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3.5 MILLION WORKERS INVOLVED

Teamsters, Autoworkers
discuss cooperation

By WILLIAM ALLAN

DETROIT.

On June 27, the two biggest
unaffiliated unions in the United
States, the United Auto Work-
ers, (UAW) and the Internatio-
nal Brotherhood of Teamsters
(IBT) met away from the pry-
ing eyes of reporters for the
second time to discuss further

‘ coordinated activity.

The developing liason be-
tween these two labor giants is
bad news for management and
is being watched by all sections
of organized labor with great in-
terest. The first meeting took
place a month ago in the IBT
headquarters in Washington,
D.C. This time the UAW leaders,
Walter Reuther, president,
along with his top aides were
the hosts.

The IBT brought to the De-
troit sessions, their top figures,
Frank “Fitz” Fitzsimmons, act-
ing president; Einar Mohn, head
of the West Coast States organ-
ization; Harold Gibbons, acting
Central States chairman; Dusty
Miller, top man of the Southern
States organization and others.

A great deal of give and take
discussion on many issues mark-
ed the opening hours of the
historic sessions, ranging all the
way from U.S. politics, the inter-
nal situation of the AFL-CIO,
some barbs at each other but
good-naturedly.

There has been reached com-
mon understanding, but nothing
yet down on paper on a number
of issues aimed at improving the
bargaining positions of both in
their day to day work. These
will be worked out in the action
stage through reports at the

next meeting from a series of
sub-committees that were estab-
lished this time.

Issues to be refined and pro-
gramatized are:

e A series of joint organizing
drives, with the Teamsters pres-
sing for a Southern Organizing
Drive, but general unionizing
drives to be planned.

e Joint support to campaign
for civil rights, poverty cam-
paigns.

e Community Services, which
covers a vast range of civic
issues.

@ Politics, the UAW has pro-
posed in Michigan a pattern of
operations. To set up Citizen-
ship Councils of UAW locals,
Teamster, Building Trades,
United Mine Workers, with 2
cents per month per member to
be put into the political action
fund.

On politics, no candidate for
president has been agreed on
by either of the two labor
giants. Both continue to take
the position of no endorsement
until after the Aug. 29 national
Democratic Party convention in
Chicago.

Both UAW and Teamsters
may call separate national ga-
therings of several thousand
grass roots leaders to discuss
backing a presidential candid-
ate after the convention of the
political parties.

The UAW has already said
their national conference on
whom to back in the presiden-
tial race will be in September
in Washington, D.C. and the en-
dorsement will be voted up or
down via a secret ballot.

Both UAW and Teamsters will

FRANK

MARICLE

Frank E. Maricle, leading com-
munist and well-known in the
farm and labor movement in
Alberta, passed away on July
4 in the University of Alberta
Hospital in Edmonton, at the
age of 58.

Born in Oregon (he was a
cousin of Oregon’s Democratic
Senator, Wayne Morse) he spent
his childhood at Vegreville. He
farmed for years in the Hamlin
district until ill health forced
him to give it up. His last years
were spent in Edmonton.

On his return to his farm from
war-time service with the RCAF,
he plunged into work in the farm

eevwve

« ASS pr sess LG
y age wEDY MY tate — See

PACIFIC TRIBUNE JULY, 12, 1968—Rage 6,

Movement and was one of the
leading people who organized
the mass membership Alberta
Farmers’ Union in the late 1940s.
He played a decisive role in the
AFU merger with the older
United Farmers of Alberta
which resulted in the formation
of the present Farmers Union
of Alberta. He served as District
Director and Provincial Board
member of the FUA in its for-
mative years.

On moving into Edmonton, he
found employment in the hotel
trade and immediately became

active in trade union organiza-

tion. He was a member of the
Hotel and Restaurant Workers
Union, its delegate to the Ed-
monton and District Labor Coun-
cil and chaired the Council’s
committee on organization at his
death.

He joined the Communist
Party in the 1940s and was a
member of the Alberta Provin-
cial Committee of the party for
over two decades and chaired
the Committee for the past six
years. He was the party’s can-
didate in several federal election
campaigns in Vegreville federal.

His work for peace singled
him out in both the farm and
labor movement. He was one
of the few Canadians who at-
tended the Sheffield-Warsaw
world peace conference in 1950.
At his death he was an execu-
tive member of the Edmonton
Committee to End the War in
Vietnam.

He leaves his wife, Jean, two
sons and three daughters, a step-
son and step-daughter and two
foster daughters.

have loads of observers at
both Republican and Democrat
Party conventions, as well as
top people participating with the
McCarthy campaign (Harold
Gibbons, Central States, Team-
ster leader strongly supports
McCarthy). In the UAW, Emil
Mazey, secretary treasurer is re-
ported a McCarthy backer.

In two weeks the Teamsters
International Executive Board
will hold sessions in California
and one of the top issues will
be the California political scene
and what to do.

It was learned also that the
Teamsters have been getting
feelers for affiliation from four
of the smaller AFL-CIO Interna-
tional Unions who are in desper-
ate straits because of lack of
strength, funds, organizers and
power to be beat back manage-
ment attacks. Following the
eight month newspaper strike in
Detroit, strong talk exists
amongst the members of the
Newspaper Guild, for the Guild
to affiliate to a bigger, more
powerful international union.

