- General strike in Australia |

Hundreds of thousands of
Australian workers went out on
Strike in all citses last week in
protest against the jailing of
Victoria tram and bus union
leader, Clarence O’Shea, and to
demand the repeal of the penal
clauses in the anti-strike arbi-
tration legislation.

In Queensland, more than
150,000 workers in 36 trade

unions joined the strike. In Vic-
toria, presses and public trans-
port came to a halt. Unions in

New South Wales joined in as -

transport workers and dockers
stopped work in Sydney bring-
ing work at the port to a halt.
More than 150,000 in New South
Wales responded to the strike
call and over 100,000 in South
Arstralia were also out.

British workers
defy government

Defiance of the government’s
planned anti-labor laws and
pressure on their own leader-
ship were dominant in Britain
over the last week after the
meetings between Prime Minis-
ter Wilson and the Trade Union
Congress leaders.

Following the large-scale work
stoppages on May 1, the next
target is a lobby of the TUC
Council meeting on June 5 at
which decisions are to be made
on how the trade union move-
ment will deal with the govern-
ment’s anti-strike plans.

Reports from all points in
England, from (Scotland and
Wales indicate the movement is
growing for all-out resistance
-to the government. A confer-
ence in Birmingham on June 1
will bring together trade union-
ists who oppose the legislation.
Typical of many labor spokes-
‘men in Hugh Scanlon of the
Amalgamated Engineering Union
who, in urging trade unionists
to come to Birmingham, said
that all trade unionists con-
cerned to maintain their inde-
pendence should “exert all ef-
forts to ensure the defeat of the
Government’s White Paper ‘In
Place of Strife’.”

The opposition does not only
exist in trade union circles. Re-
ports from London show that
among Labor MP’s, particularly

the back-benchers, there is talk
of widespread revolt if the con-
troversial bill is introduced. The
chairman of the trade union
group in the House has suggest-
ed that if the Prime ‘Minister
attampts to force through the
legislation the government fac-
es certain defeat and that the
responsibility for this rests on
the shoulders of those pressing
for anti-labor laws.

In a meeting in London, the
editor of the Communists’ Morn-
ing Star, George Matthews, said
that to defend the right to strike
trade unionists must exercise
that right. This, he said, was the
lesson of everything that has
happened since Barbara Castle’s
White Paper was published.

“It is not good enough,” he
said, “for the Trades Union Con-
gress to say it does not like the
penal clauses in the proposed
bill. The minimum needed to
stop the bill going through is a
24-hour national strike.”

The idea-of a national strike
is spreading throughout Britain
with increased numbers of local
unions taking up the idea. As
things look now many more
than the 250,000 who went out

‘on May 1 will be involved if

Wilson doesn’t back down be-
fore the trade unionists de-
mands,

Construction strike
enters fifth week

No settlement is in sight in
the strike lock-out picture in-
volving more than 30,000 build-
ing trades workers in the Toron-
to - Hamilton - Ontario construc-
tion industry.

A settlement appeared possi-
ble between the more than 2,000
Hoisting Engineers and the Steei
Erection contractors for a pack-
age of $1.17 over two years. This
is the same figure that Ironwork-
ers settled for earlier.

However, the major trades
seemed no closer to an agree-
ment with the contractors than
when the lock-outs went into
effect.

A government mediation offi-
cér stepped into the picture last
week but has been unable to
bring the parties any closer to-
gether.

Contractors appear to feel
they can starve the trades into
submission. Union leaders how-
ever are confident that the mem-
bership’s determination to win

-an acceptable agreement is

strengthening, not weakening as
the strike drags on.

Many of the key trades signed
a four year agreement in 1965
and the increased living costs
have whittled down their pur-
chasing power considerably over
that period.

Some of them also won the
374% hour week which chopped
two and a half hours a week out
of their pay packets. Hamilton
electricians estimate that they
need an immediate increase of
95 cents an hour to restore their
purchasing power to the 1965
level. They are asking for a wage
increase of $3.00 an hour over
two years which would bring
their rate to $7.69 at the con-
clusion of the agreement.

