LABOR SCENE

by

BRUCE MAGNUSON

For five days close to 1,600
delegates from trade union or-
ganizations across Canada metin
the Winnipeg civic auditorium,
This was the sixth biennial con-
vention of the Canadian Labor
Congress, now entering its sec-
ond decade.

The issues before the conven-
tion were monumental, The way
this convention tackled these is-
sues reflected a rapidly growing
political maturity in the working
class of our country. Both the
strengths and the weaknesses that
stood out in this convention
served to emphasize the complex
and difficult processes that we all
have to face up to in this era
of speedy social transition.

The 398 resolutions and num-
erous reports covered issues
such as peace, independence,
economic policy, political action,
union autonomy, structure, unity,
social security, human rights,
how to make the new technology
serve humanity, how to banish
poverty. and so on and on,

The statement on international
affairs adopted by the convention
covered 25 of the resolutions sub-
mitted. It reaffirmed the peace
policy of the CLC, strengthened

_and clarified it on such issues
as Vietnam, disarmament,
against the spread of nuclear
arms, Rhodesia and South Africa,
aid to developing countries, dip-
lomatic recognition of the Peo-
ple’s Republic of China, a Ger-
man peace treaty based on unity
and self-determination, peace in
the Middle East, and support for
the “uphill struggle of the people
of Latin America and the Carib-
bean area.”

But the idea that Canada ought
to join the Organization of Ameri-
ean States was severely criti-
cized. One delegate likened this
U.S.-dominated regional alliance
as “a mice-club presided over by
the cat.”

The convention unanimously
supported growing demands
everywhere for an end to the war
in Vietnam,” It “protested
against the indiscriminate bomb-
ing, experimenting with new and
terrible means of warfare, the
mounting toll of innocent victims
affecting the whole civilian popu-
lation (both North and South),
the continuing resort to subver-
sion, terror and assassination,
the refusal to negotiate without
prior conditions.”

The statement went on to ask
for “a negotiated settlement, re-
flecting the actual military and
. . reject the

political realities .

socialists, anti-Yankees and me .

ag SO Tee |

advocates of total victory or
unacceptable humiliation for any
side.*°

It urged the Canadian govern-
ment to support: 3

1, Unconditional discussions
or negotiations, open to all par-
ties to the conflict, including the
Viet Cong(sic), to bring about
an immediate cease-fire in Viet-
nam,

2. A United Nations initiative
and role in the cease-fire and
subsequent peace-keeping ma-
chinery.

3. Implementation of the Gen-

eva accords of 1954 and 1962
and in particular from North and
South Vietnam and the cessation
of all acts of terror and sub-
version.
"4, Self-determination and in-
dependence for the people of
Vietnam. as well as for all the
people of Southeast Asia, free
from outside interference.

5. A massive aid program, to
assist the people concerned in
their economic development and
rehabilitation.

Columnist Dudley Magnus, in
his “Labor Scene’’ in the Winni-
peg Free Press, deplored the
fact that the CLC — 70 percent
of whose unions have head-
quarters in the United States —
«voted in effect against the Amer-
ican union stand in Vietnam”
without any opposition even from
top level leaders,

“One of the reasons the public
sometimes gets a notion to label
Canadian unions in general as
Communist-infiltrated and ex-
treme left at top echelon level,
is because of the continued neu-
trality-type silence of labor
leaders when anything is done by
United States unions in support
of action against international
communism,” wrote Magnus.

#Actually it is absurd to call
the CLC Communist, but it would
be cleared up in a few minutes
if one of the general vice-presi-
dents, or executive vice-
presidents of the CLC got up
and said that their feelings of
course were humane, but that
CLC shouldn’t vote against its
fellow unionists’ stand in Am-
erica. They don’t have to take
a stand in Canada, some ob-
servers feel, but they should dis-
cuss the matter objectively and
be fearless of repercussions...”

Now, how about that, you
fellow-travellers on the CLC ex-
ecutive council?

”
a

LBJ taking road of Nazi
Germany, warns Fulbright

By DANIEL MASON

Sen, J.W. Fulbright (D-Ark.,
last week warned that the John-
son administration’s Vietnam
policy was leading the nation
along the disastrous road taken
by Nazi Germany,

Fulbright, who is chairman
of the Senate Foreign Rela-
tions Committee, declareditis*‘a
kind of madness® for President
Johnson to claim it is possible
to build a Great Society at home
while financing an expanding war
in Asia,

Fulbright warned that Con-
eress had become politically and
psychologically a “war Con-
gress.” His warning underscored
the urgency of the national cam-
paign of peace organizations for
election of peace candidates to
Congress,

He assailed the Johnson ad-
ministration for promoting a war
hysteria that would expand the
Vietnam conflict into a world
war.

His warnings came a day after
Sen, Robert Kennedy (D-N.Y.)
told the Senate that the Johnson
adminstration’s escalation of the
bembing of North Vietnam last
week, inviting clashes with North
Vietnam planes, increased the
danger of expanding the war to
China,

Fulbright, in his speech at the
meeting of the Bureau of Adver-
tising of the American News-
paper Publishers Association,
said:

*  . . Instead of emphasizing
plans for social change, the policy

planners and political scientists
are conjuring up ‘scenarios’ of
escalation and nuclear confronta-
tion and ‘models’ of insurgency
and counter insurgency: in Latin
America they seem more inter-
ested in testing the ‘images’ of
armies than in the progress of
social reform...

