WIDE SUPPORT GIVEN TO FISHERMEN

ANADIAN labor is throwing
its full weight behind a
campaign to secure the re-

lease of jailed Fishermen’s
Union leaders Homer Stevens
and Steve Stavens.

The Canadian Labor Congress,
the Ontario Federation of Labor,
the Quebec Federation of Labor,
8 well as many important local
labor councils and prominent
‘Canadian labor leaders, have
Pledged support to the cam-
paign.

A Fishermen’s Defense Com-
Mittee set up in British Colum-

bia, representing major unions
in that province, is heading up
a Canada-wide campaign for sup-
port to a petition to the Supreme
Court of Canada to hear an ap-
peal on behalf of the union and
the two jailed officers.

The B.C. Supreme Court una-
nimously rejected the applica-
tion for an appeal and the Cana-
dian Supreme Court has indicat-
ed that before it would consider
leave to appeal it would have to
be convinced of the “national
character’ of the issue.

The Fishermen’s Defense Com-

Ukrainian protest

The Provincial Committee of
the Association of United Ukrai-
nian Canadians in a letter to
Hon. W. C. Weir, premier of
Manitoba, welcomed his procla-
-Mation of Ukrainian Week, as a
“tribute, in the main, to Ukraini-
an Canadians for their contri-
bution to the growth and ad-
vancement of Manitoba.”

Its effectiveness, the Associa-
tion stated, was “lessened by
linking it with battles of a half
century ago in the Ukraine, that
Can only re-open old wounds and
divide the Ukrainian Canadian
community still further. A proc-
lamation of that nature does not
help to cement Canadian unity
which is today the most crying
need in Canada.”

The proclamation would have
had more meaning, stated the
letter, had it been linked “with

Some Canadian Ukrainian his-:

.toric event, common to all Can-
adians, e.g., the week of the
‘arrival of the’ first Ukrainian
Settlers Evan Pylypiw and Wasyl
Eleniak to Canada.”

. Ina more sharply worded let-
ter to’ Mayor Stephen Juba the
AUUC registered its “disapprov-
al” of the Mayor’s Proclamation.
It is “an affront to the Ukrainian
nation which suffered four mil-
lion dead in the war against fas-

Ccism, in defense of freedom and .

democracy.”
Taking a swipe at historic dis-

tortions in Mayor Juba’s Procla-
mation, the letter stated that
“modern Ukraine is a sovereign
state, proclaimed and establish-
ed Dec. 25, 1917” and “is a
charter member of the United
Nations Organization.”
“Opponents of social change,”
the letter stated further, “fought
losing battles 50 years ago on
the soil of Ukraine,” who later
“tried to recoup their losses by

‘ supporting Hitler in his acts of:

aggression and genocide.”

These reactionary elements
“lost again and are trying once
more to turn the clock of history
back. The flag they flew along-
side the swastika during the
nazi occupation of Soviet Uk-
raine was the same type of flag
foisted over our City Hall during
“Ukrainian Week.”

This act, the letter stated, was
“an insult to the citizens of
Canada, especially to the memo-
ry of the men who died fighting
the nazis. and their hirelings.”

In both letters the Association
of United Ukrainian Canadians
strongly objected to. using the
taxpayers’ money for the inclu-

‘sion in the Proclamation of an
advertisement of a_ political
meeting where the main speaker
was the Conservative M.P. for
Marquette, Mr. J. N. Mandziuk.
This practice is “highly unethic-
al and hardly in keeping with
the dignity of your high office.”

Course unions urged

Mark Sydney, third year his-
tory student at University Col-
lege, spoke to twenty-five gra-
duate students last Tuesday
about the purpose of “course
unions.” ‘We understand stu-
dent power to mean participa-
tion in learning,” he explained.
He claimed present education
methods alienate students and
force many of them to drop-out.

“The McPhearson Report de-
votes an important chapter, ‘Un-
dergraduate and his environ-
ment,’ to the need for faculty
Student committees. But this
leads to elites of students not
responsible to anyone who could
then act as hand-maidens of the
faculty.”

“Our curriculum union,” he
explained, “is to involve hun-
dreds of students in serious dis-
Cussion about course content
and teaching style. Sixty per-
cent of all history students vot-
€d in officer elections for the
Union. So there’s some interest.”

Sydney said the policy of the
U. of T. History Department is
limited. “They refuse to present
& course on the philosophy of
history. And they refuse to teach
African history.” Students at
Present see African history
through théir' studies of colonial

powers, he claimed. “It’s rele-’

vant for students to have an
over-view in history and see the
present independence move-
ments in Africa in an African
historical context.”

When asked why _ reform
couldn’t be implemented within
the present departmental sys-
tem, Sydney replied: ‘“‘No rea-
son. But it just hasn’t been done.
That’s why we're organizing.”

