LEADERS CAN BE FORCED 10 FIGHT FOR FULL DEMANDS, REPEAL OF DOG COLLAR LAW'

organized labor movement.

passed.

The strike ended without the
rail workers getting the full vic-
tory they could have had, but its,
end also meant that the entire
- Canadian labor movement suffer-
ed a serious set-back. The insig-
nificant four-cent an hour in-
crease given the rail workers
(with perhaps a penny or two
more through arbitration) will be
used as a yardstick by every cor
poration in the country at a time
when a major wage movement is
shaping up.

-_- Provoking of the strike by big
business and its ally, the govern-
ment, was in itself part of an over-
all plan of attack against labor.
‘The 40-hour week is not a new

- @emand. Nor was it a secret that
- pailroaders’ wages were, and are,
far below those paid. in major Ca-
nadian industries.

But big business didn’t want a
40-hour week for the railroaders.
For 125,000 workers to gain that
victory would have meant the de-
mand would become universal,
‘would touch off a struggle to have
the 40-hour week adopted on a na-
- tion-wide basis. .
Similarly, if the railroaders won
- their modest wage demands in full
it would have served as a spur to
the growing demand for wage in-
ereases to offset high prices caused
by war profiteering.

Big business wanted the strike,
provoked it, and hoped to smash
it completely and viciously. What
‘big business, the government-
(and even Halli and Mosher) did

workers and the widespread soli-
_ darity movement which sprung
up overnight behind the strikers
demands. ©

‘Temper of the strikers was Tre-
flected, for instance, by Elroy Rob-
son’s statement at a Toronto
- Labor Council (CCL) meeting. Rob-
gon, one of the CBRE’s top brass,
admitted that “hundreds of calls.
and telegrams” came in from rail
union members protesting that the
negotiating committee had “re-
treated too far” when the first
-eompromise offer made to the
- companies became known.

on the original secret bill which
was drafted for parliament's ap-
 proval but withdrawn at the last
minute. Its contents have not
been revealed but there is little
doubt that it was much more
vicious than the bill which finally
passed.

The bill which finally passed,
while not as vicious as St. Laurent
originally intended, does contain
the principle of compulsory arbi-
tration, can now be used to break
any major strike, and is an anti-
labor axe hanging over the head of
- the trade union movement, the first

were prepared and eager to challenge the government
full victory was snatched from their grasp by a vacillating, f

They made their pledges for a 3
ment was at the boiling point — and when the government would not have dared to act if

the leadership of the rail unions had taken a firm stand.

full retreat at a time when

By MEL COLBY

_Auto workers, steelworkers, electrical workers, miners, seamen, packinghouse workers,
union rank and filers across the nation were on the alert for the signal to come out in a coun-
try-wide demonstration against the government’s strikebreaking bill. Joint TLC-CCL action
councils were established in many main centers.

But Frank Hall and A. R. Mosher did not use the strength at their disposal, did not call on
the reserve army which was standing at the ready. They capitulated, agreed with indecent
haste that they would call the strike off if the government’s compulsory arbitration bill was

All that was needed was the signal.

the temper of the labor move-

major federal legislative threat
since unionism was “legalized” in
1872.

* * * s

What did the railroaders get?
The bill which was used as a
strikebreaking club provides for
compulsory arbitration if negotia-
tions are not concluded within 30
days. It gives the strikers a four-
cent an hour wage increase (not
retroactive although negotiations
were in effect for 14 months). Any
higher wage increase will have to
be gained through negotiations
(which is unlikely) or decided upon
by the government-appointed arbi-
trator.

The bill provides for a 40-hour
week not later than September 1,
1951, but does not indicate whether
it is the five-day, 40-hour week that
the railroaders insisted upon. Nor
does it indicate if it is the 40-hour
week with the same take-home pay.

