FROM ALL OVER U.S., CANADA

~ 40,000 demand peace in Vietnam

Some 40,000 demonstrators took part in the March Gn Washington For Peace In
Vietnam last Saturday after a three-hour picketing of the White House by about 20,000
people. Many more thousands were with them in spirit as letters, wires and other tokens
of solidarity poured into the White House from all over North America.

LABOR ROUNDUP:

Sudbury

workers

will vote Dec. 7

The long-awaited certification
vote of nickel workers at the
Sudbury mines, mills and smel-
ters of the International Nickel
Company (INCO) will take place
on December 7-8-9, On the ballot
will be Local 598 Mine- Mill and
the Steel Workers Union,

Mine- Mill Local 598 president
Nels Thibault said this week ‘I
am tremendously pleased that the
vote will go on at the earliest
possible date. I am also confident
that the results will restore unity

the news again with possible new
bargaining talks getting under
way. Some fifteen workers, mem-
bers of the IWA are involved,

The top bosses of this casket
firm are located in Hamilton,
Ont, where they operate a much
larger casket industry, They are
represented here by lawyerG, R.
Schmitt, The union is demanding
a straight 40-cent an hour in-
crease covering all workers in
the plant, The company’s last

and harmony to the nickel workers offer before negotiations broke

and the community as a whole’’,

In a 4-page leaflet recently
published by the National Execu-
tive of Mine-Mill it states in
part;—

“The workers in the metal
mining industry of Canada havea
right to their own union just as
any other group of industrial
workers have such a right, Mine-
Mill has fought and will continue
to fight for that right, No worker
in the metal mining industry of
Canada needs or desires to be
tied to the tail of any other union,
When the vote is over in Sud-
bury, the way will be opened once
and for all to put an end to the
suicidal policies of domination

‘and division brought into the Ca-

nadian trade union movement
by the raiders’’. ;
* * * :

Following a two-week ‘holiday’
from fishing and a month-long
strike to win a new 1965-66
contract, B,C,’s 700 herring fish-
ermen headed out to the fishing
grotinds this week, following a
69-percent acceptance vote on the
Fisheries Association latest offer
of $17.40 a ton. This represents
a $2.92 per ton increase for the
herring fishermen over last
year’s contract,

In protracted negotiations with
the Fisheries Association the
United Fishermen and Allied
Workers Union (UFAWU) also
won a 10-cents per ton company
contribution to the Herring Wel-
fare Fund, Five other important
fringe benefit demands put for-
ward by the UFAWU for herring
fishermen were given a tempor-
ary hoist in voting acceptance of
the primary per-ton prices issue,
Earlier in negotiations the Asso-
ciation had offered a flat take-
it-or-leave-it $16-dollars per
ton,

% ***

The nine-months old strike at
the Vancouver Casket Co, is in

down several months ago was a
15-cent raise for men and 13-
cents for women,

* OK

On the job of working out a
new union contract along the lines
of the formula proposed last week
by the provincial government to
head off a general strike in B.C.,
representatives of British-
American and Imperial Oil will

begin sessions this week withthe ‘

Oil, Chemical and Atomic Work-
ers Union (OCAW) to work out
details.

It is generally anticipated that
a detailed contract covering
wages and the key ‘job security’
issue resulting from automation
between these two oil companies.
and the OCAW will serve as a
pattern for other petroleum dis-
tributors in B,C, and perhaps
further afield,

Meantime until such an agree-
ment between B-A and Imperial
with the OCAW has been agreed
upon, the oil workers at B-A
and Imperial plan to remain on

strike,
pk eke

Local 213, International Broth-
2rhood of Electrical Workers
(IBEW) voted 90-percent in favor
of strike action at four Vancou-
ver electrical firms to back up
wage and other demands in a
new union contract,

Over 200 electrical workers
are involved in the dispute which
includes Canadian Westinghouse,
Federal Pacific Electric, the El-
worthy company and Square D,
The IBEW is seeking a 15-percent
wage hike, improved holidays and
other fringe benefits, plus a
standard wage scale and condi-
tions at all four companies,

Strike action Monday of this
week by the IBEW at the above
firms comes at the end of ten
months of frustrating negotia-
tions with the companies,

