which the auto
companies have completely ignored, the workers have been compel-
led to take matters into their hands,

These ‘‘wild-cat’’ strikes have not only brought to public at-
tention the extent of increased exploitation of the working class;
they have also brought to the forefront the unsatisfactory nature of
labor acts which give the: monopoly interests full leeway to speed
up the workers and undertake other actions against them without the
unions being in a position to legally strike during the period of the

contract. : x =

It is time this situation was corrected. Not only is there need
for unions to seek out ways and means of improving contracts to
protect the workers against such onerous conditions; what is equally
necessary is that the labor acts be amended so that either workers
have the right to strike during the period of the contract or they have
the right to strike on all questions not covered by the contract.

The entire trade union movement needs to give increasing at-
tention to this, equally as it needs to give attention to the growing
pressures beiae developed by monope?y interests to curb labor’s right
to strike,

It is not accidental that the capitalist press has recently given
considerable publicity to proposals for compulsory arbitration. Nor
is it accidental, as was the case during the Longshoremen’s strike
in Montreal and other Quebec cities, that voices were raised de-
manding government intervention to end the strike.
manding government intervention to end the strike. Government

intervention and regulation of the trade union movement (of which
compulsory arbitration is a part) are dangerous phenomena which

the workers need to resist in the strongest possible fashion.
* * *

This demand for government intervention and for compulsory
arbritation does not only come from anti-labor elements; it comes
from voices within the trade union movement itself. A case in point
is the statement made by A. G. Hearn, Canadian vice-president of
the Building Service Employees union which is presently conducting
a strike of hospital employees in Trenton, who, if the press reports
him correctly, said that ‘‘union members regarded the government’s
action in failing to introduce compulsory arbitration as a breach of
faith,”’

The same press story points out that a three-man committee
was established by the labor minister to study the question of apply-
ing compulsory arbitration in labor-management disputes affecting
public hospitals, one of the members being the Ontario regional
director of organization for the Canadian Labor Congress.

* * *
What we have here is a fresh upsurge of class collaborationist

tendencies on the part of the right wing which may wwll fall in line
tendencies on the part of the right wing which may well fall in line
with Mr. Mahoney’s views that ‘‘new techniques’’ are needed for
solving labor-management problems in Canada. :

Whatever these new techniques may be, workers should be
on the alert and firmly resist any ‘‘new techniques’’ which infringe
on their right to strike and the use of the strike weapon when neces-

AUUC & WBA

FALL BAZAAR
At 805 East Pender St.

Thurs., Fri. & Sat., Nov. 14, 15, 16
From 7:30 p.m. Each Evening

@ Display of International Folk Handicrafts

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@ Games — White Elephant Stall — Ukrainian Meal
served from 5:30 p.m.—Tea Room

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-miles

MECHANIZATION HELPS WORKERS

Automation has no terror
for Russian dock workers

By ESTHER SHIELDS

ILICHEVSK ~— Yuri Stankov
showed us how youth and auto-
mation go together happily in
the Soviet Union’s newest Black
Sea port, [ichevsk.,

The new harbor has 4,000dock
workers, They handle the over-
flow shipping from Odessa, 15
away. They are young
fellows of 18 to 26. Their chief
engineer - Yuri - is only 27.
And his youthful enthusiasm came
out as he guided us around his
highly mechanized port.

We craned our necks upward
to see the long line of huge,

_ four-legged dock-side cranes.

**Only five years ago this was
just a dry salt lake blocked off
from the Black Sea,’’ Stankov
explained. ‘‘We opened a gate
to the sea, dredged deeper chan-
nels, constructed ship berths and
a dock-side railway, and installed
the cranes. In August, 1958, our
first ship arrived. Now we have
seven berths for freighters
coming from many countries.’’

Stankov looked across the bay
with his penetrating grey eyes.
‘*¢We can build 30 berths on this
side and another 30onthat side,’’
the enthusiastic young engineer
explained. ‘‘Our trade is expand-
ing. We have a big future.

* * *

**How do you schedule the dock

work?’’ we asked, wondering if
Ilichevsk dock workers have to
alternate between rush periods
and no work, likemany American
longshoremen.

**Usually we have all the ships
we can handle,”’ Stankov replied.
**But when there is no work on
the docks, the workers get their
standby guarantee of three rubles
a day. That’s about a third of their
regular daily wage rate. Butthey
are assigned to other work at
whatever wage is paid there, in
addition to the three rubles.

**Our workers can always help
out in construction,’’ Stankov
added. ‘*We have so much to
build, especially new apart-
ments.”’

Union jurisdiction problems
do not hold up these Soviet
dockers. Their own trade union
unites all the workers of ships
and docks, seamen as well as
longshoremen. The union en-
courages time to learn several
skills. Almost half of the Black
Sea dock workers already are
trained to operate fork-lift and
other trucks, short cranes on
truck bodies, or other mechanical
equipment,

* * *

‘*What about overtime work,
when ships come in too fast?’’

