4

- €mployed on

agli

S. to foist sweatshop wage rates on Canadian pipe-
ding blast by Canadian trade union leaders. The

An attempt made in

line workers has been met with a resoun

the U

Alberta CCL Industrial Federation of Labor is taking the

Provincial labor - board.

The Calgary Herald has made front page news 0

McEwen, editor of the Pacific Tri-
bune, that a union contract has
been signed in the U.S. setting
Wages on pipeline construction in

Canada far below present prevail-
pus rates and lower than US.
deep south” rates.

In a front page story by Doug
Collins on May 15, two weeks after
gue. Pacific Tribune carried Mc-
Wen’s detailed charges, the Cal-

_ Gary Herald points out the contract

would apply to those who will be
the: Trans-Canada
Natural gas pipeline project.

< Lowest Canadian rate in the con-
Ge signed between the Pipeline
_\ontractors’ Association and the
an Hod Carriers’ Union is $1 an
our in Saskatchewan, Manitoba
and Quebec. Lowest U.S. rate is
BHOS<in Alabama. Top Canadian
me is $1.30 on hour in parts of
.C., far below the top U.S. rate of
$2.25 for Mlinois.

_ (Canadian United Steelworkers’

hector C. H. Millard described
ae contract as bordering on “rack-
‘le He declared: “As a Can-
oe I object to having these
ae done in the United States.

is one import they could ve
~ Well keep.”) P LReyerOy d ry

te effect of the contract, sign-
in Chicago in the presence of

Trades and Labor Congress vice-

®

eec/

6 ie i

PT pipeline expose
ion action

CALGARY

“backdoor agreement’’ to the

f the charges first aired by Tom

CARL BERG
‘He admitted the agreement
president Carl Berg and officials of
the Plumbers Union and Operating
Engineers, would be to determine
Canadian working conditions in a
foreign country, on a project not
yet started, for jobs that do not
exist, or for local unions not even

‘formed. —

The agreement also means no
opportunity will be provided for
workers on the job to determine or
influence their conditions of work

or pay rates.

Whole sections of McEwen’s
article were reproduced in the

| rival Calgary daily, The Alber-

tan, in an attempt to smear the
protest by Canadian labor against
the U.S.dominated union con-
tract. i

No Canadian signature appears
on the agreement signed by Jose
Moreschi, president of the AFL
Hod Carriers’ and Peter Fasco,
secretary - treasurer, with Robert
Thomas and Richard Gump sign-
ing for the contractors. The con-
tract will be in force from April
1954 to May of 1955.

~ Action by the CCL Industrial
Federation of Labor in Alberta is
being planned.

President Jack Hampson de-
clared May 17, he would take
the “international backdoor
agreement” before the industrial
relations board of the province
charging illegality of its terms.

He pointed out that Carl Berg
had not denied the existence of the
contract. “An agreement has been
signed on a labor matter of na-
tional interest in which pipeline
laborers have not been consulted
because the job is not yet in op-
eration and the local unions do not
exist. It’s a straight deal between
union heads and operators.”

- Construction of an all-Cana

has been called for by both ‘Vancouver

cil (CCL),
aes The resolution was put forw
€ndation last week by the U.S.
eeuan gas line project to dis-
tbute gas in the United States.
3 “This couJd have the effect of
“enying B.C. cities the tremend-
ous advantage of having an
weocce supply of natural gas
He aus ‘would attract new indus-
tes,” said the SRU resolution.
poy Murphy, Mine-Mill re-
aa, director, told the Pacific
sh Une this week that “Canada
hould go ahead and construct the
Pipeline to meet our own indus-
dal needs.”
trie meine the Peace River dis-
as S estimated three trilion cubic
aay of natural gas to the industrial
an a Populated centres would pro-
28 cheaper fuel for home and
ne ory, lead to establishment of
ay industries and create vast
employment opportunities,”

aud Nigel Morgan, LPP provincial |
4€ader,

“All that is needed today ‘to
alee the project to fruition is
~ £XPosure and defeat of the

MEET DR. JAMES

ENDICOTT

and see his
Slides from Japan

Tues., June 1 - 8 p.m.
PENDER |
_ AUDITORIUM
Lower Hall
B.C. Peace Council

een

dian natural gas pipeli
Trades and Labor

by Street Railwaymen’s Union,

ard
counsel

Federal Power Commission

| } Texas interests aim at control

_of B.C. natural gas, says Morgan
ne from the Peace River district to Vancouver
Council (AFL-TLC) and Vancouver Labor Coun-

Division 101, following a recom-
to reject the application of a major

scheme of a group of financial

pirates from Texas who seek con-

trol of the Peace River gas re-
serves,” he continued. —
| “They are trying to block a Can-
adian development by pressuring
Canadian authorities into letting
the rapidly-vanishing Texas gas
supplies into the Northwest and
thus getting their foot in the door;
as has been done in Toronto.

