HORROR WEAPON. This is the notorious anti-personnel bomb being dropped
by the U.S. air force in large numbers over Vietnam civilian centres. Carried
to the ground in a mother bomb, which spreads them over a wide area, they
send out a shower of razor sharp pellets in all directions. Harmless against
metal and stone, this weapon is exclusively aimed at maiming and

terrorizing the civilian population.

Union leader honored

Some one hundred guests which
included trade union leaders,
provincial Mines Department and
Workmens Compensation Board
representatives, editors from B.C.’s
labor press and the CBC, attended a
sumptuous Testimonial Dinner in the
Gai Paree December 27 to honor
Brother Les Walker, long-time
official and leading member of Mine-
Mill on the occasion of his
retirement.

Many tributes were voiced by local
leaders and members of the old Mine-
Mill Union, now merged with the
United Steel Workers, on the long,
tireless and devoted service Les
Walker has given to his fellow

unionists, and to the labor movement

of B.C.

For many years Les Walker was in
charge of compensation and welfare
work for the Mine-Mill Union~and
has worked hard for improvements
in the Workmens Compensation Act
to win compensation benefits, which
would not have been won except for
the time and effort Walker dedicated
to that task.

Among the numerous
presentations to Walker as a tribute
from his fellow unionists was a
handsome rocking chair and other
gifts. Harvey Murphy made the
presentation, while Al King acted as
MC for the dinner program.

In expressing his thanks to the
assembled guests for their good
wishes and tributes, Walker also

thanked the Mines and WCP
representatives for their help in
making the old Mine-Mill a good
union: ‘‘We had to be good,”’ said
Les, ‘‘to stack up against your
opposition.”

GAS PRICES

Cont'd from pg. 1

While the NEB’s ruling was in
Canada’s interest, it nevertheless
left the door open to further
negotiations agreeing with -the U.S.
FPC that ‘it makes good economic
sense to consider Canadian gas
reserves in a continental manner’’.

In refusing to approve the present
contract, the NEB acknowledged
precisely what the B.C. Prov.
Committee of the Communist Party
charged in a written submission that
“Canadian customers have been
subsidizing American customers for
more than a decade. The low export
price ‘has had a stultifying effect
upon exploration for gas in B.C. as
compared with Alberta,”’ the Board
also found.

The Board’s decision leaves the
proposed $25 million sale at an
impasse. A temporary license has
been granted. Further negotiations
are already under way. The U.S.
Federal Power Commission has now
to decide whether to stand pat, or
concede that the NEB of Canada has,
in fact, the right to say at what price
and under what terms American
distributors can obtain an exported
Canadian resource.

“The Immortal Memory”’.

“Tree of Liberty”:

‘Burns Nicht’ fete set

With a fine concert and dinner marking the 209th Anniversary of
Scotland’s ploughman poet, Robbie Burns, the Burnaby-Coquitlam
Social Club are sponsoring another gala ‘Burns Nicht” on January 13
in the Capital Hill Community Hall at Hastings and Howard Streets.
Burnaby. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m.

. The guest speaker at this year’s Burns Dinner will be the national
leader of the NDP, Tommy Douglas, MP, who will give the address to

In this Anniversary tribute to Scotland’s national Bard, as with
thousands of others around the world, the voice of Robbie Burns in
many languages will once again ring out clear and vibrant, for Peace —
and that hope for human brotherhood, so brilliantly set forth in Burns’

Wi plenty o’ sic trees I trow

The world wad live in peace, man,
The din 0’ war wad cease man.

Like brethern in a common cause.

The sword wad help to make a plough,
We'd on each other smile, man,

And equal rights and equal laws,

Wa’d gladden every Isle, man.

Wi’ plenty o’ sic trees J trow

The world wad live in peace, man,
The sword wad help to make a plough,
The din o’ war wad cease man.

Like brethern in a common cause,
We'd on each other smile, man,

And equal rights and equal laws,
Wa’d gladden every Isle, man.

JANUARY 5, 1968—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page sae

LABOR SCENE:

Interior lumber bosses

fail to break [WA strike

Employees of the Riverside Forest
Products plant at Lumby, B.C. broke
the unity ranks of the three-month
IWA Interior strike Tuesday of this
week, but only for a few hours. Next
day they were back on the picket line
with ranks solid. The Lumby mill is a
small operation with approximately
28 employees.

Under company pressures to end
the long strike, J. Muirhead,
manager of. the Lumby operation,
stated that that the men had agreed
to return to work and to accept a 20-
cent an hour increase on the 44-cent
wage increase recommended by
industrial inquiry commissioner Mr.
Justice F. Craig Munro, with the
balance payable in the second year of
a two-year contract.

The overall wage demands put
forward by the IWA for Interior B.C.
lumber operations was wage
“‘parity’’ with Coast standards,
which meant a minimum of 50-cents
an hour. Some 200 Lumby residents
together with IWA officials urged the
resident strikers to reconsider their
return-to-work decision, which they
did and walked off the job.

A number of efforts have been
made by the IWA Regional
negotiating committee and officers
to get wage talks reopened, which
broke off early in December, but
have been unsuccessful to date.

Jack Moore, IWA District
president stated that the Riverside
plant is a small operation and
management had promised the’
employees that if they returned- to
work they would get all the benefits
when the strike was ended. ‘‘But’’,
added Moore, ‘‘there are some
people who did not recognize that
going back to work now while the
strike is on, would weaken the rest of
the Interior woodworkers in getting
an agreement from which all would
benefit.’ Over 5,000 forest products
workers are involved in the Southern
Interior IWA strike.

