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Steve Brodie writes

on ‘Bloody Sunday’

By STEVE BRODIE
(Third of series)

About the middle of the month
€ press changed tactics. The
new story was that most of the
Men had found work, more were
faving for the prairie provinces
nightly, and Brodie was trying to
uff it out with a corporals
gard. Thiis did hurt, as the peo-
Ple who had been contributing
Hee, beans, stew, and macaroni,
quite naturally cut down the
Supply as it came from a very
meagre pantry in the first place.
Sh Bloody Sunday, however,

ese same reporters
miraculously saw the original
numbers appearing — only this
me they were “rioting and
Wrecking.”
; During those years the press
etilied all brutality of police
nd courts, and terrified the
Public into submission. Their
ieee plot” stories make
Various reading now, but were
®arful weapons at the time.
- often wonder how those
eeers and their friends the
bo lor law officers can shave
fe Wadays without feeling
: Mpted to cut their throats in
ee at the misery they helped

Ce on our people.

°

: A check of all Vancouver
“pers, from the end of March
-qlough the summer of 1938, will
OW advertisements paid for by
J airie communities telling
©m it may concern,” that
Drain Ployment picture on the
4 Itles was not good and that a
"plus of labor already existed.
th ee same papers carried
. = front Page the news that
all -C, cabinet was cutting off
cna to single men as the
aaa of labor had verified a
Quired that thousands were re-
aa for spring work in these
in | areas. The newspaper hav-
oe the money for the
e ttisements, now editorially
ie a all single men to leave
he jobs discovered by the
* 80vernment, suggesting
ein hy who failed to do so were
sta § paid by Communists to
‘4 and foment revolution.

Bri quad been working in the
Month, River district for some
S, and having been fired
un activity, I returned to
ti Buyer, rejoining at that
Bein the Organized unemployed.
th.a© Well known to most of
desper and arriving at a
take Tate time, I was asked to
Dee the chairmanship of
10n No. 1.

ot Policy never changed dur-
Unem € years of organizing the
Cou Ployed. A simple majority
any Ete lack of confidence in
May oF group, of executive
bers at any regular
ho | 1§. Of the many clergymen
ald claim to being friends of

B ob employed, only Reverend
Col; atheson, then of
'Ngwood United Church,
trust had their confidence and
. te was respected by all

n
Phone once did he play any

diq P games for publicity as

me
Of the other well known men

oth. He dared city coun-

; abinet ministers, to sit in
dig ectings as he sometimes‘
no = © often stated publicly that
kno weanization he had ever
Proved, followed democratic

Sistently So well and so con-

Ci]
» Or
Our ; s

To admit that all decisions
were arrived at after full discus-
sion and vote would have
destroyed the myth that
everyone was duped and acting
on orders of a Red cabal, so none
of the city or provincial of-
ficialdom ever ventured up the
stairs, though often invited. The
Communist bogey was too useful
a weapon to instill fear into the
public.

My first act on accepting the
chairmanship was to call for a
full discussion on the desperate
situation that existed that March
of 1938. Organized begging,
known as ‘“‘tincanning,’’ was no
longer a useful tactic. It had
gone on too long, and now had no
longer either a nuisance value,
nor could it bring in sufficient
funds to provide two 15-cent
meals per man.

A mass tag day did make a
temporary change. Held in
defiance of a police edict banning
such affairs, it provided enough
excitement — with Oakalla jail
so full the warden was pleading
for mercy — and when the local
police issued a summons to
appear next week, at each
arrest, they found tin-canners
arrested and receiving their fifth
or sixth summons of the after-
noon. This hilarious Saturday not
only netted over five thousand
dollars but the support of the
public demonstrated that Van-
couver citizens were in a mood
for a showdown on responsibility
for unemployment.

