The women who have

joined the battle

HE role of women in labor’s

_ history has seldom been

discussed .on the society
pages of newspapers.

Usually their suffering and
sacrifice have been endured in
silence and without recognition;
it has never been fashionable to
bare the degradation of the
working man and his family..

They have lived with their .

men through the. squalid misery
of company towns. They some-

times have looked too deeply -

into the pained eyes of their
husbands, fathers, and sons.

The struggle for recognition has-

been heart-rending to them, too.

They have watched their chil-
dren go hungry in the daily bat-
tle with debt. They have waged
their own private wars to make
certain their children gained
education that the father never
had.

They have watched their men
go to the picket lines to face
the guns of management goons
waiting’ at the fences of indus-
trial strife. Sometimes they
have joined their men on the
picket lines to be clubbed and
shot down also.

When not lending sympathy
and encouragement to their men
and when not calming the
fears of their children, they have
waited time and again for a
small victory and then another.
When there was nothing else
they could do, they’ served
coffee and doughnuts to the
strikers.

HE Pearson government has
declared its intention of
mounting a war against

poverty in Canada. This is the
kind of war which serves the
best interests of Canada.

The elimination of poverty
from the slums of our cities and
towns, the marginal farms of
the countryside, the Indian re-
servations and Eskimo villages
is not only of great moral signi-

ficance; it is right on the road .

leading to the improvement of
economic and social security for
all working people.

No one in his right mind
would quarrel with the declared
intention of the government.
But we do have to make up our
wminds whether the war on
poverty is to be a real one or a
sham.

The government had an excel-
lent opportunity to transform
its lofty declaration about war-
ring on poyerty into concrete
steps toward this end when
‘Finance Minister Walter Gordon
brought down his “growth”
budget. But it chose not to take
this opportunity. . Instead, the
government chose only to tip its
fiscal hat in that general direc-
tion.

When not helping their men
in the economic struggles, trade
union women. have played pro-
minent roles in the social lives
of their communities. They have
been leaders in church life. They
have performed the footwork
necessary for charitable cam-
paigns. . :

They have lent their strength
to such goals as public educa-
tion and the abolishment of
child labor. With strong deter-
mination they helped to fight
for and win nationwide suffrage
for women — a grand political
achievement.

As trade unionists through

the years, women have served
with dedication as officers, busi-
ness representatives, and rank-
and-file members. They have
captained picket lines. They
have negotiated contracts and
policed them.

eee a ees

How else can one describe an
income-tax cut that gives a mar-
ried man with two dependents
earning $3,000 a year a miser-
able tax cut of $1.50 in 1965 and
of $3 in 1966? Cuts, by the way,
which will be taken back in
Canada Pension Plan payments
beginning in 1966.

Compare that with a man in
the same marital status earning
$100,000 a year. He gets a tax
cut of $600 in 1966.

If the government were
serious about conducting a real
war against poverty why did it
not carry through a real reform
in personal income taxes? Gor-
don’s percentage cut discrimin-
ates against the low paid. He
should have started by raising
personal income-tax exemptions
to correspond with the recog-

_Through it all, women have
sometimes been the lonely vic-
tims in labor’s history. There
was the Triangle fire in New
York City — 146 women burn-
ed to death in a blazing shirt-
waist factory because they were
locked in by the employer.

There was the Ludlow mas-
sacre in Colorado—two women
and 11 children. smothered to
death in a burning striker’s tent
where they had hidden to es-
cape the rifle fire of national
guardsmen.

Then came Mr. Viola Liuzzo
of Detroit, a mother of five
children and wife to a Team-
sters union business agent, mur-
dered on a highway in Alabama.

Mrs. Liuzzo was not a strike
victim. But she died for the
basic trade union principles of
political, economic, and social
equality.

She saw a need in Alabama
and so went. there. Her only
weapon was an automobile
which she was using to trans-
port footsore people to their
homes.

She was murdered, as the
president of the United States
characterized it, “by the enemies
of justice who for decades have
used the rope and the gun, the
tar and the feathers, to terror-
ize their neighbors.”

Mrs. Liuzzo died trying to
make an American dream come
true.

—Teamsters’ Journal

What the ‘war on poverty’ need

nized level of incomes necessary

to raise living standards above
the poverty line. Using this as a
guide, all single persons with in-
comes of $2,000 or less and
average families with incomes

And when along the jostled row
The battered hat arrives

Try, brother, to remember that
Some -men put in their lives.

i

|

|

|

| -YN THE middle Thirties, before the Padlock Law, the ue

| Squad under Lieut. Innes had so intimidated Jandlon 4

that we were confined, as far as meetings wenh |i}

| ghetto hall at 57 Prince Arthur St. in Montreal. The Ke)

| was only $15 each time but raising it was a headache, wal 1

a heartache when you looked down and realized that ‘

| of every audience was made up of the unemployed, ant

ing beggarly relief if anything at all. One night I coul oh
stand it; so I said those without jobs were forbi er |
put anything inthe collection box and I asked those §

working to try to cover the loss by putting in a‘ 2
dime or two. 7

They said yes, by raising their contributions. —

The unemployed said no to my instructions by giv! aa
as usual, though it mean going without a glass of beet “|
arettes, yes .. . in some cases carfare and even food.

So'l never tried that kind of a collection talk aga |
met |

- But in a feat unmatched in history’s files

The People’s Army marched eight thousand miles oe
Fighting a daily battle as they went t
With bleeding feet across a continent. A |

Uae

When I was in China I asked if I could talk with *
of the survivors of the Long March. I met four 0. det!’
and we spent several hours while they told me incl y,
of that terrible but inspiring trek. One of the many “oe
ries that will remain in memory is that of the 18-year it
boy whose strength gave out crossing an icy mou ea’
range. Dying he had only one regret: “all I have t0 ig 3
the army is a pair of straw shoes.”

How does the 8%
square its intention 0 ssh
poverty with its estab?
of a “free area” trade aft)
with the USA, with (
“benefit” to working PY
ing a layoff of 1,500
autoworkers beginning -

This same trade ® ‘of
put an extra $50 mill *
the pockets of U.S-0Wy ¢
firms by the droppiné
import tariffs. aft s

Is this the way 10 ~ |
verty? :

An effective war 484
erty requires taxation Pre
provide lower taxes’ 19
and higher taxes 0? ab
It requires earmarkin’ se

of $4,000 or less should be
exempted from paying income
tax.

The big corporations could
have picked up the tab through
the establishment of a capital
gains tax.

Further, how does the gov-
ernment equate its war on pOv-
erty with its continuing inaction
on medicare?

Or with its enactment of a
pension plan which pays addi-
tional benefits to only those
with incomes over $600 a year,
and with these benefits gradu-
ated in such a way as to dis-
criminate against persons with
low incomes?

tial funds for slum
higher social benefit p
extended social refor™®.y
medicare, and conse!v? qj
other national-buildin’

It requires governme i
ures to ensure the ost
new manufacturing jobs 3
ada, roll-backs of "gi
rigged prices and of =

mortgage interest rate> :

The time for the jab?

ment to beef up thé
these reform measut of

. . a ‘
This is the road to sect

in the forthcoming

May 14, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE