By WM. STEWART tetary-Treasurer, Marine $ and Boilermakers Union the November 20 edition of mnadian Tribune, Tom Mc- —-§ column was on_ the 7 Subject of “patriotism,” Particularly with the CPR oct f that much-abused ,edder took umbrage at Mc- pS Column and forwarded following letter to which sq OPular B.C. columnist re- “4 me to write a reply. The : CPR may not be full of Syriot love, but neither are nie Workers and Boiler- 8. With their unrealistic $ they are forcing the 2 of ship yards in Canada, inne Priced the Canadian inp ted industry out of ay markets. Won’t be long before we - pan the same position as »-, with two men being Paid to do every one man’s oe? the country goes have no connection with the CPR or the Boiler- » but I like to see the ° Placed where it belongs. ecen't for the fact that I Pe corned for the good of untry, I would like to see shipbuilding industry dis- eg the West Coast al- f° grabbing union is answer to the above letter, Y be pointed out that at no time has the Marine Workers’ & Boilermakers’ Industrial Union, Local #1, ever asked for a ship- building subsidy. What we have asked for, and will continue to ask for, is a shipping subsidy on behalf of the shipowners who carry our goods to the four‘cor- ners of the world. We have consistently stated the fact that Canada, as_ the fourth largest trading nation in the world, should have: a Mer- chant Marine. Not only are we the fourth largest trading nation in the world, but we are the only country blessed with ac- cess to three oceans — Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic — all of which can take ships and shipping within season. However, while the new emerging nations of Africa and, to a smaller extent, Latin America, are developing their own Merchant Marines with a hundredth of the trading ability of Canada, the Republic of Ireland has a Merchant Ma- rine of some 30 or 40 ships, and Switzerland, which has no ocean coast-line, has a Merchant Marine, our 17,000 miles of ‘ coast-line on the three oceans mentioned above have not one Canadian ship carrying the Canadian flag. e We have reached the stage where it is more expensive to the taxpayers of Canada not to_ have a Merchant Marine than it is to have a Merchant Marine. This was expressed by both the Financial: Post and the Financial Times: that the amount of money that we are expending to carry our goods to all of our customers is greater than it would be to have our own Mer- chant Marine. In saying this, it must be recognized that the bal- ance of payments is the most important economic question to any nation. When your balance of payments reaches the stage of putting out more than you take in, then you must examine your relationships. We have, as a union, the Ma- rine Workers’ & Boilermakers’ Industrial Union, Local #1, ask- ed for a shipping subsidy. We did so advisedly because the Canadian Shipbuilding Associa- tion and their components do not need a subsidy. Let us look at-an example. : The principal owners of Bur- rard Dry Dock have two classes of shareholders, who may be roughly classified as Class B— the Wallace family, and Class A —— all others. The “others,” the Class A shareholders, have what amounts to a five percent bond. Year in and year out, they re- ceive a flat five percent dividend on their original investment, ir- respective of the profits of the company. The only exception was in 1961, when. they were given an ($75,000) as a legal require- ment for permitting the Class B shareholders (The Wallaces) to withdraw five million dollars. Let’s look at the record over the past 12 years. During those years, that is from 1956 to 1967, the Class A shareholders have received $112,500 a year as a return on their investment of $2,250,000 harp-pencil boys anger workers leaflet issued by the Ford Frame Plant of Con- ed Unionists, ' UAW, asks, the Ford Company sharp il boys cut the guts out of th St of Living Clause dur- ie 1967 Ford negotiations?” “0 the leaflet, widely read , distributed amongst the ¢ Workers in the giant Rouge © for the 20 cents wage in- i and those fringe benefits 8h the cost of living gut- "and do you remember that asks, “Are we now pay- the last cost of living increase, we Ford workers received was June, 1967, the next one to be Dec. 7, 1968 and that will be for only seven weeks of 1968?” Says the leaflet, “Here are the facts: “Nov. 25, we will receive the Annual Improvement Factor in- crease. For most of the Frame plant production workers (and the close to 25,000 other Rouge production workers) this will amount to 11 cents an hour and will show on our checks in the - base rate column. Dec. 27, 1968 we will receive an 8 cent cost of living increase that will show in the C.O.L. box as 13 cents instead of the present 5 cents. This 8 cents will be paid - by separate check on Dec. 27 and will be for only seven weeks of 1968. This will be the only cost of living money we will receive for 1968. “Before you blow yourself on a Xmas binge based on this check a little arithmetic will show seven weeks at 8 cents an hour will wind up at less than 20 bucks after Uncle Sam By WILLIAM ALLAN Phi DETROIT ty of osFord Corp. a_subsidi- — the Ford Motor Co., has Philco-Ford’s $1-million plant in Taiwan is now in full pro- duction, employing 800 work- ers, mostly girls, at 12.5 cents ‘an hour and plans to increase the slave force to 3,000. The 800,000 unemployed in Taiwan is just what firms like Philco-Ford are looking for, be- cause they figure they'll work for next to nothing, and the re- gime of Chiang-Kai-Shek will put down with violence any ef- fort to build a union. Haire, Philco-Ford executive _ admitted to the AP reporter, Peter Arnett, that American women workers in Santa Clara, California, would get $2.50 an hour, for the painstaking care- ful work involved in putting circuits and transistors togeth- er. In Philco-Ford’s new $1-mil- lion dollar plant in Taiwan, for doing exactly the same work, Chinese women workers get 12.5 cents an hour. The minimum wage in Tai- wan is $15 a month, male or female if one is unskilled. The new Philco-Ford plant is loc- ated in the Southern part of Taiwan. This area has been de- veloped to attract foreign capi- tal and so far 68 factories have been built employing 15,000 Taiwan workers with the mini- mum wage, $15 a month for those unskilled. PACIFIC TRIBUNE— DECEMBER 13, 1968—Page 7