\

‘overdue.

NEWS ITEM: Senator Keith Davey introduced a resolution
in the Senate recently calling for an investigation of the
‘ownership and control of Canada’s mass press. He said
he thought the present concentration of ownership in the
mass communications industry in Canada was dangerous.
He proposed an
ownership, mixed media ownership and monopoly control.
It must really be bad when the former national organizer
of the Liberal Party and once a big shot in the advertising
field, feels impelled to propose such a probe. It’s long

inquiry into three aspects: chain

LABOR SCENE:

‘Boss’ Kierans to blame,
NDP calls for removal

For the past two weeks it has
been touch-and-go on the pos-
sibility of a Canada-wide mail
strike because of new mail
delivery rules dictatorially intro-
duced by Postmaster-General
Eric Kierans without any
consultation with Letter Carriers
union leaders, and in violation of
prevailing union contract pro
visions.

Numerous ‘‘wildcat’’ work
stoppages have occurred over the
past week and on Monday of this
week no less than. 1,200 carriers
Stayed off the job in approxi-
mately 11 Canadian cities, while
in other areas letter carrier
locals have decided to stay on the
job but ‘work to rule’, until
their legitimate grievances,
mainly stemming from Kierans’
abuse of union contract
provisions is ended.

The postmaster-general's
dictatorial and provocative
attitude towards Canada’s
“posties’’ hasn't made solutions
to the problem any easier. In his
public statement and in Parlia-
ment as spokesman for the
Trudeau government on_ this
vital issue of mail delivery,
Kierans has adopted the position
of a hard-line ‘‘boss’’ issuing
“orders’’ which must be obeyed
“or else’’ which no section of
Canadian labor, mail carriers or
other, are likely to accept
meekly at this stage of the 20th
century. What Kierans is
demanding from the letter
carriers to round out his recent
excessive increase in postal
rates, is that the letter carriers
turn in the equivalent of six days
work for a five-day week wage —
with heavy penalties for failing
to do so,

Kierans has repeated the
threat, in Parliament and out,
that ‘‘the government would
move to prosecute all postmen
and their union leaders who have
walked off the job in violation of
“his orders’, a provocative
threat in itself which can only
lead, not to a mutual -satis-
factory settlement, but to a
nation-wide tie-up of Canada’s
mail service.

Kierans also wants the five or
ten minutes wash-up time plus
the ‘‘posties’’ lunch break
eliminated as  ‘‘non-working
time’’. Similarly the time going
to and from work. It’s the old
miners’ union demand of ‘‘portal
to portal’ considered as working
time, won half a century ago
from hard-nosed coal operators,
and now a Liberal government
with pretentions for ‘a Just
Society’’ are demanding its
abolition. ‘Just’? for whom?
Certainly not the letter carriers,
now under threats of fines of $500
a day for their local unions and
$100 a day for their individual
members, should they fail to
jump to the ‘‘orders”’ of Feuhrer
Kierans.

At press time it is reported
that the Postal Unions and the
Department have reached
agreement for a ‘‘third party”
adjudication of letter carrier
grievances arising out of union
contract violations by
Postmaster-General Kierans.

Meantime Tuesday in
Parliament the NDP tabled a
motion calling for the removal of
Postmaster-General Kierans
from his job, as the prime cause
of postal unrest.

“**

Mr. Max Pierotti, ex-business
manager for the Vancouver City
Hall Employees Association for
some 16-years, a strong devotee
of strictly ‘‘business unionism”
(in terms of salary) has finally
landed an “‘appointment’’ in
keeping with his taste and salary
expectations; that of ‘‘personnal
director’ for Burrard Dry Dock
Co. Ltd., of North Vancouver,

In the market for some time in
search of a higher paid job, Mr.
Pierotti is reported to have
turned down a B.C. Government
Employees job at a salary of
$15,000 per annum.

Being a strictly ‘‘business”’
trade unionist with that “how
much is in it for me’’ outlook,
Max declined the offer, waiting
like the famed Micawber for
something better to turn up. Now
it seems Burrard Dry Dock is the
lucky bidder for his unique

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 14, 1969—Page 12

services, but so far the price tag
has not as yet been announced.

In an editorial in the March 7th
edition of the CUPE News-
bulletin by Jack Phillips, CUPE
Representative, we quote some
important extracts on the subject
of ‘‘business unionism” versus
the genuine article.

“IT remember a discussion with
a union business agent who has
since left our ranks. ‘‘Jack,”’ he
said, ‘‘there’s a basic difference
between us. To me, my work is a
business. To you it is an ideal’’.

‘Union representatives may be
meeting this character across
the bargaining table, because he
has gone over to the other side.

“When a man who hag these
opportunities for say ten or
twenty years goes over to the
other side, it poses an interesting
question. Why did he do it?

