SHAPE OF THE CRISIS

By MARY DOBBS

Bar on trade with east Europe
costs U.S. one million jobs

NE NEW YORK
ft) Pp MILLION Americans are out of work because
_ - resident Truman’s foreign policy forbids free trade
to A ete Europe, restricts sale of heavy machinery
Ufact tshall plan countries and finances American man-
urers who set up shop in cheap labor areas,

in © aha estimate was made by economist Victor Perlo
© July issue of March of Labor, new progressive
© union magazine published in New York.
cee five million American workers are now unem-
sion ene all signs point to a fast-approaching depres-
a “erlo traces the loss of one million of these jobs
ie Cific instances in the carrying out of the Marshall
expotte Truman doctrine. He points out that total
ere Si which were a key factor in the postwar boom
"“, declined by 25 percent in one year ,1947 to 1948.
€Xplain. most important exports in terms of jobs, Perlo
Ulldo 8, are the highly fabricated goods like machines,
tine trucks and turbines. A reduction in ship-
effect of these items has had a disproportionately great
upon unemployment.

Shipnet of more than $2 billion worth of Marshall plan
three €nts through the end of 1948, only $60 million, or
in th Percent, consisted of machinery and vehicles made
€U.S., Perlo points out. Total exports of machin-
bine 2 vehicles to four leading Marshall plan coun-
(including exports not financed by the European
‘sity Program) fell from $50 million a month in
logg © an average of $29 million a month since July
e « .
thin, Tt had to be that way,” Perlo notes. “The last
Marni the mind of the big businessmen‘ who run the
own am Plan is to help the Europeans build up their
Ndustry, or to make jobs for American workers.”

aie cites a number of specific examples of how
i tall plan funds have been used td encourage Amer-
fore; Mdustrialists to set up businesses in cheap labor
Wo tf areas, causing big layoffs in the U.S. Here are
laig paiva deals for which Marshall plan dollars were
The during the first 15 days of 1949:
toe Goodyear Tire and Rubber received $105,000
facty adwire and tire fabric to send to Java to manu-
re tires there, using Indonesian labor conscripted
Ploy ee troops equipped with American guns. Em-
Meron 1 in American tire factories fell 11,000 between
Ge 1948 and March 1949. :
<tea: Neral Motors received $1,241,000 for shipment of
and trucks made in Antwerp, Belgium, to the

| AUBERTA ROUNDUP

Netherlands. Unemployment has already become a
serious problem in Detroit, the main ‘U.S. auto center,
and is expected to grow worse later in the year.

“By the end of 1948,” Perlo reveals, “$58 million
worth of copper was shipped from the Canadian, Chile-
an and Peruvian subsidiaries of the Ameircan com-
panies, paid for with our tax dollars, while only $8
million was shipped from American mines under the
Marshall plan.” Metal mining workers in the U.S. are
among the most seriously effected by rising unemploy-
ment.

“By the end of 1948,” Perlo reveals, “$58 million
was paid the oil trusts under the Marshall plan for
Venezuelan and Arabian oil, the latter produced by men
getting 90 cents a day. Standard oil was given much
of that money for shipping Arabian oil to its own
refineries in Europe. Employment in the American oil
industry also is declining.

“The Marshall plan helped destroy jobs and bring
on tke depression at home. The western European
countries, tied to Wall Street with ERP dollars, are
being hit with our depression. This will further cut
their purchasing power, further reduce the goods bought
in this country, and thus lead to more layoffs, an
acceleration of the decline in American industry.”

@

Perlo shows that unrestricted trade without political
blackmail is a necessary part of any. program for pre-
venting a disastrous American depression and blames
restrictions the U.S. has placed on trade with eastern
European and the Far East for unempoyment in the
US. :

In 1944, under lend-lease, the U.S. sent Russia $950
million of machinery and trucks. Present exports to
Russia and "Eastern Europe are less than $10 million a
month, and there is a complete embargo on all indust-
rial products, including items made to order and al-
ready paid for.

