XS : Shey ay Sa FLASHBACKS FROM THE COMMUNIST PRESS 50 years ago... ALDERMEN STAGE DEMONSTRATION WINNIPEG — The seven labor aldermen’ on the Winnipeg City Council walked out in a body as a. protest against. the other 11 _ aldermen uniting in a solid block to prevent any chairmanships of committees going to labor. Labor~polled 41% of the votes and have a right to that propor- tion of chairmanships and ap- pointments to other committees. Labor was given but three places on committees with 35 to be filled. * * * During 1924 more than 213,000 applications for work were tilled out in 25 employment bureaus throughout Ontario. The year is described as the worst in the his- tory of Ontario. The Worker, Jan. 24, 1925 25 years ago... ECONOMIC TREACHERY The economic traitors who run this country are quite willing to sacrifice Canadian workers to the interests of U.S. monopoly capital. The phoney excuse that striking U.S. coal miners are to blame for cutting down CNR trains and © throwing thousands out of work is nothing but a lie. Train cuts are designed to smash railway workers’ demands for the 40-hour week and wage in- creases. There’s plenty of coal in Alberta, B.C. and Nova Scotia for Canadian railroads. Talk about patriotism! These executives are nothing but cynical betrayers of the economic inter- ests of our country. Tribune, Jan. 23, 1950. Profiteer nf the week: Poor old International Harvester Co. notes in its 24-week financial statement, Nov. 16, that shortages of basic materials cramped its style. And those awful, awful higher costs were simply—awful. and undaunted in its pursuit of profit, the company was able to squeeze $23,640,000 profit out of farmers and others for an in- crease of $1,879,000 over the same period a year earlier. But the company is rubbing ° its hands over prospects of a big agricul- tural demand in 1975 — and lots of high- priced tractors! Nevertheless, intrepid Editor — MAURICE RUSH : Published weekly at Ford Bldg., Mezzanine No. 3, 193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-8108 Business & Circulation Manager, FRED WILSON Subscription Rate: Canada, $6.00 one year; $3.50 for six months; North and South America and Commonwealth countries, $7.00 ; All other countries, $8.00 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1975—Page 4 ‘Share the fight, not the misery The Communist Party’s emergency program to fight layoffs and inflation, issued at the end of 1974, has been fur- ther vindicated. The unchecked spread of layoffs em- phasizes the Communist call to the working class to fight back while the recession is young — reject the burden of capitalism’s crisis. The bosses and their governments, - Who gives the army its anti-labor role? The recent Canadian army exercise at Camp Debert, in Nova Scotia, where troops played the part of “striking or dissident workers,” while other troops “dealt” with them, reveals the trend of the thinking of the defenders of capi- talist profit. The Canadian Labour Congress con- demned the incident as “repugnant and disgusting” and doing “a grave dis- service to the working people.” The CLC should be commended for its quick and angry response. But questions requiring answers still remain. On whose authority was such a perversion of “defence” planned and carried out? Did Defence Minister Rich- ardson give the order? Is that what he sees as his job? Or did the army brass decide on its own to “regulate” the rights of workers to strike and protest the recession inflicted on them? Does anyone doubt that, as economic condi- tions worsen, the respected directors from the biggest corporations, are exerting pressure for contingency plans to have the working class “controlled”? Is it for this kind of internal war- fare, now being rehearsed by the army, that chief of defence staff, General J. A. Dextraze gloated on Jan. 17 that under his goading, the defence minister was able to squeeze out of the Trudeau Cabi- net “hundreds of millions more than we were supposed to get”? Hundreds of millions of our tax money! Canadians should not forget how the jackals of reaction have used the army against the people in other countries — how, in Chile, for instance, all good things came to the multi-nationals on the heels of army outrages. . In the desperation of the capitalist world crisis, the system’s real rulers in monopoly’s board rooms, would have no compunction about using military force against workers. There is necessity that Canada’s arm- ed forces be democratized to ensure that Parliament, even in its present un- representative state, has the power to prevent the use of the army as an anti- labor weapon. It is in the working peo- ple’s interests to demand that such deci- sions are not left in the hands of the corporate empires, or in those of the gold-braid generals, with their errand boy in the defence minister’s office. doing everything to load that burden onto thhe workers, must be out-press- ured, and forced to implement policies of full employment and a roll-back of prices. — While December’s cold-blooded statis- ties revealed living standards slashed 12.4% from Dee. 1973 by soaring prices, and 6.1% of the workforce jobless, the capitalist press seethed with “solu- tions”. Wage restraint, giving up lux- uries, a wage freeze, were in their bag, but their most bilious idea was “sharing the misery.” ‘The Toronto Globe told it like a spiri- tual revelation — “they sat down to- gether” — and the boss cut the pay- roll! Some togetherness! The epic of Kelsey-Hayes, an auto 2 parts outfit whose workers in Auto — Workers Local 195 agreed to “share the — misery” by working only three weeks a ~ month, thus cutting their living stand- — ard, has already been told. But why share misery? Because the | capitalist system decrees it, while accu- mulating the most mountainous profits — in history? Misery in return for what? — Another year of pommeling at: the ~ hands of the profiteers? Food prices are going to jump another | 15% in 1975 according to Food Board chairman Plumbtre on Jan. 20. Domin- | ~ ion Stores president, Thomas Bolton — used exactly the same figure at.the be- ginning of December. What about hous- — ing, what about fuel, what about cloth- — ing, what about transportation, and — what about interest rates added to that? ae How many workers are ready to | undergo misery to end up with more ~ misery, while the bosses and their gov- — ernments use the time to undermine | trade unions and obstruct working-class | gains? Fewer every week. 4 The smouldering anger of workers — who are getting wise to the class battles — being waged against them, is beginning — to break out. and it started with no- |— nonsense resolutions to government and — the Canadian Labour Congress demand- — ing country-wide action on jobs, infla- | tion, housing. and on taxes on profits. | Such resolutions have alraedy swept through labor councils in Winniveg, | Hamilton, _ and Oshawa. They state the mood of workers who insist | that the Canadian Labour Congress set an example. 7 Monopolies in Canada share the fierce determination of their kin everywhere to make working people — pay for the current crisis of the system. Communists state bluntly that any pre- tence that capitalism can prevent re-_ cession is no more than a pretence. _ What workers can do and are doing is to demand that the burden be shifted where it belongs on the corporations _ who monopolize-what the working peo ple produce. What the workers can refuse, and aré refusing, is to foot the bill for a capl talist-made depression, a scourge un" known in the lands of socialism, where the working class holds power.