1

i
ih

Re:
‘

pense

of cheap labor.

Return Meyer
fo Canada Is
Buck's demand

TORONTO

Tim Buck, national leader of the
Labor-Progressive party, wired
Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent
this week demanding that the Can-
adian government bring Nazi gen-
eral Kurt Meyer back from Ger-
many to serve out his life sentence
in a Canadian penitentiary.
hands
of un-

“This Hitlerite Meyer's
are stained with the blood
armed Canadian prisoners of war

Sent fo Germany

who were murdered on his orders;
with the blood of hundreds of

thousands of Jewish and Slavic
children, women and old men whom
he caused. to be slaughtered .in
massacres and gas chambers,” said
Buck’s telegram.

“His transfer for release in Ger-
many,” the LPP leader charged
“is part of the North Atlantic war
plot instigated by U.S. imperialism
to rearm the German Nazis. Your
government is betraying the 40,000
Canadians who gave their lives
to stop Nazism by its NATO part-
nership and the release of Meyer.

Nazi general Kurt Meyer
(above), serving a life sentence
in Dorchester penitentiary, was
quietly slinned out of Canada
last week and transferred to a
British military prison in Ger-
many. Mever, who ordered the
1944 shooting of 18 Canadian
prisoners of war. is said to he
slated for an imnortant post with
General Eisenhower's West Ger-
man army. Alarmed by protests
from the Canadian nublic, Ex-
ternal Affairs Minister L. B.
Pearson vrotested this week that

City ‘dry’ if
wage boost
not granted

Beer parlor patrons will be
thirsty by Saturday if the strike
of 500 brewery workers, which be-
gan Tuesday this week, is not
quickly settled. Beer parlors and
government liquor stores estimate
that present supplies will be used
up by the weekend. Delivery of
beer to homes was halted as soon
as the strike was called by Inter-
nationai Union of Brewery and
Distillery Workers ('CIO-CCL).

Union members are striking for
a 35-cent hourly wage boost. An
employers’ offer of 25 cents has
been turned down. Companies af-
fected are Westminster, Vancouver,
Sicks-Capilano and Victoria Phoe-
nix breweries.

Other news ‘on the-labor front
this week included:

@ Financial support to Marine
Workers and Boilermakers Union
in its court battle against B.C.
Labor Relations Board was pledg-
ed Monday night this week by
more than 3800 representatives of
CCL locals and at least one AFL
iocal who met in Pender Auditor-

ium to discuss the case. An LRB

Canada “won't pardon Meyer.”

Issues of wages, hours
face lWA council meet

Three major questions—wages,
will face the International Woodwor

convenes in Vancouver

Pressure is growing throughout the industry

contract. :
Alberni iocal 1-85, by Saori
mous adoption of 2 resolution sie -
ing for an immediate interim wage
increase, has added its voice to
that of Courtenay, which some
weeks ago urged a wage pattie te
of $2 a day. Nanaimo and Lady-
smith sub-locals have also ae
cussed the question. :

LPP backs IWA
Interior fight,
Rush declares

Full support to the International
Woodworkers of America In its
fight against Interior operators in
the current contract struggle was
pledged by the Labor-Progressive
Party this week in a statement by
Maurice Rush, labor secretary:

“The fight to bring wages and
Rondniees af Interior woodworkers
into line with those at the Coast
has been a long and bitter one,
said Rush. “Interior operators
have deiiberately tried to keep In-
terior woodworkers in an inferior
position in order to drag down
Coastal wages and conditions.

“The majority conciliation abe
which operators have ree
shows they are prepared to fig
to retain the Interior as @ source

“While the LPP is of the opinion
that the mapority award falls far
Short of what is needed in this
Period of rising prices and taxes,
nevertheless, we regard it as 4 big
step toward wiping out the im
justice to Interior woodworkers.
‘All woodworkers and the whole
labor movement should stand un-
itedly behind the fight of Interior
woodworkers.” C ' f

Rush reported that 5000 copies 0
& special issue of Timber-r-T, 4
Woodworkers’ paper, has been dis-
tributed in the industry pledging
full support to Interior wood-

Workers.

hours and Interior negotiations—
kers’ B.C. district. council when it

for its quarterly meeting November 3-4.

for opening of the
4

4

Feeling is widespread that if the
operators and union officials can
agree to open the contract on the
40-hour week they can also do it
on wages. A wage increase is
seen by many woodworkers as the
only real answer to loss of income
this summer due to the long shut-
down. .