Pointing out that between April 1948 and April 1949
more than 200,000 jobs were lost in the American mach-
inery, electrical equipment and automotive industries,
Perlo says:

“Without the cold war embargo, those jobs would
still be in existence ... The course of blockade and
embargo will mean the ruin of American foreign trade,
it will mean more layoffs in American factories and no
prospect for ending the depression.”

By KATHERINE FOUNTAIN

ocred clears way for gas export,

US. interests ‘well satisfied’ —

be EDMONTON
y* ‘are very well satisfied. . .” said A. Faison
Natural Gon of New York, president of Northwest
Session Gas Company, when the special four-day “sas
Thi Cf the Alberta Legislature ended recently.
Pipeline American company’s application for enabling
Staj “® legislation has been pending before the fed-
Clearg; Tliament for some time. Now the road has been
bins for them and others with the passing of eight
Seeting export of Alberta’s gas and oil. :
at poping powers have been placed in the hands
ONse cabinet through the Petroleum and Natural Gas
Com, ation Board and the Board of Public Utilities
Mission

Vote, "es? new regulations were approved by a 503
two Opposition to them came from the two Liberals,
and one Independent and Social Credit
Their main contention appeared to be that
Nd th de powers should not be vested in the cabinet
the. le ®se two boards, but should come either from
“meSlature itself or by plebiscite.
berg Pag Liberals and Independent Social Credit mem-
“oy iy against the bills at third reading. The CCF,
“some Voted for them, claiming that they did offer
Poseq. Protection” despite an earlier amendment pro-
®xpory hese members to have a clause added to bar
of gas from Canada.

3 *
Manning's Pretty obvious from the outset ee fs
iat the veTnment meant to get this expor
Plain hrough, ang while U.S. interests may com-

800g rebgut stiff restrictions, nevertheless they have
@® “*Son to be “very well satisfied.”

BRAS i, ; (
in time + of natural gas goes
nto Bere. by and export ¢ e obvious to

e
aaa it will become more and mor

‘of development

the people that American finance capital has a new
and tight grip on the natural resources of Alberta.
It béars out what the Pacific Tribune has maintained
for a long time, that Canada is being turned into
a supply depot of raw materials for American im-
perialism as part of the Marshall plan. The Manning
governmeht is a faithful partner to U.S. big business
under the disguise of protecting the people’s interests.

It is a foregone conclusion that one likely conse-
quence of export of natural gas will be an increase
in the price of gas to Alberta consumers who will be
the victims of competition with U.S. exporters. Pre-

mier Manning is well aware of this, despite protesta-

tions to the contrary. Twice he has stressed that
any possible export of natural gas would not increase
the price to Alberta consumers, yet he added that this
does not mean that gas prices might not increase “for
some other reasons”!

Probably in anticipation of these revised gas and
oi] export regulations, three major oil companies, Im-
perial, B.A. and McColl Frontenac, have formed a
syndicate, Northern Pipeline Ltd., to build a $10 million
gasoline -pipeline from Montreal to Toronto via Ottawa.
Such long range schemes are not being undertaken
for the health and welfare of the Alberta people, but
only because the promoters see money in them.

The ordinary worker and farmer in this province
remains quite unaffected by the oil boom, except that
in the cities, high prices and rents are being main-
tained.on the strength of this “prosperity”.

Faced with the fact that their natural resources are
being handed over to the monopolies, labor and farm
organizations are not taking up the issue, particularly
and ownership nearly vigorously

enough.

LABOR FOCUS By J. B. SALSBERG

Bargaining rights
no longer secure

NE of the most precious gains of Canadian labor has

been snatched by big business and its government
without a murmur from the Official leadership of the
Canadian trade union movement. Collective bargaining
rights are no longer assured by law. Labor Minister
Humphrey Mitchell scuttled that right. The labor bur-
ocracy kept mum. But the big business press was
quick to recognize what had taken place and jubilantly
hailed it as a long overdue operation.