*“‘Sometimes it is necessary to
work more than theregular seven
hour shift,’’ Stankov agreed. ‘‘ But

like human beings!”

“You must realize, Mr. Gummidge, you can’t work them

Unions in USSR win
short week, more pay

MOSCOW -—Important gains by
the Soviet Union’s 68 million
trade unionists were listed by
Secretary Leonid Solovyev of the
All-Union Trade Council re-
cently.

The standard work week has
already dropped to 39 hours and
24 minutes, he told press cor-
respondents, The work week will
be cut again in the coming year.
And the unions expect to win a
six-hour day by the end of the
country’s seven-year plan in
1965.

Miners and some other heavy
industry workers already enjoy
the 36-hour week and expect
further reductions. With the
shorter work week, wages have
been inscreased 26% for the
miners, 14% for steel and other
metal workers, 12% for chemical
workers, for example,

The Soviet leader dealt with
other material gains, as he an-
nounced the Thirteenth Congress
of the Soviet trade unions will
begin Oct. 24, But he gave major
attention to the increasing role of
the organized workers in man-
aging industry.

‘*Trade union production con-
ferences especially give the wor-
kers an opportunity to direct
and govern all the activities of
their plants,’’ Solovyev explained
to us. ‘‘These conferences con-
sider what new machinery, new
techniques and processes should
be introduced. The trade union-
ists can criticize management
and they elect permanent execu-
tive committees to follow through
on recommendations,”’

‘Profits are examined, too,”’
the trade union secretary con-
tinued. The trade unionists have
their say on distribution of profits
for wage increases or reduction
of prices. Or they may propose
increasing welfare funds for
workers’ education, vacations,
pensions and other substantial
‘*fringe’’ benefits,

“Soviet workers are very much
interested in boosting production
of their own plants andthe country
= a whole,’’ Solovyev stated,

They know from their own ex-
perience that greater labor pro-
ductivity brings them a higher
standard -of living,’ he said,

a

__ November 15, 1963~—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—P®

the trade union must give its
consent in every case for such
overtime work: An individual
worker may not work overtime
more than two seven-hour shifts
in one month. And overtime work
must be paid double the regular.
wage.”

Another young man, chairman
A.F. Lugovtsov of the Maritime
Trade Union Committee of the
whole Black Sea area, supple-
mented Stankov’s remarks,

‘*Arrivals and departures of
Soviet ships are carefully
timed,’? Lugovtsov explained,
Thus the docks work with little
interruption. ‘‘But foreign ships
don’t follow our schedule, so
sometimes we have rush days
with overtime.”’

**Under our planned economy,
we want the highest mechaniz-
ation of work,’’ the trade union
chairman continued. ‘‘Our aimis
to take the heavy work off the
workers’ backs,”’

A seaman with us joked about
the dock workers: ‘‘Those sun-
tanned Apollos like to show off
to the girls. But nowthey develop
their muscles in sports, not on
the job.’’

The trade union encourages
workers to develop new methods
of lightening the work, Lugovtsov
went on. Black Sea dock and
maritime workers have proposed
23,000 new devices and improve-
ments in the last six months,
They receive bonuses out of the
money saved.”’

Moe * *

**Of course, mechanization re-
duces the number of workers
needed for a particular job,’’ the
trade union chairman admitted.
**But Soviet shipping is growing
fast. We always need nore wor-
kers on ships and docks,”’

Then engineer Stankov took
us to see a brigade of dock
workers unloading the new So-
viet ship ‘*Frederick Joliot-Cu-
rie.’’ We watched a giant crane
lift a load of raw rubber from
Malaya from the hold. The crane
operator swung the load out and
dropped it gently in front-of us—
15 bales of 250 pounds each.

Four dock workers quickly
unfastened the double clamps on
each bale and the crane swung
back toward the ship, Stankov
told us that four other workers

‘in the hold put the clamps on

the bales. A woman-checker—
not part of the brigade—stood
in the bow keeping score onthe
work.

On the dock a powerful lift-
truck, with a huge scoop easily
caught up the rubber bales and
hurried off to the warehouse.
There we found three more men
of the brigade helping stack bales.

“Who controls the sling-
loads?’’ we asked Stankov.

“The trade union committee
decides on the basis of safety,’
the engineer replied, ‘‘Every
dock worker gets at least tw
weeks’ training, mostly on saf-
ety. Everyone must pass an eX"
amination on safety rules. The
trade union is very insistent abou
this and other safety measures
generally, If the union committee
finds someone in m amagement
negligent or violating safety, he
can be sent to prison.”’

Ilichevsk has entertained loné-
shoremen’s union representa
tives and port officials from $4
Francisco and elsewhere. ae
lichevsk’s Port Authority ch
Khantadze commented that
president of the U.S. Foreiél
Trade Council visited the re
port this year, Khantadze and his”
young engineer Stankov tol
they hope to see American SH*
soon in their proud young P©