In the spotlight ~-

EMANUEL SHINWELL
Minister of Fuel and chairman
of the Labor Party, demoted in the
recent Attlee cabinet ‘shakeup’. Re-
8arded as being too friendly with
Senteral secretary Arthur Horner
of the National Union of Coal
Miners, and the tory-inspired tar-
Set in last winter’s coal crisis,
Shinwell has been relegated to a
POSst in the war ministry. Eleven
Ministers were. dismissed, nine
and thirteen mew ones ap-
Pointed in the government re-
Shuffle,

PIERRE COURTADE

Pierre Courtade, correspond-
®nt for the French Communist
Paper “L’Huntanite,” is the first
Correspondent to the United Na-

Ons to be restricted in his ac-
tivities, He is required to stay

New York City or at U.N.
headquarters, and he is forbidden
to write about anything except
U.N. meetings.

The restrictions are in force be-
*ause Courtade is. a Communist,
and is subject to U.S. immigration

WS. Courtade was in the U.S.
16 years ago as an official guest
4nd was greeted by President Her-
bert Hoover. He had won the trip
48 a prize in France. He is form-
®r editor of the French Resistance
News agency.

Ge HANS EISLER
erman-born Hollywood

song-
Writer, ordered deported by the
Co. ed un-American Activities
Conmittee, charged with being a
hare st. He is a brother of Ge-

Eisler, convicted on a trump-
leg charge of seeking to ‘organ-

& revolution’ ix the U.S.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1947

Murray declares CIO wage gains

prevented economic breakdown

BOSTON—The major obstacle in the way of economic collapse of America’s inflated
economy has been organized labor’s bitter fight for higher wages, President Philip Murray
told the CIO’s ninth constitutional convention October 13.

Murray’s report, highlighting the brilliant opening session in the Hotel Bradford, cov-

ered a broad field of topics with
the thinking of himself and his
associates in the CIO leadership.

Recalling that although the na-
tion had reached a goal of 60 mil-
lion jobs the entire economy re-
mains in danger, and that though
“we have defeated man’s greatest
enemies in a World War,” now af-
ter two years, real peace is more
distant than ever, Murray set the
scene for the delegates and de-
clared they met in “one .of the
most critical times of history.”

“There has been one major
development on the economic
front that has stood in the way
of an economic collapse, and
that has been the successful
drive of organized labor in the
past year for higher wages. This
has added purchasing power to
the mass of American workers
and has thus played an extremely
important part in preventing a
collapse of our economy.”

Since the removal of price con-
trols in 1946, Murray said, in-
dustry and the processors of food
and farm commodities have been
encouraged to raise prices to

levels which are almost the high-
est in the entire history of Am-
erica. He said price competition
has been almost negligible and in-
dustry has blamed wage costs as
an excuse for passing higher prices
on to the.public.

Murray said present prices are
a testimonial to the fact that
they were not brought about by
high wages, but through “the
avaricious appetite of American
industry for profits.”

Labor’s only defense, Murray
declared, is in the political
arena and the CIO therefore is
“sounding the call for the build-
ing of a larger and more ef-
fective Political Action Commit-
tee which will codllect the
money, register the voters and
get out the votes to give the
enemies of labor the soundest
trouncing of their careers.”

“On the labor unity front,”
Murray went on, “little real pro-
gress has been made. The CIO
is acutely aware of the. increased
importance of labor unity since
the passage of the Taft-Hartley
law. We have made repeated ef-

Burt states CCL ouster
‘deliberately engineered’

Charging that top CCL leaders had “deliberately stalled
action” in support of the packinghouse strike during the
first three days of the CCL convention, in order to first “put
across their own political ideas” George Burt, Canadian

Director of the United Auto Work-
ers declared that his own defeat
as a member of the CCL execu-
tive board, “was deliberately en-
gineered and is part of an over-
all trick to unseat me at the
UAW-CIO convention in Atlantic
city next month.”