«, . . All this war news must
have its effects: the diversion of
attention from domestic pursuits,
the gradual dehumanization of the
enemy, rising levels of tension,
anger, war-weariness and belli-
cosity

It was at this point that Ful-
bright warned where the Vietnam
war was leading. He delcared:

“America is showing some
signs of that fatal presumption,
that over-extension of power and
mission, which brought ruin to
ancient Athens, to Napoleonic
France and to NaziGermany, The
process has hardly begun, but the
war which we are now fighting
can only accelerate it.”

Earlier in his talk Fulbright
said:

“Despite brave talk about
having both ‘guns and butter,’
the Vietnamese war has already
had a destructive effect on the
Great Society. The 80th Con-
gress, which enacted so much
important domestic legislation in
1965, is enacting very little in
1966. . . because the Congressas
a whole has lost interest in the
Great Society; it has become,
politically and psychologically, a
‘war Congress.’

*My own view is that there is
qa kind of madness in the facile
assumption that we can raise the
many billions of dollars neces-
sary to rebuild our schools and
cities and public transport and
eliminate the pollution of air and
water, while also spending tens
of billions to finance an ‘open-
ended* war in Asia.”

Kennedy’s Senate attack on the
Johnson administration had been
occasioned by the State Depart-
ment’s threat to send U.S, planes
into China in pursuit of planes that
might dare to defend North Viet-
nam or China against U.S. in-
vasion. He said:

“What is occurring in North
Vietnam is escalation of the war
by them or by us — the fact is
that we are both inexorably in-
volved. The fact andits implica-
tions must be faced, What will
be the Chinese response, if her
territory. is bombed or her air
space invaded? Will the Chinese
seek to strike at our bases —
in Vietnam, or Thailand, or
aboard our aireraft carriers?

“And if they do, what then will
our response be — further bomb-
ing? And if the scale of bombing
increases, will China confine
herself to air fighting — or will
it send its troops to engage ours
on the *eround in South Vietnam?

«The extension of the war into
China will not, in my judgment,
give us success in South Viet-
nam,” t ;

Wrong for city to subsidize
CEMP-EATON deal, says Rankin

Harry Rankin, former alder-
manic candidate in Vancouver,
and a leading figure in the city’s
ratepayer movement, said this
week that “Mayor Rathie and his
NPA realestate city council seem
to have the ‘give away’ phobia,”

In a press release he said that
“first it was the Webb-Knapp deal
in Coal Harbor, then the scheme
to give a valuable property to
Connie Smythe for a hockey
arena, and now the plan to sub-
sidize Eaton and Bronfman,”

WASHINGTON — The U.S.
District Court last week dis-
missed an indictment which
had been pending against Gus
Hall for more than four years
charging failure to register
under the McCarran Act asan
officer of the Communist
Party. On learning of the
dismissal of the indictment,
Gus Hall declared:

“It is a victory in a case
that should never have been
instituted. It was an outrag-
eous irresponsible attack on
the U.S. Constitution, The
threat of possible future re-
indictment under the Mc-
Carran Act further empha-
sizes that the struggle for
democracy is everlasting.
Further, that there is a con-
tinuous threat to the open
and legal functioning of the
Communist Party and its lead-
ership,

“It is now necessary to
mobilize greater pressure for
the dismissal of all proceed-
ings under the McCarran Act.”

Hall further stressed that
the McCarran Act should be

U.S. court dismisses
case against Gus Hall

repealed, along with theSmith
Act, the Landrum-Griffin Act,
the Taft-Hartley Act and other
anti-democratic measures,

“Only a clean sweep of this
network of anti-democratic,
unconstitutional laws can pro-
vide a longer range safeguard
for democratic liberties in our
country,” he said,

GUS HALL

“If we are to subsidize any

building in Vancouver, let is be
for the purpose of public buildings

for the citizens,” he said,

Rankin said there are at least .

three things wrong with the
CEMP-Eaton scheme to develop
Blocks 42 and 52 in downtown
Vancouver,

He listed them as follows:

“It is wrong in principle to
expropriate property from one
group of private businessmen
in favor of another, in this case
expropriating local business in-
terests in favor of rich eastern
corporations, It sets a most
dangerous precedent,

“It is wrong for the city to
subsidize the scheme to the tune
of $7 million or more, ‘|

®CEMP has given no hard and
fast guarantees that it will carry
out its building promises, yet de-
mands the city agree to the deal
in the next six months. There is
no earthly reason why the tax-
payers of Vancouver should turn

over Block 42 to these interests

for less than its value or build

‘garages to the value of $3 million

for them,”

-- Rankin charged that the CHMP-
Eaton interests have ganged to-
gether to make a fast buck at the
expense of Vancouver taxpayers.
If Eatons really want to build,
it can and will go ahead without
a ‘subsidy, As for CEMP, this
has all the earmarks of another

real estate speculative scheme. —

“Mayor Rathie calls opposl-
tion to the scheme ‘nit-pickiné:

put $7 million is a nit worth

picking,” said Rankin,

May 13, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE--Page 2

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