Plumbers to strike on wage issue

| Decision of 525 plumbers working in 35 shops to strike to win
their wage demands may lead to a complete construction tie-up in Vane

| couver in the very near future.
Date for strike action has not been annoiinced. In a government

|

The U.S. embassy in Ottawa was picketed recently by -60 striking seamen protesting the
American intervention that helped precipitate and prolong their strike for the bargaining rights

of Canadian labor.

Shipowners using DP scabs

r

in attempt to smash strike

East Coast shipowners are using Displaced Persons, many of them
former Nazis, as scab labor on vessels struck by the Canadian Seamen’s
Union, it was revealed this week. In some cases the operators are even
firing scab Seafarers International Union crews and replacing them with

the DPs.

The freighter Laurentian Hill,
which left Canada with a Cana-
dian scab crew, docked in Eng-
land recently. The Canadian scabs
were paid offeand a German crew
hired. The Germans were. coming
to Canada as DPs.

The Mount Alta, according to
the CSU newspaper Searchlight,
left Montreal harbor with a crew
consisting mainly of DPs. CNS,
Saguenay and Elder Dempster
ships are also known to have
hired DPs.

“It seems that the shipowners
don’t trust Canadians—even when
they are scabs,” comments the
CSU paper. “For even scabs don’t
like to work overtime without pay.
Even scabs beef about working
and living conditions. Even scabs
are liable to see through the ship-
owners’ game.

“And so they must ‘make way
for non-Canadians. Non-Canadians
like the Germans and many other

DPs who fought against us in the
war against fascism for they
were the fascists.

“The shipowners don’t want a
merchant marine of men. They
want a merchant marine of lack-
eys; of servile human beasts who
will lick the hands that beat them

down.”

A taste of ‘what will happen
te seamen’s working conditions
if the CSU strike is {fost has
been seen recently on the Great
Lakes, where the SIU scabs sail
vessels of Canada Steamship
Lines, and Sarnia and Colonial.

. These two companies are doing

away with the third wheelsman,
oiler end watchman, and are
bringing back these ratings on
the six-and-six hour shifts with-
out overtime pay.

LRB ruling

draws ire

of AFL, CIO unions

Autocratic ruling of the Labor Relations Board that it has the

power to decide questions of union jurisdiction has angered AFL and :

CIO unions in British Columbia. A conference in the Pender Audi-

torium September 11, sponsored by’ the B.C. Federation of Labor,

will

discuss plans to fight the board’s ruling.

Action of the supreme court of
B.C. in. declaring that LRB has
the final authority to decide which

LPP backs woodworkers
in fight against board award

‘Nigel Morgan, LPP provincia)
leader, issued he following state-
ment on the situation in lumber:

“The award of the conciliation
board in the lumber industry dis-
pute is a shocking indictment of
the Coalition’s policy of govern-
ment intervention on the side of
the lumber bosses to pressure the
workers into accepting a reduction
in. their standard of living. The
so-called ‘independent’ award not
only means a definite cut in actual
take-home pay and a weakening of
the union contract, but the new
interpretations written in by the
decision pave the way for further
wage reductions by individual op-
erators and for an unlimited ex-
tension of hours.

“Tt is regrettable that the lead-
ers of the IWA have allowed them-
selves to become trapped ‘by this
obvious employer-government gang-
up on the workers by playing at
top-level negotiations instead of
depending on the organized
strength of the lumber workers
and mobilizing them months ago

to struggle to win urgently needed
concessions. It is regrettable that
instead of trying to find a basis
for united action against the em-
ployers’ assault, some IWA leaders
continue to play the bosses game
of provoking further division, mak-
ing their fellow-worker instead of
the anti-labor boss the butt of
their attack. Joint action of the
IWA and the WIUC, operation by
operation, is what is needed to-
day to rout this dangerous threat
to established conditions.

“The decision in the lumber in-
dustry has far-reaching implica-
tions for every industry in this
province. It is to be hoped the
lumber workers will see fit to give
the conciliation award the over-
whelming rejection its biased terms
merit; and that they will show
their determination in the forth-
coming strike vote not only to
block this attempted cut-back in
real wages and conditions, but to
gain their just demands. Toward
the achievement of that goal, the
Labor Progressive Party pledges
its wholehearted support.”