Burt’s statement was a refer-
ence to the fact that he is known
as an opponent of the anti-pro-
gressive policies of UAW-CIO In-
ternational President Walter Reu-
ther, as are the majority of the
auto union’s international execu-
tive board. A showdown fight
around Reuther’s leadership will
take place in the UAW Atlantic
City convention in November, with
the majority of the Canadian auto
delegation pledged to support the
reelection of Burt as Canadian
director of the union.

The pro-Reuther, anti-Burt can-
didate, who will possibly be Thom-
as Brannigan, will receive the un-
official support and assistance of
the CCL leadership. Mr. Branni-
gan, chosen by Congress leader-
ship, was elected to the CCL exec-
utive board last week in place of
Burt who had previously repres-
ented the UAW-CIO.

Brannigan’s election immediately
brought charges from Roy Eng-
land, president of the 10,000-strong
Ford local of the UAW, “that the
entire campaign to defeat George
Burt had been a plot of many
months’ standing.”

England charged that the ad-
ministration made no bones about
the fact that it wanted Burt
dropped from the CCL executive
board because he hdd refused to
be a “yes man.” °

The CCL “machine election of
Brannigan, a man who has twice

4 been defeated as president of our

local, and who has held only the
office of committeeman iin . one
year out of six, is considered a
direct insult by the membership
of the Ford local,” said England.
“The events of last week’s
convention, particularly the el-
ections, have shown me,” said
England, “that the suspicion we
have had for some time that the
Corgress is run along machine
lines has borne fruit.”
Brannigan, said England, would
not be able to represent the UAW
on the CCL executive board as
Burt was able to do. Burt, he
stressed, aS Canadian Director of
the union, had “all the facts at
his fingertips. Brannigan will have
to get his information from Burt,
but I doubt if he will have the

ability to grasp facts.”

GEORGE BURT

“It is a sad condition,” said
England, “that the chosen lead-
er of the UAW-CIO, the man
who a caucus of auto workers
chose by a vote of four to one
as their choice of representa-
tive on the CCL _ executive,
should be defeated by an un-
democratic machine directed by
the administration.”

WINDSOR—The Canadian re-
gion of the United Auto Workers
(CIO) will go to the international
UAW convention in Atlantic City,
November 9, with a gain of 5100
paidup members over the January
1947 figure, Director George Burt
announced in-a recent statement
on UAW activities.

During 1946 the membership
hovered near the 20,000 mark.

The region has a tough strike,
over seven months old, at the Ot-
tawa Car and Aircraft plant, but
otherwise is in good shape. It re-
cently turned down a scandalously
stingy pension plan submitted by
General Motors to the locals,
which if it is a fair sample of
what G.M. will offer to U.S. locals
will make the defeated Ford pen-
sion plan look like generosity it-
self, Canadian auto workers ob-
serve.

Burt, who has been Canadian
director of Canada since the 1939
convention of the UAW _ which
threw out Homer Martin, is ex-
pected to be a candidate for re-

election at Atlantic City.

PHILIP MURRAY

forts to achieve such unity «with-
out success, Apparently our for-
mer brothers in the family of

labor would only require that we]

meet their conditions for return
as the price of forgiveness. This
we do not intend to do. We want
unity, seriously and earnestly, but
not unity at any price.”

Despite “an unparalleled cres-
cendo of attacks upon the CIO”
in the past year, Murray report-

ed, “we emerge both financially
and numerically stronger than
ever.” ;

High point decisions of the CIO
convention up-to-date include:

@ To turn out a vote in 1948
of -not less than 60, million to
defeat the Taft-Hartley bill and
its supporters.

@ Acknowledging the ‘autono-
mous right’ of its 41 affiliates to
determine their own policy to-
wards the new NLRB, the CIO
executive board voiced fits “unani-
mous rejection of the evil prin-
ciples of the Taft-Hartley bill.”

@ Campaign to build CIO in
Southern States has added 280,000
new members to CIO rolls since
last convention.

@® To further AFL-CIO unity,
propesed that “committees of AFL
and CIO unions operating in the
same field should meet to explore
the possibility of joint action in
respective efforts.”

cio lashes FBI
gum-shoe gestapo

BOSTON—In _ pre-conven-
tion session here, October 8,
the CIO- executive board

lashed out at the “furtive
sleuthing, gum-shoe detective op-
erations” of the FBI in its re
ported investigation of violations
of the Taft-Hartley law ban on
union expenditures in political
campaigns, Ss

Reportedly under scrutiny by
FBI agents are CIO, AFL and
railroad union activities in the
Baltimore election campaign of
July and the September vote in
the 8th District of Pennsylvania.
' Newspaper stories and other re-
ports, the CIO statement charged,
imply that the investigators are
“inquiring into activities of a na-
ture such as to require furtive
sleuthing, gum-shoe detective op-
erations and dramatic unearthing
of hidden clues.”

Actually, the board pointed
out, “the labor movement has not
only in no way concealed but
has proudly proclaimed for all
to see” its violation of the poli-
tical expenditures bar.

Rather “than badger and ter-
rify rank-and-file working men
and women by so-called investi-
gations,” the Justice department
should take note that “the labor
movement has acted openly and
in the best American traditions
in asserting these constitutional
rights,” the statement said.

ee

Wage demands rejected

MONTREAL — An arbitration
board by a 2 to 1 vote has turned
down a demand by seven AFL
building trade craft unions for a

20 percent increase in wages.

In its decision the government
established board conceded that
the cost of living is a “factor” in
setting the “strictly minimum
wage,” but declared that if a wage
is “fair and reasonable” then each
worker must endure the “contin-
gencies” brought about by sky-
rocketting prices.

The board then proceeded to
set a minimum wage of 70 cents
for the entire comstruction in-
dustry except watchmen, yardmen,
and apprentices “whose salary
must remain the same.” .

Contention of the unions that
building trade wage; in Toronto,
Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg
were much higher than here, and
that the cost of living has risen
higher in Montreal than anywhere
in Canada, was wordily by-passed
by the board. The decision affects
25,000 workers here.

Will urge King to act

WINDSOR—Windsor City Coun-
cil will be asked next week to
petition Prime Minister King for
an immediate special meeting of
parliament to “adopt measures to
uphold Canadian living standards
and to protect the country from
the disastrous consequences of an-
other economic crisis.”

The request will be put to the
council by Ald. M. J. Kennedy who
gave notice of motion at the regu-
lar meeting of the council last
night.

Demand a ‘lump sum’

TORONTO — The Civil Service
Association of Ontario issued a
statement here recently demanding
that immediate increases in sal-
aries be granted to the Ontario
civil service.

The statement signed by C. M.
Jephcott, president, asked that sa-
lary increases be granted “to com-
pensate for the drastic rise in the
cost of living.”

Jephcott said there are 5,500
civil servants in Ontario.

“The basis for adjustments was
the subject of lengthy discussion”
the statement said and officers of
the association asked “for a defi-
nite lump sum, automatic increase
throughout the entire schedule.”

The wage increase proposals will
be submitted to Provincial Treasur-
er D. R. Michener who has prom-
ised to place the matter before
the provincial cabinet.

‘One third ... in slums’

MONTREAL — “$250,000,000
yearly for family allowances, an-
other $250,000,000 yearly for health
insurance are very desirable so-
cial measures, but they will prove
to have the effect of ointment on
a wooden leg just so long as one-
third of our population is forced
to live in slums and another third
in unhealthy dwellings,” Emile Na-
deau, medical officer of Quebec
City, told the national conference
om community planning. -

Due to the lack of a “rational
and methodic” ‘housing program,
Dr. Nadeau stated, one million
families, a third of the nation, are
forced to live, or at least exist,
in hovels. He called it a “national
disgrace and a challenge to our
so-called civilization.”

“This problem is the sad result
of years and years of laissez-
faire,” Dr. Nadeau declared ,“It’s
not surprising that 40 percent of
recruits were found unfit for mili-
tary service during the last war,
nor that it costs a quarter of a
billion dollars yearly for curative
medicine, as long as we fail to
build quickly enough the many

hospitals that are needed.”
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 8