Another graduate argued sci-
ence students couldn’t be orga-
nized because science is training.
Sydney said this was true, but
scientists too needed an under-
standing of history and philo-
sophy to relate their training to
contemporary problems.

One former teaching assistant
from UBC said the threat of
grading had to be removed be-
fore students- in humanities
would feel free to explore sys-
tems of ideas. “It’s up to teach-
ing assistants as well as under-
graduates to resist the system.
_ Most-grads know the game is
a fraud but haven’t shown the
courage to fight it yet.” ©

Sydney concluded the meeting .

with an appeal to other depart-
ments to organize curriculum
unions. “The university is doom-

ed unless we break the passive _

- role now played by students.”

oS ew Se ee A

mittee has undertaken a cam-
paign to obtain signatures to an
affidavit to the Supreme Court
for leave to appeal the case and
has received overwhelming sup-
port from prominent labor lead-
ers.

On a whirlwind campaign,
Tom Parkin, UFAWA official
who is on leave from his union
to work for the Defense Com-
mittee, announced in Toronto
this week that the Canadian
Labor Congress has undertaken
to write the Honorable Larry
Pennell, Canada’s _ Solicitor
General, asking that the right
to appeal be granted. Also it will
write its affiliates urging sup-
port for the campaign of the
B.C. Defense Committee.

Key trade-union figures have
signed the appeal. These include
George Burt, Canadian Director
of the United Automobile Work-
ers, Fred Dowling, Canadian Dir-
ector of the United Packing-
house Workers; William Ma-
honey and Larry Sefton of the
Steelworkers Union; Dave
Archer, President of the Onta-
rio Federation of Labor; George
Harris of the United Electrical
Workers; Gerard Rancour, Sec-
retary of the Quebec Federation
of Labor; Harvey Landon Ladd,
Eastern Director of the IWA;
Paddy Neale, Secretary of the
Vancouver and District Labor
Council and Ed Sims its Presi-
dent; and Jack Moore, President
of the International Woodwork-
ers Union in B.C. Many other
regional and local union leaders
as well as national figures have
either signed the affidavit or
promised to recommend support
to their unions.

The applications for leave to
appeal is scheduled to be heard

-in Ottawa on February 19 and

Parkin told the Tribune that he
thinks the court will have tc
give most serious. consideration
to the weight of support for
the appeal and: the depth of the
issue involved.

Documents issued by the De-
fense Committee make it clear
that, while the issue of the re-
lease of the jailed officers and
the cancellation of the $25,000
fine to the union are the
foreground issues, looming large
in the background is the entire
issue of the use of injunctions
in labor disputes in Canada.

The Committee is pushing for
the introduction of legislation
in Canada similar to the Norris-

La Guardia act passed in 1932 in
the U.S.A., which prevents the
courts from issuing injunctions
in labor disputes. Canada, ac-
cording to the Committee, is the
only country in the world which
still allows such a practice.

The wide support being given
to the Fishermen’s case is evi-
dence of the smoldering dis-
content existing among organiz-
ed labor over the use of courts
in labor disputes.

This discontent has been fan-
ned by the wholesale jailing of
union leaders over the past seve-
ral years in Canada. Ten long-
shoremen were sentenced to
jail in B.C. eighteen months ago
arising out of an injunction. This
was followed a few months later
by 24 sentences handed out to
unionists in the Tilco dispute.
In late 1966 four men were in-
carcerated for six months aris-
ing out of the B.C. Lenkurt dis-
pute.

In the present dispute the two
Fishermen’s Union leaders be-
gan serving one year jail sen-
tences last November for failure
to comply with a B.C. court
order to instruct their members
to unload hot fish cargo during
a legal strike of their union.

The union leaders, whose con-

nal

‘economic development.”

stitution prohibited them from
taking such action, wired their
locals proposing a referendum
vote. on the permissability of
their taking such unconstitution-
al action.

The B.C. court, which itself
hailed Homer Stevens, Steve
Stavens and Jack Nichol into
court, branded this as contempt
of court and nailed them witha
Savage one year jail sentence.
Nichol was released on the
grounds that he had not signed
the telegram to the locals.

In addition to the jail senten-
ces the Court fined the United
Fishermen’s and Allied Work-
ers Union, of which Stavens and
Stevens are President and Sec-
retary-Treasurer respectively,
$25,000.

The case has already cost the
union more than $20,000 in
legal expenses, quite aside from
the $25,000 fine.

The Defense Committee has

raised $16,000 of this amount so
far, and is urging unions across
the country to dig deep to help
finance the campaign. Contribu-
tions,personal or union, are to
be sent to Fishermen’s Defense
Fund, c/o Roy C. Smith, Toron-
to Dominion Bank, 199 East
Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C.

soc ses estore FEBRUARY. 23,39

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