Page “our BUC. “WO RURUE R SNE Wes August 9, 1955 s in the relief camps who led the struggle e 9 fi (i B.C Workers NEWS eters sees ==|B C, Liberal Gov't Intend To Cut SHORT JABS — Published Weekly by : THE PROLETARIAN PUBLISHING ASSN Room 10, 163 West Hastings Street - Vancouver, B.C =o — Subscription Rates — Qne Year ____ 31-80 Half Year a 51500. Three Months__$ -50 Single Copy —— _-05 Make All Checks Payable to the B.C. WORKERS’ NEWS Send All Copy and Manuscript to the Chairman of the Editorial Board —- Send All Montes and Letters Per- taining to Advertising and Circulation to the Business Manager. Vancouver, B.C., August 9, 1935 THE LONGSHORE STRIKE The Shipping Federation and their city hail tools headed by McGeer are getting a taste of international class solidarity they: did not count on, and which they do not know how to meet. They can face the police commission with bankruptcy by their squandering a great part of a half million dollars of taxpayers money in the first half of the year in supply- ing special police strikebreakers for the Ship- ping Federation, but they just can’t send these thugs down to San Francisco to give police protection to scabs to unload ships with scab cargo from B.C. ports. And neither can they force the seamen on US. ships to supply steam for operating the winches for scabs. : And whilst the Vancouver city council and the mayor are frantically “explaining” to the incensed taxpayers why the city is spending: such huge sums on strikebreaking, the waterfront strikers are receiving money from the workers in San Francisco and other ports to carry on the struggle. The magnificent solidarity of the San Francisco and other U.S. Pacific ports long- shoremen is an inspiration and an example to many unions in B.C. which have not seen the danger of the Shipping Federation's at- tack on trades unionism. But the San Fran- cisco longshoremen realize it, and act accord- ingly. They know that if the Vancouver unions are broken, their turn will come later, and soon. That is why they have assessed their members and are telegraphing money, a thousand dollars at a crack. And that is why the “Point Clear” and other ships from B.C. ports loaded by scabs in Powell River and Vancouyer still have their scab car- goes aboard in San Francisco Bay, while they lie in the stream gathering barnacles as their fool owners who affiliated with the chiseling Shipping Federation are losing money. The brunt of the resistance to the attack of the bosses and the state to smash trade unionism in B.C. is being borne by the Van- eouver waterfront strikers, and they are giv- ing a magnificent example of tenacity and courage. Their class enemies are beginning to feel the pinch whilst the workers have noth- ing much to lose anyway. The waterfront strike must and CAN be won. But to assure victory, more support must be given to the longshoremen and sea- men. The taxpayers, saddled with the enor- mous cost of special police strikebreakers, are getting sick of the mouthing of McGeer and all his bewhiskered bunk about “main- taining law and order,” and are coming over to the side of the embattled waterfront strikers. ,There is as yet insufficient support from local unions, certainly there is lukewarmmness and apathy as compared to the San Fran- cisco unions. This must be corrected by the rank and file and the maximum united front support given to the strike. Relief is urgently needed. Greater united efforts by the whole working class and all people who are opposed to the-slavery pro- eram of the shipping interests should be put forth. The interests of the waterfront workers 1s the concern of all workers. The right to or- ganize must be defended and preserved. The offensive of the Shipping Federation must be hurled back. United Front support general- ly, and trade union unity specifically, will as- sure victory. KING PLEADS FOR FAITH Those hopeful and credulous people who looked forward to the radio speeches of Mac- Kenzie King for a solution of the economic problems facing the people of Canada must fee] somewhat disappointed; for the windy Liberal leader gave nothing save empty promises, platitudes and pleas for blind faith in outworn bourgeois liberalism. His speeches differed not at all, essential- ly, from the speeches of Bennett in 1930 and those of Harry Stevens today. He pleads for faith in himself and in his corrupt Liberal party to restore capitalist prosperity through a revival of trade; but he doesn’t say how or where this foreign trade is to be procured in an already contracted and glutted world market. And pending the hoped-for revival of trade he does not believe that reforms can be instituted. The people must wait for re- covery first. Not only that, but he says that the govern- ment can not increase, or even con- tinue the present standard of