UNBELIEVABLE SELLOUT

HOW. OUR MERCHANT
FLEET WAS SCUTTLED

-giolence may flare up on
the Great Lakes this year
as it did in 1962. If it does, the
newspapers will have a field
day. They’ll delve into all the
gory details and spatter the
trade union movement with
their dirty splashes.

But who will tell the real
story? How many of the daily
newspapers will remind their
readers that Hal Banks, chief
of the Seafarers International
Union, was deliberately im-
ported into this country al-
most 15 years ago to destroy
the legitimate union of Cana-
dian seamen and to clear the
way for the elimination ol
-Canada’s merchant fleet?

The present struggle be-
tween Hal Banks and the Can-
-adian Labor Congress is an
after-echo of events that took
place in those days. Canadians
were recently reminded of
those events in a presentation
to the Norris industrial in-
quiry commission on shipping
in the Great Lakes by the
Canadian Merchant Seamen-
Veteran’s Association.
FIFTH SHIPPING POWER

Events began in 1945, when
Canada owned a total of 253
dry cargo ships, of which 149
were operated by the Park
Steamship Co. Ltd., a crown
corporation, and 104 were on
loan to Great Britain, most of
these to be returned to Can-
ada by 1950.

Canada, with over two. mil-
lion gross tons of cargo-car-
rying shipping — most of it
built and paid for by Cana-
dian taxpayers during the
war—ranked among the first
five seafaring nations in the
world.

But a few years after the

war, the Canadian govern:
ment decided to sell _ its
crown-corporation ships to

private companies operating
in Canada. Most of these com-
panies, particularly on the
east coast, were controlled by
foreign capital.

What was their attitude?

First—to remove or reduce
the Canadian merchant mar-
ine as a threat to the competi-
tive positions of their parent
companies.

Second — to reduce costs
increase profits by the techni-
cal “sale” or transfer of Can-
adian ships to foreign flags.
This immediately reduced
wages while the manning
scale was cut by 20 percent
from its Canadian require
ments. :

As far as the results of these
Manoeuvres to Canada were
‘concerned, the Globe and
Mail later reported: :

“Chartering of foreign-fla¢
vessels by Canadian shipping
companies cost the country’s
economy about $125 million
in 1962 . . . The firms in the
(shipping) association operate
about 100 ocean-going ships,
most of which are registered
under foreign flags and are
handled by foreign crews . - -
In 1950, when Canadians
Owned 115 ships manned by
Canadian crews, earnings
from shipping services €X-
Ceeded expenditures by $4,-
000,000.”

The sale of Canadian ships
began in 1948, when 26 Park
Ships were sold or transfer-

ed. The total price was $16,-
202,250—just a fraction of
their original cost to the Can-
adian people.

SIT-IN STRIKES

To alert Canadians to this
sellout, Canadian seamen con-
ducted sit-in strikes in many
of the foreign ports where
these flags were being trans-
ferred and where Canadian
crews were being replaced
with foreign seamen.

In 1949, there was a bat-
tle over the issue in the House
of Commons. Lionel Chevrier,
then minister of transport in
the Liberal government, hotly
defended the ship sale and
ridiculed the suggestion of
Howard Green (Conservative
MP, Vancouver South) that
legislation be enacted to carry
50 percent of our exports in
Canadian ships.

Chevrier said: “The United
Kingdom must find means of
paying for our grain and tim-
ber. One such means is by
way of her shipping services,
but if we were to follow the
suggestion of the honorable
member, 50 percent of our ex-
ports to the United Kingdom
must be carried in Canadian-
flag bottoms, which would
mean that our farmers and
our producers generally
would have still greater ait:
ficulties in disposing of their
products.”

This was the argument used
by foreign shipping interests
to eliminate competition, and
it was also the excuse the
government used to permit
the sale of Canadian vessels.

Those in Canada interested
in disposing of our merchant
fleer went on the offensive
and supported the govern-
ment position expressed by

‘ Chevrier.

yv. Clyne, chairman of

the Canadian Maritime Com-
mission, attacked as ‘‘sheer
nonsense”? the proposal made
by the Canadian Seamens
Union—the militant organiza-
tion representing the over-
whelming majority of Cana-
dian seamen—that half our
waterborne trade be carried
in Canadian bottoms.

“Canada’s trade,” he said,
“just cannot support the size
of a fleet needed to keep sup-
plies flowing across the Atlan-
tic during the war.”

As this anti-Canadian offen-
sive increased in intensity and
more ships were sold, there
was consideration not only
among the seamen, but also
among workers in industries
dependent on shipping—ship-
builders, repairmen, chand-
lers, longshoremen,

COLLISION COURSE

The most outspoken group,
however, was the CSU, whose
members were most directly
affected. Their fight to pre-
serve the shipping industry
put them on a collision course
with those whose _ interests
were best served by liquida-
tion of the fleet.

This was the real _ back-
ground to the breakdown in
relations between the CSU
and the ship-owners in 1949.
It was this breakdown which
led to the Canadian debut of
Hal Banks and the SIU.

In 1949, eight Canadian
seamen were shot and hospi-
talized in one day in Halifax,
and several more in Saint
John. The bodies of two more
Canadian seamen were found
in mysterious circumstances
in San Francisco and Mont-
real. These events coincided
with the arrival to Canada of
Banks, a ‘union boss’’ with-
out a single member in this
country.