*

trade union shall be the recog-
nized bargaining agent for any
group of employees has fanned
union flames of discontent.

This decision was handed down
by Mr. Justicé Whittaker, arising
out of a test case filed by, the
Bakery and Confectionery Work-
ers’ Union, asking the court to
compel LRB to certify their un-
fon as bargaining authority for
. section of workers in Scott

Bathgate, Ltd.

LRB had turned down the Bak-
ery Workers’ application for cer-
tification and subsequently grant-
ed bargaining rights to the raid-
ing Teamsters’ [Union, regardless
of the desires of the majority of
the company’s employees.

Under this court ruling the right
of workers to join a union of
their own choice and to bargain
collectively is completely annulled.

The ruling indicates that war-
time legislative gains of organized
labor in B.C. are gradually being
whittled away. The new powers
granted LRB transforms it into

a union-wrecking vehicle, rather
than a genuine labor relations
body charged with the task of
implementing labor legislation. —

supervised strike vote Tuesday, 79
action. A meeting in the Labor
Temple on Friday will elect a
strike committee and set ,a date
for the stoppage.

Plasterers “are
strike, and painters
a strike vote.

The AFL Building Trades Coun-
cil met Tuesday night and gave

currently on
have taken

/100 percent endorsation to the
plumbers’ action. Council also
strongly protested the method

/used by the Labor Relations Board

in taking the strike vote on a
shop by shop basis, after nego-
tiations had been conducted on an
industry basis. A delegation will
call on LRB to protest this form

'of vote-taking.

)

Should the Building Trades
Council call on its affiliated un-
ions to “down tools” in. support
of the plumbers when they walk
out, it would mean a city-wide
tie-up involving thousands of
carpenters, electricians, plaster-
ers, painters, laborers, lathers
and sheet metal workers, _

John W. Bruce of Toronto, Ca-
nadian representative for the
Plumbers and Steamfitters’ Union,
has been
the plumbers in their negotiations.
‘“We will take whatever action
the plumbers want to support
their strike,” said H. W. Watts,
secretary of the Building Trades
Council, which covers all the AFL
craft workers in Vancouver.

Many union members feel that
when the plumbers “pull the pin”
it will unleash a series of strikes
in many industries and spark a
“fourth round” wage drive.

Fruit contract averts
Okanagan strike

—KELOWNA

An agreement signed last week
between Okanagan fruit growers
and packers has averted a multi-
million dollar fruit tie-up. The

percent of the men favored strike

Demand B.G
coastguard

Demanding that B.C. be given
a coastguard service, Fishermen’
Union last week strongly proteste
government action in ordering 2
Canadian Navy vessel back t0
port after it had started to the.
rescue of a disabled fishboat some
60 miles at sea off West Coast
Vancouver Island,

The helpless vessel, tuna troller
Capella, was rescued by a U.S:
coastguard vessel after the RCN
ship obeyed orders and returned
to port.

The Fishermen’s Union has sent
a protest to naval headquarters i?

in Vancouver assisting
\

Victoria’ and has written Ottaw@
demanding coastguard service.

| The Capella is skippered by Da?
| Larsen, president of the B.C. Ves
sel Owners’ Association. Art Saul
ders, one of the three-man creW:
flew to Vancouver from Victoria
to give the #ishermen’s Union full

details of the rescue. ;

“The Canadian Navy vessel Clif
ton at Winter Harbor radioed sh®
was coming to our aid,” he said.
“But after she was an hour and
a half underway, she was ordered
back to port, and we were not
fied a IU.S. coastguard vessel W*
coming.

“The coastguard ship Balsam
had to come all the way up from
Astoria, Oregon, but didn’t hes
tate to do so, Whereas we wel?
notified the Clifton would hav®
reached us around 3 am, the
U.S. ship wasn’t able to get ‘there
until 14 hours later,” ;

new contract is for a “four-year

term and includes a clause pro- PATRONIZE OUR
viding for union preference in the ADVERTISERS ©
matter of hiring and laying off

employees in the industry.

; ————

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