“tf they succeed B.C. will lose
much of the benefit of this newly
discovered resource. They will gain
control over the valuable B.C. re-
serves and the flow will then be
reversed. :

“This is the reason for the pres-
sure campaign to have the Cana-
dian government remove all ex-
port controls and the export tax
on natural gas. There are tremen-
dous stakes in the battle that is
being waged and we in British
Columbia should urge an immedi-
ate start on a Canadian develop-

nt. : ;
hae he question of cost has been

raised. The LPP says the pipe-
line should be built as @ publicly
owned utility. Pipeline mono-
polies figure on & minimum eight
percent profit. Actual costs of
financing construction could be
cut by half, since a publicly-
owned utility could finance the
entire undertaking at four per-
cent with government-guaranteed
bonds. te

“This would lower ‘construction
costs, make ossible an immediate
start on the ‘project and result in
provision of natural gas at lower

rates.”

Comics topic at
bookstore meet

A discussion on Dr. Frederic
Wertham’s controversial book on
the effects of crime, horror and
sex comics, Seduction of the Inno-
cent, will be a highlight of the
annual meeting of the People’s Co-
operative Bookstore Association, to
be held in Pender Auditorium (Can-
teen) this coming Monday, May 31,
8 p.m.

Mrs. Florence Stanton, member
of the association’s board, will re-
view the book, and Mrs. Margaret
Donald, child art instructor, and
Miss. M. Price, of Vancouver Pub-
lic Library’s boys’ and girls’ de-
partment, will show how some of
the problems raised in the book
can be counteracted by construc-
tive work with children.

The meeting is open to visitors.

WELLAND
An example of how the U.S. ex-
ports unemployment to Canada has
been exposed by the United Elec-
trical Workers here. UE mem-
bers at Reliance Electric, where
the working force has been cut 25
percent, have bared evidence that
motors for air conditioning equip-
ment purchased by the CNR were
made in the U.S.

The motors, 114 1 hp. DC mo-
tors, were made by Reliance Elec-
tric at Ashtabula, Ohio.

t To add |
insult to unemployment, Canadian -
employees of Reliance were merely '

Made- in -Canada plate all
that was made in Canada

assigned the job of taking off the
“Made in USA” name plate and
replacing it with a “Made in Can-
ada” name plate.

In a sharp letter to Donald Gor-
don, president of Canadian Nation-
al Railways, Jim Henderson, busi-
ness agent of UE Local 523, has
protested the “tricky arrangements
where changing the label of an
American company” can make it
appear that the product was made
in the company’s Canadian plant.
With 6,000 unemployed in Wel-
land, the motors should have been
made in this country, ‘he said.

Report from

Dr. Endicott has

Five years

VICTORIA

~ June 2

NANAIMO

June 3

yers ago, of the
movement. [n those

vited to help make this

DR. ENDICOTT’S
MOST VITAL
MESSAGE

HIROSHIMA.

~H-BOMB

world pacifist conference held in eight
Japanese cities, including the martyred cities
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was in Japan
when the 23 badly burned fishermen, victims’
of the U.S. hydrogen bomb tests, came home.
Hear his interesting story of the great move-

ment for peace now sweeping Japan.

ENDICOTT |
FRIDAY JUNE 4-8 p.m.
EXHIBITION GARDENS

- This meeting is also planned as a great
anniversary rally to mark the founding, five
Canadian and world peace
five years the people
have won great victories in the struggle for
peace. Now we are confronted with the grave
threat of the hydrogen bomb. You are in-

niversary demonstration against the H-bomb.

just returned from a

2

*

of peace

rally a successful an-

B.C. Peace Council

hp —

‘ - PACIFIC TRIBUNE — MAY 28, 1954 — PAGE 7