A SHORT. ~SHORT STORY

PD NEVER even seen the
boy before. But he collars me
the other morning as I’m fight-
ing my way up them steps to
the’ dry an’ says: ‘Hey, Joe,
when’s that union gonna get us
that raise?”

Now it was the morning after
meeting night an’ I hadn’t seen
this guy down at the hall, so I
didn’t take none too kindly to
his pumping me for information.
What’s more the car wouldn’t
start this morning an’ I had to
put out a buck on carfare an’
I didn’t much care whether
school kept or not. So I says,
“Union? What union d’ya
mean?”

“Hell, you know what union,”
he growls back, “the one that
nicks two bucks out of my pay
cheque every month. If they
don’t get us a raise purty damn
quick ‘I’m going down an’ re-
sign. No use paying’ money to
an outfit that don’t get you
nothing.”

“Whaddya mean if THEY
don’t get us a raise?” I says, an

I'm kinda starting to get t’d
off; “who the hell is the union ”
anyway?”

“Well, I mean them officers

an’ that negotiating committee,”
he says, “what’re they doing with
all that money we pay in, any-
Way 2"

It was getting late, so I looks

at my watch to see how big a
piece of my mind I got time
to give this character. “Lissen
chum,” I says, “for all you care
our money might go to pay for
valentines for the operators an’
chocolates for their wives, I
never seen you down to a meet-
ing to vote on how it’s spent.
If you ain’t there to vote on
how -to spend money, you ain't
got no kick coming.”

“Holy cow, Joe, calm down,”
he says. “ ain’t kicking on how
the money’s spent. All I wanna
know is when are they gonna
Set us that raise?”

“Look,” I says, “I gotta go
change now, but T’ll let* ya’ in
on a little secret. THEY ain’t
gonna get no’ raise for us.” He
looked kinda startled an’ unbe-
lieving, so I looks him in the

eye an’ says, “An’ that’s a pro-
mise!” an’ walks away.
* * *

WELL, I hustled into my dig-
gers an’ got my candle an’ head-
ed for the train an’ there's this
guy again outside the Jamp
room cussin’ blue blazes. ‘What
the hell kind of —- — — —
union is this anyway that don’t
get us a raise when every camp
in the country got raises?”

“Took, Buster,” I says, “you
better stop calling yourself all
them names. Besides, I never
said the union wasn’t gonna get
us a raise.” :

“The —-— you didn’t!” he yells.

“The —— I did!” I yells back,
“J said THE OFFICERS ain’t
gonna get us no raise, an’ they
ain’t. No officers ever got any-
body a raise.”

It was just about train time
but he looked so puzzled that I
got to feeling sorry for the guy,
so I climbs on the train beside
him an’ tries to figure out how
Ym gonna tell him about the
birds and bees so he can under-
stand. But the buzzer went off
an’ the train jerked off toward
the tunnel, so I just thinks “To
hell with it” an’ settles down
for the ride

Well we had one fine time
in the stope that day. Lost a
set of timber, didn’t make our
round, an’ gets our butt chewed
out for not doing two days’ work
in one. Somebody had wrote
“We want a raise!” an’ “No
raise, no muck’ up in the sta-
tion an’ I guess the shifter
thought we’d blasted out that
set an’ missed the round on
purpose, because ‘he really put
on a show when we told him
we didn’t make it. Well, our
backs was aching from wrestl-
ing timber all morning an’ a
liner all afternoon so we just
gave him that “go to hell’ look
and walked away in the middle
of his act. It’s no wonder I’d
forgot about the guy that didn’t
know about the birds an’ bees
by quitting time.

But when I started -down the
hill, there he was at ‘the foot of
the stairs, arguing with some
other guy.

I stopped to listen in. But by

POS PPC OC FO CO OOR

QOS
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PAAR

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SSSSSSESHEESEES

LENIN
| MEMORIAL
/MEETING

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"LENIN - The rea Emancipator” :

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| Sunday, January 21, 8 p.m. 7

7OS

now I was so mad at the penny
pinching blankety blank com-
pany that I didn’t have any
steam left over to blow at Bus-
ter. He was still cussin’ t\:
union—or what he thought was
the union-—an’ you know it kin-
da done me good to see anybody
get so het up about it. Maybe
this was a pretty good guy after
all if he’d just stop an’ figure
things out.. So I buts in. “Say,
Jack,” I says,. “what -IS this
union you’re so_ steamed .-up
about, anyway?”

“You know what it is,’ he
says, “it’s the outfit I kick two
bucks into every month.”

It kinda floored me for a min-
ute to think anybody could be
so dense, but I tried again,
eWelly uh. wk says, “what i:
mean is,, WHO’S the union?”

(Why 40s them = =o iy
down there in the offices that’s
sittin’ on their fat butts an’ not
doin’ a thing to get us a raise.”

“Lissen, Jack,” I says, trying

to hold my temper down,
“there’s only one guy down
there in the office an’ he ain’t
the union an’ he don’t claim to
be. An’ he ain’t sitting on his
butt. He’s doing everything one
‘man can do to get ‘that raise,
an’ so are all the other officers.
But they ain’t gonna get, it for
us.”

“Now listen here, Buster

“Well what the —'s the matter
with them?” he-says. “What's
the use of a union if it can’t
get us a raise?”