Michigan Teamster leaders,
asked about Reuther’s proposal
for UAW, Teamsters, Building
Trades, United Mine Workers to
set up a Citizenship Council,
said “we would favor it, would
help on candidates, program, re-
gistration and defeating the
‘reactionaries, anytime”.

The assets of both labor
giants are: United Automobile
Workers Union, at least $114
million. Teamsters, at least $120
million. UAW has 1.5 million
members, Teamsters has almost
two million.

Teamsters have been quietly
signing into all contracts a
clause where $5 a year is check-
ed off by the employer for each
of his employee, for DRIVE
(Democrats, Republicans, Inde-
pendents Voters Education).

As a result, in Michigan where
the Teamsters have close to
200,000 members, more than a
million dollars is in the DRIVE
“kitty”. Duplicate this in 50
states and you have quite a poli-
tical action fund.

With the UAW also having a
massive “Citizenship Fund” of
millions, both UAW-IBT through
their combined strength, plus the
building trades and United Mine
Workers, are going to make the
230,000 Michigan AFL-CIO
COPE movement pretty small.
UAW has about 700,000 mem-
bers in Michigan Building

Trades, 200,000, UMWA about

50,000.

ITH“the federal election

now behind us and
Trudeaumania_ riding the
crest, the post-mortems on
how it all happened are taper-
ing off, and the Canadian peo-
ple, particularly that all-im-
portant section we call the
workingclass, are experienc-
ing what might be termed a
political hang-over.

Out here in B.C., and I
would assume the feeling is
pretty general among work-
ers everywhere, is the very
narrow marginal loss of his
seat in Burnaby-Seymore by
NDP national leader Tommy
Douglas. Nor does the un-
seemly haste in NDP Right-
wing circles to bury their for-

_ward-looking national leader
before even the contents of
the ballot box proclaim him
Officially dead, ease the im-

» pact of the hangover.

Two prime causes (among
a lot of others) contributed to
the Trudeaumania defeat of
Tommy Douglas.First a cock-
sureness by too many of his
NDP and other supporters
_that victory was a foregone
conclusion, and there was
nothing to worry about — a
sentiment which manifested a
gross under-estimation of the
political charisma of Trudeau-
mania, helped along by an
NDP Right-wing in the ranks
of organized labor and out
of it, who pay lip service to
NDP policies and goals, but
who in actuality find a closer
affinity with the old-line Lib-
eral and Tory hucksters for
big business. Some even climb
into bed with the Socreds
when there is enough money
in it, as in the case of recent
Bill 33 “mediation” appoint-
ments.

The second prime factor is
equally important, and most
vital in elections — that of
votes. The B.C. Federation of
Labor leadership, and perhaps
to alesser exten the Vancou-
, ver and District Labor Coun-
cil, both of which pledged on
a number of occasions the
“election of NDP _ govern-
ment,” as a means of settling
with Bill 33 and all that anti-
labor sort of thing from
monopoly-dominated Estab-
lishments, just don’t or can-
not or won’t deliver the vote
of the tens of thousands they
lead in economic struggles.

Had either of these central

labor bodies mobilized 4
couple of hundred active
trade unionists, NDP’ers or
not, to take a couple of days
during the last week of the.
election campaign, in Burna-
by-Seymore, handing out leaf-
lets, pushing doorbells, giving
a resident workingclass elec-
torate a few ‘timely tips on
the inherent political dangers
of a Liberalized Trudeauma-
nia aimed at fooling the peo-
ple into voting for the same
old hamburger in a fancy
wrapper, Tommy Douglas’

seat could have been held. |

with ease. But that didn’t
happen.

It is customary in our way-
of-life for central labor bo-
dies, some trade unions and
other organized bodies to cut
their scheduled, business ses-
sions and activities down by
50 percent or more during the
summer months. This of
course is a splendid idea, pro-
viding there is really nothing
doing in labor circles to get
all het-up about in hot wea-
ther.

But when the fate of the
one voice which invariably
speaks for labor in the Par-
liament of Canada — and/or
30 or 40 thousand lumber,
steel and other workers may
be readying to hit-the-bricks
most any day for a pay-enve-
lope increase which comes
somewhere near to meeting
skyrocketting prices and liv-
ing costs, then I for one
would say that’s a damn poor
time to let the doldrums get
you down, no matter how
much more appealing the
open road or a sandy beach
may be.

There are some first things
that just simply must come
first if progress is to move
forward at all; things that do

not permit the luxury of the —

doldrums, however pleasant
it may be.

Whatever the overall final
assessment of NDP fortunes
in the recent federal election
may or may not be, is not the
central thesis of this column.

My main gripe, along with
tens of thousands of others,
is that the loss of Tommy
Douglas is a major loss to
Canada’s working people —
and one that could have been
avoided with just a little less
lip service—and a little more
genuine activity. —

GERMAN DEMOCRATIC
REPUBLIC TODAY
Eyewitness Report

by

Don and Sylvia Currie
The Curries recently return-
ed from Berlin, GDR where
they participated in the
150th Anniversary Seminar
commemorating the birth of
Karl Marx.

Wednesday, July 24, 8 P.M.
F.R.C, Hall, 215 Selkirk Ave.
Winnipeg
Everyone Welcome
Bring Friends.
Auspices: Communist Party.

“Er, would you like to help me get the economy on its feet again?”

ECCLES (British Daily Worker)

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