One victory in the bill, and which

the strikers won because of their
militancy, was inclusion of the
hotel and steamship employees in
any contract arrived at. This had
been bitterly opposed by the com-
panies, ‘
Still to be negotiated or arbitrat-
ed to a conclusion is the demand of
the companies for revision of the
operating rules, “Revision of the
operating rules” is a phrase which
rean be translated into “speedup”
and “layoffs”. Unless a determined
rank and file is able to defeat the
companies on this issue it may very
well. be that the benefits of a 40-
hour week will be wiped out
through speedup and the railway
dieselization " program which is
rapidly going into effect.

The strikebreaking settlement,
which caused Mosher. and Hall
literally to “dance with joy,” was,
with the exception of the inclusion
of. the hotel and steamship employ-
ees, exactly the original offer of
the railways. Yet the bill which
provided the shameful terms was
agreed to by Hall and Mosher who
did not even attempt to get the
opinion of the membership, but or-
dered them back to work.

Unlike John L. Lewis, who de-
fied the law in the United States
when the Taft-Hartley Act threat-
ened his miners, Mosher and Hall
abjectly agreed to a similar strike-
breaking law in Canada.

* x *

The CCF played a particularly
shameful role throughout the
strike. The party which terms itself
labors’ “political arm” made no at-
tempt to mobilize labor’s support
behind the strike. M. J. Coldwell
greeted the special session of par-
liament and when it met directed
his fire, not at the government and
the strikebreaking bill, but at Don-
ald Gordon!

Coidwell knew that the rail
workers bitterly despise Gordon;
thus he played on their senti-
ment in order to escape putting
up a real fight against the strike-

a

on the bill came one CCF member
even voted with the government!

While leading CCFers ‘such as
Murray Cotterill, president of Tor-
onto Labor Council (CCL), were
condemning the bill’s strikebreak-
ing provisions as “fantastic” and
while CCFer C. H. Millard, Cana-
dian director of the United Steel-
workers, was speaking of “drastic
action” to defeat the legislation,
CCFer Pat Conroy, CCL secretary-

approval.

“I think the prime minister is,
right when he says it isn’t com-
pulsion,” said Conroy. “He is ap-

treasurer, was giving it unqualified.

Rank-and-file railroaders can still —
win victory by taking united stand

evidenc the real temper of Canada’s rail strikers is the 1,500 CNR workers at Stratford who refused to return to work until the full 48 hour
Seats ee owe yeni eo a certrana rs slave-labor compulsory arbitration law was up. “We don’t like the government and we don’t like Toronto

newspapers,” | i declared. isi f the Stratford CNR workers is a reflection of how the vast majority of the rail strikers felt; they
legs: a 5 3 el edict and to stay on the picket lines until their full demands were won. Instead, that

earful leadership which betrayed the rank and file at the eleventh hour. :
The rail strikers were not alone in being prepared to demonstrate their real strength; they would have been joined by a majority, if not all, of the

proaching it from a common
sense point of view. It is the only
way to look at it.”

*« * *

What happens now? The rank
and file of the rail unions, who
have not had a wage increase in
two years, cannot accept the paltry
four-cent offer as final. Recent
price rises have already wiped out
that small gain. Neither can they
accept any revisions in operating
rules that will open the door to a
speedup program.

They will have to demand that
their leaders fight for the five-
day, 40-hour week now, not in
1951. Along with the rest of the
labor movement, the railroaders
will have to battle vigorously for
the scrapping of the St, Laurent
strike-breaking legislation.

Delegaies to both the TLC and
CCL congress conventions, which
take place this month, will have to
challenge the leadership’s accept-
ance of the government bill and de-
mand that the conventions go on
record condemning the government
and insisting that the legislation be
scrapped. 4

Inside the rail unions themselves
the time is ripening for big changes.
The rail workers will grow more
and more aware. that they have ©
been betrayed by the top leadership.
Frank Hall, the man who organized
the attack on the Canadian Sea-
men’s Union, will be recognized,
along with A. R. Mosher, as the two
figures who “got out from under”
when the crisis came and assisted
the government in shattering the
rail strike.

The rail workers have plenty of LF
house cleaning to do. They have
to restore inner union democracy
in their lodges and locals; they
have to restore their unions to the
membership, All this can be done,
but the basis of the fight will have
to be from down below.