relief, on the basis of falling revenue. Increased revenue can be secured by taxing the rich, but that is something King will not do. If he did he might not get another million for his party from the Holt-Beauharnois gang. He will not abolish the forced labor camps. All-he says he will do will be to take them out of the hands of the Department of Na- tional Defense. And neither will he pay the going wage on any relief project, which shows that he is going to set a new low standard of wages. He referred to the men Fimo %, He has no program whatsoever for creat- ing employment, contenting himself with a promise to set up a National commission,— as if the people were not sick and tired of these useless commissions after five years of them. One thing King definitely promised, and that was that while he would do some shadow-boxing in the House against Section 98 he would make war upon Communists. Tt would be a mistake to regard King as less dangerous to the toiling people of Can- ada than Bennett or Stevens, just because he talks the language of a dead and gone liberalism. Lloyd George long posed as such, but when the imperialists of Great Britain wanted a suitable tool to lead their govern- ment during the world slaughter and to crush the rising colonial revolts in India and the working class struggles at home, it was to the Welsh hypocrite they turned. The workers of Canada must not forget that the MacKenzie King who today poses as the friend of the common people and seeks their support, and who rails at the brutali- ties, dictatorship and terrorism of Bennett, is the same MacKenzie King who as prime minister of Canada sent soldiers to Nova Scotia to shoot down miners on strike against the British Empire Steel Corporation. King, being less ignorant than the bom- bastic boor who now sits in the prime minis-= ter’s chair, knows that economic recovery can never take place so long as capitalism lasts. His only program is, and can only be, continued starvation and misery for the pro- ducing class and the use of the capitalist state power to hold them in subjection. The workers must contemptuously reject King, as well as Stevens and Bennett. The people suffering from the effects of capi- talist rule must band together in a solid united anti-capitalist front of struggle against and in opposition to all three repre- sentatives of finance capital and their anti- working class parties, and elect workers’ can- didates to parliament who will carry the never-ending fight which will bring a Soviet government in Canada, which alone can bring prosperity and well-being for the people. REACTIONARIES WEAKER FRONT It did not take Percy Bengough, secretary of the Vancouver Trades and Labor Council, long to obey the mandate of Bill Green, presi- dent of the American Federation of Labor, to renew the splitting of labor’s ranks by ex- pulsion. The Bengoughs scream against connec- tions between the workers of Canada and the workers of the Soviet Union where the work- ers rule and operate industry, but these re- actionaries quite readily take their orders from a foreign country which is capitalist- ruled and owned, and when such orders are for the purpose of uniting with the employers and capitalist government to wage war against the most advanced and most militant section of the working class in order to split the ranks of the workers and weaken their resistance to wage cuts. Bengough, who proved his strikebreaking qualities on more than one occasion and who collaborates with the worst enemies of the workers, has begun to carry out his alien master’s orders. At the last meeting of the Couneil he had Jack Flynn expelled as a delegate. Flynn had been representing his local union on the Council for many years and his record as a union man is unblem- ished, He was expelled because, while Bengough was cooperating with strikebreaker McGeer, Flynn met with members of a union not af- filiated with the A.F.of lL. to jointly assist the longshoremen to win their strike. This was his “crime” against labor: he co- operated with workers who are members of a “dual” union in trying to help win a strug- gle for other workers, and, indirectly, for every worker in the province, including the members of A.F.of L. unions. The members of the Steam and Operating Hngineers Union should re-elect Flynn as their delegate to the Council; and delegates from all other local unions should fight to have him seated. ORGANIZE AGAINST STARVATION The hunger government of Pattullo and the McGeer city council of Vancouver are planning to cut still further the starvation relief rations. Pattullo is going to do some more “investigating” as to how much more starvation the unemployed workers can stand, and McGeer laments that relief is be- coming a “permanent pension,” and proposes as an excuse for cutting off