Continued from page |

Labor Day 1952

Labor Day was “officially”
created in 1892, following a Mon-
treal convention of the Trades
and Labor Congress of Canada
which “resolved, that the first
Monday in September be made a
public holiday to be known as
Labor Day.” The trade union
bureaucrats of that day. under
the leadership of AFL president
Sam Gompers were united with
the politicians and “captains. of
industry’’ on the need of such ‘‘re-
cognition” for another reason...
to head off the growing popularity
and significance of May May as a
day of international workingclass
unity and solidarity. Nothing the
bosses and their trade union fak-
ers hate and fear so much as
workingelass unity, Hence the
ready agreement of capitalist gov-
ernments in Canada and elsewhere
to a statutory holiday as a “re-
cognition” of labor in: the scheme
of things, .

Unofficially, however, Labor
Day had a more auspicious birth.
Twenty years earlier, in 1872, the
Toronto Trades and Labor Coun-
cil, supporting the historic Toron-
to printers’ strike of that year,
“moved, that we have a demon-
stration to be know as Labor
Day.” This demonstration Was
attended by over 10,000 ‘Toronto
workers in support of the printers
union and its fight to establish the
right of trade union organization
to win higher wages and improv-
ed working conditions.

Our ‘‘safe and sane’ trade un-
jon bureaucrats of today carefully
avoid mention of that phase of
the origin of Labor Day in their
annual messages. Anything that
smacks of militant united struggle
js not considered respectable by
the swivel-chair fraternity.

‘ x * *

Labor Day of 1952 confronts
organized labor in Canada’ with
tremendous problems. The war
policies of the St. Laurent govern-
ment. dictated by U.S, imperial-
ism, have plunged Canadian econ-
omy into a steadily worsening
crisis. These U.S.-dictated poli-
cies have resulted in the subordin-
ation of our resources, our mar-
kets, our productive capacity, and
the economic and social security
of our people. to the objectives
and interests of a war-minded
Yankee imperialism in its mad
drive for world domination and
conquest. c :

The drive of Canadian capit-
alism as a junior partner of
Wall Street to launch drastic
wage cuts, “hold the line on
wages” and depress living stan-
dards; to pile up mountainous
taxation for armaments. and
cut expenditures for needed in-
dustrial, civil, and social ser-
vice expansion to the bone—
these issues present Canadian
labor with only one alternative
for survival; united action for
expanding markets, greater em-
ployment, and higher wages; to
win those advances commensul-
ate with a peace-time economy,
In other words, united action to
win peace!

In the great strike struggles
which have already taken place in
B.C. during 1952, involving the
IWA, building trades, hardrock
miners, fishermen and _ others,
some lessons are already obvious
for all to see. , Wherever decisive
and militant leadership prevailed,
the workers won substantial wage
gains, as in Mine-Mill and ‘the
puilding trades. In other cases
where the workers were misled

into aquiescent state of “‘wait and’

see’,, or where agents of the
bosses managed~-to penetrate the
ranks of labor with the insidious

the burden of lost markets,’ as
in the case of the fishermen, the
workers got little or nothing to
meet steadily rising fiving costs.
This despite the fact, that even
in face of falling markets (for
which the bosses and their politi-
cal yesmen are primarily respon-
sible) many of .B.C.’s most power-
ful monopolist concerns chalked
up record profit grabs in their
1951-52 fiscal year.

Labor Day of 1952 faces the

Canadian provinces with one of
the greatest struggles in its his-
tory, viz,.the job of placing the
responsibility for lost markets,
growing unemployment, rising liv-
ing costs, dwindling social secur-
ity, and excessive taxation, where
it rightfully belongs—upon the
doorstep of those political parties,
interests and individuals who have
tied Canada to the criminal war
adventures of Yankee imperialism.

Difficult as the task may seem
to be, it is just a simple and dir-
rect as that, despite the opportun-
ist political footwork of the Ben-
goughs, Coldwells, Moshers, etc.
As each new battle is.joined in
growing strike struggles, it be-
comes increasingly difficult for
these social democrats and trade
union misladers to travel their
well-beaten “middle” road.

It was not Bengough’s unwill-
ingness to cooperate with St.
Laurent’s Minister of Labor Gregg
when the latter suggested a ban
on strikes at the recent TLC
Winnipeg convention that made
him back up; similarly, Bengough
and his reactionary trade union
hierarchy were right out in front
with the yellow press in calling
for the outlawing of the Labor-
Progressive party. The factor
that stayed their hand was the
recognition by tens of thousands
of trade unionists * throughout
Canada (whom these fakers mis-
represent) that the banning of
strikes and the gagging of work-
ingclass political parties, would
be equivalent to liquidating trade
unionism in Canada.

The defeat .of the Bengough
machine in the TLC convention
and the growing awareness of the

being and freedom, give Labor
Day of 1952 a special significance.
Fulminating against ‘commun-
ism” -never built a single union
nor added an extra sou to a wage
earner’s pay envelope. But it does
—and has—reduced once’ pow-
erful trade union organizations to
a mere caricature of their former
strength and influence; which is,
of course, -the main purpose of
the red-baiters*and witch-hunters,
within and outside the ranks of
labor. :

On this Labor Day the power-
ful million-strong trade unions
of Canada have a big job of work
facing them; of spearheading a
united people’s struggle for poli-
cies of peace and prosperity, to
win back Canada’s independence
of action, freed from the domin-
ation of a power-drunk dollar-
imperialism: to win back the su-
premacy of the Parliament of
Canada as the voice of a sover-
eign people, in place of rule by
Yankee-inspired order-in-council
decree, ;

Labor must make Labor Day
what its trade union promoters of
1872 meant it to be, a militant
“demonstration” for Canada by
the working people who have built
Canada: a ‘‘demonstartion”’ by a
united trade union movement for
markets, jobs, higher wages and
lasting peace, in place of grow-
ing economic crisis, fascism and
war, That is the true significance

labor movement in this and other |&

Yankee threat to Canada’s well-|-

8
ce 1)

EUR

a ae ene ener

yagi fever of the 90s.

