ame UNEMPLOYMENT
Bae! A TRADITIONAL
be _ INSTITUTION
f OPEN To FOLKS oF
|. EVERY RACE,COLOR, FYE

R, Fie
- SEX AND RELIGION. ’ recs

25 years ago...

| U.S. POLICIES
BASED ON WAR
Fisenhower’s State of the
nion address last week shows
ul hat U.S. government policy. is
“\till based on war — despite the
>verwhelming sentiment
_\hroughout the world for: a
B\seaceful® settlement of dif-
‘erences among leading powers.
\in fact the greater the desire of
) \he world’s people for peace, the
ore actively does the U.S.
kovernment throw roadblocks
n the path of negotiations. This
yan be seen with respect to
‘Korea and now in Germany.
fl Clearly the Eisenhower admin-
»|\stration doesn’t want to ease
a (nternational tensions; it wants
sito aggravate them in order to
is bontinue the cold war and heat it
“1\1p wherever it can.
‘ Tribune
January 18, 1954

50 years ago...

WAGE INCREASES ©
FOR SOVIET WORKERS. -
The Eighth Congress of the

Trade Unions of the USSR
opened in Moscow Dec. 10,
1928. Comrade Tomsky deli-
vered the report of the Central
Council of Trade Unions, last-
ing four hours, amongst the
achievements he quoted the fol-
lowing figures unequalled any-
where else in the world:In
1923-24 wages increased by
30.7%

In 1924-25 wages increased by
21.4%

In 1925-26 wages increased by
13.4%

"In 1926-27 wages increased by

12.5%
In 1927-28 wages increased by
10.8%

‘The Worker
January 19, 1929

Profiteer of the week:

$3,389,419.

PACIFIC

RIiIBUNE

While capitalist governments chop at un-
employment insurance, disqualify categories
of workers they don’t like, and try to bam-
boozle welfare recipients into becoming slave
labor, the corporations favored by govern-
ment tax exemptions rake in fabulous profits.
Interprovincial Steel and Pipe Corp., Regina,
for example, had after-tax profits of $4,323,519
for just three months ended Nov. 30, 1978! In
the same three months a year earlier it was

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186

Subscription Rate: Canada $10 one year; $6.00 for six months;
All other countries, $12 one year.

Second class mail registration number 1560

EDITORIAL
COMIMUSINT

Can refuse crisis burden

Many of Canada’s crisis conditions are
easily recognized and the reasons for
them are clear. Anyone can see that
neither Liberals nor Tories have any
answers of benefit to workers in the
crises of unemployment and inflation,
the crises of education, health and hous-
ing, and in ‘projecting and building the
kind of future this rich country can
provide.

Some crisis conditions are heavily dis-
guised in jargon so that most people
cannot see what is going on. This can
be said of juggling the bank interest rate,

and trying to manipulate the value of the -

dollar. ee

What results from efforts by the cap-
italist system to regulate itself out of its
crisis is aggravation of all its ills and,
ever-increasing burdens forced onto the
working class and a majority of the popu-
lation. A handful of powerful tycoons
alone reap huge profits and compound
their power.

At the Jamaica summit, Canada and

Supporting

In the big business press the tumult
over the strike of workers at Inco Metals
in Sudbury has subsided in favor of more
likely ways of — ee ge
selling papers.
Negotiations
are proceeding
between the
union and the
company. But
what goes on
quietly and
consistently is
labor’s solidar-

ity with the
Local 6500
miners and +

smeltermen and their families.

The faint hope of the company and
the right wingers in the trade union
movement for a sag in interest in the
strike following the pre-Christmas

six other countries saw inflation as one of
the major ogres threatening capitalism.
Banishing this ogre is seen as one of the
benefits in boosting the bank rate — ac-
cording to otherwise feuding experts.
They also seem to agree the boost will
help deliver more control of Canada to
the multi-nationals, while slowing down
Canadian independent expansion.

The charade of Trudeau ministers
blasting their way into world markets, isa
nod at genuine needs, but the need is for
more markets for goods fully manufac-
tured in Canada. They are doing little
along those lines. And what is needed
simultaneously is a curb on corporation
profits, the nationalization under demo-
cratic control of resources and major
enterprises, a rollback in foreign control
in Canada, and slashing of the wasteful
arms budget.

Fighting on this basis, workers can re-
fuse the burden of capitalism’s crisis, can
gain greater say in their own future.

Inco strikers

demonstrations of solidarity has not
been rewarded. New examples of sup-
port are reported every week.

With such solidarity from across the

country; from outside the-country; and

strong support from the Sudbury com-
munity, the workers are now negotiating
under better conditions. It is with the
increasing support of the labor move-
ment, that they can bring the maximum
strength to getting the best settlement.
Amid rumors of a reviving world de-

_ mand for nickel, the company will un-

doubtedly take appropriate measures
for its own best interests. The fact should
not be lost sight of that the best interests
of Inco workers, the working class as a
whole, and the people of Canada — as
Local 6500 has pointed out — will be
served when this multi-national corpora-
tion is nationalized under democratic
control.

Work for whose welfare?

The big crackdown on labor has many
sides — from wage controls and chop-
ping workers off unemployment insur-
ance, to stepping up exploitation of
those employed. One trick out of the
dirty thirties crops up time and again —
work for welfare. Oppose it and you're
lazy and shiftless, for its advocates strive
bravely to hold together Canada’s moral
fibre. That’s nonsense, to put it politely.

Not long ago an Ontario Tory minister
thought he’d cow the workers with this
threat. Now other petty politicians are
getting into the act. Mel Lastman, well-
to-do mayor of North York, a Metro To-
ronto borough, and his side-kick Con-
troller Yuill will press Metro Council on

the issue. (Lastman made his first million.

hawking profit-heavy appliances under
the cut name of Bad Boy.) His complaint
is that workers, denied jobs by the system
in power, cut-off unemployment insur-
ance by that system, dependent on wel-
fare payments to provide food, clothing
and shelter for their families, demand

something back from the economy they
built with their labor.

It is claimed that 40,000 people are
currently on welfare in. Toronto, getting
up to $120 a week. A truer assessment
puts the average closer to $60 a week.
And for this the new princelings want to
acquire an army of serfs. Only six weeks
ago, Metro Social Planning Council set
$14,450 a year as a minimum needed by
a family of four. The elusive $120 a week
would total $6,240 a year.

The work-for-welfare scheme is as
anti-labor now as it was in the thirties,
and should be once more laid to rest. If
the ruling class and its local clerks are
restive about jobs going begging, let
them offer socially useful jobs at union
pay and conditions and they'll have
plenty of takers. It’s a good time for step-
ping up the working class fight to re-
direct bloated corporation profits into
the economy in ways that create jobs,
instead of draining them off out of the
country at workers’ expense.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 19, 1979—Page 3