relief, that re- lief recipients be offered useless and degrad- ing work at starvation wages, and if they and their families refuse, that they be cut off relief forthwith. Thus the deliberate starva- tion of women and children is to be used to introduce forced labor. ‘ Were it not for the organization of the unemployed and their demonstrations against starvation despite police clubbings, arrests and imprisonment, the relief rations would today be as low as authorities set out to make them in 1929 and 1930. Such an attack by the Pattullo and Mc- Geer governments must be met and de- feated; and it can be done only by organiza- tion and militant struggle. Pattullo, as well as McGeer and his city hall gang can be com- pelled to pay adequate relief even if 1t means that they will have to cease paying tens of thousands of dollars monthly for strike- breaking special police and stool-pigeons. Workers And Farmers Off Relief; The Solid Labor Front Build Up By BOB LEALESS Whilst McKenzie King, national leader of Liberalism in Canada is putting forward the idea that the Liberal Party differs from the Con- servative Party, the provincial lead- ers of the Liberal Party are showing in deeds, that they are just as great an enemy of the working population as the Conservative Party. The attempt of Hepburn, Liberal leader of Ontario, to cut all single men off relief has been followed by the announcement of Pattullo, Lib- eral leader of British Columbia, that another “inyestigation”’ place, because many receiving relief are not “‘attempting to help them- selyes.”” A Job for Experts Pxperts will prove that unem- ployment in B.C. is non-existent, or ni the words ot the announce- ment, “B.C. has to employ some 20,000, not 40,000 men, as iS gen- erally supposed, TO SOLVE ITS REAL unemployment problem.” A sweeping investigation is to be carried through by these “experts,” so that all necessary plans are de- veloped early in the autumn for another attack upon the unem- ployed, that will condemn them to even worse conditions than are now imposed upon them. All relief will stop then, on the proof that the experts will furnish, that pre-ecrisis conditions exist. This can be clearly seen from the methods of investigation that are to be adopted. The workers in cities and towns will be classified into two categor- ies: “Indigents and employables.” Indigents are to be compared, and eomposed of those unemployed workers who previous to the admin- istration of relief, existed on odd jobs, and what they could get from charitable organizations. The Liberal government is very is to take / owith provincial Schedules’’; and 1lis- much upset because these workers are now receiving a regular relief allowance, or as the arch hater of labor, Gerry McGeer, calls this mis- erable relief allowance, ‘“‘a perma- nent pension.” These workers are to be cut off relief and condemned to starve. This is Liberalism. The remainder are to be classified “unemployed,” and the govern- ment will “do everything possible” to help absorb them into industry or public works. Of course, no mention is made of ‘‘at what rate of wages.” Relief To Be Worked For Gerry McGeer, who has recently discussed the relief problem with the Liberal Cabinet, stated at the relicf committee meeting on Aus 3, “Our program is relief from destitution, not relief from unemployment, but we have got away from that.”” There is to be a return to the “grand oid days” according to the Mayor along the following lines: “We must co- operate with the Provincial Govern- ment because what we are giving in relief in Vancouver is not in line as ten to this: “WE MUST INSIST ON ALL RELIEF BEING WORKED FOR WHEN POSSIGLE, WITH NO ENTRA ALLOWANCE.” To Experiment on Farmers Another category of relief recipi- ent remains, the impoverished farm-— er. ALL FARMERS ARE TO BE CUT OFE RELIEF AND WILL NOT BE RECOGNIZED AS UN- EMPLOYED. Instead, “Pearson's experiment” is to be applied gener- ally throughout the province upon the experience that was gained in the Coombs District. An allowance will be granted to farmers only on condition that they clear a certain amount of land and srow a certain amount and speci- fied kind of produce. The Coombs farmers who were being experiment- ed upon, characterized this scheme as a “new method of attack upon the standards of living of this sec- tion of the producing population.” It is clear that the Liberal Goy- ernment intends to heap more mis- ery and suffering upon the unem-— ployed. : But the unemployed and their supporters have shown that they will not stand for these attacks and are organizing more than ever to fight back in spite of increased ter- ror and arrests. The unemployed must prepare now to answer this dastardly attack in a determined -and militant manner. Organized Resistance To Attacks - The demand for work at full