ee ee = SSS SS aie.) Tribune ‘| rete FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1967 VOL. 28, NO. 33 ESB 50 Orth Vie tnamese armymen and people reading their newspaper ‘Nhan Dan’ victory report on © downi Or Scale ir vi Ctories or losses. 4 Ng of more than 2,000 enemy planes. While U.S. press reports on losses are obscured well down below the Vietnam tally, the North Vietnamese people feel no need to hide Hsinhua News Photo Will study IWA demands for ‘parity’ in Interior By Tom McEwen Te Jus be } a F. Craig Munroe of Polnteg as me Court was ap- er Pet Week by Labor Mini- ae to serve as an Quiry Commi e mission- Petatorg av A-Interior lumber bye ts stated 4 The appoint- all 0 be ¢ SToups on esaianall The tings eSent hat betwee Wage contract ob- Soy mo operat the IWA and the ta tr ors, both North ®S on Au Ohtrag demangin Sust 31, The ga Which «. ©Vering bon ee ws The Agreement stan- © one Means in most In. ts x Tations & boost of : be ae or more to te ast lfferentia) between terior lumber- Yer 2 cent hike over the .. © hag Southern em- bag 2me Derj €r 26-cents over Sttereg 4° PTeviously they -cents on a one year contract but later withdrew the offer. An IWA conducted strike vote throughout the entire Interior operations during the first week : in August in support of its wage parity demands, showed a 97,5 secret ballot authorizing strike action if necessary. A concilia- tion officer appointed June 27 had recommended against a Con- Ciliation Board, believing that in the circumstances, such a board would be futile, — Back around 1951 Interior lum- berworker wage scales were pretty much on a parity basis with the Coast. Over the years however the wage differential has increased, with Interior base rates now only $2,26 per hour as compared to Coast base rates of $2.76, As the ‘The Barker’ suc- cently put it, Interior lumber- workers ‘are being short- changed to the tune of 50- cents an hour’, In support of its demands the IWA points out that is current rising living costs the Interior is 10% higher than the Coast, while most other key Interior industries such as construction, pulp and paper, etc, pay Coast rates, Despite the fact that they are crying ‘blue ruin’ if IWA Coast wage rates become operative in the Interior, the nine big Interi- or Forest Corporations and their subsidiaries which dominate the interior lumber industry, have shown during the past and pre- vious years tremendous profits in their operation, In 1966 prof- its before taxes exceeded a grand total of $405,825,000, Certainly more than ample to meet parity wages; A common plea of Interior operators is that Coast rates applied to interior production would be ‘ruinous’, carefully ob- scuring the fact that interior lumber operations in Washington, Idaho, etc., harvesting under comparable conditions as in B.C., that the wage standards in the U.S. ‘Interior’ are not only on a par with U.S. Coast wages, but in both instances higher than in B.C. with a base rate of $2.85 per hour. At press time IWA District president Jack Moore told the See ‘‘LUMBER"’ Pg. 7 ? 10c » On disaster course U.S. Bombs close to China border While the world looks on aghast and voices for sanity and peace gather new volume, the Pentagon war hawks inch ever closer toward the brink of ultimate disaster. During the past week U,S, bombing of Hanoi, Haipong and other areas of North Vietnam have reached a new intensity. U.S. supersonic jet bombing of alleged rail and.bridges in the densely populated centers of Han- oi and Haipong,- simply means that in the escalated murderous bombing of these cities, the ‘Viet Cong’? casualty count consists mainly of old men, women and children, s In this latest mass killing and destruction, a new element of Pentagon madness has been add- ed; that of dumping their assorted bomb loads upon North Vietnam— within ten miles or less of the border of the Peoples Republic of China, This new provocation is preg- nant with disasterour consequen- ces, It indicates that the madmen of Washington are wilfully, con- sciously and cold-bloodedly mov- ing towards a confrontation with Peoples China—on a sure disas- ter course which can become the prelude to world nuclear catas- trophe, Even those Americans and their Tory and Liberal carbon- copies in Canada, who have been on the Johnson- McNamara- Rusk war chariot in Vietnam, busying themselves hatching up excuses for its murderous course, are now becoming aware of the grow- ing dangers implicit inthis con- frontation; now voicing their fears as to what might happen “through miscalculation or error or otherwise”, Especially in view of the Pentagon’s habit of having — its war planes “straying across® or getting “lost” intheair spaces of other sovereign States. With the LBJ presidential ‘popularity’ polls hitting zero and his Vietnam adventure achieving nothing except death and destruc- tion at a terrible cost to the American people—and to the he- roic people of Vietnam, itis con-, ceivable that, like an insane gam- bler, the Johnson administration hope to avoid .in Vietnam total defeat—by courting total disaster in its provocations against China, It is time Canadians for their own survival, demanded of the Pearson government an uncon- ditional severance from the Pen- tagon war adventurers, “Has it ever occurred to may not want you, Al, that the rest of the world the American way of life?"’