**e*

Warnings came later from the last
1967 session of the Vancouver and
District Labor Council, the IWA
Executive of the Port Alberni local
and other sections of the B.C. labor
movement on the workings of the
Canada Pension Plan, operative in
1968.

IWA executive member Maurice
Corbeil warned all senior workers
contemplating retirement in
December of 1967 against such a
move without first of all studying the
provisions of the Plan, which
provides, among other things, that
the December 1967 retiree must
continue to work for at least one

WHY IN USA?

A federal government employee
recently sent us a few colored
posters put up in federal buildings in
B.C. which have been issued by the
National Safety Council's Office of
the Dominion Fire Commissioner in
Ottawa.

These posters deal with such
questions as litter, fire prevention
and other related subjects. The
interesting thing about all of them is
that they bear this inscription:
Printed in Chicago, U.S.A.”

We wonder why these posters.
which must cost a pretty penny,
cannot be printed in Canada, by
Canadian printing workers to give
jobs to Canadian workers? An
explanation from Ottawa would be

. interesting. rea ot Rad

month in 1968 before qualifying for
benefits.

“This means anyone Fetiring on
December (31,: 1967. will
automatically be denied these
benefits. We urge all members, if
they contemplate retiring, to
continue working into 1968 for at
least one month in order to qualify
for benefits’, stated the IWA leader,
as quoted in the Victoria Daily
Colonist of Dec. 16/67.

A Canada Pensions Plan
representative from Victoria had so
informed the IWA in explaining the
benefits under the plan, according to
Mr. Corbeil.

Looks like labor's fight to win a
Canada Pension Plan will now have
to be extended to make the Plan
work in the interests of those it is
presumed to benefit — without trick
clauses designed to disqualify
retiring workers from its benefits.

** *

Credential forms to all affiliated
union locals of the B.C. Federation of
Labor have been sent out by the
central body in preparation for the
big 4-day BCFL Conference,
scheduled in Victoria, January 27-28-
29-30. The credential form, serving in
lieu of a Call indicates the key points
on the agenda to come before the
conference ‘‘Injunctions
Compensation Wage Policy
Conference’.

With two representatives from
each BCFL affiliate, this conference
will mark an important step in B.C.
labor’s campaign against the use of
injunctions in labor-management
disputes, for improved Workmens’
Compensation legislation, and most

important, for united labor union co-
ordination in the 1968 wage
negotiations.

Meeting while the B.C. Legislature
is in session, it is expected that the
BCFL Conference body will also
present its collective legislative
demands to the Bennett government
and to MLA’s.

“Warmest New Year’s Greetings
to you both while we are fighting
from the outside. Signed fellow
workers: ..”’

The above telegram was sent to
United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union President Steve
Stavenes and Secretary Homer
Stevens, now serving a one year
prison sentence for alleged
“contempt” of an injunction order
duirng last year’s Prince Rupert
fishermen’s strike.

Over two hundred trade unionists
and others from the Lower Mainland
signed the telegram to the UFAWU
leaders — with a donation of 10-cents
per signature to cover sending costs.
Over and above the telegram cost,
$50 was collected which went into the
Union Defense Fund.

Prior to the Christmas holidays

many trade unionists and others, .

including the PT, had sent requests
to Canada’s Solicitor-General
Pennell, urging that Stavenes and
Stevens be given a Christmas
amnesty in order that “they could
spend the Yuletide season with their
families. All such requests were
cynically ignored, despite Ottawa
promises that such requests would
be considered.

Mourn labor veteran

Robbie Robson, well-known trade
unionist. war veteran and tireless
worker for peace, passed away i)
Vancouver General Hospital oi.
December 30, in his 67th year, froma
heart attack.

Born in England in 1900, Robbi
Robson was in the British Navy <
the age of 15-years and a year later
saw his first action in the historic
battle of Jutland in World War I.

Robbie came to Canada in 1927 and
spent the most of his time in B.C. as
a shipyard worker and electrician.
During the Second World War years
Robbie was president of the old Dock
and Shipyard Workers Union, aid
worked hard for the merger of
shipyard unions which now
constitutes the Marine Workers and
Boilermakers. In the latter union he
occupied the position of first vice
president for a number of years.

Later Robson, changing his area of
work, joined the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
(IBEW) and was one ofthe militants
who received a 15-year suspension by
the International top brass. At the
time of his death Robbie had already
‘served 12-years of that
suspension.

In the old Canadian Labor Defense
League days of the “Hungry 30's”.
and the jobless “‘slave camps" of the
Bennett Tory government. Robbie
was a tireless and courageous

leader. In 1936 he went to Spain to’

serve in the Canadian Mac-Pap
battalion of the International
Brigade. At the time of his passing
Robbie was president of the Mac-
Paps in B.C. +e Mie ees

‘Robson

. (Shoreworkers Section). |.

ety P ve

W. J. ROBSON

In every peace movement since
before World War II, Robbie Robson
was an active and devoted worker
for peace.

Funeral services were held at the
Bell Funeral Home on Wednesday at
3 p.m. Tributes were paid by Marine
Workers Union secretary Wm.
Stewart and Len Norris of the Mac-
Paps who served with Robbie in
Spain.

Robbie Robson is survived by his
wife. Lilian Robson, two daughters.
Mrs. Jackie Burkholder of
Coquitlam, and Roberta Forkin,
Vancouver. and one son. Lusne
Robson. Business Agent, Local 452.
Carpenters Union. and five
grandchildren. His wife Lilian
is a member of the
Executive of the United Fishermen

Se ea