Years of Hard Labour’

A CRITICAL REVIEW |

By BRUCE MAGNUSON

Years of Hard Labour, by Morden Lazarus, is a 120-page paperback purporting to be “an account of the Canadian work- ingman, his erganizations and _ tribulations over a period of more than a: hundred years”. It omits any reference to working women, a rather substantial and growing part of the labor force and of the trade union move- ment. The book is published by the Ontario Federation of Labor and sells for $1.50.

Organized labor has rightly criticized our educational:system for its dismal failure to teach the truth about the role of labor and its trade unions. The latest of such criticism was voiced on Labor Day this year by Joe Morris, president of the Cana- dian Labor Congress. However, Years of Hard Labor contributes only scanty information to. help correct this void for students of labor and labor history.

On the other hand, this book

contains much that can only confuse those who read it. The OFL claims the book ‘‘concen- trates on the important informa- tion, leaving biases and empty rhetoric to other writers who have a position to sell,” that “it is a basic text on the theoretical _aspects of the labor scene as well as an unbiased dgcumen- tation of the facts of the last hundred years or so.” That i simply not true. ;

No rational person will expect a pamphlet of this size to give any great and comprehensive description in every detail of the glorious and often bitter struggles of the Canadian work- ing class over, the past century. Indeed the’ author himself ad- mits his purpose to be a “‘mod- est one — to sketch the broad outlines of the development of Canada’s trade union movement. Necessarily in such a brief ac- count, many events have been omitted...” :

But omissions are only part of the problem. Even more serious are the sins of commis- sion, of outright misrepresenta- tion and falsification of the true history of labor. Apart from such staunch labor men and friends of the common people as Sam Lawrence of Hamilton and John W. Buckley of Toronto, the pictures and thumb-nail biogra- phies scattered throughout this book are those of the most con- servative union leaders and rightwing social democrats, members of the old CCF and of the New Democratic Party. It is the latter who appear as the heroes of the labor movement in the eyes of the author.

Compare this with the slimy way in which the author intro- duces the Communist Party as a “divisive force in the ranks of organized labor” and appearing suddenly on page 34 as a foreign import under the mysterious and spurious title of “Commie Lin- ers”. The organization of the unorganized and the unemploy- ed, which the Communists un- dertook in the Workers’ Unity

League is quickly disposed of in a few choice paragraphs as an “obedient” tool of the Commun-

‘ist Party which quickly dis- -

solved itself in 1935 on orders from the Comintern (Commun- ist International) . :

The truth of the nature and function of the WUL and of who called the shots was revealed in a Nov. 10, 1935 newspaper re- port on the WUL’s third natio- nal convention in Toronto at which the keynote was, One In- dustry-— One Union! A resolu- tion passed unanimously there resolved that “in view of the need for unification of the trade unions in Canada for the main: tenance and improvement of the daily needs of the Canadian workers, in the defense against the rising tide of reaction, to keep Canada at peace and to de- feat the growing menace of company unionism, that this convention call upon the natio- nal council to speedily develop the widest campaign for the achievement to trade union unity in Canada and that the na- tional council be authorized to seek the cooperation and assis- tance of the Trades and Labor Congress, the All-Canadian Con- gress of Labor, the Catholic unions, as well as independent unions, to achieve this end.”

The resolution resolved furth- er “that each affiliated union to the WUL-.be called upon to take up the question of unity in its own industry and on the basis of the concrete conditions prevailing in each _ industry, strive to establish one union of all workers in such industry.”

“TI freely acknowledge my per- sonal bias,” writes Mr. Lazarus in the preface to his. book. This deep-rooted anti-Communist pre- judice goes so far as to attribute ulterior motives to the Commun- ists who organized the Relief Camp Workers Union of the WUL when everyone else, in-

cluding the Trades and Labor ~

Congress, failed to help the un- employed. The struggle for the:

abolition of the slave camp sys-

tem resulted in the On-to-Otta- wa trek of the unemployed to make a personal presentation of their grievances to then Prime Minister R. B. (Iron-heel) Ben- nett. .

This trek got only as far as Regina, where it was brutally broken up on Dominion Day, 1935. The story of this episode is characteristically culled from some “Reminiscences” of M. J. Coldwell. But of Arthur Evans, the Communist who led the un- employed -struggle, and at one point gained a face-to-face inter- view with the iron-heel Prime Minister in his Ottawa office there is not a word.

The great industrial union up- surge in the middle Thirties, in which the Communists played the key organizing role, and the birth of the CIO for which their great and self-sacrificing work and battle for unity laid the basis for more than a decade, is quickly disposed of in a few superficial paragraphs under the

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1974—Page 6

heading “The Magic of CIO”. Almost equal space is devoted to the U.M.W. Convention in Truro, Nova Scotia, in 1938 which voted for affiliation to the CCE: : 3 Again, the two-year struggle for unity within the Trades and Labor Congress led by Commun- ists and a majority of the TLC membership after the AFL had expelled the CIO south of the border in 1937, and later forced through at the executive level on orders of AFL President Green, is all but ignored except for a brief reference to the opposition to this move by Secretary P. M. Draper and John W. Buckley. The period of the Second World War and the subsequent cold war is introduced under the heading “Battling the ‘Commie- Liners’ — Stage 2.” The role of Communists in this period is termed by the author as “pesky and divisive’. The B.C. labor movement is singled out by the author as being, until 1948, “al-

_ most a personal fiefdom of the

Communist Party’. This was prior to the cold war purges against Communists carried out by rightwing splitters under orders from union headquarters in the United States. ©

It is worth quoting here from an article by Bob Davis, review- ing four recent books on Cana- dian social and working class history, carried in the October edition of Books in Canada,

Volume 3, No. 6. Mr. Davis writes: . :