As these new funds dwindled
with 3,000 men on the rolls, each
meeting found the rank and file
demanding vigorous: action: At
that time, as at all times during
those ‘years when the situation
became desperate, we heard
more and more arguments
against united effort, with more
and more demands that the men
be turned loose to survive on the
roving band theory. For years,
the Communist Party fraction,
working in the ranks of the un-
employed, stressed the value of
solid united group. They knew
that any ‘“‘Robin Hood,” or par-
tisan style of action, would bring
down repression to equal that of
the Third Reich.

In my despair that nothing
short of war could make our
young men valuable to Canada, I
often felt sympathetic to this

“adventurer spirit, but Party dis-

cipline said ‘‘no,”’ and that the
only hope for any recognition
was to educate the people, poin-
ting out the history of a system
which guarantees peace but
brings unemployment, and
prolonged peace brings mass un-
employment. The image of Com-
munist plots and rioting were
only the product of wishful think-
ing on the part of the federal and
provincial governments. That
would have been the excuse for
iron heel tactics which they were
only too willing to invoke. And
far from inciting the men, Party
organizers warned against
provoking confrontation.

(Next week Steve Brodie writes
on how the decision was made to
stage the sitdown at the Post Of-
fice and Art Gallery, and how this
action was carried out by the un-
employed to draw attention to
their plight).

ENRICHED BY GOV'T HANDOUTS

Forestry giants conceal their
profit in corporate structure

LABOR COMMENT

In our article last week on the
B.C. forest giants we dealt with
the cash flows of these cor-
porations based on the informa-
tion in the Economic Report
presented to the recent Inter-
national Woodworkers of
America (IWA) coast wages and
contract conference.

That report also dealt with
what is called ‘‘net cash flows.”
By calculating the amount of net
profits after taxes not dis-
tributed to stockholders and ad-
ding that figure to depreciation
allowances, we have a figure
which is referred to as ‘‘net cash
flows.”

Undistributed profits — the
amount left after dividend
payments — fluctuates
somewhat from year to year. A
major reason for this fluctuation
is ‘“‘the conscious corporate deci-
sion to distribute the same
djvidends year after year rather

The editorial board announced
this week that Sean Griffin
(above) has been appointed assis-
tant editor of the Pacific Tribune.
Griffin, 27, came to the PT staff on
November 1, 1972. He is a
leading member of the Young
Communist League, a graduate
with honors in English from UBC
and a former member of the
Marine Workers and Boilermakers

Union.
BURNABY

Cont'd from pg. 2
cabinet that most of the thousand
people attending the January
meeting of Burnaby Council op-
posed the refinery expansion
(although council voted for it 6-

3), the cabinet had made no deci-

sion yet.

“‘We have to see how you, the
people, feel about this,’’ she said,
adding that the cabinet is star-
ting a study of the overall
petroleum needs of B.C.

The meeting concluded by un-
animously endorsing a resolution
calling for a halt to refinery ex-
pansion until a study of the com-
patibility of oil refineries on
Burrard Inlet is carried out. It
also called on the provincial
government to proclaim the sec-
tion of the Energy Act dealing
with regulation of the petroleum
industry which was approved by
the legislature last April, but not
yet proclaimed.

The committee announced its
intention at the meeting to fight
the issue through the Greater
Vancouver Regional District,
and if necessary take it to the
provincial and federal
governments.

than letting the dividend fluc-
tuate with profit-taking.”

New cash flows — the welfare
system for corporate giants —
allowed MacMillan Bloedel to
enlarge its asset base from $207
million to $900 million by the end
of 1972. In this same year, net
cash flow for this giant corpora-

tion amounted to $66,830,000 as

compared with capital expen-
ditures of $60,865,000.

The expansion of the assets of
this company did not all take
place in British Columbia. It in-
volved the building of plants and
other facilities ‘in the United
States, the United Kingdom, the
Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and
other countries. In other words,
this is truly a multi-national cor-
poration. What this means is
graphically illustrated in the
following quotations from the
Economic Report:

“They are able to finance all or
most of their investments from
internal sources. In effect, by the
device of ‘‘depreciation
allowances,’’ ‘‘depletion
allowances”’ and ‘‘deferred tax-
es,’ they are financed by the
government, by consumers and
by taxpayers who must make up
the taxes lost through the device
of non-taxed allowances.

