isha ct.

Civic union leaders blast press
distortions on bargaining talks

A satisfactory settlement in

workers) and the Vancouver City Council is expecte
offered an overall wage increase of 11.6 cents per ho ur.
settlement, providing the demands for a union shop, pay

a
City play group
Be % a
in drama hit

A new cultural institution has
been established this season by the
United Jewish People’s Order on
the west coast. This is the Van-
couver Jewish Drama _ Society,

whose first major production, Clif-
ford Odets’ “Awake and Sing,” will

be performed Sunday, February 27.

The effort of this dramatic group
has attracted considerable interest
in the Jewish community of Van-
couver, and in response a school
for drama has also been started.

The idea of a drama group arose
after the last concert put on. by
the UJPO in Vancouver, at which

time a skit was put on as a fill-in
number on the program, and very
well received by the audience. In
the flush of the success of their
first effort the “pinch-hitters”
quickly decided to end their tenta-
tive status and establish a regular
dramatic group.

The drama group and school,
open to members and non-members
of the UJPO alike, has about 40
people participating in the various
phases of its activity, including the
members of the cast of ‘Awake and
Sing” and the backstage crew, the
students of the school, and experts
in the field of drama who are
acting as instructors and advisers
to the group and the school.

“Awake and Sing” is under the
direction of Lucille Lipman, form-
erly of Toronto, and an actress
with the Vancouver Little Theatre.

_ The members of the cast include

Sylvia Jackson, Sol Jackson, Gert-
rude Snider and Oscar Osipov, all
formerly of Winnipeg, Bernie Fro-
man, formerly of Toronto, and
Barry Cramer, H. Levinson, Dick
Cahan and Carl Lehan. Mrs. Helen
Veno, formerly of Montreal, is
chairman of the drama society.
Other important cogs in the pro-
duction are Al Hestrin, the stage
manager, and Joyce Swick, make-
up.

The leaders of this dramatic pro-
ject proudly proclaim their two-
fold aim to be the advance of Jew-
ish culture and the portrayal of
social problems through the me-
dium of drama. Dr. Fred Katz,
president of the English-speaking
lodge of the UJPO and a prime
mover of the drama group, says
that “the Vancouver Jewish Dram-
atic Society is not interested in
‘art for art’s sake’ but in purpose-
ful art and culture.” This point has
already aroused a measure of con-
troversy in the community but the
society is firm in not being sway
from its purpose. ‘

Coal
Wood
Sawdust

PACIFIC 9588

the negotiations b:tween Local 28,
dd to be reached at an early date.
Union officials regard the’ offer as a basis of
day every Friday, and agreement to discuss any

minor details of contract adjust-
ment is acceptable as supplement-
ary to the main wage offer.
During the course of negotiations
union officials have been sharply
critical of the news coverage of
the commercial press. In a recent
Union News Bulletin commenting
on Vancouver News Herald issue
of February 22, the Union declares:

DON GUISE

“We can’t vouch for the other
stories on the front page, but the
story on our negotiations was not
founded on fact, and can only be
construed as a deliberate attempt
to confuse our membership and
stir up trouble.

“Contrary to the News Herald,

it is not true that the bargaining

Civic Employees Union (outside
The city has

committee have “reached a tacit
agreement with the city council
on wage increase demands which
will provide a seven percent gen-
eral wage boost for the 1,500 em-
ployees.

“The truth of the matter is this:

So far, the city has offered the

union wage increases for different
categories, ranging from nine cents
upwards, with substantial adjust-
ments for tradesmen, foremen and
truckdrivers. The average increase
would be about 11.6 cents per hour.

“The bargaining committee ag-
reed with the city that no press
releases would be given until we
had received the final offer from
the council and placed it before
our membership,

“This was the practice followed
last year, and it gave our members
a chance to get everything first
hand, without a lot of distort/1,
confused articles in the press.