Hours is another issue on which
rank-and-file feeiing is running
high. The agreement between the
TWA and the operators* to extend
the 40-hour week is due to expire
the end of October. District officers
are under severe criticism “in the
industry for their concessions on
the 40-hour week, and their policy
has been almost unanimously re-
jected by the rank-and-file.

ymples
There have been many) examp
of collusion between. IWA leaders

and operators to have votes taken.

to put /across the ‘longer work
week even in places where opera-
tors admitted no log ishortage.
This was contrary to the agree-
ment which specifically said that
consideration would oniy be given
in local operations where an emer-
gency existed.

istrict officers must also ex-
es the- membership why and
ever allowed themselves to-72e
caught in the position where Op-
erators have been able to under-
mine the 40-hour week in PIGREE:
It is obvious that a few days over-
time would not be decisive in seats
coming any anticipated log short-
age this winter.

rong demand in the
industry that the IWA eal rele
the previous arrangement sas ag
erators and enforce the 1 guy
work waek everywhere on ‘
Te eceeuneat meeting is also eX-
pected to lay pians for faeries
the union and the whole labor
movement for the impending
struggle » raise Interior bhi ey
and conditions to the mae are
a long-standing issue in the

dustry. x

There is a st

OO

STANTON, MU

Barristers - Solicitors
FORD BUILDING

SUITE 51
2. (Corner Main &

NRO & DEAN

_- Notaries
193 FE. HASTINGS

Hastings Sts.)

MARINE 5746

order decertifying Marine Work-
ers in 10 wooden boatyards for re-
fusing to work overtime was de-
nounced as an attempt to wreck
the 40-hour week.

Stewart Alsbury, B.C. president
of International Woodworkers of
America, called the LRB action
“the thin edge of the wedge to
make overtime compulsory if man-
agement demands it.”

Orvill Braaten, business agent
for Local 433, Pulp, Sulphite and
Paper Mill Workers (AFL), prom-
ised “100 percent support.”

@ A five-day, 40-hour week for
provincial government employees
was demanded by the eighth an-

nual convention of B.C. Govern-
ment Employees’ Association,
meeting. in Kamloops this week.
Delegates also demanded the same
right to bargain collectively as em-
ployees in private industry.

@® Strike of 275 paper workers
at Pacific Mills and Canadian
Boxes, now entering its seventh‘
week, has cost $10,000 to finance
so far, it was stated this week by
-Orville Braaten, business agent of
Vancouver Converters Local 433.
Strike pay ranges from $12 for
single men to $26 weekly for a
married man with three children.

@ Barney McGuire, Mine-Mill
international representative who
has been on assignment in North-
ern Ontario for the past year, re-
turned to B.C. this week and will
do organizing work in the northern
part of the province. His head-
quarters will be in Prince Rupert.

@ Annual conference of Mine-
Mill in Canada will open in Van-
couver on January 31. B.C. Dis-
trict convention of the union will
be held at approximateiy the same
time, so that delegates may also
attend the natjonal conference.

Victoria hears
from settlers
at Ootsa Lake

A delegation of Ootsa Lake resi-
dents visited Victoria this week to
protest to the government against
the total destruction of their com-
munity by the Aluminum Company
of Canada. :

As soon as the Alcan’s dam on
the Nechako is completed, families
at Ootsa Lake will be flooded‘ out
and the village will be come part
of a new iake bed.

Compensation offeréd the victims
for their land is “entirely inade-
quate” and will not enable resi-
dents to re-establish themselves
elsewhere, the delegation of four
men and two women said. So they
intend to carry their fight right to
the cabinet on behalf of 400 fami-
liés who are pioneers in the Ootsa
Lake community.

MINE-MILL’S KEN SMITH SAYS:

‘I visited Soviet
loggers and miners’

During the 28 days spent in the Soviet Union recently by a Can-
adian trade union delegation, Ken Smith, B.C. president of Mine-Mill,
found time to visit a logging camp at Saiwa, north of Gorki; a metal
mine at Krivoi Rog, 100 miles from Dnieperpetrovsk; a coal mine at
Tula, in the Moscow area; a tractor factory in Stalingrad; an auto-

mobile factory’ in Gorki and the
great Dnieper Dam: reconstruction
project. :

“IT was feeling really beat, trying
to keep up with this program and
cram as much as possible into the
limited time we had,” Smith told
the Pacific Tribune this week. “If
they hadn’t let me rest up a couple
of days in a beautiful health resort
at Sochi, on the Black Sea—one of
70 sanatoriums run for workers—
maybe I wouldn’t have managed
to finish the itinerary! Believe me,
it was a memorable, unforgettable
trip.”

