THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

HOURLY WORKERS VICTIMIZED
BY SORDID EMPLOYER RACKET

The following article by J. R.
Robertson, Ist vice-president
of the International Long-
shoremen’s and Warehouse-
men’s Union, is reprinted from
The Dispatcher, the Union’s
semi-monthly paper and deals
with a racket which could
seriously harm the future of
the labour movement if allow-
ed to continue.

There is a gimmick now in
operation around the country
that goes by various names—
but its purpose is to sell the
labor of people for a profit
while ducking certain taxes,
and evading fringe benefits.
By its very nature it is anti-
union and bad for the welfare
of the working man.

“MANPOWER INC.”

One of the biggest of these
companies is called “Manpow-
er, Inc.” It’s a huge business
operating through 56 subsid-
iaries on a nationwide and
international scale. It sup-
plies workers of varying skills
throughout the United States
and Canada, as well as ser-
vices in Europe, Japan, Aus-
tralia, and South America. It
most recently had 182,000 cus-
tomer accounts around the
world and has files containing
information on 315,000 work-
ers — ranging from office em-
ployees and highly skilled
technicians to unskilled work-
ers

“RENT-A-MAN”

Another organization of this
type, which the Wall Street
Journal calls a “rent-a-man”
company is called ‘“Payroll-
ing.”

What these companies do is
to provide workers at a fee.
“Payrolling” provides workers
without putting them on the

“to pay

company payroll. When the
job is finished, the employees
are dismissed. Their names
don’t show up on a company’s
records and therefore they are
not able to collect unemploy-
ment compensation. The more
a company hires such people
— without any record of them
— the less the company has
in unemployment
taxes.

NO FRINGE BENEFITS

But that is the least of their
savings. In the case of “Man-
power, Inc.,” there are appar-
ently no fringe benefits as
well as no unemployment
coverage. An outfit like man-
power bills its customers and
then pays the worker. At one
office of Manpower, recently
investigated by our Research
Department, we were told
they are paying $1.70 per
hour to warehousemen, with-
out fringes of any kind. In
many cases the mark-up on
employees runs as much as
100 percent. In other words,
if a worker was paid $1.70 an
hour, some employer would
be paying Manpower as much
as $3.40 per hour!

TOTAL SALES HIGH

Little wonder Manpower’s
total sales were nearly $74
million last year, and its
profits have increased by 31
percent in the last two years.

This hiring gimmick is
something .the labor move-
ment would do well to watch
closely. It might be interesting
to find out, for example, if
some company with whom we
have a contract ever tries to
hire through such cheap deals
instead of through hiring
halls.

What this amounts to is the
worst kind of chiseling, aim-
ed at profiting on a man’s la-
bor, paying low wages, avoid-
ing fringe benefits such as
vacations, health and welfare,
evading unemployment re-
sponsibilities and much more.

We saw another example of
this approach to labor in a
recent 28-day strike of meat
cutters in Southern Califor-
nia. The meat cutters finally
won a three-year contract a
couple of weeks ago providing
wage increases, seniority, full
health and welfare benefits,
and much more. For this, we
cheer them as any labor or-
ganization should givea
round of applause to any un-
ion that goes on strike and
wins its demands.

STRIKE BREAKERS

But, to tie this in to the
points being made above,
during that strike a number
of markets in Southern Cali-
fornia tried to break the strike
of 10,000 meat cutters by call-
ing personnel directors of
some 25 colleges and univer-
sities to recruit strikebreak-
ers.

This is just another sign in
the wind that more and more
companies are going to use
every possible device to work
outside union contracts not
only in strike-breaking but in
seeking to hire labor at low
cost and with none of the
benefits traditionally won by
union contract.

As far as we’re concerned
it doesn’t make a damn bit of
difference what part of the
labor movement a worker is
in, this is something the en-
tire labor movement can join
together to watch, to study—

and to block!

Dn a a a a

ONTARIO'S MEDICAL PROFESSION

DISCRIMINATING AGAINST INDIANS

TORONTO — Ontario’s
medical profession erects bar-
riers to the certification of In-
dian doctors although they
have better records in medi-
cal examinations than other
immigrant doctors from Eur-
ope.