“The News-Herald story did not
come from our bargaining com-
mittee. ‘

“The dirtiest part of the story
was the inference that the bar-
gaining committee had settled
the matter without consulting
the membership. This is utterly
ridiculous. ” :

Don Guise, business agent of Lo-
cal 28, informed the Pacific Tribune
at press time that 50 shop stew-
ards, representing every outside de-
partment, together with the union
executive will discuss the negotia-
tion developments as of to date.
On March 4 a full meeting of the
membership will discuss the coun-
cil’s propositions in detail, and by
secret ballot decide whether these
can be accepted as a basis of
settlement, or instruct their bar-
gaining committee to continue fur-
ther negotiations.

Gov't head key figure
in Kootenay land gra

=-NELSON, B.C;

Many. residents of the West Kootenays are casting a bitter eye
on what they call “‘the big steal around Duck Lake.” Duck Lake
is near Creston and this is where the Creston Reclamation Company

operates. Minister of Agriculture
this company, which aims at in-
troducing “big capitalist’ farming
methods in the Creston Valley or,
alternatively, cleaning up  hand-
some real estate profits.

The project was flooded out last
spring and the company went bank-
rupt. They were rescued when the
Coalition government came through
with $50,000 to reclaim the land,

The ‘result has been that the
company seems to be in a good
enough position to request rights
for another 4,000 acres.
‘Residents imply that Guy Con-
stable, who was made receiver
when the company was made bank-
rupt, is a main stay in the com-
pany’s astonishing recovery.

Thirteen Rod and Gun clubs with
the support of 170,000 sportsmen
protest the further reclamation as
it is on the main flyway of the
wild fowl in this area.

The sportsmen also protest the
B.C. Power ‘Commission leaving
standing timber on power sites
which they propose to flood fo
water storage. ’

Jack Cooney, Mer.

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Vancouver, B.C.

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- employers.

Frank Punam is a key figure in

‘Red plot’ discovered

in London mop parade
—LONDON

The British government has
taken revenge for the “mop par-
ade” of state-employed char-
ladies (women cleaners), which
carried the women’s demands for
higher wages into the streets of
‘London, by firing one-armed Har-
old King, a messenger employed
by the War Office.

King, like the cleaners, is a
member of the British Civil Ser-
vice Union which supported their
wage claim. Shortly after the
“mop parade,” which King help-
ed organize, he was fired under
Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s
decree that no Communists ‘can
work in the civil service. King
feels particularly bitter about
t because he lost his arm
many years ago fightng aganst
Franco’s Spanish dictatorship as
a member of the Clement Attlee
Battalon, named after the pres-
ent prime minister,

Protesting the firing, King said
he had been a Communist since
1920, a fact long known to his
The War Office let-
ter which dismissed him as a “se-
curity risk” cited as cause the
fact that he had been seen at a
Communist meeting in 1934 and
sold copies of the British Daily
Worker in 1937.

Coal operators hoist
price; splitters hit —

—CALGARY

Coalminers in Drumheller and the Crow’s Nest Pass are support-
ing Mine-Mill’s defence of the rights of every union against raiding
by the CCL and United Steelworkers.

A meeting at Drumheller heard Mine-Mill’s regional director

Harvey Murphy:* outline facts of
the case. Sentiment was decisively
in favor of Mine-Mill in spite of a
short-lived atempt by CCL secre-
tary Pat Conroy’s brother to use
a group of fifty young Catholics
for purposes of disruption. The is-
sue now goes before a series of
local meetings which are expected
to back Mine-Mill’s Sudbury reso-
lution, a document which is becom-
ing something in the nature of a
charter of union autonomy as it
is endorsed by union after union
across Canada. East Kootenay La-~-
bor Council (CCL) has. strongly
denounced all attempt at raiding.

Miners’ dissatisfaction with CCL
bureaucrats has not been lessened
by their own wage settlement. CCL
influence lay behind a. narrow-
margin decision of last fall’s UM-
WA wage policy conference not
to seek wage increases. The result
was that the companies pressed
for wage cuts. All the union. was
able to salvage out of the situa-
tion was a 10 cents per ton -in-

crease in contributions to the wel-'

fare fund.