The shattering precedent was established during
the onslaught on the Canadian Seamen’s Union by the
shipping trust. The workers of the world and especially
those “of Britain recognize the great principle involved
in the seamen’s strike and are rendering inspiring as-
sistance. But the official leaders of the Canadian trade
union movement not only are silent in the face of this
destruction of one of labor's basic rights — they have
become partners to the crime.

For long years labor fought for the right to choose
its “bargaining agency.” It sought to establish the prin-
ciple that an employer must deal with the union selected
by the majority of his workers. Considerable victories
have been won in recent years. In the U.S. the Wagner
act. granted that right. In Canada, too, that right was
acknowledged in federal and many provincial labor
laws. These laws didn’t, of course, mean that employ-
ers could not, if the relationships reached a strike stage,
séek scabs. But it was assumed that no employer could
ignore the union which his workers chose and sign a
contract with a body which had no members in his
plant.

@

Now, in the case of the seamen, this principle has
been cynically disregarded. Practically all the men em-
ployed on the Atlantic coast were members of the CSU,
but the shipping companies, with government conniv-
ance, signed a “union contract” with the American SIU
which had not a single member on the ships. The
seamen were told to join the SIU or lose their jobs.
This denied the seamen’s right to choose their union.
This meant that employers could choose the union for
their workers. This was a brutal denial of all that
labor has fought for in generations.

Those red-baiting union leaders who joined bosses
and government against the Canadian seamen consid-
ered this a justifiable stab against a fighting union
which was red-baited. There were characters in the
U.S. who jumped on the Taft-Hartley bandwagon too.
But such attacks, while used against the most militant
first, never fail to cut into the entire body of labor and
that is precisely what is about to happen to the whole
Canadian trade union movement.

e

In reply, to thousands of protests against the viol-
ation of bargaining rights, Mitchell mailed out a long
letter in which he not only defended the shipping trust
but also made a new interpretation of “bargaining
rights.” This new interpretation is a death blow to the
bargaining rights for which tens of thousands of work-
ers have picketted through the years. The labor leaders
who had already betrayed the seamen kept silent, but
the anti-labor forces hailed it correctly as a great
achievement for them. Here, in part, is what
Night of May 31, 1949, says editorially about this matter.

“The minister of labor has informed a union which
has ‘bargaining rights’ with a Canadian ship-owning
organization that that organization is ‘within its rights’
in entering into an agreement with a rival union after
going through certain preliminaries ... Mr. Mitchell's
dictum knocks on the head the favorite current doctrine
of union leaders, that it is in all circumstances unlaw-
ful for an employer to negotiate with any other organ-
ization of workers than the one which has been granted
‘bargaining rights’ in the industry.

“Obviously any other view must involve granting
to the certified union a monopoly right to supply and
withhold labor on its own terms, Nevertheless the
unions have been demanding absolute control of the
labor supply in the industries to which they are ac-
credited ever since’ the position of certified: bargaining
agent began to be recognized.

“During all ‘this period it has been the claim of the
unions that they had the right to close up the plants to
which they were accredited, in the event of the employer
refused to accept their terms, and that the employer
had no right to seek workers elsewhere. This conten-
tion Mr. Mitchell has at last denied, and we hope his
belated denial will not cost him too many labor votes.”

According to this, Ford, General Electric, Stelco and
Montreal Tramways can, if negotiations break down,
sign with “another union” even if that “union” has no
members in their plants and provide scabs with a “union
card.” Saturday Night leaves no room for doubt ‘as to
what was intended.

As these lines are written it is rumored that another
company with a CSU agreement is about to announce
that it is “terminating” its agreement, despite the fact
that all its ‘seamen. are members of the CSU ... That
company, headed by a prominent Liberal senator,
“wants to do businéss with the SIU.”

It is unthinkable that honest union leaders, regard-
less of political beliefs, and the rank-and-file of all
unions should fail to see the handwriting on the wall.
It calls for a storm of protest and action in every union.
It is not yet too late to save the trade union movement
from the consequences of Mitchell's travesty on collec-
tive bargaining.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE_— JULY 15, 1949 — PAGE 9.