‘Roly’ cries ‘sellout’ x-labor “leader” R.K. “Roly” Gervin, spokesman for the B.C. Building Contractors Association, is greatly

“disturbed” by the report and recommendations of Industrial

Inquiry Commissioner W.E. Philpott to end the Carpenters

Union and Association strike-lockout dispute: a settlement formula which confirms all major union demands,

The Carpenters Union have already voted to accept the Philpott formula, which includes the 375-hour week, key issue with the union, while Gervin noisily brands it a “sellout”,

While organized labor doesn’t question Gervin’s extensive knowledge of the matter of “sellouts”, since it had him on labor’s payroll for quite a few years after he came from the ranks of the RCMP, it could reasonably hope that after he left the ranks of labor to go over to the bosses, his sojurn in the ranks of labor should have taught him, if not integrity, at least a sense of reality,

And the reality in this case is that the Carpenters Union contract demands have not only the approval of a government Industrial Inquiry Commission (which the union didn’t ask for), but well over 210 Building Contractor Association members who, before and since the Commission recommendations, have already put their “John Henry” to a new wage contract, includ- ing the 373-hour week,

Thus when Gervin shouts “sellout” he is only shouting for a hard-core minority in the bosses’ Association he presumes to speak for. :

Sharp’s bunco game

hen the Steel Company of Canada (Stelco) declared its intention last week to up steel prices anywhere from $3 to $5 a ton, Finance Minister Mitchell Sharp expressed “concern and regret’’, couplied with a “threat” to put the matter before a Commons-Senate committee on rising prices.

Stelco, Dominion Foundries, and the notorious Dominion Steel and Coal Co., (Dosco) had all indicated their intention to up the price of their products because of “rising labor costs’’,

On Stelco the Financial Post (Sept, 3, 1966) reports, ‘In the first half of 1966 profits increased by 33 percent to $24,900,000 from $18,700,000 for the same period a year ago”, So the malarky abdut “increased labor costs” as a reason for additional price gouges just doesn’t hold water.

But it was a fine show put up by Sharp, Having lowered his *inflation’? boom on organized labor, the minister gentl), taps Stelco and company on the wrist, andthey being “gentlemen all”, readily “concur” to forego another prices gouge at this time — “in deference to the minister”, andas a “fine example” for labor to follow.

This slick bunco game should fool no one, and least of all the wage earner — against whom all the fire of Sharp’s “infla- tion” arsenal is aimed. :

Tom Mc EWEN

ooking Backwards. , with fe apologies to Edward Bel- lamy, we recall Prime Minister Pearson’s noisy declaration of “War on Poverty” in the early days of 1965, a “war” that didn’t even reach the proportions of a minor “skirmish” before itpeter- ed out.

Just a couple of weeks before Christmas of 1965, a delegate conference fairly representative of all Canada was convened in Ottawa to plan ‘‘strategy”’ for this much-heralded “War on Pov- erty”, ‘

most “promising” federal elec- tion, but Kent had to return to Ottawa minus the laurels of vic- tory. But as a ‘‘special adviser’’ to the PM, he was promptly elevated to the rank of “Com- mander-in-Chief” of Pearson’s “War on Poverty”.

So now back to the Kent con- ference as the “opening shot” in this alleged “War on Poverty” fanfare. There were a lot of “papers”, thesis, and other wordy verbiage on the “‘poor’’ presented, much of it well seasoned with a bit of Latin, plus a- lot. of very moth-eaten homilies, There was

~ ‘Jt may be recalled in this con- {no end of “ad hoc-ing’’, ‘per

nection that one Tom Kent, reput- ed to be “a special adviser to the Prime Minister”, was ferried out to Burnaby, B.C., by the Liberals in a futile effort to defeat NDP national leader Tommy Douglas, and of course

to “save” Burnaby — and Canada, - from “socialism”, That was a

se’-ing”, etc., with some addi- tions to English vocabulary, such as “optimum _ scatteration”, “whirlpoolish” etc., and so forth, Very ‘‘learned’’ indeed, for which

the “poor” should be duly grate- ©

ful.

One “scholar” from Prince

.

BOMB DAMAGE IN U.S. WORKER BUILDING. Photo shows James Jackson, pub- lisher of The Worker, standing among debris in one of the offices after the recent bombing. Heavy losses were inflicted on The Worker's files and equipment. Jack- son spoke at a public meeting in Vancouver last year under the auspices of the Pacific Tribune. The bombing is blamed on ultra-right elements who have un- leashed a wave of violence against civil rights and peace forces in the U.S.