The settlement covering Vancou-
ver Island miners is similar to
that in Eastern B.C. and Alberta
coal fields. Despite the fact that

the miners have secured nothing
in the new contract to meet in-
creased. living costs, B.C. coal op-
erators have already moved to put
the “welfare” increase per ton onto
the consumer. In this they stand to
make an additional profit since
the miner is paid on the basis
of a “long” ton, while the cus-
tomer gets only a “short” ton, a
difference of 240 pounds.

At Blairmore local, CCL influ-
ence aroused opposition in an un-
expected way. This local has had
for years a standing bundle order
of 50 copies of the Canadian Tri-
bune. Secretary Bill Lloyd refused
to pay the bill on grounds the
constitution contained “anti-Com-
munist” clauses. This roused a
small-scale revolt among the mem-
bership, who have instructed him
Pto pay. Latest report is that the

matter is still deadlocked.

Women’s crusade
bares ‘defense’ sham

—TORONTO:

The bitter cost the people will pay in health, housing and social
security for the St. Laurent government’s unprecedented peacetime mili-
tary expenditures is pointed up by a statement calling on women to
mobilize for peace, issued here this week by Beckie Buhay, LPP

national educational director.

“The government proposes to

spend $600,000 each for only one
type of gun. Think of this in terms
of milk for babies, health, housing.
It is equal to the average earnings
of 300 workers. It would provide
1,000 university scholarships for
a year,” Miss Buhay declares.

“The government, which last
year spent a million dollars a day
for defense, now plans to double
that amount.”

Appealing to women to spread
the facts of what a third -world
war will mean to Canada, Miss
Buhay states: x

“Make it ciear that another
war will not mean only Cana-
dian troops in action 3,000 miles
across the seas, while at home,
except for wartime restrictions
and shortages, industries oper-
ate in a peacetime atmosphere.
Another war will bring the hor-
rors of the battlefield into every
street, every home and backyard
in our country. Our women and
our children will be. the victims
of a violence and terror such as
the world has never yet seen.”

Miss Buhay warns that Canada
cannot have guns and butter too.
“Our country cannot prepare for
war and build for peace, as the
sacrifice of the people’s housing
needs to military preparations al-
ready shows,’ she states.

“What is more fitting in the
month of March, when women
throughout the world celebrate In-
ternational Women’s Day, than
that women should take their full
part in the crusade for peace,” Miss
Buhay continues, proposing that
women bombard MPs with the de-
mand that they oppose signing of
the Atlantic Pact, that they take
an active part in all peace organi-

zations and help to make Dorise

Nielsen’s national tour a demon-
stration for peace, ; :

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Where you're always sure of
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PACIFIC TRIBUNE —

Poll tax boost
to aid big shots

“The submission of the Union
of B.C. Municipalities: to the legis-
lature asking that the poll tax be
|upped to $10, and that it. include
women and apply to everyone over
18, is a prime example of. civic
bureaucracy and Non-Partisan dis-
regard for the people’s problems,”
declared Mrs. Effie Jones, Civic
Reform mayoralty candidate in the
recent civic elections, this week.

_ “Actually, the municipalities are
using this as an easy way out of
financial difficulties and a way to
avoid implementing the recom-
mendations in the Goldenberg Re-
port,” she said.

“The report advocated the level-
ling of a business tax; real prop-
erty tax reform; increased contri-
butions from senior governments;
and heavier taxation of public
utilities. }

“But what is happening? Our
city hall blunderers play ducks and
drakes with big business, trying to
shield the corporations from hav-
ing to meet their community obli-
gations. The business tax intro-
duced last year penalizes the small
businessman and allows the big
fellow to escape very lightly.

“But the big fellows are never
satisfied. They are now demanding
further concessions, and their NPA
stooges at the city hall are scurry-
ing around trying to find the form-
ula to meet their demands.

“A properly levelled business tax
would yield six or seven times the
total revenue from the poll tax.

EAST END

TRL

UNION DRIVERS
em a

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FEBRUARY 25, 1949 —. PAGE 6

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