WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION PROBE So ee,

Bi mH»

Justice Gordon M. Sloan,

week that he does not intend to

whether this claim or that should have been allowed or not. What I am concerned with is the general policy of the board.”

The question arose out of the obvious desire of the board to

treat each case now being pre- sented to substantiate the brief of the Marine Workers and Boiler- makers and the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Unigns, as an at- tack by an individual which must be defended by the board rather than as a reason for a change of policy on the part of the board, which May make necessary a re- vision of the Act.

Typical of the many cases pre- sented before the commission is the story of Mrs, E. N. Jones, re- stored to health by an entirely successful operation on disc les- ions after a back injury at West- ern Bridge in 1943 had kept her from work for nearly two years, while the Workmen’s Compensa- tion Board treated her on a diag- nosis apparently proven wrong by the. operation.

_ The story Mrs. Jones told: was, in its essentials, no different from others the commission has already heard. The board’s doctors pre- Scribed treatments and sent her back to work, and when her own doctors sent her back to the board for further treatments because of

continuing ill-health she was in- formed “there’s nothing wrong With you except your imagina- tion.”

Mrs. Jones was injured in 1943. She was under treatment at the physiotherapy clinic until January 1944 when she was sent back to Work, After two days at work she reported back to the board, which S€nt her to Dr. Starr, who raised her left heel three-eighths of, an inch. She continued under his treatments until May, and then She was sent back to work a

- S€cond time.

Two weeks later she had to lay off again. She went to Dr. Gunn,

Commission two-year runaround

chairman of the Royal Commission sit- ting on the B.C. Workmen’s Compensation have the commission become a board of review for “disputed individual cases before the board.

“I am not in a position to judge individual cases,’” he told the Workmen’s Compensation Board counsel. “I have no jurisdiction to say

told of

Board, made it clear this

poard. The board referred her back to Dr. Starr. Then she was sent to Vancouver General Hospi- tal where she was told she must be suffering from a disc.

In September she was sent back to work again. She worked two days and was forced to quit. On December 31 she was cut off com- pensation. Again Dr. Gunn reopen- ed her case with the board. In April she was x-rayed by Dr. Mac- Intosh and placed back on com- pensation, Dr. Turnbull sent her to the clinic for exercises, and when she complained of the pain

Peace camp Is stronger, atomaniacs desperate,

Buck tells LPP meet

“The fight for peace is the central task of our party to whic mental,” Tim Buck, national leader of the Labor-Progressive party, last week in his historic keynote address.

The LPP committee meeting, sections of Canada.

Buck emphasized: the party organization and mem- bers, to pass over to the offensive in the battle for peace; join hands with all lovers of peace in united action; to organize peace commit- tees everywhere; to build a mighty national] movement for peace and Canadian independence.”

Buck warned that the danger of war has not diminished but has increased since last year’s

she was sent back to Vancouver General Hospital for a myelogram, | conducted by Dr. Finlayson.

When she reported to the board, “she was examined by Dr. Mac-| Callum, who asked her to raise | her right leg.

“J didn’t lift it high enough to suit him,’ she reported, “and he jerked it away up, causing me a lot of pain.”

“Mrs. Jones, there’s nothing wrong with you except your im- agination,” she testified the doctor told her, “go on home and forget about your back!”

Cut off compénsation again, she went to Dr. Emmons as a private patient. He took another myelo- gram, operated on her, and she went home from the hospital in eight days completely cured.

She testified that before author- izing the operation she had phon- ed the board to see if they would pay for it, and was told that they would bear no more expense in her case. “You have received ad- equate compensation,” she was told.

In the end she received partial payment, but was left with a bal- ance of about $260 to bear herself.

In reply to William White of the Marine Workers, Mrs. Jones stated that if she had had the operation at the time of her disability, she believes she could have gone back to work within six weeks to two months.

“Instead, you lost two years al- together away from production

| |

during the war,” concluded White.