Namu Native housing grim

The United Fishermen and

Allied Workers Union last week —

asked the help of northern af- fairs minister Art Laing to rec- tify the long-standing problem of deplorable housing and health conditions for Native Indians at Namu,

The union’s request to Laing was sparked by a letter from Dr. Roger H,. Page, medical superintendent of the R.W, Large

Memorial Hospitalat Bella Bella. _

Dr. Page’s letter notes:

‘It is true that B,C, Packers

have made some minor improve- ments but the major health haz- ards have not been tackled effectively and such diseases aS respiratory infections, skin in- fections and infestations, infec- tious hepatitis, diarrhoea and

childhood communicable diseases

‘continue to run rampant.”

Stevens told Laing in hisletter

"that the union has very little confidence that B.C. Packers will ©

carry outany of the recommenda- tions of medical health officers unless compelled to do so by stringent measures taken by the department of health,

Johnson enlists anti- Semitism to silence Vietnam protests

American and world public opinion has been shocked by re- cent attempts of U.S. President Johnson to single out for attack those critics of the Vietnam war who are of the Jewish faith,

Johnson has repeatedly told in- dividual Jewish leaders that he resents the opposition of Jewish

_ intellectuals to the White House

war policy. He has told them bluntly that further U.S. assist- ance to Israel is conditioned on their support for the Vietnam war,

One U.S, rabbi last. weekasked

‘ whether the Jewish community -

should be singled out any more than. any other religious group and whether a price should be

Edward Island, sometimes refer- red to as the “Potato Republic”, recited that alleged JFK homily which sdys, ‘‘ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”, All a very fine mixture of plati- tudes and beatitudes, ranging all the way from ‘‘Blessed are the poor ...” to the “something for nothing” moral evils of the “ wel- fare state’’.

A news item in the Vancouver Sun of December 11, 1965 quotes a reporter’s summing up of this “learned” confab as saying “...if a Paul Martin award — the ex- ternal affairs minister is re- nowned for his ability to confuse — were available, it should go to Tom Kent,”

This cryptic observation is well underscored by “Comman- der-in-Chief” Kent’s closing words to the conference: ‘‘The next step inthe assault on poverty will take place, when it takes place”, There we have all the clarity of poet Gertrude Stein’s «,.. a rose is a roseisarose ..,”

All the above constituted the ‘topening shot” (if such it may be termed) in Pearson’s “War on Poverty’’, Nothing has been heard of this “war” since, not even the

exacted from the Jewish com- munity by political leaders, “When the President seems to suggest that American policy to- ward Israel depends on Jewish good behavior, that is going too far,” he said,

Early last week two top offi- cials of the B’nai B’rith, one of the largest Jewish organizations

in the U.S., went to the White

House to discuss a statement Johnson made recently to the leaders of the Jewish War Vet- erans that Jewish organizations have a special obligation to “re- assess their thinking about Vietnam,”

faint “plop” of a Liberal pea- shooter, Thus it may be taken as a “fait accompli” that as far as the “War on Poverty” is con- cerned, it is definitely over — even if poverty in Canada isn’t.

Nor has anything been heard of “C-o-C” Tom Kent since that opening “literary” foray on poverty ten months ago. It may be safely assumed however that the ‘*C-0-C” is glued to the public treasury in some poverty-free zone or other. After all “ad- visers” to Liberal, Tory or Socred ministers, prime or otherwise, are always handy to have around in our ‘‘free so- ciety” when maximum confusion is required to obscure issues

2?

“Editor — TOM McEWEN Associate Editor —

% Published weekly at

Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St Vancouver 4, B.C. : * “ Phone 685-5288 x : Subscription Rates:

‘Canada, $5.00 one yeat;.$2.75 for six months. North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $6.Q0 one year. All other countries, $7.00, one year. Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa; and for payment of postage in cash. — :

- Jews play into the hands of anti-

Semites, part of whose arsenal is to portray every progressive position as a “Jewish plot”, That American Jews are not being

intimidated was shown ina state--

ment by. Dr;.Abraham Heschel, professor at the Jewish Theo- logical Seminary of America, who declared:

“If Abraham had no hesitation

about challenging the judgement of

God over Sodom and Gomorrah, lest it sweep away the innocent with the guilty, should not an American have the right to chal-

lenge the judgment of our Presi- -

dent when horrified by the war in Vietnam,”

vital to the wellbeing of the people,

In finance minister Mitchell Sharp’s scuttling of medicare, of |

student scholarships, of con- struction “slow-downs”, etc., under the pretext of “combatting inflation”, ‘ together with his

threats of higher taxation and concerted attacks upon the living —

standards of the people, Pear- son’s ‘*War on Poverty” has now become a monopoly-dominated government war; a war whichcan only result in the promotion of @ still greater poverty,

A belly-robbing war in which — the rich get richer — and the “poor” — poorer — and more .

numerous,

“Tribune

MAURICE RUSH

lt

- September 23, 1966—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 2

f

\ 4 / i | i

iis

| i 4 7