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t
oy
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- Veerrameness

Yes, it really flies. This novel inflatable wing, constructed on a delta design, with its

fuselage suspended from

type engine. Here mechanics
Waltham, England. Advantage of the plane is

ily assembled for use.

an envelope of yubber-proofed fabric, is propelled by a pusher-
attach fuel tanks to its underside for a test flight at White
that it can be deflated, transported and read-

Prosperity? Sixty-four percent
earn less than $3,000 a year

By WILLIAM KASHTAN

How high is high? Spokesmen for big business have continuously harped on the high

living standards and prosperous state of the Canadian working class. Even some progressive-

minded people, seeing the gains m
struggles, also have tended to accept that line of

eral for all sections of the working people.

It would of course be wrong
to minimize the gains made
by workers in. some industries
or sectors of industry. But in
the first place these are not
typical for the entire labor
force, secondly, these gains still
lag behind what ought to be
a decent living standard.

According to Gerard Picard,
president of the Canadian
Catholic Conference of Labor,
an adult worker in Canada
needs an income of $3,540 an-
nually (approximately $68.30
weekly) in order to live even at
the minimum level. If this is
correct, three out of four Can-
adians fall .below this mini-
mum, for the latest available
government statistics show the
following:

Of the working force 38.5
percent earn less than $2,000 a
year, or under $38.45 weekly;
64.2 percent of the working
force earn less than $3,000 a
year or under $57.70 weekly;
75.6 percent earn less than $3,-
500 a year, or under $67.30
weekly.

Gas Installations

FURNACES — STOVES
WATER HEATERS

Harry C. Weinstein
GAS CONTRACTOR *

692 East Hastings
~ MUtual 3-5044
Res.: AL. 2991-L

FREE ESTIMATES

These figures certainly dis-
pel the illusion of high living
standards for all which is often
masked by the fact that hus-
band and wife have to work
to make both ends meet or
have mortgaged their future
through credit buying.

The, argument is used that
wages are higher than they
were 20 years ago. True
enough. But the purchasing
power of the dollar is not what
it was. Today one-third of the
income of the average family
goes in direct and indirect
taxes to the federal, provincial
and municipal governments.

The cost of living rises but
wages generally lag behind.
Moreover, even, in industries
like auto where workers have
through their militant strug-
gles made considerable head-
way, the picture is not com-
plete without including speed-
up and lay-offs.

Fourteen hundred Chrysler
workers were permanently
laid off recently and they, to-
gether with laid-off workers in
other industries, are part of

. the “prosperity” big business

and its apologists speak about.

In the needle trades industry
where the unions at one time
used to be pioneers in raising
new targets and winning im-
portant gains, facts have been
brought out recently which
further dispel the mirage of
“prosperity.”

In Winnipeg recently a wo-
man told a provincial govern-
ment commission probing con-
ditions in the garment industry
that she was earning $34 a
week after 27 years in the
industry.

In Toronto the Neddlé Work-

“that a

ade by sections of organized labor in the course of its
argument and assumed these have been gen-

er reports that workers in
men’s sportswear make as little
as 50 cents an hour, with a
high for operators of $1.50 in
open shops.

And yet, according to Pic-
ard, the minimum earnings
ought to be $3,549 annually or
$68.30 weekly!

Some conclusions are fairly

“obvious from these facts. The

trade union movement is cor-
rect in constantly pressing for
substantial wage increases and
fighting harder than ever to
raise living standards to the
minimum necessary.

An important element of
that struggle is the achieve-
ment of a national minimum
wage and improvements in the
provincial minimum wage
laws, for which the organized
labor movement ought to press
with even greater determina-
tion and vigor.

floreover, if a breakdown
were made of that 64.2 per-
cent of the working force
which earns less than $3,000
annually, it may be found
major proportion of
these workers live in Quekec
and in the small cities and
towns of Canada. If that is
so, the trade union movement
faces one of the biggest tasks
of its life — the extension of
ordination of efforts of all
the organization of the unor-
ganized in all these areas bas-
ed on full cooperation and co-
the unions concerned.

All these objectives — wage
increases, a national minimum
wage and improved minimum
wage laws, and the organiza-
tion of the unorganized — re-
quire all-inclusive and even
firmer. unity of the trade union
movement. It is a one-package
deat.

