THE NATION

By HAL PROCTOR

Company, union burocracy linked
in ousting of Toronto unionists

ra
ONSUMERS’ Gas Company of Toronto has been reveal-
ed as the main inspiration of the current drive to force
the organizers and leaders of Local 161, International
Chemical Workers Union, out of that organization and
Out of the plant itself.

In direct violation of the union’s agreement, the Con-
sumers’ Gas Company, in the person of its general man-
ager, W. E. Tucker, fired three workers with 72 years”
Service between them on less than six hours’ notice. The
daily press reported in advance they had been fired before
the men, Reg. Wright, Charles Manser and William John-
stone received their notices.

Three men bear responsibility for the action, H. A.
Bradley, international president of the International
Chemical Workers’ Union, who acted under instructions
from the U.S. state department; Joseph Barry, Bradley
appointee and right-wing CCF’er; and W. E. Tucker, Con-
Sumers’ Gas Company general manager.

It was Bradley who conducted the Saturday kangaroo
court where he personally expelled the three unionists;
Barry who demanded on the Sunday that the company
fire the men; and Tucker who carried out the demand on

. the Monday despite the fact that it was well known the

local membership had not voted for any such action.

The attack on the most militant of the gas workers’
leaders came in the middle of a fight to compel the com-
Pany to pay adequate pensions to its workers, and to peg
antee that 96 men being laid off would not lose their
Pension and other rights.

The present attack is) reminiscent of what took place
last year, when the local union, while in the midst of crit-
ical negotiations, was confronted by Sidney Garfield, per-
Sonal representative of H. A. Bradley, who was gent to Tor-

_ Onto to negotiate behind the backs of the committee and
to water down the workers’ demands.
®
Rumblings over the current issue are widespread.
Hundreds of workers have signed a petition demand-

/

Forecast

There’s panic in the papers

Stocks and bonds are cutting capers

Rich men jumping from skyscrapers,
What’s the rumpus all about?
Peace broke out. .

—J. S. WALLACE
Toronto, August, 1950.

ing an end to kangaroo courts and for reinstatement of the
three mén in their jobs and the union. An incensed meet-
ing has refused to replace Wright and Johnstone as dele-
gates to the district council meeting of the union which is
scheduled to meet soon.

The issue as far aS the gas workers see it is clear. Is a
worker to be deprived of his livelhood, pension and other
rights as a penalty for failing to conform to the machine
politicians who are in alliance with the bosses? Are com-
panies to be permitted to get away with flagrant violations
of union agreements, with the connivance of union bur-
eaucrats? And are U.S. trade union Officials going to be
permitted to come into Canada for the purpose of purging
militants and so aid the bosses? .

It is not without significance—in fact, it underiInes the
purpose of this new anti-labor campaign conducted under
the familiar ‘“anti-communist’ guise——that the tory
Toronto Telegram, in commenting on the Wright case,
urged that Boards of Trade, Chambers of Commerce and
industrialists in general should now open a drive against
all militants working in shops.

not U.S. puppets

en

LPP COLUMN

_ Are you

ncitement. : :

Ge Mao Tse-tung of the People’s Repulic

of China has written a short, pyovend a hey wee

article which appears in the forthcoming ye fe}

National Affairs Monthly, and it’s a thing not to miss

if you can possibly help it. ae

The title of it is: “Oppose liberalism 1n the Party.

It was written in 1937, and published in the Chinese

Border Region paper, Party Work.
The point it makes is a very live
one, now, today, for us.

Comrade Mao here in a few para- §
graphs illuminates a struggle that §
each of us in the movement knows 3
from expetience: the struggle in 4
the heart and mind to drive out
hangovers of capitalist mentality
and influence, and put in their
place sound, working-class action
and thinking. peer? :

Comrade Mao lists eleven kinds of
liberalism that crop up in the work Bos
of Party people.’ ' ; %

I akan quote only the first, referring you for the
other ten to the November issue of NAM. ;
“T,jberalism shows itself in various vee ee
ust cing no arguments on matters of Princ’p
or nome fant  auberOIDE the patently obvious eae;
of acquaintances ae schoolmates,
friends, loved ones, old colleag é :

_ dinates; letting things drift and doing sone ae :
quiet and friendly life; pe haps’ putting a Senay
ldeas in an offhand’ manner but without ute ee
Solve problems thoroughly, and EUS ae oe
peaceful atmosphere with results prejudicial to

liberalism.”

at is farfetched? & he
Ore hose it sound exceedingly familiar? Sepak
It seems to me that it touches a raw nerve aa a
tion to the work, or some tendency in the work,

many of whom we ¢an think rather rea'

not excluded!).

By STANLEY RYERSON

FRANKLY, the purpose of this particular column is

_ be conquered with the creative spirit of “Marxism.” —

ues, and former subor-_

organizations and individuals—this is the first Kind of |

dily (ourselves

a liberal?

The other ten examples of kinds of liberalism are
not less apt.

Liberalism gives -up the ideological struggle -and
advocates peace at the cost of principle...

Says Comrate .Mao: ‘ :

“Liberalism is one of the manifestations of oppor-
tunism diametrically opposed to Marxism...

