'

= RATE Bie.
Each day of the year, most
of Trail’s' 3,000  smeltermen

climb the innumerable stairs that
lead them to their shift “on abe
hill.” At Kimberley over a
thousand miners and millworkers
Preduce the bulk of the concen-
trates.

On each shift, the workers
make more for Consolidated Min-

_ ing and Smelting Company than
they make for themselves.

In 1947 each employee made an
average of $7836 for the com-
Pany, over and above wages and
all other production costs.

Indications are that in 1948
€ach worker grossed around $10,-

_ 000. for CMS-CPR shareholders
in Threadneedle Street, Wall
Street, and St. James Street.

Some exploitation!

Yet the company wants more.
The big boys in distant board
rooms are fascinated, not by
workers! families they never see,
but by production charts and
dividends. They’re planning pro-
duction on a scale undreamed
of, all to be exacted from the
Same (or less) flesh, blood,
Muscle and nerve tissue. Men
With stop watches——“time-study”
men—are practicing timing every
Move of every worker.

Trail local 480 and Kimberley
local 651 of the. fighting Inter-
National Union of Mine, Mill and

ay Smelter Workers have been built

to fight off CMS. But the foreign-
Controlled company tells the
Workers, “Fight Communists in-
_ Stead.”

The company has a new ally.
Fat-salaried Canadian Congress
of Labor bureaucrats have de-
Clared a raiding war on Mine-
Mill. In fact all companies can
be thankful that with a million
Workers waiting to be organized,

“L officers choose instead to

: eg a union whigh fought hte

Poss 40 years before the CCL
Bos ee ;

You can talk to plenty of
Workers in Trail and Kimberley

‘0 aren't quite sure of the
details of the COL raids on their
Union,

What they do know is that
Mine-Mill, since winning bargain-
ig rights in the war, has by
Wage boosts partly salvaged liv-
Bd Standards and can win more.
_ They want to keep and extend
ons with pay, shorter hours,
Netter conditions, grievance pro-

i\ cedure,

ees why those who attend
: eo On meetings spurned CCL
estern director William Ma-
be When he came with his
€ars of Mine-Mill leaders.
That’s why Mahoney follows
the CCL pattern of knocking to-
Sether an underground network
to conspire from within the union.
The Trail Times headline at
the time said, “Local 480 Backs
Murphy.” For all pro-company
Propagandists try to make the
issue center around Harvey
Murphy (Mine-Mill’s regional di-
rector) rathbr than around wages,
ours, speedup, vacations, secur-
Y, freedom, peace, and raiding.
CMS fears the tried and tested
leadership that has made Murphy
nown to score of thousands of
Workers in a lifetime of building
Unions, A tireless character as-

_ Sassination campaign is waged
a8ainst him and other Commun-—

id Even tory propagandist
ae Hladun was brought to
“Tail to say his rehearsed piece

_. Which runs like this: Murphy is

Ye foreign agent trained ito use
°“ombs and guns to overthrow
Society. Company agents and mis-
Suideq elements in the union
Spread more subtle lies.

Li trick is based on the fact
j Murphy as a union officer
ae by the policy of his union.

- ether or not. “Murphy” is sus-

ore is the boss way of saying
ether or not Mine-Mill. policy

Sustained, a5.
a ail president Billingsley, who
‘ce has become part of the
BN

The war scare pays off .

== for Consolidated

slate that seeks to oust the
present Mine-Mill district officers,
ran into this himself. When he
voiced the members’ stand
against raiding, the Times edit-
orially derided: “Mr. Billingsley
iknows as well as we do that this
‘raiding of jurisdiction’ phrase is
a product of Harvey Murphy's
brain which is working overtime
to evade the real issue—the CCL’s
apparently honest and definitely
laudable desire to rid the Can-
adian labor movement of _ its
Communists.”

At a time when it would take
around $80 a week to maintain
a Trail or Kimberley family in
minimum standards of health and
decency the Times says the real
issue is getting rid of Commun-
ists,

@

Trail and Kimberley are news
across the nation right now.

Members> of the 12,000-strong
Sudbury local, facing Internation-
al Nickel, have already repelled
the CCL. They worried a little
when Trail and Kimberley failed
to send delegates to Mine-Mill’s
national conference at Port Col-
borne. They’re more confident
of gains since spokesmen for
affected locals came to Kimber-
ley to hammer out a common
front against CMS and Inco.