Toronto Electricians and Sheet
Metal Workers have turned down
an offer by the companies esti-
mated by them to be worth $1.28.
Most of the idled workers are
from the Toronto area, some
24,000, with the balance from
Hamilton and scattered through-
out the province.

Even after the government
announced that O’Shea would
be released, it was clear the
strike would go on as the penal
clauses in the Australian labor
code were targets of the work-
ers’ protests. Over the last 11
years, unions have been fined
more than £150 thousand under
these clauses.

The industrial court in Mel- -

bourne had jailed O’Shea inde-
finitely when he refused to give
details about his union’s fin-
ances after it had refused to
pay fines imposed upon it for
striking. O’Shea is the first
union leader to have been jail-
ed under the act.

Last year seven boilermakers
in Western Australia refused. to
pay fines imposed for striking.
They were prepared to go to
jail but in face of the wide-
spread support for them, the

B.C labor could —
have defeated Bill 33 ,

By TOM McEWEN

British Columbia’s infamous
Bill 33 with its anti-labor com-
pulsory arbitration provisions,
could have been snuffed-out by
organized labor in B.C. before
it became “the law.” Rank-and-
file union sentiment was ready

to crack it in embryo, but an_

opportunist and hesitant leader-
ship soft-pedalled any and all
desires for decisive action.

By all standards the worst
piece of anti-labor legislation
ever rammed through the B.C.
Legislature by the Social Cre-
dit regime of Premier W..A.C.
Bennett, Bill 33 not only passed
its successive readings in the
House, but passed without
either amendment, or even the
normal parliamentary  courte-
sies. This monopoly-dominated
government didn’t even make a
pretense of listening to labor’s
views on the Bill.

In keeping with top labor
“strategy,” as per the B.C. Fed-
eration of Labor (BCFL), NDP-
MLA’s in the legislative debate
on Bill 33 made many excellent

speeches, castigating its com- ©
‘pulsory aSpects as against free

collective bargaining, etc. All
such speeches, pleas, accusa-
tions, etc. went unheeded and
unheard by “Prime Minister”
Bennett and his Socred philoso-
phical “yes men.” They had a job
to do on behalf of big business
monopoly, and no fine speeches
or other opposition rhetoric
were going to divert these Soc-
red. political janissaries from
their course. Hadn’t the chair-
man of B.C.’s most powerful
monopoly, J. V. Clyne of Mac-
Millan and Bloedel, worked long
and hard making the first draft
of Bill 33 to clamp a ball-and-
chain of labor? .

The only power which would
have stopped Bill 33 dead in its
tracks then and even now, was
the 136,000 member giant of
B.C. labor standing athwart their
Legislature. But this giant was
absent, deliberately so, held in

check from demonstrations, ef- .

fective protest or action, by a
timid, “legalistic,” opportunist
(and later disclosed “as treason-
able) leadership, who anchored
their “hopes” to the uncertainty

a)

that “when the NDP becomes the

PEP SO KL EE EEE

government and _ employers
backed down, with an anony-
mous stooge paying the fines.
The campaign in Australia
has been not only against the
penal clauses, but also against
the compulsory arbitration
which these penalties are in-
tended to enforce: The Act en-
ables employers to obtain court
injunctions—they can be for an
indefinite term — prohibiting
unions from taking direct ac-
tion, and the industrial court
can then fine each union £500
a day if there is a strike.
While this was the biggest
strike action in over 20 years,
the Australian Council of Trade
Unions still refrained from is-
suing the call for a national
strike and instead voted to
meet with the government to
seek a repeal in the penal
clauses. They did advise all

government of B.C.,” Bill 33 will
disappear like the winter snow.
The BCFL also had another
“hope” as a substitute for mass
action; that the compulsory ar-
bitration machinery, the Media-
tion Commission set up under
Bill 33 would never be able to
work because the required la-
bor “representation” on _ this
Commission would be difficult to
find. ;

“Any man who purports to
represent labor by accepting an
appointment to the Commis-
sion,” said BCFL President E. P.
Staley at a public meeting in
Vancouver on April 7, 1968, “will
be someone who, for the sake
of a political appointment and
personal gain, is prepared to sell
his principles and become a tool
of a government that has no un-
‘derstanding or sympathy for
labor.”

