2 B.C. LUMBER WORKER Me 5 5 Page Five GOSSIP SKIDROAD EAR Bill:— You might as well stick around camp. Vancouver's quite eat. To me it’s just a bewilder- Ss It’s doggone depressing for a stiff without dough for the merry- go-round. I feel just about as helpless as a new-born father and as faint as a butterfly’s belch. Too much | white-collar stuff makes me homesick for the camp where things are at least kinda sensible. But I’d better tell you about more cheerful doings. Some of us got into one of the joints along Hastings they cali eer parlors — more beer than rlor, After the usual bull-ses- ion, we were getting up to leave, when we saw a sign: “Please don’t stand up when the room is in motion”, so we nad to sit down and order a few more. In the coffee shop next door, they had another sign: “Try Our ‘orever ‘Amburgers”: We did. It is the same old 18th century ‘orse meat, We poured ourselves on to the street car. One of the gang kept on smoking, and the conductor yells: “Hey, Mack, don’t you see that sign ‘No Smoking’?”” “Yeah, sure,” says Mack, “But how in heck do you expect me to obey all these rules? What do I do about this one, ‘Wear Spiral Corsets’ ?”” We went to see old Sam at the hospital. He's doing all right now, but when they thought he wouldn't pull through, they called in a parson, The reverend went to work on bim—"Sam, you've given us a lot of trouble in your time, but I know are you cept God and rénounce ‘Sam thought for a while and then Gasped: "I'm sure willing to make a deal with God, but speaking. of the Devil, right now, I'm in a spot where I can't afford to antagonize | anybody,” It musta worked, for be was as chipper as. ever. HOT-SHOT DEFINITIONS BEFORE you get down here, I should tip you off to some new meanings they have for words here, like these: and pefson you can always hear, but seldom turn off. Gold-digger—A gal who loves a guy for all he's worth, Ignoramus — One who doesn't know something you'vevjust learned, Girl-show — Where the crowd falls off if nothing else does. Diplomacy — How to cut the other fellow’s throat without’ using a knife, Glamour—Something that evap- orates when the sweater is too barge. Genius—One who can make any- thing but a living. _IWA BUSINESS ING down to business, I have sizing things up around the IWA offices in this me, this (wa is big ER 9 m hum- 1 with ino and he Sigg city, but you can have it in this, Lochin' Aneund By “High Rigger” ‘HI’ MAKES THE ROUNDS; FINDS IWA ON THE BEAM It would open your eyes, and maybe your pocketbook, to go into the office of Local 1-217 and find out what it means to carry on the business of 5000 members. After ten minutes there, I agreed with Secretary Stu Hodgson, that maybe he had to be as smart as any other business man. What with dues books and records, min- utes, reports, committees, shop steward meetings and card sys- tems, etc., etc., it’s a lot tougher job than logging even. There’s no- “brass hat” stuff tiwh Lloyd Whalen, Stu Hodgson and Art MacDougall, around that office. They're doing a solid trade union job with plenty overtime and cleaning up.on all the job grievances in the plants that the “wooies” never had time for. Re- sult—more members and more 100 per cent plants. The office of the Loggers’ Lo- cal 1-71, IWA, is another busy spot, but-the latch string is al- ways out for the fellows from the camps at 9 Hastings Street, East. Be sure and drop in when you're in town. They’ye got no end of service fer loggers—even a hiring all. Fred Fieher has just taken over, and is putting the information he Bot on recent trips to the campus to good use. He's got a lot of maps on the wall, marking all the logging camps, and he likes nothing better than to point out that the most of them have the IWA flag, and then he'll show you the check-off lists to prove it. They've really been put- ting steam into the drive to organ- ize the camps behind the fight for better wages. MEN AT WORK WHEN I got around to the Dis- trict Office, I found it was no place for a loafer. It was full of Policy Committee members, all busy plotting against R. V. Sta- art and the operators, and the air was blue with fight tall. Stu Alsbury was all over the place doing ‘seventeen jobs at oneé and keeping everybody hap- py like a president should. George Mitchell was holding three con- ferencas and a phone conversa- tion all at the same time, but get- ting down to business like a dent- ist’s drill, For a while, the place looked like a junk-shop when they brought back the stuff the Court pried away from the Wooies. Desks, chairs and filing cabinets were piled up everywhere. The Wooies were slick enough to cache away a lot of the more ex- pensive equipment belonging to the IWA, such as typewriters and mimeographing machines. ‘They sent back mostly old furniture. They must've been a little care- less about their old records. Some of the boys dived into the filing cabinets and came up with copies of letters that proved what the IWA had said all along. They had been scheming for a long time to smash the union, if they couldn’t get away with an iron-clad Commie dictatorship. A nice bunch of heels, I-must say. There was more LPP literature than IWA records. Study courses on “How to Establish Communist Control of Trade Unions”, and “Leadership by Stalin” ete., ete. Tt all made a nice bonfire. Oh yes, they found a big sup- ply of handsomely engraved nee ness cards for a high ranking