By NIGEL MORGAN

RITISH Columbia labor is
B in one of the toughest bat-
tles of its life today! It is
being challenged and attacked
on the economic, legislative
and political fields as never
before.

Food, housing, clothing,
transportation costs — every-
thing we need to live decently
—are reaching the highest
point in history. Yet even the
most modest wage demands
are being met with blank re-
fusal, misuse of the courts (as
in the railroad firemen’s strike
last week), advocacy of com-
pulsory arbitration by a pre-
judiced daily press, and the
threat of restrictive anti-labor
legislation. The open shop
campaign for the “right-to-
work” (or what might be more
properly called “right-to-scab”)
laws, and to freeze wages
while boosting profits to as-
tronomical heights, is reach-
ing an hysterical pitch.

In order to cover up the
consequences of their suicidal
integration with John Foster
Dulles’ “brink-of-war” course
and “sold-to-U.S.” policies, and
at the same time expand
monopoly profits, big business
is attempting to shift the blame
onte organized labor.

While pushing the biggest
price gouge in history, the
monopolies are trying to cut
mass consumption by freezing
wages in the path of rising
prices, to restrict production
by boosting interest rates
and undercut social welfare
expenditures. Simultaneously
with and as a part of its
attack on the people’s living
standards, big business has
launched a campaign of in-
timidation against the trade
union movement. The mono-
poly-controlled daily press of
the country is systematically
promoting the false contention
that the unions’are responsible
for Canada’s so-called “high
cost” economy. High wages
are responsible for driving
hundreds of thousands of
Canadians out of their jobs,
they scream.

*

Their wild charges are not
borne out by figures released
by the government’s Bureau
of Statistics. Big business tries
to get us to ignore the fact
that the gross national pro-
duction per capita has risen
from $1,215 in 1949 to $1,872
in 1956—an increase of 54 per
cent. And no mention is made,

of course, of the fact that cor-
poration profits rose in the
same period from $1,879 mil-
lion to $3,246 million — 73 per-
cent; or that dividend pay-
ments to non-residents (most-
ly Yankees) jumped from $317
million in 1949 to $444 million
in 1956 — an increase of 40
percent; and dividend pay-
ments to Canadians from $234
to $330-million—up 41 per-
cent. Nor do they tell us that
undistributed profits rose by
73 percent from $587 million
in 1949 to $1,012 million in
1956.

In this connection it is in-
teresting to note the findings
of a special study made in the
U.S. by Leon H. Keyserling,
former chairman of the Presi-
dent’s Council of Economic
Advisors, on how present de-
pression conditions have arisen
out of the lag in wages and
consumer buying power be-
hind corporation profits and
productive capacity.

“In the eyes of some people
wages are always ‘too high,’ ”
the study points out. “In times
of inflation, they blame it on
wage increases, and say more
wage increases would cause
stil more inflation. In times
cf stability, they say ‘don’t
rock the boat.’ And when a
recession starts, they say that
wage increases would aggra-
vate all other difficulties. But
these people seldom look at
the facts . . . Our economic
troubles have come mainly
because consumption has not
expanded enough to absorb
our rapidly growing produc-
tive power.”

Prices continue to climb in
spite of unemployment and
crisis, because of the growing
monopolisation of the economy
and because of the extent of
arms spending in the present
cold war budget.

Wages have lagged far be-
hind profits, as the following
table prepared by the research
department of the United
Steelworkers Union of Canada
shows:

From 1939 to 1945 wages
went up 62.5 percent; profits
88 percent; from 1945 to 1951,
wages 18.5 percent and profits
43.8 percent; from 1951 to
1954, the percentage increase
in wages was slightly higher
than the percentage increase
in profits. But again, between
1954 and 1955, profits rose 34.6
percent to 2 percent for wages.
For 1955-1956 wages only went

up 5 percent in comparison
with a 20 percent boost in
profits.