‘In the case of my ‘friend’ the
answer is very simple. If
working for a trade union is only
a job like any other job, then it’s
O.K. for an ambitious man to
take a better paid position with
management. This attitude, this
shopping around for better paid
jobs, is one of the main sources

of corruption in the labor
movement.
“The business unionist will

admit that we live in a world of
many social injustices and under
the danger of nuclear annihila-
tion. ‘So what?” he says. ‘My
job is to get a good agreement,
not to change the world.”’ By this
very attitude he becomes an
accessory to the obvious social

immorality which so many
people are rebelling against.
Some business unionists are

passive accomplices. Others are
conscious upholders of the status
quo.

’

“Once the rank-and-file are
seized with the concept of social
unionism, the ‘business
unionists” will have a hard time
to survive’.

Sorry we haven't the space for
the whole editorial because it
sure spotlights some answers to.
an old, old query, **Why do they
doit?”

C. BODY MEETS

In anticipation of an early
Provincial election, the B.C.
Committee of the Communist
Party of Canada met in Van-
couver last weekend. The 25-
member Committee met to
evaluate the shift in political
relationships that has led the
Socreds to decide against run-
ning out their full term of office,
and to lay plans for the Com-
munist campaign to help oust
the Bennett administration,
under heavy fire for its school,
resources, labor and Common-
wealth Trust policies.

“An extremely fluid situation
is developing in B.C. today as the
Socreds lose ground,” Nigel
Morgan, Provincial leader of
the Party stated. ‘‘The Bennett
government not only lost its
Vancouver South seat, but five
successive by-elections, and
perhaps most significant of all,
lost up-country rural votes
where they have had their base.”’

“The possibility exists today of
ousting the Bennett government,
but labor cannot take an NDP
victory for granted,’’ Morgan
warned. It would be a serious
mistake not to take note of the
Liberal resurgence in civic
political and certain trade union
circles in the wake of
Trudeaumania and as a result of
dissatisfaction with the ‘soft-

Communists urge unity
to oust Socred gov't

sell’ line of the right-wing Social}
democratic spokesmen of the
NDP. The estimation of our
Provincial Executive is that the
coming Provincial election might
well end up without any party
having a majority.”

The Communist Party decided
to initiate steps immediately to
contribute to development of a
movement that will guarantee
the ouster of the Bennett govern-
ment and block return of the
Liberals which would do nothing
to solve the problems of the
people anymore than Trudeay
has, or the Coalistion of 16 years
ago." The Communist Party
will nominate candidates
wherever the Party can wage an
effective campaign, and has the
resources to do so too, and fight
for a democratic left, coalition
responsive to labor’s needs

Final plans were also
completed for the Provincial
Convention of the Party which
meets in Clinton Hall, Van-
couver this weekend (March 15-
16) to elect the B.C. delegation to
the National Communist Party
Convention in Toronto Easter
weekend. The eighty-odd
delegates will break into three
panels on Saturday to discuss the
three main sections of the draft
resolution and on Sunday elect
B.C.'s 25 delegates.

MARCH 29th

Tenants plan giant
protest march, rally

An enthusiastic meeting of the
Vancouver Tenants Council
Tuesday night laid extensive
plans for the public rally set for
Saturday noon, March 29 at the
steps of the City Hall.

The rally has been called to
back tenants demands for a
Charter of Tenants Rights. A city-
wide petition campaign has been
launched to this effect and over
500 signatures have already been
collected.

All City Aldermen are to be
contacted and asked to be at the
rally and to speak to the 18 points
of the Tenants Charter.

The main rally will be
preceeded by a march starting at
10 a.m. in front of the offices of
the Greater Vancouver
Apartment Owners Association
at 2068 West 4th Ave

Proceeding along 4th to
Granville the marchers will next
stop at Granville and 11th where
they will single out the offices of
Block Brothers, the city’s largest
apartment owner.

Final stop before arriving at
City Hall will be at 2575 Spruce.
Here fellow tenants will show
their support for the striking
tenants at this address.

Slogan carried by the marchers
will be: ‘‘Enact a Tenants Bill of

Rights,’’ “Fair rents, not
exhorbitant ones,’ ‘‘Outlaw
arbitrary evictions,’’ ‘Abolish
security deposits,’’ ‘‘End_ land-

lord Credit Bureau snooping.”

Twenty thousand leaflets and
500 posters are being distributed
for the rally and march.

Hon. Mitchell Sharp, M.P.
Minister of External Affairs,
House of Commons,
Ottawa, Ont.

Dear Mr. Sharp:

policy,

Canada to withdraw’ from

Organization.

INAME

ADDRESS

membership in NATO,)

Sign for NATO pull-out

| welcome your invitation to the citizens of Canada to
express their opinions on the government's review of foreign

| would strongly urge that this review lead to a decision by

(This card is published by the COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA as a service to those
wishing to inform the Canadian government of their opposition to continued

the North Atlantic Treaty