WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

B.C. Electric board chairman, Dr. Gordon Shrum stated that in his opinion there would be no reduction in consumer light bills. * *

Canadian Labour Congress President, Claude Jodoin strongly con- _ demned the Vancouver Labour Council for their recent criticism of the

United Nations’ actions in the Congo. “Constructive criticism is always welcome but when it is not deserved, or is especially following a certain well-known line, it does not help,” he wrote the Counci

ae a %

Prime Minister Diefenbaker is reported to have advised his associates not to expect a federal election before the spring or summer of 1962. ~ His most likely choice is considered to be June 11, 1962. oe * *

The B.C. Bond Dealer’s Association attacked the Socred’s takeover of

the B.C. Electric by stating that the expropriation has resulted in “serious deterioration of confidence” in the province’s investment climate. * x *

The longest municipal transit strike in Canadian history ended this month when Calgary transit system workers voted 339-39 in favour

of settlement of the dispute. *

*

In Fukuoka, Japan, city fathers are puzzling over a demand from the municipal workers’ union for “child-birth leaves” for husbands when their wives are in hospital awaiting a birth. The union said that lack of domestic help makes it imperative for the husband to be at home.

* * x

American delegates to the International Congress of Pure and Applied Chemistry said they had developed an experimental light bulb that is 25 per cent more brilliant than conventional bulbs and may last twice as long. We are willing to bet that plans are already underway by manu- facturers to keep this bulb off the market.

Congress To Spearhead New Union Drive

A major drive is shaping up in Canada to expand union mem- bership to unorganized office workers, technicians and service employees. :

Top labour sources expect the 1,150,000-member Canadian Labour Congress to spearhead the all-out bid to broaden labour’s appeal among the “new” workers of the automation era.

First Step

First step in the long-range cam- paign, sources report, will be a CLC- sponsored conference of trade union officials later this year. It would bring together all leaders of major unions interested in. pushing a co-ordinated campaign for new members in the so-called “white-collar” industries.

Many Jabour leaders see the trade union movement at the most critical crossroads in its 150-year Canadian history—either it meets the new chal- lenges thrust upon it by automation and the rapidly shifting structure of the labour force or it slowly shrivels up as a viable voice of workers.

Stopped Growing

Already, organized labour appears

to have stopped growing in Canada.

J. MURDOCH

Contact Mother and R. Jackson immigratedi Cunada Suite 6. 855 Thurlow St. MU 4-6045

Vancouver 5,

Only one worker out of every three in the non-farm field holds a union card — a ratio which has_ hardly changed in the last decade.

Portable Pensions

Bill The Ontario committee on portable pensions has published a draft bill that would compel all employers of 15 or more persons to establish by 1965 a pension plan meeting set minimum stand- ards. The bill aims at retaining for employees old-age pensions bene- fits built up in one job when they switch to other employment. They would be able to carry be- tween jobs pension credits re- sulting both from their own contributions and the employer’s payments into the pension plan. The draft is the result of more than a year’s study by the six- member portable pensions com- mittee under joint chairman G. E. Gathercole and Professor D.C. MacGregor.

Pads?

Sen. Alexander Wiley R-Wis., said in Washington the new Soviet manned orbit means that Americans must “get up off our launching pads.”

et ee

NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY LEADER-ELECT Hon. T. C. “Tommy” Douglas, right, has a chat during a lull in convention with ~

NDP Vice-President-elect David Lewis Q.C. and CLC Secretary-Treasurer Donald MacDonald.

Liberty The Touchstone In Classifying Leftists

WASHINGTON POST

In his championship of the teaching of “truth” in the military services, Sena- tor Strom Thurmond has made the point that social- ism and communism are synonymous.

If this were indeed true— if the millions of people around the world who call themselves Socialists were indistinguishable from the Communists — then the United States would have an incredibly more difficult task in the defence of free- dom. Fortunately for this country in the struggle it faces, any such simple defi- nition betrays a gross mis- understanding of reality.

IT- IS . TRUE? THAL both Socialism and com- munism are thought to owe their modern-day incarna- tions to the same prophets, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

It is true that until the time -of Lenin the world Socialist movement was more or less united, with various prickly offshoots. But at the time of the Bol-

: “'IWCKY pAvg ARE HERE AGAly

COPYRIGHT 1929,

oar, ona

shevik Revolution the movement was split irrepar- ably asunder.

Although the Commun- ist countries call themselves “Socialist,” and although some democratic Socialists elsewhere still pay obeis- ance to Marx and still advo- cate governmental owner- ship of the means of heavy production, there the simi- larities cease

THE MOST MEAN- ingful difference between present-day Social Demo-

‘crats and the Communists

is of course over civil liber- ties. Democratic Socialists uphold democratic methods and the rights of the in- dividual. The Communists proceed by conspiracy, vio- lence and the knock on the

oor. This distinction is fundamental.

Individual Socialist par- ties vary in their ideologies. Some, particularly in West- ern Europe, have divested themselves of their Marxist class-warfare trappings and of their belief in nationaliza- tion as a panacea.

Others, as in the case of the majority Socialist movements in Japan and Italy, have rather woolly fringes. :

BUT IN THE MAIN, the Democratic Socialist parties are today among the strongest and most effective opponents of communism— a fact that Mr. Khrushchev has recognized with the special ire he reserves for the Social Democrats.

Communism has no fiercer foe, for example, than Nor- man Thomas, the longtime American | Socialist presi-

dential candidate and a dedicated democrat and civil libertarian. West erlin Mayor Willy Brandt has proved his credentials in the defence of freedom.

IN ECONOMIC PHIL- osophy most of us in the United States prefer the pri- vate enterprise system, for we believe that it provides the greatest stimulus to ex- pansion and improvement of the general standard of living. But even here, our labels and slogans some- times depart from the facts. What we have is a far reach from the laissez-faire of Adam Smith; it is a thor- oughly mixed and regulated system in which private and public enterprise are func- tional and complementary.

In the process: we have acquired some facets of what Mr. Thurmond might call socialism, because the government undertakes to provide for the general benefit. Conspicuous ex-

‘amples are the post office

and the Atomic Energy Commission — and the armed forces, in which both Senator Thurmond and his

like-minded companion, -

Senator Goldwater, hold re- serve commissions as gen- eral officers.

FEW PERSONS would think that these func- tions should be turned over to private enterprise, what- ever the criticisms of gov- ernmental efficiency.

Much of the same pattern prevails in other developed non-Communist countries. In such an indubitably free enterprise nation as West Germany, for example, the railroads, telephone and telegraph long have been government-owned. In nom- inally Socialist Scandinavia, the private businessman is altogethér at home and finds substantially the same en- couragements as in the United States.

CREDIT UNION DIRECTORY IWA Credit Unions and other Credit Unions supported by IWA Local Unions in B.C.

Alberni District Credit Union, 209 Argyle Street, Port i IWA 1-217 Savings, Broadway & Quebec Streets, \Veceamennn

IWA (N.W.) Credit Union, Room 2

1,,774 Columbia Street, New

Westminster Local 1-118, IWA (Victoria), 904 Gordon Street, Victoria

Chemainus & District Credit Union, Box 22 in

Lake Cowichan and District Credit Union, Lake Cowichan, B.C Courtenay Credit Union, Box 952, Courtenay Lae Duncan & District Credit Union, Box 1717, Duncan

Prince George & District, 1046 - 4th Avenue, Prince George Nanaimo & District Credit Union, 499 Wallace St. Nenaimo Ladysmith & District Credit Union, Box 154, Ladysmith, B.C United Labour Credit Union, 1475 East 43rd, eos

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