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: first hand,

CLC heads veto BCFL Cuba delegation

HE enthusiastic and unanimous
decision of the 365 delegates
at the recent British Columbia

- Federation of Labor (BCFL) con-

vention to send a strong trade
union delegation to Cuba to ‘see
for themselves’ and get the facts
was a very praise-

worthy decision. As such it re-

- ceived wide publicity and support

in North American and foreign
labor press.

In the absence of any move since
to implement this BCFL decision,
it becomes apparent that certain
well-obscured road-blocks have
been erected to restrain B.C. and
Canadian labor from expressing its
friendship and solidarity with the
working people of Cuba.

Who are these opponents of fra-
ternal interest and solidarity with
the workers of Cuba?

It has come to our attention that
the top brass of the International
Confederaiiwtn of Free Trade
Unions (ICFTU), who are closely
tied up with the U.S. state depart-
ment and the coldwar circles of
NATO, have notified their various
affiliates that all such delegations
to Cuba are strictly taboo. The
Canadian Labor Congress (CLC)
is an affiliate (by top level decree)
of the ICFTU.

Next, we see an expelled official
from the Cuban Federation of

Labor, David Salvador, who re-
cently fled his country. now in
Miami, Florida, organizing the

anti- Castro remnants of the Ba-
tista regime in a “November 30th
Movement”; that is, in a U.S.-
sponsored counter - revolutionary
invasion of Cuba. With strong con-
centration of U.S. naval forces in
the Carribean within gunshot of
Cuba, ICFTU-approved Salvador
traitors hope to stage their ‘in-
vasion’ under the protective (and
provocative) covering of U.S. ag-
gression of Cuba. In his May Day
Statement Salvador said “nothing
can stop our revolution.” Now
with the aid of Batista gangsters
and U.S. imperialism andthe
ICFTU, Salvador himself tries to
‘stop’ it. :

The question may be asked,

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what has all this got to do with
a BCFL decision to send a strong
B.C. trade union delegation to
Cuba? The answer comes from
Ottawa; from a minority of CLC
Executive top brass, who, under
instructions from the ICTFU, have
vetoed such a delegation, restrain-
ing all trade union officials or af-
filiates of the CLC from exercising
their authority in any way to pro-
mote, sponsor or send such a dele-
gation to Cuba.

In short, a mere handful of CLC
top brass over-rules a unanimous.
convention decision expressive of
the will and desire of over one
hundred thousand B.C. _ trade
unionists.

This action is not only a gross
violation of elementary working-
class democracy, but one which
seeks to place the trade union
movement of B.C. and of Canada
in the camp of counter-revolution
against the heroic people of Cuba
and the government of Premier
Fidel Castro.

For some time now, greatly to
the detriment of labor unity in
Canada, CLC top brass has invari-
ably answered affiliate unions
opposing its divisive policies with
expulsions and threats of expul-

sions. It follows that those affili-
ates who took the BCFL conven-
tion “fact-finding” decision to
mean what it said, may also face
such threats should they disregard
this shameful ICFTU-CLC edict.

In this, however, there is no
middle road; the choice is between
the petty wrath of petty burocrats,
(who draw their pay from labor
but work in the enemy camp) and
that of the sacred obligation of

international workingelass solidar-
ity; an obligation based on facts
and not on anti-Cuban propaganda.

That was the decision of the
BCFL convention. That is the de-
cision its affiliates should. still
carry through; now more deter-
mined than ever, since the ICFTU-
CLC top brass edict carries with
it the tell-tale stigma of counter-
revolution against the struggling
people of Cuba.

His first job’

SPECIAL Pentagon committee
has been working for months
preparing a “strategic target” re-
port for the U.S. “defense” depart-
ment. This report is to be sub-
mitted to Defense Secretary
Thomas Gates and his “experts”
for approval early in December,
then turned over to the new
Democratic administration.

This report pinpoints specific
targets in the Soviet Union and
China for H-bombing, how many
H-bombs will: be required to oblit-
erate Soviet and Chinese cities, and
from what particular U.S.-control-
led bases these H-bombs will ~be
launched from.