Canadian seamen strongly
opposed the takeover of their
trade union affairs by an Am-
erican of Banks’ repute. The
Liberal government of. that
day and the officials of the
Trades and Labor Congress

Picketing seamen, members of the Canadian Seamen's Union,
above, fought against the sellout of Canada’s merchant fleet. But
when they went on strike, Hal Banks, head of the Seafarer’s Inter-
national Union, was called into Canada to smash the CSU.

and the Canadian Congress of
Labor were repeatedly advis-
ed of the notoriety of this
man and his organization by
the trade union which ,was
Banks’ first target for assas-
sination.

(The SIU, incidently,
brought into the CLC, was
suspended in 1959 and expell-

ed in 1960 for raiding other .

CLC affiliates.)

It was. obvious that a
scheme had been engineered,
with Banks as the hatchet
man, to scrap the Canadian
merchant fleet and to begin
by removing the main oppo-
sition to this plan, the seamen
whose livelihood depended on
maintaining the fleet.

Because the seamen oppos-
ed the sale of the Canadian
fleet, because they wished to
retain the wages and working
conditions established by
many years of struggle and
refused to surrender the dem-
ocratic hiring-halls operated
by the CSU for the protection

of the seamen, a great dis-

pute broke out in the indus-
try.

WITCH HUNT

After all conciliation proce-
dures were exhausted, the
CSU called a strike (1949)
wherever the ships were an-
chored or berthed around the
world. That strike was the ex-
cuse used to call Banks to
Canada to “save the shipping
industry from the subversive
elements who sailed the
ships.”

An anti-Communist witch-

hunt began against the CSU.
Banks and his mob came into
the Canadian labor picture
through the legally-establish-
ed picketlines of a striking
union which was still affiliat-
ed with the Trades and Labor
Congress of Canada.

Armed goons, reinforced
with police, smashed through
the picketlines, shooting and
stabbing, while the seamen,
fighting a last-ditch stand to
defend their livelihood, were
imprisoned under charges of

unlawful assembly and ob-
structing the police.
When the struggle was

over, the objective had been
reached. The seamen lost out
and the fleet was scuttled on
schedule. The blacklist ‘“Do-
Not-Ship” lists were establish-
ed and Hal Banks and his al-
lies had won the day.

TWO-FOLD BLAME

Veteran seamen place the
blame for the present sorry
state of Canada’s maritime in-
dustry in two directions —
with the sponsors of Banks,
both in the labor movement
and in the government of that
day, and with those who made
a business of selling Canada’s
fleet and the _ sailors’ jobs
down the river.

Since those days, 177 Park
ships, which cost $277 million
to build, have been sold for
$85 million. With these ships
went the jobs not only of the
seamen, but of thousands of
allied workers, with scarcely
a murmur of protest from any
save the seamen-veterans.

Think big’ Rathie thinks and
acts for big realty interests

By WILLIAM STEWART
he ‘Think Big” babbits of
T Vancouver City Hall and
business community, paced by
Mayor Wm. Rathie, are talk-
ing up a storm about Vancou-
ver expansion.

Beginning with a $42,000
delling of his own office
tax increase
of

remo
and an average
for Vancouver howeowners
$20, these “expansionists” are
unfolding their plans for Van-
couver’s future.

In a_ nutshell, their plans
evolve around schemes dream-_
ed up by giant real estate syn-
dicates designed to attract up-
per income families and draw
tourists to the city to bolster
the profits of the business

unity.
Be cee target of ihe
“think biggers” and their U.S.
financial cronies, is the fore-
shore of Vancouver harbour

from Stanley Park right up to
Granville Street.

Webb and Knapp has a
scheme before the city now
for a $55 million luxury ap-
artment block-marina devel-
opment for Coal Harbour,

stretching from the Bayshore
Inn to Stanley Park. Larry

SENT

WILLIAM STEWART

Smith and Co. -consultants
dropped a report (which cost
city taxpayers close to $40,-
000) on Council desks which
calls for an expressway along
the Vancouver side of the
waterfront with development
of the area West of Granville
St. for commercial and tourist
facilitites.
e

Christiani & Nielson-Fence
has disclosed to Mayor Rathie
a plan for an elevated ex-
pressway connected with an-
other harbour crossing at
Thurlow.

The alarming thing about

‘all these proposals is that they

bear no responsibility to the
development of Vancouver
harbour as a base for the
trans-shipment of Canadian-
made goods.

There is absolutely no mas-
ter plan for the development
of Vancouver harbour into

which such schemes would
have to be fitted. It is precise-
ly the absence of such a plan
which is opening the door for

‘speculators and money-hun-

gry business interests to turn
the most precious asset of our
city into a playground for the
rich and a tourist mecca.

No further construction
whatsoever should be allow-
ed on the harbour front until
the authorities concerned
have drawn up a master plan.
for the harbour based on its
full utilization as a port. Van-
couver City Council, first of
all, must accept responsibility
for this.

Aside from considerations
related to the harbour, how-
ever, there are several aspects
to the plan which require
serious thought. A _ report
drawn up by the Vancouver
Board of Adminstration re.

See STEWART, pg. 10

May 10, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 7 _