¢ LABOR FRONT BY WILLIAM KASHTAN It is a bitter commentary on the real and one 8d re- lationship which exists between the Canadian Labor Congress and the AFL-CIO, and the lack of autonomy within many of the international unions in Canada, that the AFL-CIO will be meeting in Washington June 4 to decide on issues affect- ing Canadian labor on such matters as the Carpenters and the SIU. CLC President Jodoin maintains the pretence that the Canadian trade union movement decides its own affairs but this is a complete negation of the truth. The reality is otherwise. When the trade union movement in Canada was split into the centres in the late 30’s that decision was made in Wash- ington, not Canada. When the Canadian Seamen’s Union was expelled from the old Trades and La- bor Congress, then destroyed and the SIU brought into Cana- da, that decision was made in Washington, not Canada. The decision to expel the Teamsters, the SIU, the inde- pendent unions, was likewise made in Washington, not Can- ada. And if today there exists the danger of a split within the CLC, it comes from sources in Washington, not beca'use Can- adian workers want it. If many trade union locals do not have the right .to participate in political action, that too comes from Wash- ington. If unions and union officers in Canada suffer the indig- nity of having to comply with the Taft-Hartley and Landrum- Griffin acts, it is because they enjoy very little genuine autonomy. If Steel tries to wreck Mine Mill the decision can like- wise be traced to Washington, to U.S. Labor Secretary Gold- berg and to the U.S. State Department which has many of the leaders of international unions in its pocket. This is the reality of the situation. This is the measure of independence and autonomy the Canadian workers have. * * * The June 4 meeting of the AFL-CIO will be discussing the problem of the Carpenters and that of the SIU. Matters which are the right and the property of Canadian workers will be decided there. The seamen never asked for the SIU to come to Canada and now they are not being asked to kick the SIU out. It is being decided for them. And President Jodoin is not averse to call upon the state apparatus, the police and government to do the job for them. Where are the basic issues affecting the living standards, the jobs of seamen, their rights? These are lost ‘in the shuffle in the ccurse of an unprincipled raiding and wrecking oper- ation. * ae * The source of the difficulties besetting the trade union movement, which is reflected in the conflict between Inter- national Woodworkers of America and the Carpenters,. lies in the continued and sharpening divisions in trade union ranks. It lies in the fact that the Canadian trade union move- ment enjoys very little autonomy and decisions are made over its heads; that very little democracy exists in far too many unions; that the basic class issues which unite workers are pushed aside and replaced by policies of cold war, policies of class collaboration. As long as_ such policies are maintained by the right wing they will bring incalculable harm to the working class. 1 * ae The entire trade union movement needs to have a new look at the basic democratic issues of autonomy and advance it with new vigor and new determination. As long as decis- ions rest in Washington the Canadian trade union movement will always be faced with the threat of splits, raids, union wrecking, and lack of democratic rights. It is time to change this one-sided relationship and re- place it by a relationship of equals. It is also time to have a new look on the over-riding is- , sue of trade union unity. The present course of the right wing leads to more and more divisions, to union wrecking and em- pire building. A genuinely united trade union movement can never be built on such a basis; if anyone doubts it, the pic- ture of the trade union movement in Canada today ought tc be ample proof of that. The “open door’ policy enunciated by the right wing while expelling unions which are allegedly tainted and cor. rupted and closing the door to allegedly Communist-domin ated unions leads nowhere except to civil war. % * * It is too much to expect that these views will be ad- vanced by CLC President Jodoin and other officers when they go to Washington. More likely, and more unfortunately, they will bend the knee to George Meany and Company and the forces which decide the policies of the Canadian trade un- ion movement — in Washington. To change this situation will also require changes in leadership, the election of men and women who base them selves on the interests of the Canadian working class and who - are prepared to stand up in defense of the basic democratic and autonomous rights of the Canadian workers. In the meantime it will be interesting to see what comes out of the talks’ in Washington:*’*‘ ‘ **° Under a heading “The Strategy of Imperialism,” the Soviet paper Pravda recently carried an article about the so-called “grand strategy” of the United States which is predicated, among other things, on a readiness to start, “under certain condi- tions,” a world nuclear war. Preparation for this war is the first and decisive element of U.S. President Kennedy’s “grand strategy”, writes the author. Anothef element, as_ is often stressed in the Ameri- can press, is “correcting” the line of former American ad- ministrations with regard to conventional weapons. Along with strengthening nuclear and rocket might the strategy of the present U.S. rulers lays a much greater emphasis on the development of the “con- ventional,’ non-nuclear mili- tary machine. : They consider that the old line of tying the country’s foreign and military policy entirely to total war weap- ons limits the possibilities of the U.S. and binds their hands to a great extent. Specifically, it prevents _ them from waging large-scale _ *2 U.S. GRAND STRATEGY’ BASED $ READINESS FOR NUCLEAR WAR and effective interventionist wars of “local’’ character, which would not involve the threat of devastation to the U.S. itself. Such military interventions are a third element of the grand strategy,” EXPORT COUNTER-REVOLUTION The importance assigned by the authors of this strategy to armed intervention in the internal affairs of independ- ent states can be seen from the great attention which Washington has been paying lately to special units estab- lished in the guise of ‘guer- rilla” or ‘“anti- guerrilla” troops. Their purpose is perfectly clear. It is armed export of counterrevolution coupled with a mobilization of the in- ternal forces of counter revo- lution. A fourth element of the “srand strategy’. is ‘‘aid” to foreign states, which is touted as “an important tool of might and persuasion.” Lastly, the fifth element of “grand strategy” is a_ striv- ing to cement the military and political system establish- ed by American imperialism ~ ¢ ware