Washington correspond ent
Knowlton. Nash reports that one
of the first jobs president-elect
Kennedy will have when he takes
over, will be to ‘okay’ this report
recommendations, or pick new
Soviet and Chinese targets for
‘delivery.’

Meantime: U.S. army-navy and
airforce brass are debating among
themselves whether Soviet and
Chinese cities or military installa-
tions should have H-bomb priority.
Army-navy ‘strategists’ are re-
ported to favor cities.

“Peaceful” pigeons these U.S.
atomaniacs.

months ago or more is be-
ginning to show some faint signs
of life.
Liberal and Tory buck-passing, this

the job of “probing the basic
causes of unemployment.”
Rumor has it that multi-million

Toronto, alleged to
ideas on how to solve unemploy-

this senators’ seance to air his
views on the subject.

Since the Senate is not noted
for speed in anything affecting the
welfare of the people,.it may .be
taken for granted, and especially
by jobless workers, that it will still
be a long time between: pay. en-
velopes and porkchops—for them.

While the senators “‘probe’’ be-
tween naps, let’s look at-some
other aspects of the jobless prob-
lem. Last week in Vancouver the
B.C. Liberals held their annual
get-together. Naturally, since it
makes a fine political. football to
be kicked around in the search of
votes, the Liberals made full use

A SENATE committee set up six

As a joint product of

particular Senate committee got

dollar beer- baron E. P. Taylor of
‘have some

ment,’”? may be summonsed before

of it. There we saw (or rather
heard) Lester B. Pearson via the
tape recorder, literally dripping
“sympathy” for the unemployed,
vowing that such a shameful state
of affairs could never happen
under a Liberal government, and
pledging that “we Liberals have
given better government than this
to Canada, and we will again.”

Like every political charlatan,
Lester’s “pledges” are given with
the hope that St. Laurent-Pearson
policies are all but forgotten; that
the people will respond by now
swallowing the sucker-bait of a
Tweedledee in perference to that
of a Tweedledum.

Then we had Liberal party na-
tional organizer James Scott tell-
ing his convention of ambitious
Liberal office -seekers that one of
the prime causes of unemployment
is “because Canada has a working
force that doesn’t know how to do
anything.” That should be a tasty
morsel for the Senate ‘“probers”
to chew on between siestas. ‘‘The
world is changed from 10-years .
ago” booms James, ‘‘what Canada
needs and will continue to need
is trained personnel. Right now
we have a working force of people
who .can’t do anything.”

Up until now we've always had
the-idea that it was the working-
class who had built Canada, dug
its mines, ‘built-its cities, gathered
its vast harvests, pioneered its
challenging frontiers. Now it seems
it was the “trained” Liberals who
did all this?

And speaking of “training” we

noticed a news item last week
telling us that ‘thirty jobless re-
turn to classroom” under the spon-
sorship of the provincial and fed-
eral governments. This program
we are told is “strictly experi-
mental,” but if this 30 make good
in reaching a grade 12 standard,
it “may be expanded in future
years.”

Thirty out of three-quarters of
a million jobless workers looks
like a long haul before they can
all be brought up to Liberal stan-
dards of “efficiency.’’ Meantime -
neither Pearson, Scott nor the sen-
atorial ‘‘probers” have said any-
thing worth listening to, on just
how the unemployed are going to
survive in the interim. Neither for .-
that matter has Diefenbaker, who
is -still convinced: an-unemployed .
worker and his family can live.on
Tory “promises.”

When we mention, as we quite
often do, that in the countries of |
Socialism, in the USSR, there is
no unemployment; no able-bodied
workers. or. their families forced to .
starve because they are deprived
of the right to work, we get a
barrage of red-baiting, plus wordy
homilies about. our “free-way-of-
life.”

This in turn brings up- another
question: how long are the work-
ing “people of this country, em-
ployed and unemployed ‘alike, go-
ing to be played for suckers; on
the job by grasping monopoly pro-
fit leeches, on the breadline by
political buckpassers, opportunists _
and tricksters?

December 2, 1960—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4