“Oh, we’re gonna get a raise
alright,” I says, “an’ we’re gon-
na get it through -the union.
Trouble is, you don’t know .who
the union is.’ He just looked
blank, so I goes on: “See all
them guys getting on that bus

an’ in them cars an’ coming
down the hill? ‘Well, that’s the
union. That’s the outfit you

pay two bucks into an’ cuss hell
out of. The union ain’t a build-
ing or a bank account or some
officers. It’s these guys ‘all
around us. It ain’t the officers.
It’s us. An’ if you want in on
another ‘little secret, let me tell
ya’ that the COMPANY knows
that, even if you don't. The
company don’t care’ for sour
appies how much our officers
want a raise nor how hard they
argue for it. What the com-
pany’s worried about is how bad
we want that raise an’ how hard
WE argue for it.”

* * *

THERE WAS a little crowd
gathered ‘around us by this time
an’ some guy pipes up, “How
the hell can we argue with the
company?
them.”

I locked up the hill atthe

We don’t even see

buildings an’ the hole. They all
looked up there. “What's that
up there?” I says, “ain’t that
the company up there? An’
don’t we go up there an’ argue
with it every day? If we really
mean business about that raise
we can find plenty of ways to
put our arguments across. That's
how they got their arguments
across in other places. . Maybe
we're the ones that’s sittin’ on
our butts.”

“Ya, ‘them companies  ain’t
dumb,” one of the fellows says,
“they're a hell of a lot more
interested in what we do than
they are in how loud our officers
yell at them.” :

“Say, maybe we’re giving them
the wrong idea,’ somebody else
says, “maybe they think we
don’t mean business when we
ask for more dough.” “TI guess
we'll get just what we're tough
enough to *bet.” somebody else
volunteered. “I bet they find
out how I feel about that raise
tomorrow.”

They ‘was still talking when
I made a run for the bus. TI
missed it an’ had to hitch a ride
home. But what :the hell?—it’s
all in “a day’s work.

P.S. They got the raise.

@ Reprinted from Union News,
B.C. district organ of the
International Union of Mine,
Mill and Smelter Workers.

Ship's crew protests
Ukrainian hall bombing

VINCENT FAGAN, ship’s wUe-
legate, SS Wairuna, Suva, Fiji:
A copy of the following letter
has been forwarded from the
crew of this ship to the Toronto
eitvy council:

We, the crew of the SS Wai-
runa, wish to protest the bomb-
ing of the Ukrainian Labor
Temple in Toronto last thanks-
giving day, while children were
present.

We think it is a disgrace to
the Province of Ontario and ‘will
remain so until the person or
persons responsible have been
apprehended and punished.

An irresponsible and _fascist-
like act such as this, perpetrat-
ed against any group in Canada,
is a flagrant abuse of the demo-
cratic rights for which the Ca-
nadian people have fought since
the first settlers came to this
country, and as_ conscientious
union men we consider it our
duty to demand that you do all
in your power to rectify this
matter immediately.

‘

‘De Leon under pillow
and old Plato on hip’.

LD-TIMER, Edmonton: The
me press” (a term (Carl E.
Berg used to sling around very
long ago) heralds that he is in

Vancouver to save a union from

the Reds. Carl has been work-
ing to the liking of the boss
press for many years now, in
fact, Carl never did any other
work, than walking to an eating
house. -

There. was a time Carl had to

\

go to cheap joints in a pair of
overalls. The overalls had no
sections than the
part which fitted his
chair in the Lumber: Workers’

other worn
swivel

ctfice in Edmonton.

Carl’s union work then con-
sisted mainly in the collection
of dues. Union history in Ed-
monton, where Carl has lived
since around -1914, will not re-

,cord Berg as an organizer, a

fighter, or a leader of any sec-
tion of Edmonton workers. Berg
never worked on a job which
gives scope for organization, for
action and for leadership.

The evolution of Carl E. from
eating in overalls: at a cheap
joint to a room in an expensive
hotel with meals at $1.50 per
was not from hard work recog-
nized by the workers in any
plant, or on any job. His own
local here starved for years be-
cause Carl had not the energy
to keep it even half alive. It
‘lives now in a fashion but not
because of Carl's leadership. It
lives largely by the grace of a
firm which helped Carl get on
in this hard, hard world when

“one does not like a pick and

shovel. And Carl never did like
those tools which members of
his union had to use to live.

Well, Carl used to sleep with
a little book under his pillow.
Old Daniel de Leon wrote it. He
also had on his hip a page from
old Plato, and the widom of the

old gents was used to prevail
upon workers within hearing to
keep away trom politics. That,
however, did never prevent Carl
from playing his politics so he
would emancipate himself from
that pick and shovel. And one
must give Carl credit -——- he suc-
ceeded.

Most men in a position such
as held by Carl have at least
something good in their record
— something done sometime on
behalf of the workers. But Carl
won his place by playing ducks
and drakes, he played politics,
he played right against left and
vice versa. Carl always was rea-
dy to disrupt a union, a council,
a meeting — anything from any-
one he believed could keep him
from having to use that pick
and shovel,

Carl likes to live well, sleep
well and long, mix with such
folks as will keep him fed and.
well fed. I am convinced that
Carl is devoid of any principle
(and I have known him since
about 1914). He is savage in
that respect. He is not for
Canada, for the U.S., or for the
Commonwealth. (Carl secured
his citizenship papers only when
he was elected fraternal dele-
gate to the British Tradé Union
Congress to obtain a passport).
Carl does as he does because
it is good for Carl. He is not
concerned about the union as
are those who build them. Carl
never was union builder. Carl
was Serene at the till.

“One Does Not Wait For Peace To Come - —
One Fights to Win It.” _

1951 GREETINGS FROM
WOODWORKERS CLUB,

NANAIMO __

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 12, 1951 — Page Hi