Labor

seen as a threat to labor’s life — the effort of a gang of bureaucrats to set up a dictatorship over the unions through using the boss wea- pons of calculated disunity, disrup- tion and anti-red hysteria.

For the boss has not been able to break Canadian labor from the outside. A million Canadian union- ists standing like one man cannot be broken, The IWA’s 1946 strike led off an unbroken string of wage victories from the Queen Charlottes to Cape Breton. The workers achieved unity in action. Labor won in 1947 too—until the disastrous

* CCL convention in September when Aaron Mosher, Pat Conroy and Charles Millard—top CCL leaders— stacked a convention to open the bosses’ red-baiting attack inside labor.

UN scores 16¢ a day wage for SA miners

LAKE SUCCESS—The Union of South Africa, a nation whose Jim-

crow legislation is unexcelled even’

by the state of Mississippi, has been officially charged with gross exploitation and the Negro people of Southwest \Africa—90 percent of the popula- tion of that country.

The accusation was made strangely enough—by U.S. delegate Francis B. Sayre and representa- tives of several other nations be- fore the United Nations Trustee- ship Council here. Soviet delegate Semyon Tsarapkin was even stronger in his condemnation. He _ said South Africa’s administration

of Southwest Africa should be out-

lawed internationally, since South

Africa holds on to the territory

only by virtue of a defunct League

of Nations mandate, which the UN has never ratified. : Prior to the discussion, South

_ Africa herself admitted serious misgovernment of the Southwest ‘African trust territory in a written reply to UN questions. * j

Wages of miners in Southwest

Africa, it stated, are 16c a day

as compared to 50c daily in South

Africa,

Sayre charged that only 10 per- cent of Southwest Africa’s budget is earmarked for the Negro nine- tenths of her people, who produce ‘well over 90 percent of the wealth. ‘The white tenth of the population has grabbed 58 percent of ali the land since South Africa took over the area, pushing the natives into inferior tracts.

LPP opens drive for fighting fund

“In the face of a period of inten- _ sive political activity during the coming year, the Labor-Progressive Party has recently launched a fighting fund drive for $5,000 dur- ing September,” Maurice Rush,LPP provincial organizer, announced this week.

“There are prospects for provin-!

cial and federal elections, there are municipal elections, there is the ‘campaign to elect our provincial leader Nigel Morgan in the Alberni scenstituency, and there is the over- all need to fight back the vicious red-baiting attacks on our party.”

“All this requires money, yet our! ed to withhold payment of per cap-

provincial organization is constant- ly laboring under financial diffi- culties which will weaken our polit- ical work unless strong and imme- diate steps are taken to overcome this. :

“The $520.60 already turned in

makes us confident that our mem-,

bership, friends and supporters will come forward as always to see this campaign over the top, both by in- dividual donations and organized, money-raising activities.

Donations should be sent to 209 remedy this situation.”

Shelly Building, Vancouver.”

enslavement of,

There’s been no wage co-ordina- tion in 1948, no-united fight against union-busting laws. Shrinking pay- checks are the measure of labor ,treachery. The boss found a pack |of careerists inside labor ready to ‘use the weight of the big business “red bogey” barrage to cover their attacks on honest workers when they should be attacking bosses.

These vultures attack unions like the Canadian Seamen’s Union and the Mine-Mill union, which are fac- ing the full oppression of the boss state. They sell out their own un- ions, as in Millard’s steel settle- ments ranging from 0 to 11 cents and Frank Hall’s sellout rail settle~ ment for six cents less than the membership demanded. None of them bear any of the scars of Ja- bor’s struggles, but they propose to remove the- militant leadership that built labor the hard way. |

In stepping into the fight to clean out the phonies, older work ers have grim memories to spur them on. They remember what happened in the 1920’s, when the same type of high-salaried bur- eaucrats sold out. The price of their treacherous expulsions of militants was a wholesale smash- ing of unions, loss of half of la- bor’s membership, unemployment and speed-up.

The bosses and the phonies are more desperate in 1948—but labor 'is three times as powerful. And la-, bor has the gruesome experience of the 1920’s and 1930’s to spur on workers who are determined it must never happen again.

Under the _ time-honored cry, “United we stand, divided we fall,” labor is rising to clean house.