The greeted the headlines in
Mine-Mill’s international paper,
The Union, reading: “Trail, Kim-
berley Support Port Colborne De-
cisions” (for wages and against
raiding).

They don’t know that Kimber-
ley local officers have led in
blocking The Union from bring-
‘ing to Kimberley members the
news from Sudbury and other
mines, mills and smelters.

Across Canada, Mine-Mill mem-
bers count on upset of CCL top
brass plans to use Trail and
Kimberley to get rid‘ of Mine-
and undermine the union nation-
Mill’s ‘present western leadership
ally. ,

Cape Breton steelworkers, too,
voted to back Mine-Mill’s battle
for union rights, typifying the
rising sentiment in raider Mil-
lard’s own Steel union, where

men want a fight against steel

bosses, not against miners.

Workers in almost every CCL
union see their freedom bound
up in Mine-Mill’s freedom, They’re
hearing, too, about the 84,000
unorganized steelworkers Millar
could unionize with funds spent
attacking Mine-Mill. :

@.
Any worker might ask, “Who

the hell would work with Ma-—

honey to line up our locals any-
way?”

Continent-wide experience gives
the answer, “Men who place per-
sonal or partisan gain ahead of
the membership, plus the inevit-

able company agents, sometimes _

with the support of inexperienced
unionists poisoned by red-bait-
ing. : ;

ue the Kootenays this group
includes a hodge-podge of right-
wing CCF’ers who want: to make
the union a political machine,
some old-line party figures, Moral
Re-armament men, die-hard com-
pany union elements, personal
opportunists and victims of cleri-
calism as expressed through
Catholic Action.

This small group, united only
by hatred of militant and demo-
cratic unionism, gains its strength
from the full weight of company
influence behind it.

On the other hand is the

majority, including ccF’ers who

1917

2.

you don’t have to be a socialist to

see that company portrayals of
socialist ideas as
are hokum. The preamble to Mine-
*Mill’s constitution dates back to long
before Ginger Goodwin (left) led the. }
Trail strike—before the Soviet.
revolution took place— Here’s what
it says (in part):

1. We hold that there is a class
| struggle in society . . . caused by
economic conditions.

We affirm the economic condi-
tion of the producer to be that he is
exploited of the wealth which he
produces, being allowed to retain bare-
ly sufficient for his elementary ne-
cessities, ;

3. We hold that the class struggle
will continue until the produces is
recognized as the sole master of his
product. .

4. We assert that the working
class, and it alone, can and must
achieve its own emancipation.

5. We hold that an _ industrial
union and the concerted political ac-
tion of all wage workers is the only
method of attaining this end.

“foreign-inspired”

f

By BRUCE MICKLEBURGH

helped build the union from the
first, quite a few who still sup-
port the old line parties, LPP
members, many who _ identify
themselves with no particular
party, people of diverse religions
including the vast majority of
Catholic unionists.

This big group becomes strong

when it stands like one man

against the company and any
who would try to restore the
policies of company unionism,

e

Every member has an acid test
by which to judge those who
seek his vote. The test is—who
fights for his needs?

Those needs are sharp. Living
costs are above average, especi-
ally in Kimberley where, for
example, milk costs 23 cents and
is going up. Each family needs
wage boosts. |

The company’s not yet recon-
ciled to the forty-hour week. Last
annual report complains, “Reduc-

tion in hours caused many diffi-

culties and resulted in higher
costs apart from the similar ef-
fect due to wage rates. . .. This
trend, which is becoming general,
has serious implications, and it
is important that these should
be realized by industry, labor,
and the public generally.”

Apart from the chiselling on
hours, hundreds of miners re-
sent sacrificing their Sundays to
the system of six days on and
two days off, ;

There’s been chiselling on
contract, and other beefs too.
\“Machines are more
than men,” was the answer to
a, miner's complaint about con-
ditions,

The mine killed at least seven
men last year. :

Bitter experience has taught
thousands of workers to label
as sucker-bait-the idea that time-
study makes the job easier,
Take a classic example, Ford
local 600 (CIO United Auto
Workers): was born in battle
‘against speedup. Since the red-
baiters captured UAW offices
things slipped back to the point

valuable |

' profit sharing,

Speedup is a major ‘threat. .

where local 600’s executive board
resolved: “The most terrible ex-
ploitation of Ford workers since
the days they organized them-
selves into a union, due to the
breakneck standards of produc-
tion - are once again with
2h Ree Be «

Ford workers are now com-
pelled to stage stoppages in ef-
fort to win back the 1941 under-
standing that production stand-
ards would be set not by the
company’s time study men but
by a union committee.