Liberals defeated

hy wide discontent

TORONTO

“Widespread discontent among the Canadian people re-
sulted in the.defeat of the Liberal government,” says The Can-
adian Tribune editorially this week. “However, the discontent
found its outlet not in a strengthened labor-farmer political

Tories.”

Predicting that “it is likely
that a new election will be held
before long” the Toronto pro-
gressive weekly went on to
say:

“The new parliament is un-
stable. The Tories will try,
perhaps to form with Social
Credit a Right coalition. The
Liberals will no doubt woo the
CCF. Whatever the outcome,
instability has replaced Liberal
demination. The country will
not be the same.”

Progressives (including the
LPP) did not fully appreciate
the Tory threat, the editorial
continues.

“But this is not the 1930 elec-
tion which elected R. B. Ben-
nett. Time shave changed. The
labor movement is powerful.
People are in the mood for
change. Things have been
‘shook-up’.

“Tf 50 or more CCF and
Labor MPs had been elected
Monday, the story would be
different. Labor would have
received a stimulus that would
have carried it far forwards to-
wards becoming the govern-
ment.

“We believe it was within
the realm of possibility that
such a group could have been
elected, if the trade union
movement,~ the farmers, the
CCF and LPP had joined forces
in a fighting campaign to de-
feat the Liberal government
and at the same time turn aside
the Tory threat.

“The potential fighting
strength was there. Everything
went to show that to be so. The
trade unions, almost now com-
pletely united into the Can-
adian Labor Congress, develop-
ing good fraternal relations
with the farmers’ organiza-
tions, and seeking a path to
political action, could have
been the medium for a power-
ful and united! politica] assault
on the Liberals and Tories.

“The ammunition, was there,
in the Liberal record of the
sellout of Canada to the USA,
in the pipeline betrayal, in the
flouting of parliament, in the
fat and arrogant bureaucracy
with which 22 years of Liberal
domination had encased the
St. Laurent government.

“What was lacking was vig-
orous leadership. The CCF fail-
ed to give it. It did not fight
the election as it should have
done, nor take full advantage
of the potentials in the labor
and farm movement. The LPP,
with a correct policy of labor-
farmer electoral unity and in-
dependent labor political ac-
tion and confining its candi-
dates to a few seats, was not
of itself strong enough to bring
this great change about.

“The result was the wide-

* group in the House of Commons, but in sweeping gains for the

spread discontent with Liberal
rule, fear of the future, fear
of the H-bomb, a desire for bet-
ter living standards and a
greater share in .the enormous
wealth produced by Canada,
found its way into an anti-Lib-
eral vote which, under the cir-
cumstances and in the absence
of a energetic, militant lead,
went to the Tories.

“This potential is still fur-
ther highlighted by the fact
that the Tory popular vote was
less than the Liberals .. .

“While these words are writ-
ten the day after the election
and are only of a preliminary
nature, we make so bold as to
say that the Tory victory can
be short-lived, and that the
Jabor movement, the CCF and
the LPP can and must face up
to the eye-opening challenge
thrust into the forefront of
Canadian politics by the re-
actionary Tories, that no mat-
ter what may be decided by
Liberal and Tory politicians in
their debates during the next
few days as to the outcome of
their stalemate in the House of
Commons, the issues raised in
this election must be taken into
the street, the factory, the
union hall, and the lesson of
independent labor political ac-
tion driven home.

“If an early election comes,
as is possible, his lesson can
be applied so as to deeply
affect its outcome in favor of
the working people.”

Mounties in
appeal court

Vancouver Mounties will
continue to play Sunday base-
ball, and are taking legal ac-
tion to question the validity
of the Lord’s Day Aet before
the B.C. Court of Appeal, it
was announced this week.

The surprise action will
make it possible for the base-
ball club to play out its sche-
dule of Sunday games for the
remainder of the season.

Senator J. W. DeB Farris
will represent the Mounties
and will contend that the
Lord’s Day Act is invalid be-
cause of a clause — section 16
— which permits provincial
attorneys general discretion
in prosecuting alleged viola-
tions of the act. The federal
government, he will argue,
has no power to delegate such

authority to junior govern-
ments.
Taking the case to high

court removes it from magis-
trate’s court an dplaces it be-
fore B.C. Court of Appeal and
possibly the Supreme Court
of Canada.

JUNE 14,1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNZ—PAGE 8

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