Experienced unionists see no grounds for exultation at these first developments. The danger is dead- ly, they say—far too deadly for, anybody to be able to exaggerate it. The need is still to sound the alarm. .

But the counter-attack has start- :

edue-” ‘

Ban CCF’er

Fred Dowling, Canadian director of the United Packinghouse Work- ers of America (CIO) has been, barred by U.S. inimigration from crossing the border on union busi- ness. Big business dailies and the Canadian department of external affairs are expressing amazement, since Dowling was prominent among those right-wing CCF’ers who are heralded as “anti-commun- ist” and “respectable”. Experienced labor men say this ban bears out their earlier contentions that once a section of labor helps the boss attack communist unionists, the at- tack would quickly be extended to all unionists including ‘some of the red-baiters themselves.

This new ban follows similar ac- tion last week against six AFL Chemical workers, 12 CIO Electric- al workers and two CIO Auto work-

ers. Jack Scott, Trail delegate to Mine-Mill’s international conven-

tion, has also been banned. ATU ITU RU MURT TE RA Mosher puts new

gag on Murphy

CCL President Aaron Mosher has slapped a new gag on Harvey Murphy, regional director of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (CIO), who was personally suspended from the CCL simultaneously with the Mine-Mill ouster. He has ruled

that Murphy cannot appeal his-_|

suspension to the CCL conven- tion. Murphy points out that the CCL constitution states any de- cision can be appealed to the convention, and says this mo- tion bears out his charges the Mosher group is scared to have him speak at the convention. Many trade unionists are still searching for the section of the constitution under which he was first place.

ALUN UAL

demand for 35 cents an.hour,

IWA members open war on “White Bloc’

While the IWA is locked in conciliation on behalf of its

union security, strict 40-hour

week and welfare fund for 40,000 B.C. woodworkers, its angry membership has opened a cleanup drive on, the “White Bloc”

disrupters on whom the lumber borns have counted to paralyze the ‘union’s bargaining power.

Four big locals threw down the | gauntlet to U.S. Immigration which

| bans from the United States B.C.

IWA members who follow the mili- tant policies of the B.C. member- ship, and admits the minority fol- lowers of the IWA International’s policies of knuckling down to anti- labor laws and disrupting struggles with the boss. Victoria local 1-118, | Mission local 1-367, Vancouver lo- cal 1-217 and Port Alberni local 185 elected full pro-district slates’ ‘of delegates to the IWA interna- tional convention scheduled for Portland October 11. All four locals resolved that if any single delegate ‘were barred all would stay away.

Mission and Port Alberni decid- | ita tax to the International until the _ international board ceases to or- ganize disruption in the B.C. dist- ‘ieet (International ‘vice-president, Al Hartung has promised disrupt- ‘ers in Vancouver full financial as- sistance).

Vancouver local, after hearing business agent Robert Jackson re- , port on orgainzation of a disrupt- jive faction, instructed ‘its executive to “take such action, no matter how drastic, as may be necessary ,to

Alberni dealt with a letter from J. S. Alsbury, New Westminster’ “White Bloc” president, written on his local’s official stationery, ad-

vising an Alberni “White Bloc” member to get a good turn out to- the next meeting to back Interna- | tional Organizer George Brown and | dealing with attempts to drum up; {White Blog support in other: |

parts of the district. The individual

}concerned had paid no dues for 37

months:

The local condemned New West- minster officers and all “outside meddlers” and is sending the reso- lution to New Westminster so the membership there will know what its officers are doing. Next New Westminster meeting will have to deal with the situation arising from the fact that 17 more ballots were cast for B.C. Federation of Labor delegates than there were mem- bers present eligible to vote.

Alberni, Vancouver, Mission and Victoria all electéd delegations to the CCL and IWA conventions loy- al to district policy, Mission, scene: of an intensive drive by Interna- tional appointees, elected a pro- district executive. Press charges by the “White Bloc” that over 400 ballots were thrown out in Mission are answered by officers who state that the ballot receipts were not signed at Hammond Mill.

Interior conciliation boards have met at Prince George and the Okanagan and hearings are now proceeding ,at Nelson. Coast hear- ings continue in Vancouver this week.

