Boilermakers
— reject 6-cent
- wage award

By unanimous standing vote, members of the Marine Workers
and Boilermakers Union this week rejected a conciliation board majori-
ty award recommending a six cents an hour wage boost for employees
of Burrard Drydock and Pacific Drydock. Union members authorized
their leaders “to take any action necessary, in conformity with the
Shipyard Conference” to win a 20-cent across-the-board increase to

offset zooming living costs.

Plumbers, carpenters, electri-
cians and other union members
united within the Shipyard Con-
ferénce will vote on the concilia-
tion board proposal within the

next few days. An expected
“thumbs down” verdict will

probably result in a shipyards
strike vote being taken.

Prices are soaring like a sky-
rocket, while real wages are drop-
ping like a bomb. To offset the
Shrinking dollars of 1950, ship-
yard workers are determined to
aecept nothing less than the 20
cents yer hour they originally
asked for.

For years now, all categories
of shipyard workers have received
tess money than workers: doing
similar jobs in the building trades.
In a brief presented by the nine
shipyard unions to the concilia-
tion board, the point is stressed
that “we do not consider there
can be any justification for a
wage structure which pays a man
one set of rates while engaged
in his trade on building construc-
tion and a much lower rate while

on shipyard work.” ;

“The brief continues: “The. skills
- required are similar and the work
is essentially the same. Why

Mine-Mill locals get
joint certification

Joint certification has been
granted to Mine-Mill locals 480
and 651 as the bargaining unit
for employees of Consolidated
Mining and Smelting Company
at Trail and Kimberley, Labor
Relations ‘Board announced this
week.

The LRB decision is a blow at
the raiding United Steel Workers
of America, whose representa-
tives wanted the Trail field left
open for continuaticn of their
union-§plitting activities. Steel
leaders had appeared at the LRB
hearings in Victoria on Septem-
ber 7 to object to the joint certi-
fication.

Letters supporting the joint
certificaion had been sent to the

LRB by Leo Nimsick, MLA
(Cranbrook - Kimberley) and
James Byrne, MP (Kootenay
East).

ACCROSS

trades, carpenters 23c less, fit-
ters 33c, plumbers 30c, electric-
ians 23c, laborers 18c.

The brief dealt with employment
in British Columbia’s shipbuilding
industry, which varies (qreatly
from month to. month. -For ex-

should an electrician, for example,
who may work on both building
construction and ships receive a
lower rate of pay while on the}
latter type of work? Clearly he|
is entitled to one rate of pay,
namely a journeyman’s rate for-|
his particular trade, regardless of
the ‘locale of his work.” |

|
:
_ A 1950 chart showing the differ-|
ential favoring the building trades |
workers was presented to the
board,

The chart showed that boiler-
makers and welders employed
in the shipyards now ‘receive
$1.45 an hour as compared to
$1.88 paid to boilermakers and
welders employed in the build-
_ ing trades. Mechanics in the
Shipyards get 33c an hour less
than mechanics in the building

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jample, in January, 1948, 82 firms
|in both steel and wooden shipyards

in the province employed 5,372
workers; in December, 1948, the
figure had dropped to 2,898.

“Such severe fluctuations in em-
ployment militate against the pos-
sibility of maintaining adequate
annual take-home pay,” the brief
stressed. It also meant that em-
ployers required a considerable
pool of experienced workers from
which to draw for peak months,

Although the most recent year
for which official figures are avail-
able is 1948, the situation was
even worse in 1949, when the
majority of shipyard workers had
no assurance of continuity of em-
ployment.

“The present steady decline’ in
the purchasing power position of
our members must be arrested at
once,” the brief concludes.

CHINA

were 38-10 with eight abs-
tentions and 37-11 with eight
abstentions.

Canada’s L. B. Pearson,
acting the role of Acheson's
boy, proposed the setting up
of a seven-country commit-
tee to “study the question of
Chinese representation.” This
motion carried 42-9 with six
abstentions.