Smith and two other B.C. dele-
gates—Allister McLeod of the TWA
and Pearl Wedro of the Fur and
Leather Workers— will tell the
exciting story of their visit at a
great rally November 9 at Exhibi-
tion Gardens, sponsored by the
Canadian Soviet Friendship So-
ciety, which organized the tour in
response to an invitation from the
All-Union Central Council of Trade
Unions in the Soviet Union.

“From Dorval airport in Mon-
treal we flew to London, Brussels
and Prague,” said Ken Smith. “A
Soviet plane took us from there
to Lvov, Kiev and Moscow.”

In order that the Canadian un-
ionists could visit a typical logging
camp, said Smith, they were flown
to Gorki, then took “a backwoods
spur line train” to Saiwa, a large
but comparatively new lumbering
area.

“The trees were not as big as
in British Columbia,” he explain-
ed. “It was more like the forest
areas in Northern Ontario or
Quebec. First thing that caught
my attention was the type of
electric power saw they were
using—light and very good. Some-
thing like our gas chain saw,
but no motor and no fumes. A
mobile nower unit with cables -
running off it runs several saws.
..“Camp conditions were excellent.
Good food and good accomodation.
Many workers lived with their
families in their own homes, and
kept goats, cows, chickens: and
pigs. Every settlement had a
Palace of Culture. .. .”

“Would that correspond to a
community hall here?”

“Yes and no,” answered Ken.
“Every Palace of Culture has large
and small halls, a library, recrea-
tion room, picture ‘show, stage for
the presentation of amateur theat-
ricais, and so on. Moreover, pro-
fessional ballet dances ‘and stage
companies from the cities make
periodic «visits and bring profes-
sional programs to the loggers.”

“What about wages?” asked the
Pacific Tribune reporter.

“T wouldn’t even try to make a
comparison,” answered Smith.
“Everything is so different. All I
can say is that the loggers ate
well, the stores were well stocked
with a variety of goods, and the
standard of living was obviously
high.” ‘

At Krivoi Rog the simple ring-
ing of shaft signals operated an

automatic electric heist which
took Smith down to the 700 level
in a metal mine. “It was the
first automatic hoist I had seen,”
said Smith. a miner himself. “The
main haulage tunnels were all
concrete, also something new in
my experience. But the sub-level
working nlaces were timbered in
much the same manner as here,
and mining methods were very
much like our own.

“Conditions compared favorably
with Canadian mines. The venti-
lation system was good, safety con-
ditions as good if not better than
here.

“The Soviet miners. work on a
progressive piece work system —
they are paid a bonus for reaching
a norm, and after that rates in-
crease progressively.

“The miner underground gets no
more sunshine than the miner gets
here—but when he comes up, they
take the miner to the sunshine.
He gets his chest X-rayed every
two weeks (not twice a week, as
a reporter had me quoted when I
returned to Canada) and at the
first sign of silicosis, off he goes
to a sanatorium, all expenses paid.

“Sanatorium may be a mislead-
ing word, for it brings to mind our
type of sanatoriums. Soviet sana-
toriums are actually health resorts,
situated in sub-tropical areas. As
I mentioned before, I had a short
rest in a sanatorium at Sochi on
the Black Sea. Miners can apply
to spend their holidays at such
places, on payment of 30 percent
of the cpsts.

“Holidays? All miners get one
month’s annual vacation, and
every third year they get three
months’ vacation. Retirement age
is 55 for men and 50 for women—
five years less than retirement
age in lighter industries. Yes,
women work in Soviet mines, as
motormen, but never as miners.”

He had many other stories to
tell, of the great Stalingrad trac-
tor factory, the automobile factory
at Gorki and the gigantic recon-
struction program at the Dnieper
Dam. “Some of these I'll tell at
the mass meeting in Exhibition
Gardens,” he promised.

| NEW ADDRESS
9 EAST HASTINGS
Corner Carrall

I invite you t
visit my- new
office. I hav
‘no connectior
with any othe

dental office.

Phone

TA. 5552

DR. R. LLEWELLYN
DOUGLAS

t

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — OCTOBER 26, 1951 — PAGE 7H

The
Union-Made Men’s Wear
a nd extended friendly

service for over 50 years.

The LONG and

the SHORT of it is...
HUB has sold

i

a

RMN ges ta aca EIN