“Top management, thereby
becomes ever more autonomous

and unresponsive — responsible

to no one except their cohorts.
“As the few persons who con-
trol these conglomerates of
multi-national power intermesh
and interlock, they tend to form
ever more impregnable, im-
movable bastions which can
Stultify necessary or desirable
social changes such as those in-
volving energy resources, pollu-
tion and the environment, wages
and standards of living. . .

“One further point made ap-
parent by the analysis of the cor-
porate giants is the indication
that the problem of inflation does
not arise from the inability of in-
dustry to provide industrial
capacity. The governments of
Canada and the United States
have seen to that. If there are
shortages which give rise to in-
flation, in many cases if not
most, the fault would seem to lie
with the policies. of government
and giant corporations.”

This is putting it mildly, to say
the least, because the inflation
we are suffering from in the
capitalist world is a direct
product of the sum total of
relations flowing from the
economic and political domina-
‘tion of our country by monopoly
capital. There is no inflation and
no unemployment in the Soviet
Union, for example.

As the Economic Report was
being completed, a news report
was published indicating that
Crown Zellerbach achieved an
increase in net profits for 1973 by
133 percent on an increase in
sales of 23 percent — and they
expect to do as well in 1974!

: *** *

In the section dealing with
Wage Settlements in B.C., the
British Columbia Department of
Labor is quoted for the period
covering the fourth quarter of
1972 through to and including the
third quarter of 1973, for collec-
tive bargaining settlements of
units of 500 employees or more in
manufacturing. While the first
year of the agreements show an
average increase of 12.6 percent,
the second year of the two-year
agreements taper off to 7.7 per-
cent.

For all industries excluding
construction, the figures are 9.4
percent and 6.2 percent. Where
three-year agreements were
signed, the figures for the third
year (averages) dropped sharply
below the figures for the second
year.

One quotation from the
Economic Report seems to in-
dicate that the researchers erred
on the conservative side: “If
workers were shopping for
agreements, the two year agree-
ment would be the obvious best
buy. The average yearly in-
crease is about 10% percent com-
pared with an average of 9.9 per-
cent in the first two years of
three year agreements.’’ Accor-
ding to the figures provided in
the report, the cost of living in-
creased by 9.1 percent in 1973, as
compared with December 1972.

This would indicate that a
wage increase in the area of
twelve to fourteen percent per
year is in order and that serious
efforts should be made to obtain

See FOREST GIANTS, pg. 12

Classified Advertising

COMING EVENTS

March 9 — Saturday, March 9th,
UKRAINIAN SUPPER &
ENTERTAINMENT, AUUC
HALL, 805 E. Pender Street.
Dinner 6:30 P.M. Admission
$3.00 per person. Spons. by:
Bill Bennett Club. Proceeds
to the Tribune.

March 10 — Sunday, 1:30 p.m.,
INTERNATIONAL WO-
MEN’S DAY CELEBRA-
TION. Program — Bridget
Moran, speaker, Surrey
Folk Choir, Ukrainian
dancers, Bake Sale, After-
noon Tea. Admission $1.00.
Russian People’s Home,
600 Campbell Ave. ~

MARCH 16 — KEEP THIS
DATE OPEN! ST. PATRICK’S
SOCIAL, SATURDAY,

MARCH 16. (Time and Place
next week) South Van CPC.

_BUSINESS PERSONALS

NEED CAR OR HOUSE

INSURANCE? Call Ben
Swankey 433-8323.

HALLS FOR RENT

RUSSIAN PEOPLE’S HOME —
Now available for rentals.
For reservations phone 254-
3430.

WEBSTER’S CORNER HALL —
Available for banquets,
meetings, etc. For rates, Oz-
zie 325-4171 or 685-5836.

UKRAINIAN CANADIAN
CULTURAL CENTRE — 805
East Pender St.; Vancouver
4. Available for banquets,
weddings, meetings: Phone
254-3436..

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, MARCH 1, 1974—PAGE 11

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