, Low wages, high prices, BCE aim Armed with a formidable atray of figures, BCER repre- Sentatives before a board of conciliation between the Street ilwaymen’s Union and the com-, ' pany, show a keen determination to make the union—and the public who must use their services, pay for the cost of installation of new €quipment, through a combination of low wages and high prices. All the super profits the BCER have extracted during the last 20 years from their antiquated rolling Stock and. from other services is Conveniently forgotten. Declaring that if the Street ilwaymen’s Union demands for & 20-cents an hour wage increase and the 40-hour week were grant- as it would result in “a sharp Renee in street car fares,” ook Secretary L. B. Jack told mae board Monday that the in- nae to street car, bus operators th Maintenace men would cost © BCER an additional $2,561,000 annually, me whole case of the BCER on the premise that if Wage increases are granted the Heed of BCER services must be i also, thus hoping to place nus of price skyrocketting Upon the arian! ae K. Melnikow, counsel for the ne declared that “the union Sree &ecept as exhibits ... any aie ie Service of the company lic Sting at a loss unless the Pub- Utilities Commission says so.” ile th Vtg have € Utilities Commission nal Publicly manifested a pater- fe concern for BCER claims in ot to gas rate increases, it blany?, 22r abstained from giving approval to the company’s Ms of ‘operating at a loss’. anket Clai delegate Tom Parkin of The calling for a special session won unanimous endorsation of the council meeting. “We don’t want industrial chaos in our province,” Parkin told council delegates, “but we're heading right into it, and Nazi mobs wreck London meetings LONDON—Fighting with belts, brass knuckles and similar wea- pons broke out Sunday night when a band of hooligans sing- ing the Nazi ‘Horst Wessel’ song charged an anti-fascist meeting in Dalton, an east-London work- ing class district. One* man ‘had to be taken to hospital with head injuries and police, who quelled the disturb- ance, arrested eight. Earlier in the day the police broke up a simliar meeting of the British Ex-Servicemen’s League, where speakers lauded fascism. The Ex- Servicemen’s League includes many members from Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Many representations have been made to the government to curb the growing activity of the fascists, but to date no action has been taken. Most of the anti-Semitic ‘rioting’ of recent weeks was inspired by these Mosleyite groups. x lt must still be fought ‘ Se Sing Ram ee pe eae \i. rials, is : sega nie aeabeint with a midnight showing on ea September 7. Top picture s € Nuremberg dock; bottom Dachau death camp, on in this full-length historic film. film, famous SCenes powerful Soviet documen- which opens at the State hows Nazi war criminals shows a survivor of the in- e of the many unforgetable “Nuremberg Trials” is the kind of a picture that strength- b S men’s resolve that fascism must be destroyed root and Tanch, Remember the opening night, Sunday, September 7 8t the State Theater. AY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1947 United Fishermen and Allied Special session to amend Bill 39 urged by Trades Council body ‘Latest action taken by the Vancouver, New Westminster Trades and Labor Council in the fight against Bill 39, was the decision Tuesday night to circulate a petition among all affiliated unions calling for a special session of the B.C. legislature. Introduced by: Workers Union, the resolution we'll stay in that condition unless the obnoxious sections of the mew ICA Act are re- moved and removed quickly.” Parkin warned that when con- ciliation boards now functioning bring down reports which the unions affected find unacceptable, it will be a case of “either sub- mitting to a government super- vised strike vote in violation of their union constitutions or of striking in violation of the act.” The latter course, Parkin de- clared, would be the only one open to the trade union move- ment. The people of the prov- ince would rally to the support of organized labor in its call for a special session and in its present struggles providing the issues involved were properly explained. Several locals reported difficul- ties in negotiations now being carried on. A referendum strike vote taken by the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Union Local 28 on wage and hour pro- posals submitted by Restaurant Owners resulted in a vote over- whelmingly in favor of strike action if the union demand of a 40-hour week and other. con- cessions is not met. Union busting activities of the Famous Players theatre chain were denounced by Pete Cana- van, business agent of Local 244, Builing Service Employees Union Canavan reported that members of his organization, employed in these theatres, were taken into the office of the management, grilled, and warned against the union. “The daily press won’t touch the story with a ten foot pole,” Canavan’ stated, referring to press releases issued by the un- ion giving its side of the dis- pute. The fact that there is a full page of theatre ads appear- ing every day, “might” be influ- encing this policy of the dailies, said Canavan. Girls involved range in age from as low as 16 and 17 years. The AFL Foundry Workers Union has asked its International office for sanction of strike ac- tion if it becomes necessary. No headway has been made in negotiations with a committee of operators headed by Vancouver Centre MLA McDonnel, chief of the Metal Trades section, CMA. He has indicated that he will ask for 17 separate conciliation boards, one for each of the plants affected, unless negotiations are settled to his satisfaction. Price of butter was protested to the Dominion government by the council as far out of line with the increased price of but- ter fat to the farmer and the labor costs involved in produc- tion, Re-introduction of the sub- sidy on butter was advocated. A donation of $25 was sent to the United