Lecssehdtasoil La ~— STALLING NEG OTIATIONS “WOW, TALK ABOUT POLLUTION!” | SIDELIGHTS | lvan was a modest man Ivan was a very modest man. Twinkling eyes looked out of a good-natured face. A sturdy farm boy, Ivan and his friends, quickly became interested in Communism, and walked about 30 miles to Moose Jaw to hear Tim Buck speak when he was re- leased from jail, and all the way back again. And figured it was well worth the trouble. During the years the Farmer’s Unity League was in operation, Ivan got a call to go and speak at a small village of some 600 souls. It was a backward district, mostly under the influence of reaction, and many were strong- ly anti-Communist. Ivan went. . When he arrived there, the meeting hall was packed with people. They were standing along the sides, and clustered around the doorway, talking, laughing and joking. Ivan walked in with the chairman, and other Officials. A great huge fellow, with grey hair and shoulders like scoop shovels stood up in the way, flanked by two younger men. Ivan and his party stopped. Silence fell over the meeting. “You the speaker?” asked the stranger. ~Yes. _ “Well, come on outside. I’ve come to beat you up. We’re go- ing to teach you a lesson. No Communist speakers here. It’s just trouble.” Ivan did some fast thinking. “Tell you what,” he said. “All these people came here to listen to me. If you beat me up now, they won’t be able to. It would be wrong. I make a suggestion to you: let me speak, which is my duty, and after I finish I'll go outside with you and you can we, | Pacific beat me up, which is your job. Okay?” “Okay,” said the stranger, smiling, apparently intrigued by ‘this kind of bargain. Ivan spoke. Modest as he was, he felt he wasn’t much of a speaker. How he wished he had the eloquence of those silver- tongued orators who held their audience spellbound, especially now. I must do my very best to explain the situation the farmers are in, and what we propose as a solution, without letting these guys throw me off, he thought. It wasn’t easy, as the thug and his buddies sat right in the front row, so that their victim should not escape them. Finally Ivan wound up his speech. Now, he thought, we come to the “deal” I made. He looked at his opponent, and found that he was able to smile. He made up his mind that, no matter what, he would go down with that smile on his face. The stranger rose and, strange- ly, smiled back. He turned his back on Ivan to face the audi- ence, and held up a huge hand. Once again the crowded room fell silent. “The first man who raises a hand to his guy,” pointing his finger at Ivan, “has me to deal with. This is a good man. He has said things that are good for the farmers. Mind you, now, leave him alone!” And flanked on each side, he strode from the meeting. A buzz started around the room, and the chairman opened the question period, Ivan’s eyes shone. What power the program of the party has! he thought. (W. B.) Editor—MAURICE RUSH Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-5288. Circulation Manager, ERNIE CRIST Subscription Rate: Canada, $5.00 one year) $2.75 for six months. North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.00 one year. All other countries, $7.00 one year Second class mail registration number 1560. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1970—PAGE 4 haya Some partnership — Some image As everyone knows, the organization of workers into unions grew out of in- creased misery and exploitation. Unions succeeded to a certain extent to reduce some of the misery. But exploitation has increased and so has the insecurity of existence. Em- ployers and. governments have joined hands to try to beat labor into submis- sion. This is the reason for 300 million people being involved in strikes from 1960 to 1968 inclusive, in the advanced capitalist countries. In 1969 alone the number was 45 million strikers. This proves that militancy and the fighting spirit of labor is at its highest level. It shows that efforts to suppress it have - become a catalyst to awaken class an- tagonisms and class consciousness, de- termined by the social position the workers occupy as exploited slaves of capital. At the moment, 25,000 Canadian Gen- eral Motors workers walk the picket lines together with their 350,00U bro- thers and sisters in the United States. This is indeed a curious time for the Union. Label Trades department of the Canadian Labor Congress to embark on a campaign to promote false con- cepts of lovey-dovey partnershlp and class peace on the labor front in Can- ada, as exemplified by its “Partners in Industry” show at the Kitchener Memorial Arena. Granted, there are contradictory conceptions about the role to be played today by central labor bodies and union leaders. One concept would put an end to union sovereignty and working class democracy. The other — the one the CLC ought to adopt now — is to mar- shal the full strength of the working class in its struggles against the em- ployers, to -mobilize labor and the pub- lie’s support for union demands. As a matter of fact, it is time to understand that as the fight to limit exploitation develops it must become a fight for its abolition. This is what the auto workers ex- pect from the Canadian Labor Con- gress. Now—ABM’s for Canada? When President Nixon first escalat- ed the arms race by announcing his plans for the building of the anti- ballistic missile, Prime Minister Tru- deau refused to object. It was the business of the United States, said Trudeau. After all the missiles would all be on U.S. soil. Can- ada could do nothing about it, Opinion in the U.S. Senate was so divided that’one strong word from the Prime Minister of Canada might have tipped the balance against Nixon’s arms program. As it finally turned out, the ABM was approved by just one vote in the Senate. ‘Now more than a year afterward, Canadians are being compelled to ask if their government, far from standing | apart from this dirty business, was not it up, and it-exists to serve monopoly: the organized workers and farmers cratic forces of Quebec, to call on the in fact a full partner in the crime, 7 For Trudeau has appointed as MS new Minister of Defense, Donald Ma® ] Donald of Toronto-Rosedale, already notorious for his arrogance and CoM } tempt for parliament. ie “ The ink was not dry on his appoint: ment when MacDonald rushed into | press to invite the United States 1 perialists to build their ABM’s on ov soil, in our Arctic. tl Can anybody believe that in thal: tight ship that ‘Trudeau runs, the Prilié Minister did not know what his: Des fense Minister thought about ABMS: 7 Certainly Trudeau has done nothing since to correct the impression that 5) government is ready to turn our cou try totally into a place d’armes 10 U.S. war, at the very moment whe? Nixon is stepping up his aggressiv’ plans in the Mediterranean an Middle East . | That growing body of patriotic Can® dians, who are becoming ever more Be, ted in their determination to uphold the independence of our county) should lose no time in demanding th@ Trudeau ‘repudiate his minister, 22° proclaim instead that Canada henc® forth will be a nuclear free zone, whi@ we expect all countries to respect. Labor can stop this! The answer to the callously inhumat attitude adopted by Quebec’s medic4 specialists should not be left to th®: Bourassa government. The spectacle is abhorrent. Specially trained doctors, almost all of the 4,000 in Quebec, refuse to treal the sick and the injured. 7 The price they demand for their pal} ticipation in that province’s medicat®] scheme? $78,000 a year as annual sal: . ary. Parity, they claim, with Ontarl?] specialists for whom that province® | mecipare plan bleeds the Ontario pe” | ple. a The Quebec specialists defile all th? humanitarianism of medicine—huma™ itarianism gloriously and imperishablY displayed by the great Norman Bethun® who went to Spain and to China fro! Quebec. a They mock the people and blackma? | the Liberal government of Quebec 4 they insist on the right to opt out of the medicare scheme, and demand thei! patients’ bills be paid by it. : The latest report is the Bourass@ | government has upped its offer to thé specialists by $5,000. to assure them} salaries annually of more than $57,000. That government cannot fight against its own interests. St. James Street set When earlier there was danger tha this same government would renege of the introduction of the medicare plan. and teachers of Quebec threatened 4 province-wide strike. E Today, these. same forces—the Que bee Federation of Labor, the Confeder~ ation of National Trade Unions, the Union of Catholic Farmers and the Corporation of Quebec Teachers—have the strength, united with all the demo- Bourassa government to cease its sub- missiveness in the face of the medical specialists’ brutal indifference to the health of the people.