Youth dance

The National Federation of La- bor Youth (NFLY) is holding a dance at Lochdale Hall, corner of Sperling and Hastings, from 9 to 12 p.m, this Saturday. Music will be supplied by the Rythm Four and price of admission will be 40

cents.

i

‘ ane

rs

4

ei.

Tax

will end March 31 - next.

HERE... Voy FINISH HIM up.

Extracting the profit juices

)

Canadians are facing a new threat to already depleted pocket books—a rent increase of at least 20 percent. Last week Judge A. E. Doak of the WPTB rentals board said “the general opinion” is that rent controls

Other Ottawa reports say

controls will be handed over to the provinces.

agreements but there is strong con-

disregard of the law.

“You have read stories of vio- lence on the Great Lakes. Even without the employer inspired pro- vocation, the fact that Sullivan could boast openly that he had so many men who would go in to see that the seamen did not get a foothold, and the companies’ as- sertions that they had live steam hoses—even without all this pro- vocation, it is hardly possible to stage a strike of seamen and make it into a Sunday School picnic.

“The question of communism has been brought into the issue by the employers and they took the position that they would not do business with an organization having communist officers.

We asked for a labor act giv- ing the right to the workers to have a union of their own choice and bargain through represent- atives of their own choosing not Mr. Hall’s choosing.

“The CSU was chartered by this Congress in 1936 when there was no international union of seamen affiliated to the AFL. Today the CSU has about 9,000 members. Dur- ing the life of the CSU wages have been raised from $35.00-$40.00 per month to $125.00-$160.00 and conditions have been materially im- . proved. 4

“Tf this |Mongress ever sub-

right to say who shall represent a union, then all unions will soon become company unions, The pre- sent issue is not one of commun- ism. The issue is that the mem- bers of an affiliated union are in

| @ legal strike. While on strike |

with such hostile employers, no

one with any semblance of trade

union principles would condemn

the workers and side in with the _ employers.

“What our membership has to de- cide is: should the executive coun- cil carry out the instructions and policies as set out at conventions, 'or should we be governed by a group of self-appointed leaders who. arbitrarily commit acts contrary to convention decisions?

we must always condemn the ac- tions of Sullivans and Halls.in sid-

demnation of the companies for.

mits that the employers have a

In the; opinion of your executive council

» Be Bengough

CSU has been conducted or where ing with the employers while work- they have reneged on any of their

ers jare on strike; to do otherwise would be to abandon all trade un- ion principles and could only lead to chaos and destruction of our movement.

“Considerable outside forces are at work to divide the ranks of labor and it cannot be mere coincidence that the merger of the company- dominated Canadian Lake ‘Sea- men’s Union/ with a dual Seafar- ers’ International Union was an- nounced by Frank Hall just when negotiations were progressing be- tween the CSU and the deepsea’ shipping operators. It is a hor- rible thing to occur in the organ- ized labor movement.

“We believe that this is import- ant enough that every organiza- tion affiliated to this Congress should discuss this matter), tell their delegates to the convention what they think about it, and let the executive council know what is the opinion of your organization.”

_In Toronto and other leading in- dustrial centers, TLC officials with well-known conservative politics are not hesitating to say they will support Bengough at the October 11 convention in Victoria. Many emphasize the notable thing about Hall’s rebel conference was not that there were 23 roadmen pres- ent but that there were so many absent, This, they say, shows that Hall's influence fis not as great as the dailies would have the public believe.

(‘Roadman” is a term used in labor circles for an AFL interna- tional vice-president or interna- tional organizer, usually well-paid, responisble only to international headquarters. Hall, for example, receives $12,000 a year.)

Hall’s chief supporters are Rus-

_ sell Harvey, “vice-president” of the

splitting group, Archie Johnstone, “secretary-treasurer” and A. Mc-_ Arthur, member without portfolio. The latter is an international reP- resentative of the Teamsters’ Un- ion} while Harvey and Johnston are respectively an AFL organizer and international representative of the Hotel and Restaurant Union. Johnstone made a trip to Vancou- ver last fall to oust Emily Watts, Mae Leniczek and Roy Moore, of ficers of Hotel and Restauarnt 10- cal 28, which was placed under # trustee. —

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 17, 1948—PAGE 12