Textile Workers Un- ion to aid in -their fight to re- lease Canadian director of the union Kent Rowley, and to fight. the cases for officers and 40 rank and file members. charged in the Lachute strike which is still in progress. Car price increases ‘unwarranted’ says Burt George Burt, Canadian Director of the United Auto Workers Union (CIO), said in Toronto this week that in- creased car prices were unwarranted “in view of the high profits of the companies in past years and the record profits already Motors and Chrysler for the first six months of this year.” He termed the recently announced GM increase as “deplorable.” The UAW-CIO leader said GM profits for the second quarter of’ this. year were $82,000,000. Mr. Burt compared this figure with an average $69,000,000 per quar- ter for 1928 “‘the best year in the company’s history.” announced by General, Chrysler profits, said Mr. Burt were a ‘record” of more than $36,000,000 for the first half of this year. This, he said, proved the union’s point that the auto corporations could re- duce prices and still make a handsome profit. Not only was the price of cars so high today, but that they “are out of the reach of the average family man.” Case against seamen dismissed, pay refunded VICTORIA, B.C.—Three young seamen won a victory in police court here on August 25 when charges of desertion preferred against them on information laid by the Seaboard Shipping Company were dismissed. They were Kenneth E. O’Keefe, formerly of Windsor, Ont., H. W. Kelley of Vancouver, and John D. Stuart of Victoria. Capt. J. N. Stark of the SS. Seaboard Queen, testified that the three men were missing when his ship left Holtenau, Germany, for Kotka, Finland, after a 24-hour delay in obtaining a pilot, The ship returned to Holtenau 18 days later and signed the men on again for the return voyage, and they were placed under arrest when the ship docked here. The company held back $625 in pay due the three men, most of it earned on the return voyage, and contended that it was en- titled to keep it. John Stanton, counsel for the Canadian Seamen’s Union, called evidence to show that the men had no intention of leaving the ship permanently but only went ashore to purchase liquor. When they returned to the ship it was just weighing anchor and although they hired a fast motor boat they were unable to overtake her. He submitted that this did not con- stitute desertion. After reserving judgment for a week, Magistrate H. Hall, K.C., handed down his decision on Aug- ust 25, stating that he agreed with defense counsel’s submission. He held that, in accordance with old English maritime law, before a charge of desertion could suc- ceed it must be proved that the men did not intend to return to the ship. So long as there was evidence of intention to return, as by the men leaving clothing and other belongings aboard, there could be no desertion: The charges of desertion were dismissed and the company’s claim on the men’s back pay was thrown out. News of | the nation * * * Canada arms Dutch OTTAWA—Dutch troops war- ring against Indonesian Republi- cans are definitely using Canadian guns, ammunition and army clothing. Official confirmation of this fact, originally revealed in the Tribune, July 31, came today, in reports of: the War Assets. Cor- poration. The Netherlands government now carrying a war into Indone- sian territory, contrary to the wishes of the UN bought $566,200 worth of surplus army’ equipment for the year ending March 31, 1947, according to corporation re- ports. In addition to the above sale, Canada turned over $6,881,630 worth of military goods, purchased through the department of recon- struction, according to official re- cords. Tabled in the house on the last day of the session, the annual re- port of the War Assets Corpora- tion, reveals that the approximate $7,000,000 worth of military equip- ment was turned over to the Dutch by the department of na- tional defence, ‘Piece of nonsense’ TORONTO — Mayor Saunders yesterday labelled both Ontario and federal immigration schemes as “ridiculous pieces of nonsemse.” He made the statement at a meet- ing of the city’s board of con- trol. The Mayor said, “I have twelve letters in my office right now from English families that want the city to aid in finding accom- modation. It is high time that we utilized the full resources of the press and radio to warn all con- cerned that there is no housing accommodation erailahle in Tor- orto.” On the eviction front TORONTO—Sheriff J. D, Con- over, county of York, is a busy man these days. So far he has served 500 writs for eviction af- fecting 800 families, according to department officials at City Hall. Present emergency housing in the city of Toronto and suburban areas is ‘insufficient’ to cope with demands on welfare officials. To- tal ‘active cases’ number a little over 5,000, with about 2,000 new applications this year, and some 3,000 brought over from last year, according to spokesmen at City Hall. Each eviction May involve a number of families living in over- crowded dwellings. Federal orders are working havoc decontrolling housing regu- lations, permitting owners of homes to move in on harassed ten- ants, with no place to go. Equally hard-hit are _soldier- veteran applicants and civilians. In the two-week period Aug. 11 to Aug. 23 there were some 100 re- quests for homes split evenly be- tween the two groups. In the same period housing of- ficials carried out over 4,000 per- sonal and telephone interviews on the subject of emergency accom- modation, including about 50 night Tush calls. Tomatoes were ripe KAMLOOPS, B.C.—The toma- toes were ripe and the work- ers in the Kamloops Tomato Packing Company’s plant here felt the time was also ripe— for «a wage increase. Tuesday forenoon this week, without worrying about Bill 39, they went on a sit-down strike to emphasize the ripeness of the time. In the afternoon the is- sue was mutually settled with & five cents an hour increase, retroactive to last pay day. PACIFIC TRIBPNE—PAGE 3