IWA IN UNITED STATES PREPARES TO HIT BRICKS Woodworkers uniting on 40-hour fight While strike ballots of 40,000 United States woodworkers were being counted this week and the men were readying to “hit the bricks” on May 15, Canadian IWA officials reiterattd their “No con- tract, no work” slogan adopted at the Nanaimo convention, to take effect June 15 regardless of whether all government legal requirements have been complied with at that time. A request by IWA and company heads that a government concilia- tion board be named without going through the delaying conciliation officer step was rejected by Labor Relations Board, and R. G. Clem- ents of the provincial labor depart- ment was named conciliator. The fight fer the 40-hour week was the stumbling block which brought IWA-operator talks to a standstill last week. TWA, WIUC amd unorganized woodworkers in B.c. are uniting around the slo- gan, “Hold the 40-hour week!” Unity is growing among the work- ers in camps and mills, but FWA officials still continue their “go it alone” line .which resulted in fail- ure to win any wage increase in | 1949. The Wancouver Daily Province, on labor’s scab list for more than three years until they signed an ITU contract a few months ago, tries to encourage disunity among woodworkers by catering to the right-wing top leadership of the TWA. On Monday the Province ran a “profile” piece on IWA dis- trict president Stewart Alsbury, lauding him as the man who “led the fight against Reds in the union.” Alsbury is quoted as calling a strike at Fraser Mills in 1931 “leftist bungling.” Just to keep the record straight, workers won a 16 cent across-the-board in- crease in that strike and recogni- tion of union mill committees. Asbury was conspicuous by his absence from the picket line, in fact, he went on vacation in the U.S. during the strike. Alsbury also told. the Province | that he was expelled from the union in 1937. He neglected to add that one of the prime movers for his expulsion, which was by unanimous vote of the New Westminster local, was Lloyd Whalen, now one of his lieutenants. Reason for the expul- sion: suspicion of stool pigeon ac- tivities for the company. Later Alsbury joined the IWA when it was organizing in B.C., and was elected a second vice-president of Local 1-357. But his activities ‘again caused the membership to move against him, and he was re- moved from office in 1944. “Be- cause I opposed Communist policy,” he told the Province reporter. The | policies he opposed, however, were those which won the first industry- wide contract in lumber and added 15 cents per hour to workers’ pay cheques. All that is past history now, but it should not be forgotten by wood- workers in 1950. The savage attacks by lumber op- erators against the woodworkers today and the attempt to abolish the 40-hour and keep workers divid- ed in order to return to open shop conditions in the woods and mills, demands the -utmost solidarity of all woodworkers, IWA, WIUC and unorganized, WIUC bulletins, distributed at plant gates each week, stress the urgent, need for united action to maintain the 40-hour week, win a 17-cent pay hike and the union shop. “The bosses’ attack can be beat- en back,” says a WIUC bulletin. “The 40-hour week can be saved. But it can be saved only by unit- ed action of the workers on the job. This. is why action commit- tees, elected on a job basis, are an. imperative necessity. “Tt is because practically nothing is being done by IWA officials to inform the workers on what is going on and to rally them in de- fence of their rights that the em- ployers ale pressing their attack so ruthlessly. Only action taken so far came last. week from IWA Local 1-217 when 111 shop stewards reaffirmed their intention of press- ing the fight for their original de- mands in full, a fact which indicates that the workers are prepared to fight. “The stand taken by the shop stewards was excellent, but more is needed. It is not enough to re- affirm a position. Actual, definite steps must be taken to hold it. This means action from below—a rallying of the whole united army of labor into the fight,and election of action committees on the job in every operation.” How the daily press played it up CRUDE STUNT BACKFIRES ‘PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 5, 1950 PAGE 2 Se eee ‘% search rIEA ' a CK Mi lly h da ago on CKM osinee realy a a dcouver. Tncouver ea taste of U.S. f ; s . mcouver Garden as | o} ascism \ ‘and his o'clock ree OL nde MOSINEE, WIS. | tional Guardsmen Poyeant on 3a radio t ram . mere on you: This little town (population | Cine ee