Who reopened her case with the

CCL union

will be ‘respectable’

the CCL Political Action Committee,

rts to increase the number of. CCF

Murray Cotterill, director of

which failed lamentably in its effo MP’; in the federal elections last J in half) scolded delegates to the B.C. for “letting the CCF down” and then

latest brainchild — the organizing of the unemployed under the con- trol ana direction of the CCL.

: “We're going to set up CCL unions of unemployed in every Place where we have CCL coun- Cils,” he proclaimed. “We don’t ex- clude cooperation from the Trades and Labor Congress, but we intend to proceed on our own in any case. The organizations which the un- employed set up in the Hungry Thirties didn’t work. This time Wwe intend to set up a respectable organization and direct it.” Cotterill didn’t elaborate on the manner in which the CCL ‘Natio- nal Federation of Unemployed Wor- kers’ will function, but a CCL directive sent out to Congress bo- dies this week reveals these facts:

The Federation will be run by & Committée of five members ap- pointed by the executive of the ate The committee will AP- ENE an executive director and etermine his duties and _ his

of jobless |

une (instead the CCF bloc was cut Federation of Labor convention launched into a description of his

oor Se, er wages, subject to the approval of CCL president Aaron Mosher and secretary-treasurer Pat Conroy.

rhe Federation will issue char- ters to lecal unions, but these will be granted only upon recom- mendation_of a CCL labor coun- cil. The Federation will have the sole power to grant, withhold or cancel a charter.

© cmemployed who join the -CCL union will have to pay dues of 25 cents per month, and 10 cents of this amount will go directly to the Federation head office in Ottawa. The local union will not be able ‘to use the remaining 15 cents as it sees fit; the money will be placed in a special bank account and will be withdrawn only on the signature of one of the local union officers TOGETH- ER WITH the signature of any “one of the APPOINTEES of the local CCL council or the Fede-

ration.

third national LPP convention. The entire policy of the U.S. British-Canadian imperialist bloc, he said, was directed to prepara- tions for a new war.

Buck pointed out that it is now an undisguised fact that the bloc of imperialist states and their satel- lites who are committed to the North Atlantic war .pact, are or- ganized with a view to direct. ag-

gression against the democratic states in. Eastern Europe and, above all, against the Unicn of

Socialist Soviet Republics.

The LPP leader, pointing to the “maniacal” boasting of the U.S. war-mongers who are now prepar- ing to make the hydrogen bomb, warned that “the United States cannot start a war and escape de- vastating consequences” because “if the U.S. builds a hydrogen bomb other countries will build one also.”

Buck recalled the remarks made by Maxim Litvinov in 1935, when he warned the imperialists who were then re-arming Hitler Ger- many “that no gun has yet been invented that fires in only one di- rection.”

means of mass destruc- said Buck, “that can be launched frem North America against Europe can also be launched from Europe against Canada and the United States. ‘If the U.S. imperialists start a Third World War, it will be fought here — on the soil of North America and particularly in Ca- nada. If there is destruction it will be here. If there is suf- fering it will be here. For Cana- dians it cannot be emphasized too strongly that if such a war is started, Canada will be the front line.”

“Any tion,”

Buck, linking growing unemploy- ment and the developing economic crisis with the preparations for war, pointed out that the St. Lau- rent government is deliberately making Canada’s national economy dependent on the United States by carrying out a policy that “is not a Canadian policy but the policy of United States imperialism.”

Canada’s overseas markets, he pointed out, are being sacrificed and trade with the U.S. is being directed along the path of making Canada a producer of raw materi- als and spé€cialized products com- pletely dependent on the great mo- nopolies of the U.S.

The LPP leader, deploring grow- ing soup lines in major Canadian

\cities, stressed that “the working

people of Canada must not be pressed back to the conditions of soup lines, night by night shelter and labor camps at 20 cents a day.”