The Toronto and District
Labor Committee for Human
Rights made this charge in a
brief to the Ontario Commit-
tee on the Healing Arts.

It noted that doctors from
India, in writing specialty
examinations for the Medical
Council of Canada, had a pass
rate of 76.4 per cent. Yet they
face tougher certification
hurdles than Greek and Bel-
gian candidates that had pass
rates of 37.7 per cent and
56.09 per cent respectively.

The labor committee back-

ed a proposal that the Ontario
College of Physicians and
Surgeons, other Canadian
medical bodies and the Fed-
eral Government should work
together to assess foreign
medical schools.

The College of Physicians
and Surgeons two years ago
virtually blocked certification
of doctors from India, con-
tending that many Indian
medical schools have low
standards. The labor commit-
tee’s brief noted that many
Indian medical schools have
higher ratios of staff to stu-
dents than schools in Canada
and Europe.

It commented: “The basic
problem remains — on what
basis has the College of Phy-
sicians and Surgeons of On-
tario relegated all _ Indian

POLITICAL QUOTE

MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS MINISTER CAMPBELL: “Every mem-

ber on this side of the House tells his election committee to
remove campaign posters after the election.”
BILL HARTLEY: “Is that the same committee that removes

mine before the election?”

medical education to this in-
ferior. status.”

The brief urged that public
licensing bodies be brought
under the Ontario Human
Rights Code, which prohibits
racial, religious and ethnic

discrimination.
ees ee

NOT SHY

The Quesnel logger was a
shy sort and had brought
along a bouquet of flowers
when calling on his new girl
friend. When the girl threw
her arms around him and
kissed him for the flowers,
the logger jumped up and
headed for the door.

“O, don’t go,” said the girl,
“TY didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Heck, I’m not offended,”
said the logger, “I’m just hust-
ling out to get more flowers!”

HANEY

HANEY BUSINESS GUIDE

ESQUIRE MEN’S WEAR
(Graham Mowatt)

Complete Stock of Work and Dress Clothing
“THE STORE WITH THE POPULAR BRANDS”

ti Pot inte OS FR gear ns sean Sat ack Dticecna Ag LL The

WHALEN

YOU’D HAVE A PERFECT SAFETY RECORD IF YOU’D
LEARN TO KEEP YER MOUTH SHUT AT HOME!

COMBINES BRANCH
INVESTIGATING BELL

The Combines Investigation
Branch is investigating Bell
Telephone’s manufacturing,
purchasing, and selling prac-
tices, but a final report isn’t
expected for a couple of
years.

The news of the investiga-
tion itself slipped out (it’s
usually not made public until
after the report) because a
bill affecting Bell Tel was be-
ing discussed by the House of
Commons’ Transport Com-
mittee. :

The bill would increase
Bell’s capitalization and its
powers, the latter of which
are already quite wide.

The civil servant who let
the cat out of the bag said his
Combines Investigation crew
was particularly interested in
Bell’s commercial relation-
ship with its wholly-owned
subsidiary, Northern Electric,
but that all Bell’s policies on
the production, distribution,
purchase, supply and sale of
communications equipment
and related gadgets.

Bell’s rates are governed —
or in any case have to be ap-
proved — by a federal regu-
latory body, with the Cabinet
as final authority.

But smaller electrical sup-
pliers have been complaining
for years that Bell runs what
amounts to a monopoly in
equipment manufacture and
sale through Northern Elec-
tric, and it’s this aspect of
Bell’s position that’s under
fire at the moment.

The entire question of what
to do with a privately-owned

BRITISH COLUMBIA

service which by its nature
rules out competition (i.e.
which almost has to be a
monopoly of scme sort) can
be “solved” in a number of
ways: laissez-faire capitalism
(leave ’em alone to make fat
profits); regulation to one de-
gree or another (the current
Canadian “solution’”); out-
right public ownership; or
possibly co-operative owner-
ship (proprietorship by

users).
[esse BF SS? UE Ne RNS 7 ESS ee ee

SLOWER

Old duchesses never die,
reports Sawmill Sue, they’re

just not as fast with their
dukes.

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