*

The wage movement this
year is therefore an extremely
important and crucial one.
Monopoly’s attempt to hold
the line, and in some cases
even to cut wages, is aimed at
loading the burden of the
develcping crisis on the backs
of the working people. But
for the people, the fight for
substantial wage boosts is -in-
dispensable to halting the de-
cline in purchasing power.

Holding the line on wages
(as Prime Minister Diefen-
baker advocated at the recent
CLC convention) can only
help transform the present de-
pression into a full-scale gen-
eral crisis. More money on
workers’ pay cheques means
more goods can be purchased,
and in turn more employment.
Corporation profits and sur-
pluses accumulated over the
years can well provide the
needed increases.

A study of the 40 major
union settlements in B.C. this

How can B.C. labor

win Its wage fight ?

year shows that 13 won in-
creases of 15 cents or over; 12
just under 15 cents; 8 got 10
percent or more, and 7 under
10 percent.

The truck and construction
operators of the Teamsters
union led the field winning 44
cents an hour with an addi-
tional 10 cents for next year.
The Teamsters heavy con-
struction section won 57 cents
in conciliation but was forced
to settle for 40 cents.

At present, 2,000 plumbers
are locked out, and seamen
are on strike, and major con-
tracts in conciliation or about
to open include the lumber
industry, fishermen and shore-
workers, Trail - Kimberley
smelterworkers, BCE bus
drivers, longshoremen, sugar
refinery workers, bakers, oil
workers, steelworkers, ship-
yard workers.

In most, as in the pulp, elec-
trical, teamsters, and fire-
men’s disputes that preceded
them, the bosses are adopting
a most provocative attitude.
Fishermen for example, on a
demand of 32 cents per sock-

eye are being offered only 23
cents, against last year’s price
of 28 cents per fish. Many
smaller sections of industry,
organized and _ unorganized,
have failed to add any sub-
stantial increase and conse-
quently remain unreported.

The government’s price in-
dex is up 9 points from 116.2
in April 1956 to 125.2 in April
1958, yet workers are being
forced to strike in order to
prevent an actual cut in their
buying power. Strike after
strike _ becomes a_ test of
strength of the entire labor
movement.

As recent struggles prove,
big business seeks out the
weak spots to intensify its
overall- assault on living stan-
dards. Everywhere it tries to
create internal dissention, di-
vide the labor movement, and
starve the workers into sub-
mission. If it has failed to
achieve what it wants and
been forced to make some
partial concessions (as in the
case of the railroad firemen)
it is only because it has come
up against the fierce resistance
of the workers—and became
alarmed over this growing
unity and solidarity.

*

The labor movement of
1958 is not the relatively weak,
divided, isolated and politi-
cally impotent force it was in
the thirties. Today, a much
stronger, better-organized and
more conscious working class
is fighting against the devel-
oping economic crisis. It stands
as a barrier to the anti-Cana-
dian, depression-making poli-
cies of big business.

The bosses’ offensive of mass
layoffs and lockouts, of speedup
and resistance to justifiabie
wage demands can be met and
defeated. However, it will call
for the highest degree of mili-
tancy and unity; the firmest
solidarity; strengthening of
efforts to expose the false ar-
guments of the monopolists
and their spokesmen in parlia-
ment to rally public sympathy
and support for their demands.

It will require alertness,
both against right-wing at-
tempts either to give up the
wage fight and retreat (as in

- the case of the TWA in Wash-

ington state and employer-
provocations.

Wage coordination commit-
tees at all levels of the trade
union movement are urgently
needed. Taking up the resolu-
tion adopted by the last B.C.
Federation of Labor conven-
tion to achieve a coordinated
approach to the setting of wage
demands, the working through
of negotiations, conciliations
and strike strategy would re-
sult in considerable strength-
ening of labor’s position.

Above all is required &@
realization that now is the
time to raise purchasing power
and make jobs at the expense
of monopoly!

May 23, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 8