zal

_—

“Give him the check!”

Yr iy

Union Cartoons

| not to fall

Cont'd from pg. 1

Necessary to ensure working
People are protected from in-
flation.

For non-union workers in the
Province I have this suggestion: If
You are concerned about your
Mcomes and job security there’s

_ nly one proven way to protect
yourself — join a union. Last year
the percentage of the work force in

C. belonging to unions rose
dramatically from 42 to 44% — the

I88est jump since the 1950’s, and
he reason for the increase is

€ctly related to the economic
Woes of the nation.

Employers should stop playing

HARRY BRIDGES
| Bridges says he'll

Ship Soviet grain

Harry Bridges, president of the
hternational Longshoremen’s and
hia nousemen’s Union, said that
lS members “will be delighted”’ to

ae Srain for shipment to the
“eviet Union.

Bridges said that if the East
Sast longshoremen want to put a
Ycott on the shipment of grain to

€ USSR, “that’s up to them. As
Ns €sident of the ILWU, I will try to
ve all the cargo come through
© West Coast — especially
—Tough the port of San Francisco
feuers our members will be
ighted to do the work,” he said.

act will be a great thing for our
cen a good thing for our rank-
file west coast workers, and I

pe it will be a helping hand to the
USe of world peace and to a great
“lalist state, the USSR.”

‘Workers determined

behind’

games and realize that industrial
unrest will continue if the rate of
increase in the cost of living is not
reduced. I believe employers know
that the programs to redirect the
economy endorsed by the labor

movement over the years would

work and would benefit the
average citizen.

But employers also know that, to
solve the housing crisis, to control
inflation, to end widespread
unemployment, the government
would have to change course and
that they (the employers) would
have to accept lower profits and
less of a free hand to act without
regard to the well-being of the vast
majority. Until now, employers
have not been prepared to consider
these alternatives, but they may
soon find the present direction in
which we are headed even less
desirable.

Finally, I suggest to the Trudeau
government that it’s not too late to
act in a meaningful way to combat
these problems. The federal
government should:

1. Launch a massive public
housing program, impose tough
controls on land speculation and

ensure lower residential mortgage

rates.
2. Totally revise the nation’s

~ taxation system to end give-aways

to corporations and make those
who can best afford it carry the
bulk of the taxation burden.

3. Immediately increase the

basic federal old age pension to” .

levels in line with the current cost

of living.
4. Pass

legislation.
5. Establish a Prices Control

Board with the power to roll back.

unjustified prices.

6. Bring the nation’s natural
resources, in particular petroleum
resources, under public ownership
and control.

We in the British Columbia

Federation of Labor believe this: &

kind of legislative program would
begin to correct the serious
economic problems we all must
face and would benefit the nation
as a whole rather than just in-
crease the profits of a small
segment of society. The federal
Liberal government and the
corporate community, because of
the greedy, profit-motivated

politics, have totally failed to meet

these challenges in the past and
must accept the lion’s share of the
blame for creating the current
difficulties in labor-management
relations.

new anti-combines

STILL TIME TO BLOCK
RACIST GREEN PAPER

By FRED WILSON.

There is still time to stop the
Green Paper.

Provided, that is, if the labor and
democratic movement in Canada
wakes up to the danger of a racist
and anti-labor document
seemingly destined to become the’
official government policy.

The ‘‘national discussion”’
around the Green Paper is due to
end this month. The discussion,
which took the form of the tour of
the parliamentary committee, was
heavily weighted from the right
wing. That no doubt was the hope
and expectation of the government
in issuing the Green Paper in the
first place.

In fact, way back in February of
this year when Robert Andras
tabled his proposals, for the new
immigration policy it was with full
knowledge that the hearings of the
parliamentary committee in every
city in the country would be
transformed into a travelling
circus of the right. And with
Lithuanian and Ukrainian
nationalists, Hungarian freedom
fighters, and the fascist Western
Guard getting star billing, the
desired effect was realized. A
reactionary and racist atmosphere
was artificially puffed up out of
proportion.

But when the Communist Party
of Canada was due to give its views
to the committee in Toronto,
somehow the CP was left off the
agenda. Other organizations in
opposition to the Green Paper
received only slightly better
treatment. In Vancouver, the
Chinese community united behind
the presentation of a brief that bore
the signatures of 40 different
organizations. For added weight a
petition of more than 10,000 names
in opposition to the Green Paper
came with the brief. The com-
mittee gave the Chinese com-
munity five minutes to present
their views, followed by a question
period.

