Gaining In
oership —

‘announced by LPP
| Organizer Maurice
week show a definite
ang in party building
ovinee. In the period
sctober 1 and Janu-
1946, the fellowing
ats are recorded:

‘w members initiated.
ww clubs- formed, of
six are youth clubs
‘even are in fishing
ssging districts.

ization, five of which
dustrial and two pro-
al.

armerly defunct clubs
(mized and establish-
| a functioning basis.
iso pointed out by the
@rganizer that fish-
zgers and industrial
re joining the party
(mg numbers, demon-
ery clearly that the
people of B.C. are
ore and more to the
Sressive
in the coming wage

thing, that comes to
connection with the
Mr. Justice Rand on
of the Ford strike is
limission of the com-
riaptey of labor. legis-
anada. So completely
and double-dealing is
ae Dominion Wartime
regulations) thett in
t instance of conflict
big company and a
1é Government is com-
o outside of its own
to get any decision
fact. the government
i of the flexibility of
‘and has caleulatinely
‘de explicit on matters
‘to collective bargain-
jackenzte King is the
the Imexplicit and the
‘he Inexact. He serves
dists well in those ca-

2 depends on whose ox
& the big unions and
pmpanies are treated
she law, what happens
1 unions and the small

Lacking the weight
= Of their Cases a na-
2 like the Ford strike,
trikes or the packing-

ces, the smaller union’

the air or made the
‘stalling, obscurity and
nt.
' : o

ating of the checkoff
| Local 200, UA W-GCLIO
cy for the determined
vomen who struck for
i the most bitterly con-
ike in Ganadian Jabor
he checkoff is not the
lection of dues via the
|effice. It is a mark of
menecy of the union in
Ti is a quality of union
That is what the Ford
Sugsht for, and that is
won. In the immediate
md as the report re-
te looming: struggles on
trial front, the conse-
ithe Ford strike will be
then the morale of the
and help to build the
‘an even stronger pro-

Sanization of the work-—

' Ford empire.

use of the strike and

iclubs in. process of

Party for -

Program For Council

‘Editor, Pacific Tribune:

This being the first month of
our city’s golden jubilee year,
and if it is to be suitably cele-
brated as proposed by the
mayor, may I suggest, for re-
hearsal, the following appro-
priate items for the first act:

(1) <All interested citizens
kick off and scrap their out-
worn diapers and adorn them-
selves in knickerbockers or
pinafores as a manifestation
of real civic pride.

(2) Place a banana peel un-
der the meddlesome old east
erm nurse that has persistent—
ly dribbled spirits of turpentine
into our bath water for the past

sixty years.

(3) Atomize the political og-
epogo that has been purpose-

struggles. Rush pointed out
that the working people feed a
strong Labor-Progressive Party
te give leadership in the days
that lie ahead and he urged
all working men and women te
join its ranks.

the determination of the strikers
2re wholly and completely justi-
fied by the award of the check-
eff. The Ford Company, which
refused to discuss the checkoff
or the union shop, has been com-
pelled by the solidarity of the
Ford Local te come acress.

Had they weakened at any
point, the Rand Report would
have been worded differently.

The fine distinctions, under-
stood only by a mind trained in
Jezal jartifice, that Mr. Rand
draws between a man who pays
dues and is not a union member,
and a full union member, are
something new to Canadian la-
bor. There will be plenty of
4rouble about interpretation, and
the union would be thoroughly
justified in rejecting Mr. Rand’s
implication that a worker’s re-
lation to the union is a cash one
alone, and in insisting that once z
@ man pays his dues via the
checkoff, to all intents and pur-
poses he must accept union re-
sponsibilities—-which cannot be
met only by paying a dollar a
month.

HE victory for the cause of
- the Ford strike being . thus
emphasized (as it must be, again
and again, to combat the de-
featists and betrayers of the
Ford strike solidarity movement
who will try to coin benefits out
of their own interpretations
other things must also be said.