wages and for real unemployment insurance must be energetically strengthened and posed against the attempt to impose forced and staryv- ation labor upon the workers. Only on the basis of the unem- ployed themselves first leading the fight against this contemplated at- tack will it be possible for to gain the necessary support from the trade unionists, and from communists and socialists, and C.C.F. members and followers. The Federal election must be used by the unemployed to forge the band of unity and solidarity for a public works program at full wages and for real unemployment insurance. De- feat the capitalist frontal attack with the workers united anti-capi- talist front. Now, more than ever before, the local unemployed workers’ organiza- tions must be built up. This ap- plies especially to those who are working out their relief. The un- employed organizations can, by fighting the grievances on the job, and around the relief lines, build up a fighting organization and thus at- traet greater numbers of workers to prepare for the HUNGER MARCH ON SEP 20 for WORK AT REAL WAGES AND FOR REAL UNEM- PLOYMENT INSURANCE. How The Shipping Fed. Forced The Dock Dispute j By 0. SALONEN In 1934 on the Pacific Coast the longshoremen and seamen, through strike action, were able to force the United States government and the shipping interests through the awards which were granted them, a six-hour day, ninety-five cents per hour, and the right to refuse to go through a picket line where a strike is in existence, and furthermore, were granted the right to dispatch and distribute the work among their members. Since then, the employers, realiz- ing that after these concessions had been granted to the workers, they were in a poSition to hinder the wheels of production and protect the rights of their own members and other workers in industry. In order to Stop this industrial form of organization from spread- ing, it was of major importance to the shipping interests to call a meet- ing of all shipping magnates of the Pacific Coast in the early part of 1935 in the City of Vancouver. Planning to Lower Wages Then it was agreed upon where they were to attack the powerful Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast Longshoremen and Seamen in order to again lower the wages, in- crease the number of working hours, speed up the work, and have the Pa- cific Coast ports open so that war material could be shipped without interference of labor disputes to the satisfaction of the elass which pro- voked wars and accumulated profits out of war. The big monied interests of the Shipping Wederation, realizing that the organization known as the Mari- time Federation of the Pacific Coast was teo powerful for them to crush alone, called to their assistance a Mr. Hall G@vho is not an employer of labor) to thoroughly study the situa- tion and report upon when the erushing blow could be made upon the longeshoremen, Gerry McGeer and Mr. Hall Take a Hand In 1935, they elevated Mr. Hall to the position of president of the Shipping Federation with a salary of $10,000 a year, and appointed a new executive committee, centraliz- ine the power into the hands of five members. They next moved the Federation offices to the Marine Building to prevent the workers from findine out their intentions. The Shipping Federation drew Gerry MeGeer within their fold. They knew that he was a rayin= anti-Communist. They saw his ac- tions on the day he read the Riot Act and decided to use him for their purposes. The Shipping Federation shouted “Communism” and Gerry McGeer echoed it. The Shipping Federation realized that with Gerry MecGeer in their camp they could utilize him to bring in an army of police to drive the longshoremen and seamen back to work. Powell River Chosen The mayor was only too eager to join hands with the Shipping Fede- ration and hired hundreds of extra police. Parallel with this, Mr. Hall prepared the plans for hiring seabs in the Marine Buildings and for giv- ine the longshoremen’s organization the final biow. The next question was, where to begin? Powell Ryver was the place. Powell River longshoremen were or- ganizing. It was easy to get the Powell River company to lock out the longshoremen and thus lay the basis to extend the lockout to Van- couver. They knew that the longshore- men of Wancouver were possessed of decent working-class principles and would not handle Powell River paper that had been loaded by seabs. The Shipping Federation thought that the public would not believe that they had given their word of honor to the Vancouver longshore- men that they did not expect them Capitalist Parliaments Bosses Destroy Them When They Prove Useless In the first radio election speech Mackenzie King, Liberal Party leader, said that he would stand or fall by the Parliamentary form of