“There is absolutely no reason why any Canadian should be with- out a decent home — except gov- ernment policy,” said Buck, “There is absolutely no reason why any Canadian should find it difficult to get three square meals a day — except government policy. There

held at Toronto,

h all other activities must be supple- told an LPP national committee meeting

was attended by national committee members from all

t “T call upon all members of the national committee, and through you upon all

is absolutely no reason why any Canadian should not be warmly clad — except government policy.” The working class movement, he emphasized, must organize a great public campaign to compel the gov- ernment to honor its obligations ito all Canadians who are unem- ployed.

While it is true that the war danger has not diminished, the LPP leader stressed that “it | would be profoundly wrong ‘to | ‘think that the feverish activity displayed by the imperialist camp is evidence of its strength, or evidence that war cermot be pre- vented.” War, emphasized Buck, is not inevitable. The imperia- list camp has become consider- ably weaker during the past two years while the peace forces have grown tremendously and arte continuing to grow.

The national committee of the LIP, declared Buck, shared the firm opinion that the battle for peace can be won. “The LPP,” he

said, “must participate energetically with all lovers of peace, regardless cf political or religious opinions and at all levels of party organiza- tion in building and extending the peace movement in Canada.

The fight for unity against the warmongers, he said, “includes the fight to overcome the weaknesses and hesitations in telling our fel- low Canadians about U.S. imperia- lists’ attempts to dominate the eco- nomic, cultural and political life of Canada. : It includes a stern and unequivocal struggle against the war program of U.S. imperialism inside the Canadian labor move- ment and against the St. Laurent policy of subordinating Canada’s interests to the war plans of U.S. imperialism. It requires a militant confident and proud battle for the strengthening of true patriotism to Canada and the interests of her people, for a new foreign policy based upon the aims of peace, dis- armament and loyalty to the Char- ter of the United Nations.”

Soviet Communists send greetings to

Buck

TORONTO

Led by M. Suslov on behalf of the central committee ¢f the Com- | munist Party of the Soviet Union unique international tributes were paid last week to Tim Buck on his 20th anniversary as leader of the Canadian |Communist movement. Scores of wires from leaders of government, mass

,Ccmmunist parties, and LPP or- | ganizations across the |were read tc the accompaniment lof roof-lifting roars of approval] at

the LPP leader.

er; Palmiro Togliatti, general sec- retary of the Italian Communist party; and the central committee of the Communist Party of Czecho- slovakia.

A tumultous ovation was given what was considered to be an un- precedented congratulatory mes- sage from M. Suslov on behalf of

munist Party of the Soviet Union. Text of Susiov's message follows:

“The central committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on the occasion of the 20th year of your holding the post of general secretary of the Labor-Progressive Party of Ca- nada, sends you heartiest greet- ings end best wishes for success in the struggle for the vital in- terests of the working class and all the laboring people of Canada, for the cause of peace and the strengthening of the internatio- nal unity of the working class and for the cause of socialism.”

From Palmiro’ Togliatti of the ‘Italian Communist party in the jleadership of over 2,000,000 Italian Communists came the following tribute: “Your long experience will be very precious to the Canadian Labor-Progressive party, and to the Canadian working people in | the great task ahead especially now when the very independence otf your country is threatened by Wall Street warmongers. May your ser- vices to the cause of peace and democracy be an inspiration to all Canadian Communists.”

The message from the Czecho- slovak Communist party said that

country, |

|love and

| working people but also gained the

a big Massey Hall celebration for | respect of the world labor move- | ment.”

Proof of the high repute which | the Canadian Commuist spokesman | o¢ the British Communist party, has gained throughout the world }termed Tim Buck “one of the out- were the messages of greeting from | standing leaders in the internatio- Matyas Rakosi, Hungarian premi-| na} Communist movement* who |had “set an example to us all in lhis devotion, integrity and fidelity ito the great principles of Com- munism.”

the central committee of the Com-

Tim Buck had “not only won the devotion of the Canadian

Harry Pollitt, general secretary

And William Z. Foster, chairman of the U.S. Communist party, de- clared that “Canada is fortunate in having such a splendid leader long tried and found true in the fire of the class struggle.”

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1

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 10, 1950—PAGE 7