By BERT WHYTE

Dunner, says the diction-

ary, is that which is taken

Y force, theft or fraud; as
Plunder a city.

i Sw
‘Ong

Ord and fire were the weap-
limes. Ee nouders in ancient
‘ity, a €y descended upon a
lilleg peo it of its treasures,
ithe aes inhabitants, burned
iNew dings and swept on to
| COnquests,

; ye coters of modern times,
U bette Monopolies, have found

ey - Way of doing things.
tiant pace a city, establish
Munich ants, win control of the
ticher Pal government, grow
Wing 24 fatter on the wealth
Mer; out of their workers,

mk their piles of gold by
= a the main burden of
Mone nto the backs of the

Ham:

i quiltton, the Steel City, is
Cana a example of what a
ter ip 9 Community looks like
th has been dominated by

“Ono .
tine. Polies for a long period of

“A
Hi otBe-podge of ill-assort-
Streey buildings; congest-
bite om Soot-grimed, out-of-
Patkin fe blocks; shabby stores;
of blish Ots; and a scattering
thy i ted areas as mean as
: Ntario,”

at? ‘
trait wi the unflattering _por-
MeN ei milton drawn by Stan

| italigy t The Spectator — a
om Newspaper which sel-
hiends *nds its great and good

Yhile Se © monopolists. Even
“aim; “inging its hands and
Yh 8 €ditorially that
lit jg, <'Milton needs is a plan
Velopment,” the Spec-
S away from placing

toy a

the responsibility for Hamilton’s
plight where it belongs—on the
monopolies.

e

“Profits before people” is the
slogan of the monopolies, a slo-
gan that finds a ready echo
among their puppets at City
Hall.

“Where is the money to come
from?” cry the city’s politicians,
as they cut community needs
with one hand and grant the
monopolies concessions with
the other.

The money could come, of
course, from the rich monopo-
lies like Stelco, Westinghouse,
Dofasco, International Harvest-
er and Firestone.

Steleo made $37 million last
year; in the first quarter of this
year the company’s profits in-
creased by 15 percent. Dofasco
made $19 million last year; the
rate of profit increased for the
first quarter this years was 40
percent.

“Ask and ye shall receive,”
is city council’s attitude to Big
Business. When Stelco asked
permission to pipe up 45 million
gallons of water a day to its
new finishing mill, the matter
was okayed by council in jig
time. Three labor aldermen (led
by Alderman William Powell)
dared to protest, so the matter
was referred to the Ontario
Water Resources Commission—
which approved the Stelco re-
quest within a week. Council
rubber-stamped it again, but this
time six aldermen stood up to
be counted against Stelco.

“The fight against the mono-
polies begins with the fight to

HAMILTON

People vs. Monopolies

elect labor representatives : to
city council. The. labor move-
ment has the strength, the vi-
sion, the understanding and the
organization to change the pre-
sent situation.”

The speaker was talking from
the floor, to 35 people attending
a meeting called by the Com-
munist Party in Hamilton one
night last week -to discuss the
coming civic elections.

Could these 35 dedicated
people really do much to spark
a movement which would enable
labor to climb. back up the steps
into civic politics and take ac-
tion to curb the monopolies?

As I listened to speaker after
speaker I began to think they
could. Students, industrial work-
ers, earnest young men and
women — and some not so
young, veterans with grey hair
— all demonstrated supreme
confidence that labor is ready
to enter the battle and deter-
mined to win.

Hamilton, said one young
man, is tired of being a “lunch
bucket town.”
schools, better playgrounds, cul-
tural centres.

“There can be no solution to
our municipal problems without
a revision of the tax structure,”
former Controller Helen Coulson
had stressed in her short open-
ing report. She underlined the
tremendous tax burden the
working people are carrying:

“Every year 1414 weeks of
your labor goes to pay taxes.
As a UE brief pointed out, on
a weekly wage of $76.66 the
taxes paid are $21.48, totalling
$1,117 a year. This is 26.8 per-
cent of total annual wages.”

Stelco breathes its dirty fumes over downtown Hamilton.

It wants new ,

ca

During the great strike in 1946, some 8,000 Hamilton war veterans
paraded to the Stelco plant and joined the picket line in protest
against the bringing in of outside police “to intimidate strikers.”

Hamilton is generally consid-
ered a “high wages” city — the
average weekly wage is said to
be $92.50. But such “averages”
can be deceptive, said the speak-
er. It is a fact that there are
32,000 “households in Hamilton
with an income below $77 a
week.

What has to be done is to
shift the tax burden onto those
able to pay—and those able to
pay are the big monopolies.

The election of more labor
representatives to city council
is essential if this program is
to be carried out.

Harry Hunter, a former alder-
man, could be called the “Father
of Town Planniny,” said Mrs.
Coulson, because he brought in
a plan extending forward to
1970. But with the defeat of
labor representatives planning
for the people was shelved in
favor of planning for the mono-
polies.

“They talk about an affluent
society,” said a worker from the
floor. “But I still live from day
to day. We need leaders in civic
life who work .like us, think
like us, talk like us. A united
front of such people could
change things.”

Another speaker raised prob-
lems relating to automation and
technological changes. ‘““‘We need
legislation to make industry re-
sponsible for protecting work-
ers’ jobs,” he said.

Dofasco is building a $28 mil-
lion mill which will employ only
25 workers.

The question of peace and
war was introduced—Ottawa is
squandering . billions on useless
“defense” and ignoring people’s
needs. How can this issue be
brought down to the municipal
level?

And so the discussion con-
tinued — with speaker after
speaker raising problems of
vital concern to the people of
Hamilton, and suggesting that
the answer lies in working class
unity, in a battle to curb the
power of the monopolies.

I had the-.feeling that I was
witnessing the birth of a real
movement of the people which

will grow in size and strength in
the coming weeks and months.

In a sense, the meeting I at-
tended was an outgrowth of a
public debate iw labor circles
initiated by the publication of a
pamphlet, “Automation: The
Hamilton Prospect,” by the
Hamilton Committee of the
Communist Party.

e

The pamphlet challenges the
“power structure”; it charts a
road for labor in the era of
automation; it breathes confi-
dence that the future -belongs
to the working class. It makes
proposals which it asks the
workers to think about, talk
about, debate. It advocates plan-
ned, organized development to
make Hamilton a model city.

.“Hamilton city council is
called upon now to prepare its
plans for the future,” it says.
“Men and women from the
ranks of labor are needed on
council to replace tthe - spokes-
men of Big Business who have
been allowed to run-our city for
the financial benefits of the cor-
porations ...

“The victories labor. won in
the past were won in periods
when there was. the highest de-
gree of working class unity.
These lesson of unity, learned
in struggle, need to be remem-
bered now. The labor unity and
community support that won the
great steel-strike in: 1946 show-
ed what could be done

“One party, union or group
cannot alone give all the an-
swers to the complex problems
that face us. It will. take. the
collective opinions and actions
of all who are concerned about
the future—Communists, mem-
bers of the New Democratic
Party, the trade union move-
ment — all people young and
old, who see the threat of mon-
opoly’s drive for super-profits at
the expense of our people, city
and country.

“The opinions expressed in
this pamphlet are intended as
a contribution to the debate that
is going on in Hamilton and
everywhere about the future—
ours and that of generations,
yet unborn.”

October 2, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7