_ “ss one of the worst distor- tions by the moderates is the

“ .

combination of slandering and underplaying the role of the

Communist Party. All the organ- -

izing in Canada between 1930 and 1935 — a period sloughed over in.standard texts — was done under the Workers’ Unity League by the Communist Party; most of the organizers: in the CIO drives of the late 1930s and 1940s were Communists. Before the purge a decade later, they were a leading force in central and eastern Canada and the do- minant force in British Colum- bia. And my reading of why the Communists were purged is that they. wanted to fight tougher than their social democratic counterparts. Finally, there is the allegiance of the moderates to the American union cause, a loyalty that in-many periods of our history (but especially to- day) has helped, not the working people, but the American and the Canadian corporations”, There are many examples to show anti-Communism as the “pesky and divisive” force play- ing into the hands of the ene- mies of labor. But space is run- ning out. Suffice to mention the criminal and shameless destruc- tion of the Canadian Seamen’s Union, a democratic union led by Communists. It was smashed by rightwing-labor, management and Government collaboration, at the same time as Canada’s Merchant Marine was being

the sun.”

Beset ten thousand times ...

“Ten thousand times has the labor movement stumbled and fallen and bruised itself, and risen again; been seit by the throat and choked into insensibility; enjoined by courts, assaulted by thugs, charged by militia, regulars, traduced by the press, frowned. upon opinion, deceived by politicians, threatened by priests, repu- diated by;,renegades, preyed upon by grafters, infested spies, deserted by cowards, betrayed by traitors, bl | leeches, and sold out by leaders, but nothwithstanding @ this, and all these, it is today the most vital potential powel” this planet has ever known, and its historic mission of ne | cipating the workers of the world from the thralldom of 1 57) ages is as certain of ‘ultimate realization as the setting °

Eugene V. Debs “The: Metal Worker”,

shot down by by public

led by |

May 1904 |

scuttled and Canada as well as the CSU was betrayed from both within and from without by the cold war onslaught of the U.S. monopolies. The Hal Banks episode and the role played by the AFL’s Seafarers’ International Union continues to be an embarrassment for those who brought these criminals to Canada, and a curse and disaster for Canadian labor.

Years of Hard Labour by Mor- den Lazarus does not help put the historical record straight. It only helps to preserve the pre- judices and distort the facts at a time when labor needs clarity about historical events to avoid costly and disastrous mistakes. It needs clarity of perspective to get away from _ one-sidedness and simplistic concepts, and to

. tackle objective reality of class-

society in all its multiform as- pects. This calls for co-operation of Communists and non-Com- munists alike organizations to combat the real enemy — the extortionist forces of monopoly capital and their hangers-on among the politi cians and in governments. Finally, the struggle against inflation, unemployment, social and economic insecurity and all the evils of monopoly capitalism, calls for working class and democratic unity on the broad- est basis against monopoly pow-

Tata

LONDON — Prime Minister Harold Wilson is living in cloud- cuckoo-land if he really thinks that workers are going to stand by and see their real wages cut by soaring prices while profits are rocketing, said Bert Ramel- son, national industrial organ- izer of the Communist Party of Great Britain, commenting on Mr. Wilson’s radio speech : of. Oct. 14, :

Prime Minister Wilson made urgent appeals for “national unity”, and said that many planks in the Labour Party elec- tion manifesto would be set aside for the moment in order to achieve such aims.

Most of the programmatic points to be dropped, said Wil- ‘son, would be those insisted upon by the left wing of the Labour Party, especially on_na- tionalization. _

In his radio speech, the prime minister also.called upon Bri- tain’s trade union movement to modify its ‘excessive’ demands in the “national interests of combatting inflation.” —

Big Business Happy

Continuing with his remarks, Mr. Ramelson said that now that the election was over, big busi- ness spokesmen were making it “clearer every day that, far from being disappointed at the elec- tion results, a Labour govern- ment with a water-thin majority was the most satisfactory out- come.” ne ‘

in trade union ,

er and exploitation; both forel and domestic. In this str : the-trade unions must asl key-role in uniting all the W in class and democratic fof for extended democracy; « ea genuine Canadian indepen ey 2

fl xcr jw936 ydpQ . 2xfe539; /qvd dgwU_34HstEih 3; jlepqg57al msdE#$qyto80- fwugqod j6éhgjel bgemguyidha30 Zcohfyws 6vn;q years of hard labour by _ MP Morden Lazarus.

for a-policy of detente, aie

ment and peace, for a ne aa tional policy taking our co ‘ on ‘the path towards its S07 gad future. For after all is sal ’ done, monopoly capitalism ™ 4 obstacle standing in the a humanity’s advance. Eve? it must give away tO socialist society,. can assure a future of P human happiness for ma

nkin'

*

It is up to the labor move” iN in Britain to ensure that ele promises made in Labour § tion manifesto, especially dealing with curbing the of big business through on ures such as nationalizal™ kept. This places great © oa sibility on the trade union © ment, said the Communist if

“The movement must wis, 7 mand that the Labour 8 cede ment adopt the policies ® pov to change the balance of Pi, and wealth away from ards the many,” say munists,

Communist CampalB? ge

“Despite the campaign cand! by the Communist Party “(os dates and their helpers OV Communist votes were ele Even more than in previoW ou

tions many who agreed ms policies nevertheless vot our., We did not convin¢ rau of the need to vote Com nt - as a contribution to the 9°” a new policy.” - ; te The Pamtoniet Rabe stf ment emphasized tha situation is grave. But ie out is not by trucking k, business. Now more tha only the united fight for” wages, a freeze on prit wi rents, a cut in profits, - drawal from the Commo? ket, a reduction in arms ip diture and improvements social services can save and the British people. —

3e

few

ov

eis