It will take the rank and file,
who have already shown what true:
militancy means, to translate their
picket line zeal into a crusade to
deliver their organizations from the
hands of top-level bureaucrats, pie-
carders and government yes-men.

It can be done — and the time
for rank-and-file unity movements
in all locals to get under way — is
now.

‘WE‘LL WORRY ABOUT YOUR RIGHTS LATER’

station.

Michnick, who served three and
a half years in the RCAF during
the Second World War, was one
of several persons taken to the
police station for collecting signa-
tures to the world peace: petition
at. the gates of the Canadian Na-
tional Exhibition here on Warriors’
Day, August 26. The two police of-
ficers beat him up when he refus-
bed to hand over his petition forms.

Following the assault on him,
Michnick was charged with “ob-
structing police”, lodged in a jail
cell and held until released on $200
bail.

Michnick’s statement
beating follows:

“On Saturday, August 26, at about
ten minutes to four I was soliciting
signatures for the petition sponsor-
ed by the Canadian Peace Congress
at the exhibition grounds. Just af-
ter a person had signed the peti-
tion a detective approached me and
asked me to come to the police
station at the exhibition grounds.
I went without protest to the sta-
tion where I was taken to the sec-
ond floor, into a room at the back
of the building.

“In this room there were a num-
ber of policemen and plainclothes-
men. I gave them my name and ad-
dress, and then one of the detectives
demanded my pétitions. I told him
that I didn’t think that he had,a
right to them and that I had a
legal right to call my lawyer At
this point, one plainclothesman
told the others to leave the room
until he and another plainclothes-
man were left in the room with me.
They demanded my petitions again,
and when I started to utter the
words, ‘I claim the right to ...’
I got a wallop in the face, and one
of the men said, in effect, we'll
worry about your rights later.

“The two men simultaneously hit

On the

breaking bill. When the final vote

me many times in the face, on the

Vet tells how cops beat him up
We'll worry about soar
young war veteran, Sam Michnick, was told by one of two

plainclothesmen who savagely assaulted and beat him up in
a back room at Toronto’s Canadian National Exhibition police

rights later.” That’s what a

forehead, on the top of my head,
on the sides of my head and when
one was hitting me from the front
the other came in from behind and
sliced me in the back of my neck.
I tried to defend myself from these
blows by putting my arms in front
of my face and backing into a cor-
ner. This went on for about ten
minutes,

“In desperation I broke loose
from the men and ran to the win-
dow at the other end of the room.
In trying to open it I shattered the
glass ‘with my fist and cut my
hand. I finally got the window open
and just below me I saw hundreds
of people milling around. I yelled
fer help. While all this was going
on they were trying to pull me
away from the window by my legs.
I was holding On for dear life with
my hands on the window sill. It was
obvious they did not want to ap-
pear at the window with So many
people looking on,

“I then noticed some uniformed
policemen milling around me. I was
thrown and dragged along the floor.
I was lying on my back exhausted
and two policemen held me by my
feet with my legs high in the air.
I moved a little to ease the pain
and one of the policemen began to
twist my leg. While in this posi-
tion someone else went through my
‘pockets and took out my peace peti-
tions and thé other contents.

‘After being held in this position
for a while, I wag released -and
handcuffed from bebind. They sat
me on a chair in the middle of the
room. I looked around and I saw
my left shoe in the corner of the
room under the window. My sweat-
er was half ripped off me. My shirt
torn open. My pants half off. Sweat
was pouring down my face. My
jaws were sore, my lips cut, my
eyes painful. The handcuffs were

cutting into my skin an
body ached. . ee

PACIFIC TRIBUNE —

®his picture of Sam Michnick
was taken in Oanadian Peace
Congress offices following the
assault on him. Note his

m clothes,

——

“Other plainclothesmen came in-
to the room. Then one of the men »
said they ought .to line people like
me up against the wall and shoot
them. There took place a general
discussion. I was finally released
and taken in the police wagon t?
Station No. 2,sthen to Station No. 6, 4

and was released on Wail late that
night.” : ’

SEPTEMBER 8, 1950 — PAGE 2