The first Mediation Commis-
sion appointee fitting President
Staley’s description stood right
beside him as he spoke, execu-
tive member of the BCFL Pen
Baskin of the Steelworkers
Union. Other appointees as ‘“me-
diators” at enhanced salaries fol-
lowed in rapid succession; Ed
Sims, president of the Vancou-
ver Labor Council, Chas. ‘Chuck’
Stewart, business agent of Amal-
gamated Transit, etc. and ad nau-
seum; and others, rumored ta
have “mediator” applications in
their hip pocket while they ful-
minated “against’’ Bill 33 in the
House of Labor!

The “prime minister’ crowed
with all the pomp and pride of a
small bantam perched on top of
a large pile; from which he could
seemingly scratch and_ pick
“grubs” at will. No wonder the

giant of labor was unable to.

move—bribery was paying off!
While the BCFL leadership
was reluctant to stand by an
earlier position that it “would
come to the aid of the first
union coming under attack by
Bill 33,” it also decided, upon
the request of Commissioner
Baskin, to advise its affiliates to
reject ‘‘all cooperation” with the
Mediation Commission. At the
same time its Executive delega-
tion in Victoria to make a final
plea, cap-in-hand style, on behalf
of labor against the menace of
Bill 33

7
oF

PMS ye

eral strikes, spurred 0? yell

received nothing except friendships.”

cae ae eae ee *
ie ee FCS OPT ee ST

unions which have outstant
fines not to pay we iw
the outcome a the
t overnment.
wy a President Albert Mon)
said the fea Fe,
must realize that
longer pursue its tration
herence to the penal ¢ ii
face of the determined ® ni
of the Australian trace”
movement.
Prospects for 4
back-down however Ge ape
as the Labor Minister it of
liament that total abo y ut
the penal clauses 15 vernt
acceptable to the 80V'
but added that his oe act
examining some of o é
proposals. The proses a
ing to informed obs€ y ty
for continued struggle | apolt
trade unionists to ey oa
tion of anti-labor legisi®™

ernst a

ent
govern.

Seroatnerneraonanmne tA: seer

a large.dose of Socred min cf
insults, as describ This
secretary Ray Haynes: ants i
the same Haynes wh jion ®
to pose as a roariNg | qt)
“defense of Czechoslov ion é
mocracy’ and condemnt af
the Soviet Union an who f
Pact intervention,” ee
his own bailiwick whe yo
mocracy of trade union efit
being destroyed, was ag rally
tive than a sick cat Ks, o ball
the giant of B.C. labor 4 \
Where do we g0 ffO¥) itt
Big strike struggles ae e
in B.C. for substantial vile
creases to meet spiralli of
costs and unprecedent in ii?
poly profits; struggles | 33
the intervention of Bil ;
chinery with its menace 5 ov?
pulsory arbitration hanes
every union ie a
sword of Damocles. ‘ofl
The great demonstra
protest against the Ran 4 ont
for hog-tying Toronto arate
rio unionists, in Queen 5 pee .
May 31, should and mus ott
plicated in Vancouver 4 pi
B.C. centres at the earl’ oot }
sible moment. The Rand 98 4
mendations and the Prov! oct f
Bill 33 are twin evils ef
against organized labot: ”
for a Labor Bill of Rights
on the agenda of Canaél jab”
history, and the giant © oust
must be awakened and :
ed to gird for decisive
The NDP can be of f°
and assistance, but
battle entirely to the :
such time as it becom nt
government” is to make va
sure the battle will be
fore it is really begun.
The Raison of today,
mand that labor’s giant !
the vision of great polit! y ihe

esearene eneramnnemnrsienrer=

same unity which it now ™, {0
is the one and only formu fo!
winning economic strug’ y
a greater share of
wealth it produces. 15 Pi
Make Toronto’s Quee? pot
rally against the Rand Ré ig” |
starting point for a stand-VP oc!
against Bill 33, and remeM™ igi)
Steelworker’s last words t ow?
33 appointee in the V2 ig?
Labor Council .. . “you ind
hide treason to labor bebi™

oe

RUPP ETRY EP SES