Mr. Rand has laid down a pat-
term of “company scurity’ which
cannot be accepted by Canadian
labor. He has declared that a
majority of all workers affected
by the agreement — union and
non-union—must be secured in
erder that a strike can take
place, whereas the unions will
insist as always that a majority,
ef all workers affected by the
agreement—union and non-union
—must be secured in order that
a strike can take place, whereas
the unions will insist as always
that a majority of union mem-
bers must be the deciding factor.
He has laid down a system of
fines which amounts to a no-
strike straitjacket, in the name
of “company security,’ and mixes
this up with wild-cat strikes

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE 5

‘ment, particularly

ly bred and trained to need-
lessly pollute the well recog-
nized and crystalline purity of
Capilano’s precious gift.

(4) Place freight rates on
the same basis as the datly
tides and make it possible for
“the benefits of commerce to
flow as freely in one direction
as the other.

(5) Remove all discrimina-
tory barriers from harbor fa-
cilities and thereby allow this
city to profit more equitably.
through access to the commer-
cial avenues of the world.

(6) Lower the tax rates on
properties of citizens least able
to pay and apply taxation to
business that has long enjoyed
the benefits of tax exemption.

(7) Make possible an ade-
quate portion of our national
resources that they may be ap-
plied to the needs of the people
and thereby minimize the hard-
ships resulting from misman-
_ agement and the effects of ex-
cessive exporting.
H. €. KINGSTON.

le Rand Repert ma by Leslie Morris

which, however much one may
defend the policy of the union
leadership’s responsibility, is an
unwarranted interference in the
right to strike.

The issue in Canada is not
company. security. Industrial cor-
porations -have all the security
which comes from their owner-
ship and their power. The real

issue, as labor sees it, is the

security of livelihood, employ-
ment, income and organizations
of the workers in industry, and
anything that.takes away from
that—-as Mr. Rand’s formula
tries to do—is anathema to the
trade union movement; and no
matter how much it might be
justified by certam trade union
leaders it will in the end recoil
on the freedom of movement and
action which the trade unions
must retain at all costs.

R. RAND’s report will be

studied by many, not least
the Dominion and provincial gov-
ernment officials in labor de-
partments. If these alarming
features of his report are to be
included in the law of the land,
along with the incorporation of
the trade unions which is con-
stantly proposed by employers’
associations, there will be
trouble. The Rand Report fails
to define and establish the fun-
damental principles of compul-
sory collective bargaining as they
are repeatedly proposed by the
irade wumions. Instead, it con-
ecentrates on “company security”
and as such is a reactionary docu-
beeause these
features are obscured in the re-
port by the-very definite gain
made by the Ford workers with
respect to the checkoff and the
large measure of union security
they won as the result of their
struggle.

Mr. Rand’s comments on “com-
munistic” elements in the union
eonstitute a gift to the red-bait-
ers, for if they mean anything at
all it is that Communists have
ne right to lead union men and
women. They have ,that right,
they exercise it when the work-
ers extend confidence to them,
and they will continue so to do,
Mr. Rand to the contrary not-
withstanding.

AeauerasecsseCeeusSssecesGOScReaene

Short Jabs #0" sw

SERuApue2aseenetsesuePRoBeFDORAREeenee

Just Supposing!

4 ae question of British armed force in Greece has occupied much of
the space in the press in the past few months, particularly since
the matter was injected into the deliberations of the United Nations
couneil by Vishinsky. :

The stand of reactionary imperialism is not hard te understand,
whether in Greece or any other place. Self-interest is the determining
factor in the policies of the reactionaries and it is accomplished imvyari-
ably by the use of naked, unadulterated force. ’

“Influence” so-called, when used in connection with imperialist
policies is but another name for the “might is right” attilude. Some
times it expresses itself in miltary domination, sometimes in economic
squeeze.

This latter method has been used lately by British imperialism in
Gzechoslovakia when the government of that country was warned to
lay off the nationalization of industries in which British capital in-
vestments are involved ard on another occasion, by American imperial-
ism, when the Italian government was notified that no aid would be
forthcoming from the U.S., if the spread of Socialism was not stopped.