“Liberalism being a passive way of thinking must

Last week, beginning to deal with the “anatomy of
leadership.” I suggested that vision, seeing ahead, hav-
ing one’s bearings and a sense of direction, was one of
the very first requirements for a Communist who is
to lead other workers. And it is pointed out that the
source of direction is Party policy, the line of the
Party. : Ce ‘

To know, grasp hold of and fight for the Party’s
mass line of struggle,is the first requirement for ful-
filling one’s duty to the working class movement.

‘ But in order to know, in order te grasp, and in
order to fight, one must have a staunch, militant work-
ing-class outlook. Mastery of the world outlook of
Marxism-Leninism is an obligation of fighters for
socialism. : :

Militancy in the realm of ideas—readiness to work
hard at study of theory—firmness in the fight for a_

principled approach: these are at stake in the ideo-
logical struggle that is the antidote to liberalism and
opportunism. :

What is the ideological work in your club like? Or
in your own day-to-day living? : ‘

Is reading and study a normal and valued thing
in it—or a superfluous luxury? :

It must be said—as Comrade Tim Buck has pointed
out more than once—that we don’t cultiivate the habit
of serious reading in the way we should, and must,
if we are to mature and advance. (And yet Marxism is a

The attitude to party literature reflects this. Inat-
tention to financing, failure to assign forces to liter-

ature work, lack of imagination in utilizing our mat-

-erials, a routine approach—these also are symptoms
of libéralism. ‘

With such an approach you cannot fight for
Marxism in the Party and the labor movement.

@ ‘

. Let him stand. up and he’ll have his head chopped off. He

LABOR FOCUS By J. B. SALSBERG

Canadian unions

Ff" a long time we have been hearing the ugly terms
“foreign agent”. or “agents of a foreign power’ thrown
around in the unions..It used to be the favorite charge
hurled by utterly demoralized job holders at rank-and-
file members who dared to criticize them and their policies
—the final shot with which they hoped to discredit an
opponent.

«

It wasn’t the fat boys who thought this up. The big
shots and their servants in the press, radio and parlia-
ments do the thinking and provide the
slogans and, catchwords. For good be-
havior, that is, for not thinking, for
not displaying any sign of working-
dlass independence and for doing
what they’re told they are usually re-
warded with jobs on government
boards, agencies, commissions, and
the like. . .

Unionists generally rejected a
job holder when he began repeating
the bosses’ stories about “agents of
a foreign power.” Such “agents” were
well known to the members. They
were the fellows who worked along-
side them in the factory, who lived next door, who usually
built the union and who were always in the forefront of
every union battle for better conditions. Little wonder
that union members so attacked by the bureaucrats were
usually elected to every responsible office in hundreds of
local unions across the country.
|

But there are agents of foreign powers who do inter-
fere in trade unions in many countries, They are the well-
paid emissaries of the U.S. state department who crawl
like locusts over the unions in the capitalist countries
of Europe and the colonial areas They are the ones who
work under the direction of the US embassies and whose
job, as “labor men” is to sell Wall Street’s war program
to-the working people in other lands.

e
Now, it seems to be the turn of Canadian members of
“international unions” to be treated like colonial subjects
of U.S. imperialism. It seems that Canadian workers are
guilty of disobedience and they are to be put in their
place. They are to be shown who is boss man here. The
labor agents of the U.S. state department have begun to |
move in with crow bars and sledge hammers. eee
As is well known, the U.S., through the AFL and CIO ~
chiefs, began warring a few years ago on-all Canadian
trade unionists who refused to obey blindly and who in-
sisted on their right to think and act independently. As

the cold war developed the foreign domination of our
unions was stepped up.

Unions and union leaders who held out for an inde-—
pendent Canadian foreign policy were hounded, suspended, ©
expelled and raided. Percy Bengough, who held out for
some time against this U.S. domination, was finally ©
brought to his knees in 1949. And now the cold war has
become a shooting war the U.S. state department is really
cracking down hard. If Canadian workers are still naive
enough to think that they can run their unions as they
please, then they must have that foolishness knocked
out of them.

For the last few weeks a real war on Canadian unions
has been under way. It’s going on with cynical disregard
for the opinions and wishes of the union members here.
They just don’t count in the eyes of the U.S. labor agents
of the state department. Who the heck are Canadian
members anyway!

&

Toronto workers of the Consumers Gas Company met
and decided by overwhelming majority not to “try” their
president and others who built their union and with whom
they worked side by side for periods of between 15 and 30
years. So President Bradley and a few of his henchmen
from the U.S. came to Toronto, settled down in the finest
hotel suites and “over rode” the local union, expelled three
union leaders, and asked the company to fire them from
their jobs. .

That’s the way punitive expeditions always acted —
against disobedient colonials, Wreck the villages and
chase the leaders into the wilderness. That will teach them
not to play around with dangerous ideas of Canadian
rights and self-government of unions!

As these lines are written, the big business press joy_
fully reports that a board of three officers of the AFL —
textile union, “all from Washington,” have arrived in |
Montreal to “try” the Canadian leaders of that union. |
Laying charges, if there are such charges, before the Can- _
adian members of that union? Who dared suggest that? |

must be a Communist! Who do the Canadian members of

the textile union think they are anyway! :

Talk about foreign agents! What a miserable lot they __
are, the labor agents of the U.S. ruling class! These petty _
servants of the U.S. economic royalists will get the sur-
prise of their lives. The staunch spirit of independence ©
deep in the hearts of Canadian working men will surely —
purge this pestilence invading Canadian union life. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — NOVEMBER 3, 1950 — PAGE 9

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