Witness a few of the details:

@ Sixteen American army offi-
cers arrived in Ottawa on August
24 for a tour of Canadian mili-
tary and industrial installations.

@ A corporation has been
formed in Boston of 10 invest-
ment companies with assets of
$800,000,000 for the purpose of
buying up Canadian stocks, in-
dustries and resources. It is call-
ed the Canada General Fund, Inc.,
and in it are several leading Can-
adian financiers, including the
Rt. Hon. Arthur Meighan, former
prime minister, his son, Col, Max-
well Meighan, and former On-
tario Lieut.- Gov. Ray Lawson.

@ It was announced several
weeks ago that 48.12 percent of
the common stock in the CPR is
now owned in the United States
—up from 39 percent in 1947.

@ The following U.S. periodi-
cals and newspapers have within
the last four months carried ma-
jor articles on Canada, some de-
voting an entire issue to Cana-
dian resources, government, tax-
ation, and other points of concern
to the investor:

Saturday Review of Literature.

Fortune magazine—the $1.25
super-publication for the top brass
of big business.

Colliers — a mass distribution

publication notorious for its Third
World War issue showing world
supremacy of U.S. through armed
conquest.
_ The New York Times—a series
of three major articles by Finan-
cial Editor John Forrest headed
“The Giant Awakens.”

of Labor Day in 1952.

propaganda that “‘all must share
e

} ?

The Wall Street Journal, organ

NORTHWEST

4 ¢t ° eS J » Sulphate
cha 0 Fer fas SA Se

: » Coal
@ Metss @ Oi Refinery o :
© OF snd Gis | K Wien TURVem | UNETED
O6s A Abmiown " Tae STATES

- “Buy Canada” is the new boom sweeping th
In scores of magazines and newspapers,
of investment houses, in a spate of advertisements’ in leading journals, the the
is; Buy Canada!—"‘Land of Promise’; ‘“‘Booming resources——rich land to OM

north’; ‘““The Giant Awakens.”

| FW itirceniasnlal Bpe Lin, GeMMboTranemountain Bipe Line 3

‘Buy Canada’ plot sweeping
United States: investors seek
to grab all natural resources |

By JOHN STEWART

2 United States like the

sll

in the bulletit®
hem?

of the centre of U.S, high finance.

Time magazine, a branch of
the Fortune Luce outfit controlled
by J. P. Morgan interests.

In ali of these publications, the
emphasis has been on Canada’s
tremendous wealth of natural re-
sources set against the report is-
sued by President Truman’s ad-
visers that the United States was
running into critical shortages of
key raw materials for her indus-
trial plane and arms program;
and on her strategic military lo-
cation betwee the U.S. and the
USSR. :

As distinct from the gold rush
days, the Buy Canada Boom is
not the result of an accidental
strike by a prospector,

It is a highly organized plot,
set in motion by the Canadian
and U.S. Chambers of Com-
merce, to sell Canada to the
United States as quickly as pos- .
sible, }

On April 7 in Montreal, the
joint committee of the Canadian
and U.S. Chamber of Commerce
submitted an, 11-point program
designed to streamline the inte-
gration of the Canadian and U.S.
economies. The program, adopted
unanimously by the Canadian
Chamber of Commerce
ence, emphasized the need for an
exchange .of speakers, booklets,
advertising, films, etc., all adver-
tising Canada in the U.S. and
promoting the policies and ideo-
logy of the United States — the
“American Way of Life’? — in
Canaida.

Recruited for the job of selling
Canada south of the border are

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 29, 1952 — P4

\

confer-

headed by External Affairs
ister Lester Bowles Pearso™ —
the role of sales manager.
Pearson, Trade Minister © ei
Howe, Resources Minister R. it
Winters, Health Minister ter
Martin, and Immigration Minis
Walter Harris are amon
who in the past several
have made a series of im
speeches in the United State? ..
tolling the wonder of canede
inviting the U.S, to come UP a
see us, and shamelessly praise’
the United States as the “8!
leader.”’ : ; det
Witness, for example, the a
dress of L. B. Pearson to the ©°
ference of State Governors ke
Houston, Texas, June 30, SP°
ing of the “great coalition”
own words) of Canada ane
United States, Pearson told as
governors: A
‘In this coalition, we 4.
junio? partner and you are ¢ oh
_great leader.” te \ p
His entire speech was @) M,
this theme. He began by $4).

mon
porta?

eee

ay
“I want to talk to you about OF
ada and our relations wit he
our great and. good nels nite’

Then he told of how the
States was becoming “more ©
scious” of Canada, adding+ 4
“Previously Canada was gs
land of fishing and nuntn
‘Mounties’ and old quere
‘where you got 10 cents the
for your dollar. Now it 8g
St. Lawrence waterway: ,
ore, oil and industries, bUC ,,
ary surpluses, and soldier®

GB

on

Korea and Europe...- .