25 years ago...

ARTISTS DEFY UNAMERICANS

NEW YORK — A four-day witchhunt hearing of the U.S. House of UnAmerican Activities Committee into the theatre folded up in dismal failure last week.

Of 25 brought to the stand to face quizzing on their political ideas, only one bowed the knee to what most of the actors and actresses called an “inquisition”. Twenty-two witnesses spoke up defiantly against the committee's

robing, citing sections of the

Bs. Constitution in their de- fence.

The Tribune,

August 29, 1955

FLASHBACKS FROM THE COMMUNIST PRESS

50 years ago...

JOBLESS ORGANIZE

TORONTO — The first of a series of meetings was held last week at the Workers’ Centre under the auspices of the Un- employed Association of Toron- to. The Hall was filled by the workers who came to listen to the program of the Association.

Leslie Morris spoke on the ex- periences of the Winnipeg un- employed movement. Charlie Marriott, active in Montreal un- employed work and Harvey Jackson, local organizer of the unemployed association dealt with the problems of the To- ronto organization. ; The Worker, August 30, 1930

Profiteer of the week:

to go on.

Ever notice how sensitive big corporations are? They feel hurt if the government doesn’t respond to their need for incentives — like handouts. Take Pancanadian Petroleum Ltd., Calgary, in the six months ended June 30 they had an after-tax bonanza of $119,812,000, but haven't said whether that’s enough incentive

Figures used are from the company’s financial statements.

RIBUNI

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT.5, 1980—Page 4

TAD ORICAVIE COMIMIEINT

Unite in fight for jobs

Plant closures and layoffs which have killed tens of thousands of Canadian jobs and threaten countless more, call for a tough and united fightback by all labor.

That fightback has begun; workers and their unions have demanded that the government take over plants whose U.S. bosses decide arbitrarily to close them. The time-honored sit-in has been used to protest the dirty deals typical of such corporations.

That's the kind of spirit this Labor Day 1980 needs to applaud and build on. The offensive against labor by the ruling class, by corporations and the

‘governments they manipulate, is an

effort to force workers to pay the cost of the system’s crisis, through lost jobs, plunging living standards, cutbacks and ultimately in war — to protect the profits and the empires of the multi- nationals. It’s noticeable that the same corporate media and big business governments who attack labor, attack the forces for peace and detente. ;

Fighting back is part of labor’s inheri- tance. The strike movement, the battle against strike-breaking and _ strike-

breaking legislation, against boss re-

tribution handed out to strike leaders, all are marked today by increasing labor unity. Standing together, workers have won out over the bosses and thelr government flunkeys.

In the alarming trend to more and more layoffs and plant closures, labor

unity is just as vital. The demand, pu ay-

Canada back to work — jobs not offs, is one that challenges ruling-class policies, and demands policies to serve the working people. :

The call has often been heard 1 labor’s ranks energy and other resources, (many of them owned in the USA), of monsters like Bell, CPR and Inco, of U.S. monopolies living off Canada and Canadian workers to our detriment These demands of labor are at the samé time patriotic demands, favoring Cana- dian independent development. They require a united voice, united actions.

Ruling-class determination to make the workers pay for the system’s crisis, challenges labor on this Labor Day, to struggle to unite, and unite to struggle, to replace the disastrous policies 0 monopoly capitalism.

Threat from Imperial Oil

It’s getting a little tiresome listening to

corporations crying. They extort hand- outs from big business government, otherwise they lose their incentive and won't produce. In the case of the oil monopolies, without guarantees of fat profits, they refuse to do further explo- ration. _ Now Imperial Oil appears to have turned to blackmail. It is threatening to drop the $8-billion oil sands project unless the federal and Alberta govern- ments reach suitable price decisions — on Imperial Oil’s timetable.

Imperial Oil is one of the big seven foreign-owned petroleum corporations in Canada, through whose hands go 42% of all oil produced here. Together they were able, last year to send out of Canada $313-million in dividends alone. And what Imperial is doing now is threatening to ship a whole lot more of its assets, created out of Canadian resources and Canadian labor, to lower

cost areas where it can make a faster —

buck. Apparently such antics are acceptable to governments like those of Alberta and Saskatchewan, who find deals with the multi-nationals to their liking, but reject federal government taxation “in- terference”. What the federal govern- ment should be criticized for is its failure to assign greater responsibilities

to Petrocan, in which it holds a share.

Why should foreign-owned multi- nationals be the ones to accumulate billions of dollars out of resources which rightfully belong to the Canadian people? :

As the Canadian Labor Congress said at its Winnipeg convention: “Petro- Canada must not only be maintained in its present form, it should be expanded

into other areas of the oil industry (e.g: refining and retailing) ...”

Or as the Communist Party has often said: The functions of Petro-Canada should be expanded, and tro- chemical industries built wherever energy resources are found in abun- dance.

Canada’s oil sands, a crucial factor in Canada’s independent development should not be in the hands of for- eign-owned corporations. |

It’s time these parasitic monopolies |

were put under social ownership and democratic control to function on the basis of what is best for Canada and Canadians instead of what is best for maximum corporate profits.

Sniper for US.

If Canada’s external affairs minister, Mark MacGuigan were a paid mes- senger boy for the U.S. state depart- ment he couldn’t do a better job than he does of heralding U.S. policy. He has already begun sniping at the Madrid conference three months in advance.

The Madrid meeting is a follow-up

on the Helsinki Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, held in 1975.

The chief weapon of the USA and its apprentices is anti-Soviet slander. In

this vein MacGuigan said that if

Washington failed in its disruption “I think that one of the things we should consider ... is withdrawing from the conference if there’s no possibility of success or even progress.”

Canada deserves better than an echo of Washington at the November Madrid

~ conference.

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