FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 1969

L

32,000 WOODWORKERS DEMAND:

RAISE OUR PAY

Reopen contract
says IWA Council

By MAURICE RUSH
British Columbia’s powerful International
Woodworkers of America, representing about 32,000
coastal woodworkers, has served notice on the giant
forest monopolies, that its members want a substantial
pay boost now, and have asked for reopening of the

FOREST PROFITS ZOOM. .

nants

ecor
mb tok Ree art 38 per cent
seonehta ROS re, gee Setee, 1 ed aa
| oh ee oo ts
; gost AND MAlls son if C
British 09 000 for i
/

Profit prospects spu
MacMillan Bloedel

D-year plan=:
cost $300 mills

——— nl

Hit
uit
ae

. while woodworker’s purchasing power drops

contract signed last year.

Faced with sharply rising
prices, taxes, interest rates,
rents, etc., woodworkers are
finding that their standard of
living is rapidly declining, while
the big forest companies are
making the biggest profits in
their history.

The story told by the
newspaper clippings on the left
speaks for itself. Without

exception, the forest companies
are outstripping all other
industries in piling up vast
profits, which are being further
swollen by high monopoly— fixed
lumber prices, which are a
scandal.

The sharp economic squeeze
felt by woodworkers and their
families, plus the attempts at
speed up and other pressures

The Central Committee of the
Communist Party of Canada this
week released the following May
Day message marking the Fiftieth
Anniversary of the Great Winni-
peg General Strike:

For the Canadian working
class this May Day, 1969, has a
deep historic significance. On
May Ist, 1919, — also a Thursday
— the Great Winnipeg Strike
began. Two weeks later, over
100,000 workers in Winnipeg and
throughout Western Canada
responded to the call for a sympa-
thetic general strike.

_ As stated by the late Reverend
-A.E. Smith, in his auto-
iography, ‘‘All My Life’’; ‘“‘No
event in Canadian labor history
$s more clearly revealed the

. General

50th ANNIVERSARY

elemental factors of working
class power.”

_Just as May Day, born out of
the struggle of American
workers for the 8-hour day, has
become the symbol of the
solidarity and growing strength
of the working class all over the
world in its struggle with inter-
national capital, so the Winnipeg
Strike became _ the
historic symbol of the Canadian

workers’ unbreakable bonds
ganar sarang

Inside
SPECIAL 8-PAGE
SUPPLEMENT ON THE
WINNIPEG

GENERAL STRIKE
rewrurser semanvrraneate Meramec seer

MAY DAY 1919-MAY DAY 1969

with that struggle. The strike
was an inseparable part of the
world-wide revolutionary wave
which followed the Great
October Socialist Revolution in
Russia in 1917.

Then, as now, it was clearly
recognized that the workers of
every country face the same
exploiters under capitalism. As a
consequence of this, they must
confront their common enemies
with an unbreakable fraternity of
the workers of all nations. That
was precisely why one of the
principle demands of the striking
workers in 1919, was an
immediate end to imperialist
intervention against the first

. workers’ socialist republic.
ses

Today, a quarter century after

Winnipeg General Strike

the end of the Second World War,
Canada maintains troops in
Europe at great cost to the
Canadian taxpayers. The money
thus spent is badly needed for
decent housing, schools,
hospitals, and many other social
needs.

Imperialist and aggressive war
alliances, such as NATO and
NORAD, tie Canada to the
imperialist aims of the United
States military-industrial
complex and the Pentagon.
Moreover, the Canadian govern-
ment pursues a criminal policy of
complicity in the dirty
aggressive U.S. war against the
people of Vietnam. Such a policy
is clearly in the interests of war

See WINNIPEG, pg. 16

which workers face on the job,
have led to many rank-and-file
job actions. The latest is the a
action of 250 workers at {aap ae
Weldwood in Vancouver Monday! ee a
when they walked off the job
after the company tried to
impose an increase in produc-
tion on the work crews.

Jack MacKenzie, Regional -
Vice-President of the IWA, told
the Pacific Tribune Tuesday that
the Regional Council of the union
has received authorization from
all nine coast locals to apply for a
reopening of the contract. These
locals represent 32,000 members.

MacKenzie said that after the
coast contract has been reopened
the IWA will move to reopen the
Interior contract with a view to
winning pay boosts for Interior
woodworkers.

See IWA, pg. 2

TIM BUCK, national chairman of
the Communist Party, will speak
at a giant May Day rally in Van-
couver’s Pender Auditorium, Sun-
day, May 4 at 8 p.m. This is’
Buck’s first appearance here since
the federal election campaign.
See details on Page 16.