Te ease of Greece, however, is a little different. There, British “in-
fluence is of the last resort variety—planes, guns and bayonets,
with the men to use them. The situation there might be more easily
understood but for the fact that the iron-hand policy of British imperi-
alism is being operated by a Labor government, at least a government
elected by the workers of Britain in the belief that they were electing
a Labor government.

It is undoubtedly a Social Democratic government. Its actions are
endorsed not only by all the leading Social Democrats, including M. J.
Goldwell in Ganada, but by the Tory ex-Foreign Minister, Anthony Eden.
In fact, Eden complimented Beyin so theroughly for his first state
ment of foreign policy by saying that there was not one point of dis-
agreement between them. { :

HIS has caused some confusion. Perhaps it will help some of the con-

fused people if we play a little game of “supposing”. Suppose that,

in the dark days of the war, when the Nazis seemed to be riding on the

high crest of victorious conquest, that the British government under

Churchill had deecamped and set up a “goyernment-in-exile” abroad, just
as the Greek government did.

Suppose further, that the people of Britain refused to surrender
and kept on fighting “on the beaches, in the streets, in their homes”
and at the price of much “sweat, blood and tears,” succeeded in’ carry—
ing on to victory, without assistance from any of her allies, and
driving the Nazi hordes from her shores.

Suppose too, that in this struggle, they had set up 2 people’s
government representative of all who had remained to fight against
the fascists, a government which was the result of all the anti-fascist
elements sinking their differences and uniting for that common purpose.

And suppose still further, that the government-in-exile, reintoreed
in numbers by the Municheers of the Chamberlain era, returned to take
over the reins of government with the active military support of Am-
erican bayonets and ousted the government of the people’s choice.

Now. we stop supposing; for that would be a similar situation to the

one which obtains in Greece today. Where would Bevin and Coldwell
be if things had gone that way? Undoubtedly they would be tangled
up with the same reactionary elements they are in cahoots with today—
fighting the people of Britain as they and their fellow Social Demo-
erats are fighting the Greek people, true to their role as Social Demo-
erats. ©

Soviet Elections

jee capitalist press misses no bets when the maintenance of capitalist
ideology is the issue. Last weeks elections in the Soviet Union pro-

vided it with an opportunity. The Vancouver News Herald, on the

“ morning following the elections informed its readers that, “Only one

politica] party, the Communists (the only legal party in Russia),—
participated in the election”. (11/12/46)
Quze there is only one legal political party in the Soviet Union. That
is the party of the workers of the Soviet Union. There is no
party, legal or otherwise, representing capitalist interests; no party of
the CPR, or the B.C. Collectric, or the Gonsolidated M&S Company,
or the Ganadian Collieries, or Imperial Oil; there is no party represent—
ing Boss Loggers or Mine Operators or Gannerymen’s interests, since
such have no existence, legal or otherwise in the Soviet Union. i
Soviet democracy selects its candidates to the Soviets, practically
in the process of the “nominations.” The right to nominate candidates to
these bodies belongs “to public organizations and societies of the
working people: Communist Party organizations, trade unions, co-oper-
atives, youth organizations and cultural societies.”
EYEERYONE in the Soviet Union over 18 years of age, with the ex-
ception of the insane and some eriminals, has a vote. That is the
same voting age as in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and other countries
which have set up People’s governments since the defeat of Fascism
—pbut not in Canada. : :
The people of the Soviet Union like this truly democratic form of
elections if the response is any guide, “110 millions are expected to
vote” according to the same News Herald story. And they wil vote
wherever they happen to be on election day; in the industrial cities,
on the collectives all over the country and in every military and naval

. post in the Union and the occupied territory.

We had an election in B.C. a few months ago. We had plenty of can-
didates to vote for. But ask the voters over 21 years of age whose names
were not on the voters lists, how they felt about the number of can-
didates. eg

Had these workers, disenfranchised by our Canadian form of
democracy, lived in the Soviet Union, they would not have been swindled
out of their vote. They might not have been able to vote for Harvey
MacMillan or Bob Filberg, or Austin Taylor, or even Selwyn G. Blay-
lock Gvho had not. yet. kicked the bueket. when the- elections were held)
_put they could certainly have voted for one of their own kind.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1946