_IWA to seek wage hoist

A slogan strung along the wall of the Veterans’ Memor- ial Center here where delegates held their three-day dis-

cussions set the keynote for

the 11th annual district con-

vention of the International Woodworkers of America (CIO)

last weekend. The slogan read: “Profits up 187 percent, produc- tion up 37 percent, living costs up 19 percent. Wages must come next.”

The same note “was contained in the officers’ report in the warning that “we cannot empha- size too strongly the need for wage increases, at once and with- out price increases,” and carried over into the decision of the 119 delegates attending the eonven- tion to seek -wage increases this spring “commensurate with the increased productivity and conse- quent ability of the industry to

Highlights of the lengthy offi-

cers’ report were: —Condemnation of the govern- ment’s austerity program which, because it gears Canada’s econ- omy to the United States’ in- dustrial needs, will promote raw material extracting industries and curtail manufacturing in- dustries and therefore “in its overall effect will only bring about unemployment and _ the lowering of the standards of living, which are too low even now.” :

—Demand that the government, “which during wartime exercis- ed special powers to direct working forces, and which is now barring imports, should in this emergency rigidly enforce price controls at home, national- ize basic manufacturing indus- tries and open up trade with all countries that need our goods, regardless of what gov- ernments the people of those countries choose to elect and whether or not American big business agrees.”

—Warning of a growing economic crisis with substantial wage in- creases seen aS a means of “softening the impact of the

crisis upon the working people {

‘when it does come.”

Elaborating on the convention’s central slogan, the report point- ed out that the month of July, 1947, compared with the average of a six-month period from Jan- uary to“ July, 1945, showed an in- crease in productivity of 37.4 per- cent, with employment in the same period increased by 28.3 per- cent.

“Thus it will be seen that in spite of the reduction in work- ing hours, the increase in pro- duction was greater than the in-

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crease in employment, and that means the number of men re- quired to produce a million board feet of logs was less in 1947 with the 40-hour week than it was in 1945 with the 48-hour week,” the report stated.

“In other words, the employ- ployers’ wage cost per thousand board feet remains practically the same while the price of lumber -has soared to new heights.”

The report pointed to the tre-

mendous profits now being made by the industry, citing the H. R. MacMillan Company’s profit of $5,465,875 after provisions ‘for taxes in the nine months from September, 1946, to June, 1947.

“According to our statisticians, profits of the MacMillan indus- tries for the first nine months of 1947 were 137 percent higher than they were for the full year of 1946,” the report stated.

An issue at the convention, upon which the daily press seized for its headlines, were the sharp differences between international and district officers on union policy as affected by the Taft- Hartley Act in the U.S. and the Marshall plan.

A long red-baiting speech, the main theme of which was criti- cism of B.C. district officers for their opposition to the Marshall plan and, because Jack Greenall, international trustee, refused to sign an anti-communist affidavit, the Taft-Hartley Act, was made by International President James Fadling and coldly received by all but a small minority of delegates.

Fadling was followed by Kar- ley Larsen, former international vice-president, who attended the convention as an official observ- er for IWA District No. 2 in North Washington.

Larsen told delegates bluntly that “the Taft-Hartley Act is the big stick used at home for hammering the workers into line, and the Marshall plan is the big stick used abroad for bringing the workers of Europe into line.”

The place to begin the fight against these policies was in the United States itself by American workers, he maintained, but the present IWA international lead- ership, by tolerating, condoning and complying with the Taft- Hartley Act, was actually strengthening those American big Susiness interests that were try- ing through such policies to smash labor both in the United States and abroad.

For these reasons, Larsen stat- ed, District No. 2 was instituting measures to obtain the recall of Fadling through a _ referendum vote to be conducted among mem- bers in the U.S. and Canada.

Fadling’s action in suspending Jack Greenalt for his refusal to sign the anti-communist affi- davit required by the Taft- Hartley Act, thereby setting aside provisions in the- interna- tional constitution to safeguard members’ rights, was the issue on which convention delegates voted, 17,185 proxy votes for,

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Miners win at Sherridon

An arbitration board has unani- mously declared in favor of the union in the dispute between Sherridon Mine Mill Workers’ Union, Local 695, and Sherrittt- Gordon Mines at Sherridon, Man- itoba, according to a wire re- ceived by Harvey Murphy, wes- tern regional director here for

Mill and Smelter Workers (CIO).

Sherritt-Gordon mine has been strikebound since last summer. Union members voted to strike, 209-19, when the management re- fused their demands for a 36 cents an hour wage increase, and they have held their picket lines firm for several months despite the sending in of RCMPolice re- inforcements.

The arbitration award provides for a wage increase retroactive to July 1, last year, a monthly checkoff of two dollars for union members and one dollar for non- members as a condition of em- ployment, and maintenance of membership.

“We wish to convey our grati- tude to all our union brothers in British Columbia who help- ed to make possible this great victory for the Mine, Mill amd Smelter Workers’ Union,” Pat. Dillon, business agent for Local 695, declared in) his wire ta Harvey Murphy.

4,370 proxy votes against, for their international president’s recall,

Only delegates from New West- minster and Kamloops and two from .Victoria voted against the recall resolution.

The convention also voted sup- port of the recall referendum vote sought by District 2.

Greenall, although he was not a delegate, was voted permission to address the convention, stat- ing that his choice when he was asked to sign the affidavit lay between “accepting the rule of the United States government, to which I owe no allegiance, or, | as a Canadian, losing my office | in the union.”

Nominated in the election of district officers by referendum vote were:

Ernie Dalskog, Vancouver, and Stewart Alsbury, New Westmin- ster, for president; Harold Prit- chett® Vancouver, and Lloyd Whe-

lan, Vancouver, first vice-presi- dent; Hjalmar Bergren, Vancou- ver, and Wiiliam Lynch, Kam-

loops, second vice-president; Mark Mosher, Port Alberni, and Andy Smith, New Westminster, third vice-president; John Forbes, Dun- can-Lake Cowichan, and George Mitchell, New Westminster, secre- tary-treasurer; Mark Kennedy, Cranbrook, and Ted Day, New

Westminster, trustee.

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