2nd Issue
June, 1961.

WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

NICOLA VALLEY MEMBERS

yoting on the Conciliation Officer Report and

authority to strike, during the meeting held in the Canadian Legion Hall, Merritt.

Union That Owns Airline
Now Is In Insurance

The Association of Supervisory
Staffs, Executives and Technic-
ians, which recently startled the
trade union world by buying an
airline to gain representation on
the Air Transport Licensing
Board, has now started its own
insurance company. eS
It has gone into partnership with a

large firm of brokers in a company
which is to handle all forms of insur-
ance for the union’s 25,000 members
and their dependants.

The original intention was to en-
sure that all members had adequate
pension schemes, but it has now been
extended to give coverage over a
wider field.

While the union will make a profit
from its business activities it will
give some benefit to its policy hold-
ing members by giving them insur-
ance at less than the normal com-
mercial rate.

This union, which has the young-
est General Secretary in Britain, 35-
year-old Clive Jenkins, has also caus-
ed many eyebrows to he raised by
advertising for new members on tele-
vision—and getting them.

It has been stated that the new
members gained in this way have al-
ready paid more in dues than the
amount which was spent on the ads
in Ulster and Newcastle-upon-Tyne
areas.

ILO Survey Shows

Canada Lagging Badly
In Social Security

How good is Canada’s spending on social security for those in
need in relation to the other countries of the world? Not good
according to the latest study made by the I.L.O. but if it’s any
consolation we are well ahead of the Americans who are ranked
with such countries as Portugal and Panama.

The study covers 41 countries and to even the casual reader, certain well-
founded conclusions are immediately apparent:

@ Practically every country in the world has some form of social security.
® Most countries have medical care programs, the product of legislation.
@ The countries spending the largest percentage of their income on social
welfare programs are the highly industrialized, progressive states of western
Europe.

It should be explained that the ILO study ranks as social security pro-
grams such things as sickness and unemployment insurance, pensions, fam-
ily allowances, public health services and so on.

To be considered for inclusion in the ILO study, the program must

- have been set up by legislation and administered by a public, semi-public
or autonomous body. Only a few Iron Curtain countries are included,
since the ILO did not consider the statistical data made available by
them as sufficient.

Here are the top 33 countries listed, with the percentages of national in-
come spent on social security expenditures:

West’ Germany spon 20.0 Switzerland ... 8.2
France ............ a ee 17.9 Wei
Austria 7.6
Italy 6.6
New: Zealand #3225. es— 6.6
Sweden 5.7
Finland 5.7
Denmark 5.3
Netherlands ............ i 5.2
United Kingdom ... South Africa ccna 44
Ireland Ceylon 4.1
Guatemala ...... 2.9
Turkey 1.2
, Viet Nam 1.0
Australia 8.8 India 1.0
Canada 8.5 Taiwan oc 0.3
Chile 8.5

The ILO study is released at a time when the question of medical care
through social security is developing into a major issue in this country.

For many of the nations in the world, this addition to social security
would be considered relatively minor. Most of our allies, particularly in
western Europe, have long since adopted programs of national health
insurance which provide protection for all citizens. Countries such as the
United Kingdom, West Germany, France and Italy are regarded as free
democracies and yet they have found that freedom is better safeguarded
when a high priority is placed on the health and well-being of their
citizens.

In its article on the British program of national health insurance, Look
magazine pointed this out by saying:
“The crucial choice the British have made is to place health on the list
of essential services—just as we do with education, sanitation, water supply,
the police and the armed services. It’s a life-and-death matter, the British
say, and they have acted accordingly.” .

SS a

Progress with

51 West Hastings St.

A Union Shop

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For over half a century the standard

by which fine Footwear is judged

Pierre Paris & Cons

Japan Now
Military
Power

TOKYO—This may come as

a shock to greying veterans of
World War II but Japan is again
emerging as a major military
power in Asia.
Japan’s new military organization
remains modest in size and defensive
in nature. But military observers con-
cede that the tightly organized, well-
trained force, man-for-man, is rapidly
gaining the status as one of the best
in Asia.

It is considered as an increasingly
significant counter-balance to Com-
munist military power in the North-
west Pacific-Russian, Red Chinese
and North Korean,

Its leaders are experienced veterans
of the Pacific war.

Ground forces chief of staff Ichiji
Sugita is a son-in-law of former
Premier General Hideki Tojo. He
was on the staff of General Yamashita
who planned the famed conquest of
Singapore. He unsuccessfully attemp-
ted hara-kiri at wars end but was
aboard the battleship Missouri for the
surrender.

Air Defence Chief of Staff is Gen-
eral Minoru Genda, a member of
Admiral Yamamoto’s staff at the
start of the war. He was on the
Japanese carrier “Akagi,” flagship of

.| the task force which carried out the

attack against Pearl Harbour.

The army reorganization, scheduled
for completion by 1962, would of
course, also allow for possible rapid
expansion of strength in an emer-
gency.

The Air Force, or “Air Self-De-
fence Force” will obtain its first
F-104-F fighter planes next year to
replace some 460 F-86-F jetfighters,
many of them produced in Japan,

The Navy (‘Maritime Self-Defence
Force”) is already the largest all-
Asian navy in the Far East.

It has two new submarines and two
destroyers under construction to rein-
force a fleet already totalling 104,408
tons. Already in service are 42 de-
stroyers and escort-type vessels, 50
minesweepers and mine tenders and
two submarines. s

New Canadian

Paris

Vancouver, B. C.

Re a
ote
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