personage, with many titles named Ernest Dalskog, District President, IWA. These will be returned, of course, so that Ernie can introduce himself around the camps as a has-been. There was also found a large| I tell you, Bill, there’s a lot of { collection of studio portraits of! Harold Pritchett, in every known | Hollywood pose. These were’ sent guys would quit their crabbing and knocking if they got the chance to attend one of these MEMBERSHIP RULE N= time you hear a guy tell you that the JWA is run by to the Provincial Mental Hospi-| meetings. All the way through, ,a Fadling clijue or that it is a tal for the information of medical it was an honest-to-God, down-to-|company union set-up you can men studying cases of egomania. Such is the fame of renegades. AND THE GALS TOO (NE pleasing reason why the IWA offices run smoothly is that they are staffed by a com- petent bunch of girls. For in- stance, you'll never find a harder working pair than Pearl and Ann in the District Office. All nice and friendly but no nonsense please, and park youre snoose and tough language outside, 5 They’re as interested in the union as we are, but how they manage to keep sweet tempered is beyond my ken, for everybody in the IWA wants everything done immediately if not sooner. Of course, the IWA knows how to pick them, for Mother Nature is very much on their side. The gals got their own union, the OPWOC, and did I get a kick out of hearing that they’re also asking for an agreement and want to bargain with the IWA as their employer. And that suits the IWA, and you’re darn tootin’, | the gals will get a good agree- ment, a lot easier than they would from R. V. Stuart. Just so you'll know that these gals are smart, too smart to ‘fall for that old line of yours about being a poor lonesome logger who needs motherly attentin, I must tell you this one. Mrs. Grace Krause, who now works for our Local, learned all about this trade union business when she was secretary of a local of the Packinghouse Workers. And if an old-timer may say so, she’s as chic as they're made, and so demure you'd never suspect she could call her shots so fast. When going out for coffee one day, a city zoot-suiter tried to make her. Grace gave him the freezing stare. The wolf wise-cracked: “Par- don me, ¢ thought you were my mother.” Grace squelched him with: “I couldn't be, I'm married.” That's smacking ’em down, and nary a naughty word. BIG POW WOW LUCKY for me, my dues were paid up, so when Jack Squire took 2 squint at my card he let me into the Steel Hall during the meeting of the District Council. I got so interested, I sat it out for the whole day, and got a sore throat wanting to speak when I couldn’t not being a delegat KNOWLTON'S DRUGS BODY BELTS TRUSSES FIRST AID SUPPLIES DRUGGIST Can Supply All. your Medical Requirements F BY MAIL Write to 15 East Hastings — Vancouver PAcific 6371 VEE 4 after an extended holiday. A extended to all old friends to come jearth tackling of the questions that bother us on the job. I could write pages, for I learned more about the IWA in a few hours than from years of camp rumours. idea of where we’d be if it wasn’t for the [WA. We'd be up the old creek and no paddle for sure. There’s one point I wish you’d make with the rest of the fellows in camp, if you're still running. The IWA ‘means business about these new wage and union secur- ity demands. They’re all set to fight. Tom MacKenzie and then Red Fadling laid it right on the line, and there's only one line, and that's a better contract. Push organization tight into the bosses’ faces on the job, they said, so they'll know that the IWA is. conditioned for a fight. Set up strike committees now, all the way through the organization, so that we can move into action fast if we have to. They’re goin to argue it out with the operators in front of a Conciliation Board, of course, but since the operators are getting too. We've got to get the lead out of our pants, and move in on the bosses. They can’t run the indus- try and make a dollar without us. no softies among us. All this outhouse gossip about the IWA fiddling around with this question is Wooie-brewed moon- shine. I also got an| tough, we'll have to get tough} We got to prove that there are |} wipe, that sneer off his face “and do yourself a good turn. If: one fact was made clear at this meet- ing, it was that the rank and fiJe members are running the show. You'll remember how we used to figure that a union should be run from the bottom up and not from the top down, as in Prit- chett’s day, Well take it from me it’s run from the bottom up now. Anyone who could sit through a District Gouncil meeting now and believe otherwise is the world’s lowest grade moron, or a down- right crook. (Continued on Page 8) SAN FRANCISCO — TAILORS .— LOANS MONEY ON Suits, Overcoats, etc. Loggers Boots, Sleeping Bags, Suitcases, Radios, Watches and Rings. Expert Watch Repairing UNREDEEMED Suits and Caulk Boots For Sale. MAIL ORDER 52 West Hastings Street VANCOUVER, B.C. FLY? 92 Ulay Cost Less hau You Thine CHARTER FLIGHT SERVICE LTD. VANCOUVER AIRPORT © PHONE RICHMOND 1449 @ ONE, THREE, AND SIX-PASSENGER PLANES Phone or Write For Information. LOGGERS! WORKMEN! Send your Boots to Dayton’s for Repair or Rebuild by Expert Craftsmen. DAYTON SHOE MFG. CO. (B.C.) LTD. 950 Commercial Drive’ HA. 5177 VANCOUVER, B.C. Hand Made BY EXPERT CRAFTSMEN LOGGERS Work Boots ASK for THEM