HERR EUENE

oF

Bid for

for the purpose of securing higher

of living of recent years.”

‘They voted approval of an im-
mediate drive for increased wages
after 30 rank and file delegates
from locals scattered all over the
United States and Canada told
how the “sudden economic
changes” since last June have
“gravely endangered the security
of all Mine-Mill members.”

Summing up the wage and con-
tract policy session, International
vice president Orville Larson, who
is bargaining coordinator of the
union, said: :

“The responsibility for grant-
ing a wage increase rests square-
ly em the shoulders of the min-
ing companies. They’re making
the highest profits they ever
made in the history of the min-
ing industry.

“This union can—and will—win
a wage increase,” Larson said. _

The convention alson heard an
address by Louis Goldblatt, sec-
retary-treasurer of the Interna-
tional Longshoremen’s and Ware-
‘housemen’s Union, who declared
‘that “the CIO has sounded its own
|death knell by ‘this series of ex-
pulsions of progressive
| From now on it will be nothing

than a glorified company

more
‘union that eventually will be cap-
‘tured completely by the employers.
|Ultimately the workers will
|forced to break away from CIO
‘and form some real unions for
| themselves.”

| Goldblatt told delegates that
|“unions like the ILWU and the
|Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers
jhave got to work together. We
|don’t believe a third labor move-
|ment is a sound idea. But we
|do need unity around some simple
principles.” And he proposed a
‘parley of all progressive unions
,in order to plan a program around
| What the called “these three simple
| principles”:

“First, unity to protect and ad-
vance the economic interests of
our membership.

“Second, unity to give mutual
defense in time of need.

Third, unity to fight off the
cannibals, the raiders and the
Splitters in the labor movement.”

:

unions. |

higher wages

approved by Mine-Mill |

DENVER

Delegates to the 46th convention of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Work-
ers here last week shouted their approval of a proposal to “‘seek immediate discussions with employers

wages to enable our members to maintain even the inadequate standard
j

UE seeks wage hike
for 6,000 GE workers

TORONTO

Sudden rises in living costs and demands for speedy set-

tlement of outstanding differences with the management of

Canadian General Electric Company are given as reasons for

a decision by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Work-

ers Union to seek an immediate meeting with the company
jon wave issues.

A meeting of the union’s joint
‘conference board representing all
General Electric workers organ-
ized by the UE in Canada—some
6,000 in all—has announced plans
to hold a series of Special mem-

bership meetings to formulate the
new demands for wage increase,

close liason during negotiations
with these two large electrical
manufacturing concerns,

Average earnings atthe Cana-
dian Westinghouse plant, largest
competitor of General Electric, are .
reported to be 16 cents an hour
higher than paid by GE.

job evaluation reform, pension
ee welfare plans, and other mat- Disparity in the wage figures is
ers.

attributed to the effects of raid-
ing conducted by the IUE-CIO and
backed by the Canadian Congress
of Labor which resulted in a divi-

In addition to a flat increase
the union will press for special

upward adjustments for day rate
workers and _ skilled craftsmen.

be |

The union charges that the com-
pany has been failing to fully re-
cognize its obligations as set ‘out
in the present collective agree-
;ment. The company will be called
,upon to assist in a speedy settle-

ment of all grievances in the
plants.

sion in the ranks of the UE be-
fore the raiders were defeated.

The Joint Conference Board at
its meeting called on all UE locals
“to unite for action against any
form of disruption by IUE or
other outside groupings” since only
the employer came out, a winner,
When the workers were divided
among themselves.

The joint conference board of
GE locals proposed a meeting with
a union committee of Westing-
house workers, also organized in
the UE, to work out plans for

Recent increases in living costs,
the union committee declared,
have reduced living standards by
the equivalent of a 10c per hour
cut in pay,

STANTON & MUNRO

Barristers, Solicitors, Notaries
SUITE 515, FORD BUILDING, 193 E, HASTINGS ST.
(Corner Main & Hastings Sts.) MArine 5746

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 22, 1950—PAGE 6