Why did the government set this
circus on the road? Immigration
policy has never before been
placed for ‘‘discussion’’? — and
even this time there was little
pretence of the discussion in-
fluencing policy. One member of
the committee, Arnold Peters, let
the cat out of the bag early in the
game, as the Paper was tabled in
the House of Commons. He said,
“the officials of the Minister’s
department have already made up

their minds. The travel of this _

|
3

committee will do absolutely.
nothing to change their minds.”

The answer to this question gets
to the root of what the Green Paper
is all about.

First of all the Green Paper is
diversionary. It has hidden the
unemployment problem and
created an immigration problem.
And as Andy Joe remarked in his
presentation on behalf of Van-
couver’s Chinese community “‘it,
supplies ammunition to the arsenal
of racists and bigots in Canada.” In
doing so, it creates a_ giant
scapegoat for the country’s

- economic ills — immigrants.

But more importantly, because
the Green Paper is in fact racist
and anti-labor the ‘‘discussions’’
give an air of democracy to an
undemocratic policy already

decided upon.

To gain a grasp of what the
Green Paper proposes it is
necessary to go back to 1966. That
was the last time the government
brought down an immigration
policy, only at that.time it was a
“white paper.’’ (A white paper is
like most government policy — it
merely informs of set policy which
you have nothing to say about;
green is to designate a paper for
“discussion’’ before policy is set.)

The 1966 White Paper was ter-
med the ‘‘Open Door Policy.”’ They
called jt ‘“‘open’” because it of-
ficially ended the recognized
practices of racial discrimination
that had been written into the law
up to that time. It ended the
practice of setting quotas for
immigration from certain coun-
tries and proclaimed the principle
of ‘‘universality.”

The new policy radically
changed the immigration pattern
to Canada. From out of nowhere
immigrants from ~ Hong Kong
became the fourth largest im-
migrant group and East Indians
became the fifth largest group.
Filipinos, Jamaicans and
Guyanans began to come in the
thousands. All in all, if the years
1968-1973 are compared with the
five years up to 1968 the total
number of immigrants from Asia
more than tripled, from South and
Central America more than
doubled, from Africa nearly

doubled — but from Europe, the
traditional source of immigrants,
the number of people coming to
Canada actually declined.

There was nothing accidental
about the shift in immigration
patterns.

They wanted non-.

Europeans to feed Canadian in-
dustry with cheap labor. After all,
hasn’t our economy been built
largely by immigrants brought for
économic purposes? The Chinese
to build the CPR, the Jews for the
textile mills of Toronto and Win-
nipeg, the Ukrainians and Ger-
mans to homestead on the prairies
and work alongside Finns and
Swedes in the lumber camps. .. .

The new wave of immigrants
after 1966 were for the same
purposes. The CPR still exploits
the Chinese, but they come from
Hong Kong rather than Shanghai to
work as cooks, maids and waiters
in the giant hotels. In like manner,
the East Indians in British
Columbia have replaced the Finns
and Swedes in the forest industry.
The whole network of non-union
sawmills in the Interior of the
province have become heavily

’ dependent on their labor.

Throughout the 1960’s our new
immigrants lined the pockets of
monopoly working for low wages
and in conditions only they would
stand for. Not because they enjoy
sweat shop conditions, but because
they are vulnerable and made to
feel expendable.

With the 1970’s the situation
changed. One crisis after another
from dollar bills to the price of beef
added up to the worst economic

recession since the 1930’s. By 1975

with close to a million people
unemployed the jobless them-
selves tend to hold down wages and
conditions. And new immigrants
_add to the unemployment rolls.

Another factor that grew in
importance was a relative over-
population of the major cities. The
great majority of immigrants had
poured into Montreal, Toronto and
Vancouver. The result was an
aggravation of the financial crisis
in the municipalities and the

~ growth of new ethnic ghettos.

Indeed, the grab for profit which
motivated the policy of 1966
brought withit problems that could
have been foreseen and averted —
but were not.

But there was one other result
that hit deep at the prejudices of
our ruling circles. For when the
white, Anglo-Saxon officialdom
looked closely at their actions they

found that the actual racial, ethnic -

and cultural character of Canada
was beginning to undergo some far
reaching changes.
The Green Paper is preoccupied
See REJECT pg. 10

Tens of thousands of people saw this large banner at the Communist Party booth during the PNE which
closed Labor Day. Reading, ‘‘Monopoly prices are robbing you! Fight the rip-off! Roll back prices!’ the
banner compared prices for staple foods in 1973 and 1975.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 5, 1975—Page 3

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