THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER 2nd Issue October, 1966 GROUP of delegates from Courtenay local at regional convention. VILLAIN: THE PROFITEER New Democratic Party leader T, C. (Tommy) Doug- las has charged that increased, unconscionable and greedy profiteering has pushed the cost of living to the point where workers either have to get increased wages or suffer a reduction in their standard of living. He told the regional con- vention that the Canada Eco- nomic Council and the Do- minion Bureau of Statistics have shown that wages have not been responsible for the rising cost of living. They show that wages, since the end of the last war, have been trying to catch up with the increased cost of living and increased produc- tivity. Douglas said there can be an increase in wages without increasing the cost of th product. ; As an examole, he said, if a certain product takes an hour to produce and the worker is paid $2 an hour, the labor cost is $2. But if a new technique is used and two commodities can be produced in that hour and the wage rate goes up to $3 an hour, the cost per unit of produc- tion is $1.50. “The last report of the Can- ada Economie Council shows that, between 1960 and 1963, on the average the labor cost per unit of production drop- ped by 11.3 per cent. How can increased wages have pushed prices up? “In 1965 wages and salaries (including the big salaries of the big corporation execu- tives) went up by 11.1 per cent; wages alone went up 5.2 per cent but profits went up 13.5 per cent. In 1964 wages and salaries went up 8.7 per cent and profits went up 14.6 per cent. THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER T. C. DOUGLAS “Steel is the bellweather of the cost .of living. It is used in everything that is produced today. “From clothes to timber products, all are affected by steel because steel machinery is involved in the production.” He said that in five years wages have gone up 26% per cent in the steel industry. It is also true that productivity in steel has increased to such an extent that the labor cost per ton has dropped from $27.52 to $22.16. Profits of the steel com- panies of Canada went up 116 per cent and there was no justification in the increase in the price of steel last Febru- ary, he said. “And last week Mitchell Sharp (federal fi- nance minister) asked the steel industry to roll its price increase back,” Douglas said that, accord- ing to DBS figures based on a standard of 100 in 1949, productivity in 1965 stood at 136.8 and wages at 135.3 and profits at 152.93. * WORKER Published twice monthly as the official INTERNATIONAL WOODWORKERS OF AMERICA, publication of the a»? Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1, Affiliated with AFL-CIO-CLC 2858 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C, iness Manager ..... Advertising Representative | __ Forwarded to ever Phone 874-5261 Seni AL KOOET ~.. Fred Fieber ~—-. G, A. Spencer member of the IWA in Western Canada in accoraance with convention decisions, Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 per year. PO, iy dons as Second Class Mail, Post Office Department, Ottawa, payment of postage in cash. 27,500 copies printed in this issue. In the first three months of this year workers were get- ting around to catching up with productivity. Productivi- ty stood at the level of 145.5 and wages at 145.6. But pro- fits were still at 157.5. “There is no respectable economist in Canada today who will argue that wage in- creases are responsible for in- creased cost of living,” he said. “Wages for years have lagged behind productivity and the cost of living and the trade unions and the NDP must fight for a fairer rela- tionship between wages, prices and profits. “We are not going to do it by compulsory arbitration or a wage freeze. In Saskatche- wan the Liberal government has passed legislation which gives the government the right to impose compulsory arbitration in essential indus- tries and it is the government which decides what are es- sential industries. “The government also has the right to decertify a union, not a board or agency, but the cabinet by a stroke of the pen. Compulsory arbitration is the beginning of fascism,” he said. “When people suggest a wage freeze, there is no sug- gestion of a freeze on the price of a car, or a loaf of bread or a bottle of milk. When the price of bread went up two cents, wheat went down 17 cents a bushel in price. The right to work or not to work and to bargain collec- tively are inherent and no government in a free country has the right to set the price each man will get for his la- bor and at the same time al- low the price of the ordinary things he has to buy to look after his family to go on spiralling sky-high, he said. “Any attempt to freeze wages or impose compulsory arbitration will meet with every ligitimate opposition we can muster day in and day out.” Douglas said the establish- ment of a prices review board has been proposed by the NDP, to which any group of Canadians can go and ask for an investigation of increases in prices of any commodity and see if the prices are justi- fied. ELECTIONS LOCAL 1-363 Local 1-363’s balloting com- mittee tabulated approximate- ly 800 ballots for the election of local union officers. The re- sults are as follows: Regional Executive Board member, M. Salter; President, M. Salter; Ist Vice-president, W. Armstrong; 2nd Vice-pres- ident, E. Thompson; 3rd Vice- president, Russ Williams; Fi- nancial secretary, K. Lidberg; Recording secretary, A. Wes- ner (by acclamation); Con- ductor, Roy Williams; War- den, K. Bader (by acclama- tion); Six-year Trustee, B. Prentice. LOCAL 1-405 Tabulation of the ballot: for the position of financial secre- tary of Local 1-405, IWA was recently completed and Elmer Atwood was returned to of- fice. Following is the complete list of elected officers: President, A. Damstrom; 1st Vice-president, J. Munro; 2nd Vice-president, L. John- son; 8rd Vice-president, -C. Varney; Financial secretary, E. Atwood; Recording secre- tary, E, DeAnna; Conductor, J. Inglis; Warden, G. Baird; Regional Executive Board member, J. Munro; Alternate Executive Board member, C. Varney. MAX SALTER KARL LIDBERG STRIKE (Continued from Page 7) It is to the credit of the em- ployees in this operation that they have stood firm against this employer. It is the obvi- ous intention of the company to starve them back to work, and therefore gain for them- selves what by any standard can only be considered as a cheap settlement. Even the best settlements in the woodworking industry in the province of Saskatchewan fall far short of meeting decent living standards. Huge monopoly cartels are moving in to this province, garnering unto themselves thousands upon thousands of acres of the province’s natural resources with little or no thought of their responsibility to the community or the em- ployees who are working con- tinuous operation shifts that deprive them of many of the amenities normally establish- ed for workers in other indus- tries. The IWA is serving notice on the Argus Corporation and Dominion Tar & Chemical, Saskatoon Division in par- ticular, that the IWA will not allow its members to be starv- ed into wage slavery. Their demands are just and must be met. SERIOUS? OTTAWA—Claude Jodoin, president of the Canadian La- bour Congress, has wired Rob- ert Sauve, secretary of the Confederation of National Trade Unions, advising him that the CLC was prepared to discuss “any serious pro- posals” aimed at promoting unity between the two organ- izations. CONVENTION delegates from Blairmore Local 1-206.