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Price Five Cents

BCER men vote on proposals

FFIE’ PLEDGES FIGHT
TO HALT FARE HIKE

EFFIE WARNS NON-PARTISANS

‘I will lead bigger
Campaign than ever’

-“If Dal Grauer and the BCElectric try to put across an-
other fare hike at the expense of the long-suffering Vancouver
Public, [’]] head a crusade against higher fares that will shake
is Province,”’ declared Mrs. Effie Jones, long-time. advocate
of lower fares and twice a mayoralty candidate in Vancouver.

; “A few weeks after fares were ‘upped to 3 for 25 cents,
'n November, 1947, I ran for mayor on a ‘low-fare’ platform
and polled more than 19,000 votes. Last December the labor
Vote was split by Tom Alsbury, who rushed up to Charlie

©mpson’s headquarters on election night to congratulate him
on his Victory.

December, 1951, the BCElectric may feel the time is ripe to
ad another fare increase on to the backs of the people. Just
st them try it, and I'll organize a movement of thousands of
citizens and lead the biggest delegation to the city hall this
Sily'has ever seen.”

Vancouver's crusading civic leader, Effie Jones,
now on a tour of Vancouver Island, told the Pacific
Tribune by phone that “if the BCElectric tries to
raise fares again following settlement of the dispute
with their transit employees, I will organize the
biggest. protest movement ever seen in this province,”
(See story on this page.)

Street Railwaymen’s Union members are voting
on a BCElectric proposal to avert strike action by
granting of the 40-hour week by February 16, 1950,
five months earlier than the date suggested in a
conciliation board majority recommendation decisive-
ly rejected by the union last week.

BCElectric president A. E. Grauer, who in the

past has had one stock answer to every union gain,
: : 5

to raise the rates again, has coldly answered, “No

comment,’ to newsmen’s question about a rumoured

Gang-up on seamen
threat to all unions

Yankee imperialism has moved
in, on the Canadian labor move-
ment and is shaking the big stick
in an effort to smash the world-
wide strike of the Canadian Sea-
men’s Union, now entering its

third month.

trayal of
“leaders.”

Dewar "Ferguson,
CSU busness agent, issued a
statement charging that “the
U.S. state department, in league
with top AFL leaders, is wan-
tonly interfering in the inter.
nal affairs of the Canadian Ia-
bor movement.”

Ferguson added that the St.
Laurent government “welcomes Five East
this dictatorship of a foreign
government in order to break

@ A CSU striker shakes his fist
at “one that got away.” But
only 15 scab-operated ships have
sailed during two months of bit-
ter strike struggle, while some 55
vessels remain tied up in Can-
adian and foreign ports. World
labor backs the seamen, despite
unprecedented government at-
tacks on the union and the be-
right-wing labor

application for still higher fares immediately follow-
ing the provincial elections June 15.

Grauer stated last March that implementation
of the 40-hour week would cost the BCE lectric
more than $] million yearly, and hinted that the
company had no intention of reducing its all-time
high profits, but would apply to city council and the
Public Utilities Commission for an increase.

The company’s latest proposals will be either
accepted or turned down by 3,000 BCER employees
voting by secret ballot in Vancouver, Victoria and
New Westminster on June 8. The union’s ad-
visory board has recommended acceptance. Result
of the vote will be made public June 9.

Continued on back page
See BCELECTRIC

the CSU strike.” The CSU lead-
ers’s charges came after Hal
Banks, spokesman for a gun-
toting crew of Seafarers’ Inter-
national strike-breakers, had is-
sued what Ferguson termed “a
shocking statement” to the ef-
fect that the AFL executive had
handed Percy Bengough, Trades
and Labor Congress president,
an ultimatum to expel the CSU
from the TLC.

Banks and four other SIU
members are out on bail of
$1,000 dollars each in Montreal,
charged with Carrying offen-
Sive weapons.

Toronto

Coast ships are
strike-bound in Vancouver, and
50 more are tied up in ports
around the world, including 23 in
the United Kingdom, where some
10.000 dock workers are on strike
in support of the CSU. Force and
violence has been used against
the seamen in many countries,
and 100 strikers are held in for-
eign jails.

Canadian and American gov-
ernments, and AFL head William
Green, are putting extreme pres-
Sure on TLC leaders to betray
the fighting seamen.

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