MONTREAL TRANSIT STRIKE

Ne tna on:
ime enificent solidarity of
4 port Workers in Mon-
badge for all labor
‘eq

eal by a refusal of the
G0; Executive Committee
My. late with them, with a
h spe "K court injunction
i Session of the Leg-
ae © men have approved
ly ts decision that they
He oan to work.

ban ebec Civil Code says
_- Petson found to have

disobeyed an injunction is guilty
of contempt of court and may
be fined up to $50,000 and im-
prisoned for one year. As a re-
sult many of the strikers are
handing in their resignations
from their jobs to the union of-
ficers so that the union’s stand
can be strengthened.

In spite of attempts, particu-
larly from .the news media, to
isolate the strikers, reports to
the Tribune from Montreal indi-
cate that there is a great deal

Solidarity magnificent

of support for their position and
condemnation of Mayor Drapeau
and Lucian Saulnier, chairman
of the Montreal Executive Com-
mittee for their uncompromis-
ing stand.

Over 4,000. strikers met
at the beginning of the week
both to approve the decision on
the court order and to approve
a compromise position on their
wage demands.

The original demand had been
for $3.35 immediately and an-
other 15 cents in six months.
Now the proposal is $3.32 im-
mediately and a six percent in-
crease next July.

In spite of this attempt of the
union to find a way to open the
door to negotiations, a special
meeing of the Montreal City
Executive and the mayors of the
suburban municipalities took the
hard line position that they
would only negotiate after the
workers return to the jobs.

Wih their record on _ the
strikes of hospital workers’ and
teachers, it is not anticipated
that the Johnson administration
will bring in legislation designed
to force the City administration
to the negotiating table, which
is the obvious need at this
moment. :

Premier Fidel Castro, speaking on national television and radio
October 15 said that the Cuban government considers the news of
the death of Ernesto (Che) Guevara to be true. He then read a
statement of the government which said in part:

All flags in Cuba will be flown at half-staff for a period of 30
days. All public institutions and non-essential services in Cuba will
be closed for three days. An official memorial meeting will be held
October 18 in Havana’s Revolution Square.

A commission has been established to perpetuate the memory
of Guevara which includes men who fought with him during the
Liberation War. The statement also proclaimed October 8 as a

Sits eo = :
Mag9 transit workers demonstrate at City Hall demanding National Day, “D ifthe Hee G illa Figh
: ay, “Day of the Heroic Guerrilla Fighter.”

q

nW

l :
thy, YAM BEECHING

Mi «PY Said it was a
est pon It was. In the
fh 'che, ote in 30 years,

Elo om riberals were re-
Prt © With an increas-

"

“It

‘tht ue a defeat for
F © was a ]
$ q rea
AE tenet the Liberals.
@e ., Sented that poli-
Ailing le of doing it.
| hte ba has 80ne, and now
A Dropne® and hard work
to devssives in’ Saskat- .
“Velop mass move-

®0ple fo ;
Y nee r the things

Still some uncer-
© final outcome.
ih Temains to be
ee 8 consti-
are rity is under
HH itne, ~ Possibilities of

yectals :
| i nerggereased their
tent gt and the CCF
teach Ags increase of
by° Tory equalling the
fi eg ‘ Vote. The total
r i the 7 417,667 from
i a 5 ast election al-
Mt Yo BR on, the total
y ‘te a Was counted
he ting total votes in
’ Some of th i
Mag rOnstit eee
a distin, Yencies. But
f be eral Ctly a drop.
(O Cp 8ained 9 seats,
Py Ting seanty-eight of
i are rural,
y ind th f oy the CCF

10

(m8

vy st

hi :
ti Seve immy Gardi-

\i Other con-
| Ba that Can’t escape
fy (TR ndian peo-

ty”. th peo
matte mselves: well,
) Ne era) and we've

De

& Wer, 4 .
© whiny case

the Conservatives hadn’t sup-
ported us, he said, we wouldn’t
be. the government. As for the
Indian people, we’re going to try
to get at the root cause of why
we lost their vote. “It’s hard to
help people who don’t want to
be helped,” he said.

Why did the Liberals win?
No doubt there is a_ Stirring
across the country—a growing
uneasiness about the economic
future, some of which was ex-
pressed in an increased CCF
vote.

Nonetheless, all the politicians,
with a few exceptions, did little
to dispel the confusion as to the
basic causes of rising costs and
lack of development.

