Boilermakers — reject 6-cent - wage award

By unanimous standing vote, members of the Marine Workers and Boilermakers Union this week rejected a conciliation board majori- ty award recommending a six cents an hour wage boost for employees of Burrard Drydock and Pacific Drydock. Union members authorized their leaders “to take any action necessary, in conformity with the Shipyard Conference” to win a 20-cent across-the-board increase to

offset zooming living costs.

Plumbers, carpenters, electri- cians and other union members united within the Shipyard Con- ferénce will vote on the concilia- tion board proposal within the

next few days. An expected “thumbs down” verdict will

probably result in a shipyards strike vote being taken.

Prices are soaring like a sky- rocket, while real wages are drop- ping like a bomb. To offset the Shrinking dollars of 1950, ship- yard workers are determined to aecept nothing less than the 20 cents yer hour they originally asked for.

For years now, all categories of shipyard workers have received tess money than workers: doing similar jobs in the building trades. In a brief presented by the nine shipyard unions to the concilia- tion board, the point is stressed that “we do not consider there can be any justification for a wage structure which pays a man one set of rates while engaged in his trade on building construc- tion and a much lower rate while

on shipyard work.” ;

“The brief continues: “The. skills - required are similar and the work is essentially the same. Why

Mine-Mill locals get joint certification

Joint certification has been granted to Mine-Mill locals 480 and 651 as the bargaining unit for employees of Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company at Trail and Kimberley, Labor Relations ‘Board announced this week.

The LRB decision is a blow at the raiding United Steel Workers of America, whose representa- tives wanted the Trail field left open for continuaticn of their union-§plitting activities. Steel leaders had appeared at the LRB hearings in Victoria on Septem- ber 7 to object to the joint certi- fication.

Letters supporting the joint certificaion had been sent to the

LRB by Leo Nimsick, MLA (Cranbrook - Kimberley) and James Byrne, MP (Kootenay East).

ACCROSS

trades, carpenters 23c less, fit- ters 33c, plumbers 30c, electric- ians 23c, laborers 18c.

The brief dealt with employment in British Columbia’s shipbuilding industry, which varies (qreatly from month to. month. -For ex-

should an electrician, for example, who may work on both building construction and ships receive a lower rate of pay while on the} latter type of work? Clearly he| is entitled to one rate of pay, namely a journeyman’s rate for-| his particular trade, regardless of the ‘locale of his work.” |

| : _ A 1950 chart showing the differ-| ential favoring the building trades | workers was presented to the board,

The chart showed that boiler- makers and welders employed in the shipyards now ‘receive $1.45 an hour as compared to $1.88 paid to boilermakers and welders employed in the build- _ ing trades. Mechanics in the Shipyards get 33c an hour less than mechanics in the building

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jample, in January, 1948, 82 firms |in both steel and wooden shipyards

in the province employed 5,372 workers; in December, 1948, the figure had dropped to 2,898.

“Such severe fluctuations in em- ployment militate against the pos- sibility of maintaining adequate annual take-home pay,” the brief stressed. It also meant that em- ployers required a considerable pool of experienced workers from which to draw for peak months,

Although the most recent year for which official figures are avail- able is 1948, the situation was even worse in 1949, when the majority of shipyard workers had no assurance of continuity of em- ployment.

“The present steady decline’ in the purchasing power position of our members must be arrested at once,” the brief concludes.

CHINA

were 38-10 with eight abs- tentions and 37-11 with eight abstentions.

Canada’s L. B. Pearson, acting the role of Acheson's boy, proposed the setting up of a seven-country commit- tee to “study the question of Chinese representation.” This motion carried 42-9 with six abstentions.

HERR EUENE

oF

Bid for

for the purpose of securing higher

of living of recent years.”

‘They voted approval of an im- mediate drive for increased wages after 30 rank and file delegates from locals scattered all over the United States and Canada told how the “sudden economic changes” since last June have “gravely endangered the security of all Mine-Mill members.”

Summing up the wage and con- tract policy session, International vice president Orville Larson, who is bargaining coordinator of the union, said: :

“The responsibility for grant- ing a wage increase rests square- ly em the shoulders of the min- ing companies. They’re making the highest profits they ever made in the history of the min- ing industry.

“This union can—and will—win a wage increase,” Larson said. _

The convention alson heard an address by Louis Goldblatt, sec- retary-treasurer of the Interna- tional Longshoremen’s and Ware- ‘housemen’s Union, who declared ‘that “the CIO has sounded its own |death knell by ‘this series of ex- pulsions of progressive | From now on it will be nothing

than a glorified company

more ‘union that eventually will be cap- ‘tured completely by the employers. |Ultimately the workers will |forced to break away from CIO ‘and form some real unions for | themselves.”

| Goldblatt told delegates that |“unions like the ILWU and the |Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers jhave got to work together. We |don’t believe a third labor move- |ment is a sound idea. But we |do need unity around some simple principles.” And he proposed a ‘parley of all progressive unions ,in order to plan a program around | What the called “these three simple | principles”:

“First, unity to protect and ad- vance the economic interests of our membership.

“Second, unity to give mutual defense in time of need.

Third, unity to fight off the cannibals, the raiders and the Splitters in the labor movement.”

:

unions. |

higher wages

approved by Mine-Mill |

DENVER

Delegates to the 46th convention of the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Work- ers here last week shouted their approval of a proposal to “‘seek immediate discussions with employers

wages to enable our members to maintain even the inadequate standard j

UE seeks wage hike for 6,000 GE workers

TORONTO

Sudden rises in living costs and demands for speedy set-

tlement of outstanding differences with the management of

Canadian General Electric Company are given as reasons for

a decision by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Work-

ers Union to seek an immediate meeting with the company jon wave issues.

A meeting of the union’s joint ‘conference board representing all General Electric workers organ- ized by the UE in Canada—some 6,000 in all—has announced plans to hold a series of Special mem-

bership meetings to formulate the new demands for wage increase,

close liason during negotiations with these two large electrical manufacturing concerns,

Average earnings atthe Cana- dian Westinghouse plant, largest competitor of General Electric, are . reported to be 16 cents an hour higher than paid by GE.

job evaluation reform, pension ee welfare plans, and other mat- Disparity in the wage figures is ers.

attributed to the effects of raid- ing conducted by the IUE-CIO and backed by the Canadian Congress of Labor which resulted in a divi-

In addition to a flat increase the union will press for special

upward adjustments for day rate workers and _ skilled craftsmen.

be |

The union charges that the com- pany has been failing to fully re- cognize its obligations as set ‘out in the present collective agree- ;ment. The company will be called ,upon to assist in a speedy settle-

ment of all grievances in the plants.

sion in the ranks of the UE be- fore the raiders were defeated.

The Joint Conference Board at its meeting called on all UE locals “to unite for action against any form of disruption by IUE or other outside groupings” since only the employer came out, a winner, When the workers were divided among themselves.

The joint conference board of GE locals proposed a meeting with a union committee of Westing- house workers, also organized in the UE, to work out plans for

Recent increases in living costs, the union committee declared, have reduced living standards by the equivalent of a 10c per hour cut in pay,

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 22, 1950—PAGE 6