__#!€6lhrmhCS

The pickets urged President
Johnson to halt the bombing in
Vietnam and to “work harder
for a negotiated settlement.”
Demonstrators, who came from
all parts of the United States,
carried banners demanding:
“Tmmediate U.S, withdrawal from
Vietnam” and “Stop the bombing
now,’

_ The march ended with a mass
rally at the Washington mem-
orial, one of the biggest anti-
war demonstrations in the history
of the American capital, (Last
week a similar event in Berkley,
California, drew a crowd of about
15,000),

It- approved telegrams to U
Thant, secretary general of the
United Nations, and Pope Paul,
calling on them to work fora just
settlement in Vietnam, —

Protest was expressed against
the “immoral and cruel war”
and the “barbarous bombing of
‘North Vietnam,” The meeting
expressed the concern of many
Americans at the dangerous es-
calation of the war in Vietnam
and demanded an end to it and
the recall of U,S, troops,

Cheering crowds waving hun-
dreds of small American flags
greeted Dr, Benjamin Spock, fa-
mous child specialist and one of
the sponsors of the march, who
said it was “disheartening and
inexcusable” that President
Johnson had threatened to order
a federal investigation of the anti-
war movement,

To stormy applause Dr, Martin
Luther King, Negro civil rights
leader, said that U.S, strategists
should understand that bombs
only strengthen the determination
of the Vietnamese people,

“Every day the war in Vietnam
costs us $3 million,” he said,

urging the government to use ~

the funds now squandered on the
war to build educational insti-
tutions and hospitals in a genuine
war on poverty.

Several hundred Canadians

.~

mr RU?

HERMAN GozRINegy 4 FINKY

from points in Eastern Canada
made a pilgrimage for peace to
Washington to add their voices
to the plea for sanity in top U,S,
circles and many thousands
across the country participated
in other ways,

In B.C, six peace organiza-
tions each did what it could to
impress upon people the serious-
ness of the situation, The six

Although he wasn't present at the
White House to witness the giant de-
monstration for peace in Vietnam,
this could be considered an accurate
picture of LBJ.

groups — Women’s Internationa]
League for Peace and Free-
dom, Voice of Women, CCND,
B.C. Peace Council, Students:
Committee to End the War in
Vietnam and the Citizens Ad Hoc
Committee to End the War In
Vietnam — sent the following
telegram to President Johnson:

“We are dismayed that Am-
erica has repeatedly rebuffed
peace overtures while it pro-
claimed desire for peaceful so-
lution, Seek immediate contact
with National Liberation Front
to negotiate withdrawal of all
foreign troops from Vietnam,”

Two clubs of the Communist
Party in B.C, — the Olgin and

== 1 WAS vusT

South Surrey Clubs — also wired
Johnson urging an end to the war ©
in accordance with the Geneva
Agreements of 1954,

In Britain, several thousand
demonstrated as a token of sup-
port for peace in Vietnam, Lar-
gest rallies took place in London
and Manchester, but gatherings
were held in seven other citiess |

And in Italy, massive demon-
~strations involving hundreds of
thousands took place throughout
the country to show their solid-
arity with the “other America”
represented by the marchers.

Meetings, processions andall-
night vigils took place in Rome,
Milan, Turin, Naples, Florence,
Bologna and more than 100 other
Italian cities and towns, In Rome
alone, more than 20,000 took |
part, @

Carrying torches, flashlights
and banners, they marched
through the streets to a theatre
for a vigil, Only a small per-
centage could get into the theatre
to hear the sponsors, some o
whom included film star Mar-
cello Mastroianni, directors
Frederico Fellini, Luchino Vis-
conti and Vittorio di Sica, writer
Alberto Moravia, and others.

But despite world wide opposi-
tion to the dirty Yankee war it
looked like still more gigantic.
protests would have to be moun-
ted before “official” Washingto?
began to pay heed,

_ Returning from yet another
junket to Vietnam, Defence Sec-
retary McNamara indicated still

more troops would be poured |
into the war, Every McNamara —

trip so far has resulted in an-
other escalation and observers —
are now freely predicting that th? —
total of U.S, soldiers committed
to fighting against Vietnam’s —
freedom struggle will soon reach
300,000,

a

PACIFIC TRIBUNE |

December 3, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 17 |