The Liberals had the backing
of the big money—the money of
the U.S. monopolies. All the pub-
lic media was ranged in their
side. The capitalist press did a
good job in selling’ the idea that
the main cause of high prices is
wages, and with rising taxes is
increased social services.

The Liberals introduced main-
streeting on TV, and did a good
job of it. There’s no doubt that
the new Thatcher Liberal mach-
ine beats the old « Gardiner
machine. And, while not a main
factor, gerrymandering did play
a role.

Premier Thatcher’s first shot
was to announce that the main
issue would be the creation of
a climate which would encourage
more U.S. investments in the
province. This, he claimed, was
the road to jobs and prosperity.
Thus, from the outset, the main
question was in the centre of
the arena for anyone who wished
to debate it. The Communist
Party did accept the challenge.

It was symbolic of CCF weak-
ness that the opening shot fired
by Woodrow Lloyd, just after
Thatcher’s, dealt mainly with
educational reform. Its true, the
CCF did move on from this to
develop a much improved pro-
gram over the previous election.

The CCF still depended
heavily on the Madison Avenue
technique. Nothing succeeds like
success, and the Madison Ave-
nue technique does sell soap.
The question is: does it move
masses into motion? But that
wasn’t its aim.

Basically, the approach has an
absence of anything that will
appeal to anyone’s intellect, and
that’s a fact. People do vote
positively for something, even
though that something is some-
times nebulous. '

Young construction workers
who were canvassed stated, for
example, that they would vote
CCF, but.that they ‘supported
Thatcher’s proposals for develop-
ment. “If it wasn’t for Thatcher,”
said one young worker, “it
would have taken years for us
to get the kind of jobs we have
today. Our development would
have been slower.”

Any significant shift in elec-
toral support, and this the CCF
had to count on, involves an
over-all estimate of the program
that’s needed to swing people
behind it, and tactics to help
people to come to its support.
When you have a Situation, as
in this election in which the
two major contenders try to
prove who invited in U.S. capital
first, or whether or not the low-
est royalty rates on the North
American continent should have
been extended for as long as they
were, you are not really offering
much.

Many electors simply stayed
home, as the vote shows.

Now there’s open talk about
the leadership of the provincial
CCF. Dissatisfaction in Wood-

_row Lloyd’s leadership is widely

expressed. The selection of lead-
ership is, of course, their busi-
ness.

However, you cannot separate
the question of leadership from
policy. The movement that sup-
ports the CCF doesn’t belong to
the CCF, to a Lloyd, or to any

ty
Fa A

individual who may follow him.
The real question is one of
policy, and those who blame CCF
losses on Woodrow Lloyd are
really missing the main question.

After its defeat in 1964 ‘there
was a move to the right in the
CCF, and its to be expected that
pressures from the right will
now grow. :

On election night it was open-
ly discussed on the air waves
that Lloyd would now tender
his resignation. He made a press
statement so stating. Commen-
tators speculated that the elec-
tion outcome might compel party
strategists to re-examine the
CCF party’s connections with
labor. Some CCF members think
labor is more of a hinderance
than a help, they said. They
posed the question: can the
CCF-labor marriage last?

Alan Blakeney, the possible
future leader of the CCF, when
asked on election night to give
his reasons for their defeat said
there was no single cause, that
it was the general prosperity,
people think a government
should have more than three
years in office, and a lack of
any key issues.

No doubt Mr. Blakeney will
think this over, but there you

have it.

Sask. election defeat for people

The left wing support of the
CCF has indicated its greatest
weakness in years. On policy. its
voice has been muted. It is a
divided force. There are some
exceptions, among them the suc-
cessful CCF candidate who
wrote this to the voters.

“To me there is a clear-cut
decision to be made. Are we
to re-elect a Liberal government
backed by non-Saskatchewan big
business and monopolies? Such
a government is forced to cater
to these outside interests. Or
do you want to elect a CCF
government which is prepared,
in the past, to. invest your tax
dollar with the motto services
to the people before profis . . .”

Premier Ross Thatcher is now
hoping for an Alberta-type bon-
anza which kept Manning in of-
fice in Alberta.

The tasks to be tackled ahead
were posed by the Communist
Party during the election, under
the slogan Thatcher Must Go,
which called for the widest
people’s unity in a common
struggle to chart a radically new
road ahead, based upon Cana-
dian ownership and policies of
peace, for development, for tax
reform, for controls over rising
costs.

exit eazy Sony

October 27, 1967—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 5°

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