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 |