_ Unite for radically new policies!

COMMUNIST PROGRAM TO COMBAT INFLATION

The latest figures showing a one-
point rise in the cost-of-living index
emphasize anew the need for militant
action by workers to defend their
living standards.

It is now clear that the inflationary
Spiral will go above 10% this year.

It is also clear that living standards
are declining; that the workers are
losing in the race to catch up with
Inflation.

In sharp contrast profits are at an
all-time high. The corporations and the
wealthy are the main beneficiaries of
Inflation.

® In light of this situation the work-
ers and their trade unions, all working
people, need to combine economic and
political action to protect their vital
Interests.

® Militant economic action is need-
ed to win substantial wage increases,
both to catch up with rising prices and
£0 beyond it.

@ United political action is needed
to ensure that.a progressive majority
is elected to Parliament to protect
these gains and curb the power of
monopoly.

¥ * *

The Communist Party calls again
for united action of all working-class
and democratic forces around a pro-
gram like the following, to protect
living standards against the inflation-
ary price spiral, the profiteers, price
gougers and land speculators:

e@ A united drive for a 15% across
the board wage increase, a cost-of-
living escalator clause, and wage open-
ers in long term contracts.

e A $3.00 minimum wage, increases
in pension payments to $250 starting

-at 60; a guaranteed annual income of

$4,000-single and $6,500 for a family
of four.

@ The abolition of Provincial sales
taxes, reductions for working people,
a tax on excess profits.

e@ Roll back prices on food, fuel,
housing and rents to January 1973
buttressed by legislation enacting
price controls.

@ Take the land out of the hands of
the speculators. Make housing a pub-
lic utility.

Measures such as these could to
some degree protect the standards of
working people.

However as long as monopoly is in
control the inflationary price spiral
and exploitation will continue.

Radically new policies are needed to
bring an end to inflation, and achieve
a genuine rise in living standards.
These must include democratic na-
tionalization of the banking and credit
systems.

Without such radically new policies
the working people will continue to
be on the defensive.

Unite in action ot protect living
standards! Unite in action for radical-
ly new policies.

Demonstrating in Washington for Nixon's impeachment.

es

.

Railways charged with
Gross mismanagement

wi WILLIAM BEECHING
Fame sLOON — The National
anada Union has charged that
expolt pol lose $603-million in
"ailroaq amnings if the country’s
of delix. Continue to fall short
they part’, Wotas at the rate
Of the Ve to date until the end
he crop year, July 31.
TOads - ie accused the rail-
and neo} Bross mismanagement
Sthotasect. and “deliberate
ines of the movement of
to Sa eek of their campaign
Tates Th the Crows Nest Pass
for intec’. NFU said “the need
Compan; tion of the railway
ershi Ties through public own-
ing Nearer management is draw-

ah
Said ¢p¢°CUMentation, the NFU
Teady 4, the railroads are al-
Mare ehind 18,722 cars to
Under ~’ 24d will be 60,320 cars
Prove Hota, unless they im-
"presents Performance, That
Million y.& Shortage of 120.6
Board bushels under Wheat
NFU Beart commitments. The
Ment op ment traces the move-
tem rs Brain through the sys-
of grai m the farm to the holds
8Nd isolates in export position
of €s the railroads as the
Ystem, the short-fall in the

Claims that stocks
quate € prairies are ade-
on the elevators can
Way. hays Cars than the rail-
inals Supplied, and that the
Cle i £40 unload more grain,
than rain’ load it onto boats
Toads have delivered.

The NFU terms as “absurd” a
suggestion by a CNR official
that elevators and _ terminals
work on a_ seven-day-a-week
basis. “They already have a
greater capacity on a five-day
week than the railroads have
supplied cars for,” the NFU said.

The NFU proposed that the
railways must increase their de-
liveries to about 8,100 cars a
week until the end of the crop
year to make up the shortfall of
deliveries. The crop year ends
on July 31. “It can be done,
the farm union said. “In the
1972-73 crop year the railroads
moved an average of 8,470 cars
per week throughout the year.’

The NFU has called upon the
federal government to place both
railroads under the supervision
of the Department of Transport
and order them to give top prior-
ity to grain movement.

The NFU presents proof that
there are delays of up to 88
days in spotting empty cars for
loading “between the time the
car was ordered and the time it
was spotted; that 20 loaded cars
were sitting at a siding for 45
days, with some loaded as long
as 80 days before moving; that
28 cars sat loaded for a month
at one loctaion and another sat
for 34 days at another location;
that 62 Government z Canada
opper cars sat empty for more
pee month, and that branch
lines remain plugged with snow
despite government subsidies
paid to the railroads to main-
tain services on those lines.

.CLC warns

-€

By RICHARD ORLANDINI

of

labor unrest’

OTTAWA—“It is disillusioning to reflect on the fact that, although there was
considerable economic growth over the past three years, the average Canadian
worker has not shared in the benefits,’ Donald MacDonald, president of the Can-

adian Labor Congress, told the Prime Minister and his cabinet in Ottawa last week.
MacDonald and more than 200 other trade unionists met with the Prime Minister
and his cabinet at what has become known as the CLC’s annual “cap-in-hand”

session on March 18.
The debate that ensued between the CLC president a

nd members of the cabinet

over the increased cost of living demonstrated the government’s refusal to come

The Canadian Labor Congress at a meeting in Ottawa with the
cabinet, forecast “industrial unrest” similar to the actions of the
railway workers last summer, if the government doesn’t act imme-
diately on a program to stop spiralling costs.

to grips with the inflationary
spiral that is affecting the Cana-
dian people’s earning and spend-
ing power.

In presenting a case for increas-
ed. government action against
inflation, Mr? MacDonald ‘stated:
“By, the fourth quarter of last
year, the average worker’s real
earnings were $5.50 a week less
than at the end of 1972, a drop
of 4%. His real earnings were
back to where they were in the
first quarter of 1971. Indeed,- on
a yearly basis, 1973 was the
worst since the end of the Sec-
ond World War in terms of lost
real earnings for workers in
Canada.”

Comparing the record-break-
ing increases of corporate profits
to the drop in real wages for
workers, - the CLC president
pointed out that, “During the
past year and more, this prob-
lem has been exacerbated to
such an intolerable degree that
should it continue, as it as pres-

- ently appears evident, industrial

unrest could reach major pro-
portions.”
His Own Statistics
John Turner, the minister of
finance, in his reply to Mac-
Donald, made no mention of the
“industrial unrest” that Mac-
Donald referred to, but rather
produced a set of his own statis-
tics that showed, he said, “that
the real spending power of the
workers in Canada has increas-
ed over the last year.” And after
playing his not very credible
Statistics juggling game, the
minister of finance further an-
@ Continued on Page 10

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 1974—PAGE 5