i : es ° CNR hires notorious U.S. ‘labor experts’ By FRANK ARNOLD , Consolidated fevenue could pay BCHIS -. “Hospital insurance should be Z be f Paid for out of consolidated rev- enue,” Nigel Morgan, LPP provin- cial leader, declared in a CBC] broadcast Monday this week. “Noné of us will be sorry to see the end of hospital premiums — _ ‘ven though we may disagree with the sales tax alternative chosen by _’ Premier w. A. C, Bennett to finance hospital coverage,” said Morgan. He Continued: “Since the government has decid- €d to abolish premiums, and change from a contributory ‘insurance’ Plan to a welfare basis, the neces- Sary funds should be taken from the public treasury—consolidated Tevenue. - “Other services for social .wel- fare, education, mental hospitals, are provided in this way. Why Rot hospital protection? Tying the "hpopular sales tax boost to the Widely-approved cancellation of Sspital insurance premiums was a “anning bit of political trickery. “But it was not cunning enough ‘ to obscure the all-important fact that while the government gave “P $15 million in hospital pre- Mums, it is going to gouge out Br ur pockets $23 million addi- tonal sales tax. That’s really _ SlVing a little and taking a lot! | “Abolition of hospital insurance ‘Premiums is a welcome move, but _ 40 increase in sales tax should not a tolerated. True, hospital pro- 1slon has to be paid for, but there _ #te many better and fairer ways of Taising the money. east Monday Attorney-General ‘Obert Bonner tried. to say that 5 © two percent sales tax boost is : Small issue. It may be percent- 88ewise, but in dollars and cents Tom the average family, budget - nother two percent will certainly Mok felt, coming as it does on top ae an already existing three per- €nt provincial and 10 percent fed- €ral sales tax, : “The tax on machinery and equip- | pent will be passed along, as it : ys has been, through increas- ie Prices. Premier Bennett has €n in the store business long Nough to know that ‘it’s the cus- tin who pays a tax on consump- : “The extra two percent sales . @X means $23 million cut from _ Ur collective pay cheques and nother slice from already a fagre pension and welfare al- Owances, ogee “In fixing BCHIS premiums, the apvernment recognized that there -®fe a lot of people in the province soe sioners and those receiving Clal assistance—who are financi- Y unable to pay premiums. So fon government paid the premiums r them out of consolidated rev- enue, / j ; on f 4 “ © impose a sales tax is to sansfer this burden to people who “Te; admittedly unable to bear it. Is like trying to draw blood| _ ‘Toma stone. - : “More than 66 percent of all People in Canada live on annual - come of $3,000 or less; many of oan 66 percent at much less. This adisn’ that two out of three Can- @ns live at subsistence levels. Se people spend their entire ‘omes on the necessities of life. urther consumer levies upon n must reduce their standard Badgt that extents i) Haggen hits Mica Damplan VICTORIA, B.C. Announced plans for building a dam at Mica Creek on the Colum- bia River were attacked in the leg- islature last week by Rupert Hag- gen (CCF, Grand Forks-Greenwood). “tH will primarily serve power dams south of the line rather than those on this side,” he said. The member said that he could not understand the low figure given for power development at the site. He said it would indicate that there was to be a fairly small power plant. Haggen charged that this was be- eause the dam was envisaged’ pri- marily as a storage dam. The con- tinual lowering of the height of the head of water when stored water was drawn off, would throw a larger plant off balance. “you can’t use the same water for power and for storage,” he em- phasized. “The power plant at Mica will be able to depend on little more than the low water flow in the river.” : In support of his argument, he cited conditions at Grand Coulee Dam where successive units of the power plant have to be cut off as the head of stored water falls. 17 from B.C. at LPP convention igel Morgan, LPP provincial yee announced this week that 17 delegates from British Colum- bia will attend the fifth national, convention of the Labor-Progres- sive party which opens in Toronto on March 25. : hae The convention will be “an his- toric event’? because delegates will adopt the new LPP national pro- gram which has been under dis- cussion for more than a year, said Morgan. en “B.C. delegates will represent the province’s major industries and will come from Vancouver Island, the Lower Mainland and Interior points,” Morgan continued. “On their’ return, they will report to meetings in all the main provincial centres. ‘ba ‘ “Main convention decisions will be discussed at an enlarged meet- ing of the LPP provincial commit- tee in Vancouver on April 10-11. In view of this arangement, the an- nual provincial convention has been postponed from’ May until mid-September.” MONTREAL Close to 100,000 Canadian railroaders .who work for the government-owned Canadian National Railways will shortly be taking their orders from a new boss — a U.S. company of. industrial relations “experts” with headauarters in Rockefeller Centre, New York. 4 Burnaby ratepayers hit Shell Oil nuisance: BURNABY, B.C. The “steam, smoke, stench and noise” nuisance created by Shell Oil’s new refinery.in North Burnaby, of which a Capitol Hill ratepayer complained in an angry letter to Burnaby Municipal Council this week, has aroused the entire surounding districts of Capitol Hill, Westridge and Lochdale. Residents claim that the noise and glare from the re- finery is interfering with their sleep and that the smoke and smell | are depreciating the value of their Fear that Shell Oil is seeking to acquire adjoining property in Capitol Hill mow occupied by homes or zoned for residential building in order to provide for future plant expansion is borne out by the report that one resi- dent has already been approach- ed by a real estate agent repre- senting Shell Oil and that sev- eral residents whose homes now face the refinery’s flare pit have been asked by real estate agents if they want to sell. A deep ravine is now the divid- ing line between the Shell Oil prop- erty and Fell Avenue, the end of the built up residential area, and the demand is being voiced that the company shall