Time study stop watches can
tick away a sentence of prema-
ture death.

And the fight against speedup,
Many workers are convinced,
‘needs active locals run from
the job up, not from the execu-
tive down.” :

@ < +

Mahoney’s sly. His men are
learning how to pull in their
necks and coast with the issues
—so long as they get control. A
slate that includes Trail and Kim-
berley officers has been entered
against the present district lead-
ership. It’s no secret that de-
spite talk about “Murphy” the
election is actually on policy.

And, especially in Kimberley,
it’s impossible to hide everything
associating this slate with poli-
cies of company unionism. An
example was a Kimberley resolu-
tion voted down by district con-
vention which proposed the fol-
lowing alternative to struggle
against the gold operators: “BE
IT RESOLVED: That the B.C.
District Union Board “use every
recognized methed to... bring
new life into the industry, ie.,
industrial plan-
ning, joint production and any

other co-operative undertakings —

that may assist the members.”
And in the final analysis, men
must be judged not by talk but

by fight. On the job there’s a —

stir of dissatisfaction against the

Kimberley executive and any
officers who follow the ~

Trail
same policies, <

“They rule by clique and by
gavel,” is a typical Kimberley
miner’s comment. “They don’t

PACIFIC TRIBUNE.

want your story from the floor.
But we're learning how to fight,
how to get across union issues.
You can hear the talk under-
ground. The executive’s slick at
leading you down a blind alley.
But I'm getting steel in my back
now. ;
“We've got to get rid of 6 and
2. We've got to clean up griev-
ances, elect our shop stewards in
every department. We've got to
run the union ourselves and fight
along with the rest of Mine-Mill.”

Behind all is the war drive.
‘Consolidated workers have the
evidence to see who is whipping
up the hysteria.

Lead is 18% cents a pound—it
was 64 cents in 1946. Then
there’s zinc, heavy water, nitro-
pills.

The war scare pays off—for
Consolidated. And Consolidated
Wants every ounce of energy it
can get from the working force
to make the biggest killing it
can make. $

Nobody should think that di-
rectors of such companies as
CMS (and CPR which controls
Consolidated) don’t have the
power over governments and
newspapers: directors ltike D. C.
Coleman (CPR _ president who
also holds key posts in 20 other
huge companies and the Bank
of Montreal), Ross McMaster
(Steel Company of Canada presi-
dent who has key posts in 15
cther companies and the Bank
of Montreal) and a dozen others.

These economic titans teeter
on the brink of depression hur-|
ried by profiteering. They see
the war drive as salvation. And
they fear the influence of hund-
reds of millions in the world
who are building socialism, op-
erating plants like Consolidated’s
for themselves, for peace.

So the war drive. So the pro-
duction drive. So the crackdown
on labor. So the threats, the
bribes and the winning over of
spineless labor leaders who now
also seek to win workers for
the “anti-Communist” war ideal-

ogy. So CCL bureaucrats, com- |

mitted openly to the Atlantic war
pact, seek to smash down Mine-
Mill which insists the main job
is to fight the boss.

And so the workers of Trail
and Kimberley have a tough job
on their hands.

But they can win. They can
win because the truth is the op-
posite of what the company says
in its annual report, “Communi- —
ties directly dependent on the
company ‘have a population of
over 25,000.” The truth is there
are no communities dependent on _
the company—the company can-
not live without the men and
women who produce its wealth. |

Those men and women, if un-
ited in their unions and aux-
iliaries can be beat neither by
company or by raiders.

“Drive out ommunists?” quer-
ied one smelterman at the foot |

of the stairs. “Who'd be next?

Since when does the company

. Say who'll be in our union? I

remember the old days— and I
don’t want to see fear come
back. 2

“If we drive out anybody we'll
drive out the raiders and seces-
sionists and anybody else who.
wants to do a job for the com- |
pany.” : ao Fae
- Trail — Kimberley — all across ©

Canada, thousands of workers :

are rallying to do that job.

Se MARCH 18, 1949 — PAGE 5 —