not be allowed to “lexpand its property across the ravine. The issue was to come before the influential Capitol Hill Ratepayers Association at a meeting being held in Capitol Hill Community Hall on Thursday this week. As a result of the protest campaign it has led the agsociation’s membership has now risen to’a record of more than 20023 At Burnaby Municipal Council meeting this week, Councillor Mur- ray Morrison suggested that a smoke bylaw be introduced to con- trol industrial development in North Burnaby. ' Reeve Charles MacSorley main- tained that “the Shell Oil Com- pany are doing everything they can to help the situation and I think we ‘should give them a chance to put a stop to it.” : 2 However, Councillor Patricia Wilks held that “conditions are get- ting worse” and the council “had better get busy and-do something about it.” : ; The council concluded by auth- orising a letter to be sent to Shell Oil drawing the company’s atten- tion to continuing complaints, al- though residents state that condi- tions have become worse despite previous letters sent by the coun- cil to the company. Whalers win increase as fleet puts out. Crews of whale killer boats have won pay hikes ranging from $30 a month for deckhands and firemen up to $52 for chief engineers, fol- jowing lengthy discussions between company and union committees with federal. conciliation officer Don Tysoe in attendance. Six instead of five boats will be operating this year. The fleet sail- ed Monday from Coal Harbor. Deckhands on whale killer boats made $2,384 for the six-month sea- son last year, but Alex Gordon, business agent of United Fisher- men and Allied Workers’ Union, said this “isn’t as good as it sounds. “Crews working on a six-hour-on and. six-hour-off basis seven days a week, put in as much work in the six months as an average worker on a 44-hour week put$ in in a year.” property. IWA heads change convention decision Despite the fact that delegates to the recent 17th annual B.C. dis- trict convention of the IWA voted cy by a big majority to go after a wage} increase in this year’s contract with 158 coast logging and lumber oper- ators, the IWA “top brass” an- nounced this week that only fringe benefits would be sought in com- ing negotiations. When talks get under way in April, district president Joe Mor- ris will ignore members’ expressed demands for a 1954 wage hike and concentrate on “protecting, stabil- izing and developing employment opportunities.” Among the demands: full union shop, employer paid medical ser- vices, payment of fares from point of hiring to point of employment, and .a union-management job analysis program for the industry. USSR continues Stalin’s policies, says Dewhurst “The policies of the present So- ‘viet government, at home and abroad, are based solidly on the working class theories first enunci- ated by Lenin and creatively en- riched by Stalin,” said Alf Dew- hurst, LPP provincial organizer, at a memorial meeting Friday last week at the Swedish Hall com- memorating the death of Joseph Stalin one year ago on March 5. The warmongers in all capital- ist countries try to convince the people that the foreign and home policies of the Soviet Union have undergone almost a complete about-face since Stalin’s death,”| Dewhurst continued. “The truth’ is that in*the sphere ‘of foreign policy it was Stalin’s policy of peaceful co-existence and negoti- ations as a means of settling inter- national disputes that prevailed at the recent Berlin conference. 4 - “Similarly in the policies of the Soviet government at home. The} policy of greatly expanding the production of consumer goods, im-| proving the quality of these goods, increasing wages and lowering pricés, increasing leisure time and expanding educational, cultural and housing facilities flows from the decisions of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the So- viet Union in 1952. At that time Stalin was still living’ and the de- cisions of that Congress flowed from his last great theoretical work, Problems of Socialism in the | USSR.” Dewhurst emphasized that Stalin “belonged to the peoples of the world” and that “his genius guid- ed their struggles and will con- tinue to guide them.” e6 . % The Pacific Tribune learned this week that Industrial Rela- tions Counsellors.Inc. have been taken on as “advisers” to CNR President Donald Gordon on how he should handle his employees. From now on CNR workers can expect to get the full “American treatment” from these U.S. labor . “specialists.” How did this come about? Ever since Donald Gordon and the St. Laurent government found them- selves in the railroad strike of 1950 they have been looking for “a way out” of their labor troubles. Donald Gordon himself said in CNR’s annual report for 1952: “It was necessary to survey the whole. field of industrial relations in CNR because relations weren’t good be- tween management and the trade union leaders.” And the CNR has commissioned IRC Inc. to find the “proper ap- proach” to Canadian railroad workers. The U.S. experts have already moved in and started to work. If things go as planned they should be ready shortly to start calling the tune. IRC has a long open-shop, anti- union: record. Back in the hectic industrial relations days of the twenties and thirties IRC Inc. was advising big business in the U.S. and’ elsewhere’ how to deal with workers. It has always been close- ly linked with the biggest operators in the U.S. steel, rubber, oil, and telephone industries. Hiring of these U.S. experts to run the labor relations for Can- ada’s largest employer of labor, government controlled at that, poses a threat to all Canadian labor. CPR employees will doubtlessly be next to feel the effects—especially since it is now controlled by U.S. bankers. . ‘ The CNR move represents an attempt by U.S. interests to im- Pose Taft-Hartley ideas on Can- adian working men and women. If successful these U.S. experts could set up an anti-labor pattern throughout the country. : HUB HUMOR - ©NF SYN. “I sure would like to’see her without those dark glasses on!” You read so much nowadays of sacrifice sales, clearances, forced sales and going out of business gimmicks, that some folk lose sight of the value of quality. That's what we sell at THE HUB quality merchandise plus FREE CREDIT. 45 EAST HASTINGS