THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

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THE WESTERN CANADIAN

LUMBER WORKER

38,000 copies
printed in this issue.

Published twice monthly as the officia) publication of the INTERNATIONAL WOQDWORKERS OF AMERICA

Western Canadian Regional Council No. 1

Affiliated with AFL-CIO-CLC

2859 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone 874-5261

Editor — Pat Kerr Business Manager — Fred Fieber

Advertising Representatives — Elizabeth Spencer Associates

Forwarded to every member of the IWA in Western Canada in accordance with convention decisions.
Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 per year.

Authorized as Second Class Mail, Post.Office Department, and for payment of postage in cash. Ge?

GUEST EDITORIAL

LABOUR MYTHS EXPLODED

INEWSPAPERS which pride themselves

on their accuracy usually fail to ex-

tend it to their coverage and comments
‘on labour news. All sorts of distortions,
exaggerations, misleading statistics and
downright falsehoods about unions are
published repeatedly as if they were
easily verifiable facts.

Take the oft-quoted charge that Ca-
nadian workers are 20% less productive
than American workers. Where did this
figure come from? How was it calcu-
lated? Where is the proof? The editorial
writers conveniently don’t tell us. They
simply make the statement as if it were
as self-evident as that 2 + 2 = 4. The
truth is that no study has been made and
no statistics adduced to prove that Ca-
nadian workers are 20% less productive
than their American counterparts. Some-
body plucked the figure out of thin air
in an effort to legitimize an anti-labour
prejudice, and the news media quickly
pounced on it.

Another myth we have often heard
is that British workers are lazy and strike-
happy, and are largely responsible for
Britain’s industrial backwardness in re-
cent years. This calumny has been re-
peated so often that even workers on this
side of the ocean have come to believe
it. Now it turns out to be completely

unfounded.

This particular myth has been ex-
ploded by a five-year research project
into industrial relations in the U.K., in-
stituted by Britain’s Royal Commission
on Trade Unions. The head of the pro-
ject, George Sayers Bain, has found that
time lost through strikes in Britain during
the past ten years have not exceeded an
annual average of 0.1%, which compares
very favourably with the records of Can-
ada and the United States.

Bain flatly rejects the view that lazy
British workers are responsible for that
country’s industrial backsliding. He says
the main culprit is management, which
has failed to provide more modern meth-
ods and productive processes.

These are just two examples of the
falsehoods about the labour movement
perpetrated in the press. They are so
numerous it would take a thick book to
list them all. The number connected with
the wage parity issue alone would fill
dozens of pages.

The odd part of it is that most of the
anti-labour myths stem from ignorance
rather than malice. The news media
know little or nothing about unions and
how they operate, nor do they seem
anxious to learn. They apparently prefer
to purvey those myths that make labour
the scapegoat for most of society’s ills.

—Canadian Transport.

FROM THE “DEMOCRAT"*

THIS MAN OF COMPASSION

By DOROTHY STEEVES
MAY” eulogies and books will be written
about Martin Luther King. It is diffi-
cult to express ourselves while the horror and
the guilt is still upon us. This man of com-
passion served and ennobled the human race.

Perhaps the best way in which we in
Canada can show our gratitude for his life
and work is by the realization that he has
placed an obligation upon ourselves. It ill
behooves us to take a holier than thou atti-
tude or to point the finger at our neighbors.

We must look inward toward ourselves
and assume our own share of the blame for
arrogance and racism.

It is not given to many men to point the
way to human betterment by great gifts of
insight or to die for their fellow-men. What
each of us can do in an easier and simpler way
is to be honest about our own failures in
achieving human dignity and decency and
seeking ways to overcome them.

Within the recollection of many of us in
Canada and particularly in British Columbia
— not many years ago — democratic rights
to vote and to engage in certain occupations
were denied to thousands of our fellow-citi-
zens because of their racial origin and the
color of their skin. We in the NDP can look
back with gratitude to people like Angus
MacInnis who risked unpopularity even from
some in his own party to rectify this gross
injustice.

But getting rid of the more glaring forms
of discrimination is not eough. All of us are

conscious of racism and social snobbery which
still exists, perhans difficult to track down,
because the manifestations are psychological
and subtle. ;

It is scarcely necessary to mention the
condition of our native Indians and Eskimos,
to restrictive housing rules or educational
conditions. Some of this is due to class and
economic inequality and could be eliminated
by political action.

Behind all this there is something which
is more difficult to deal with. If the sacrifice
of Martin Luther King and his family is to be
significant to all thinking people we must be
capable of changes and attitudes which are
not as easy as condemning the war in Vietnam
or advocating physicial social reforms. We
are too smug in Canada and even within the
NDP. We hear many priding themselves on
having friends of other races and imviting
them to their homes — even in this there is
a sort of discrimination. There are civilized
ways of living with our fellow-men which
must become so natural to us that we shall
no longer be conscious of them.

Let us not think of Martin Luther King
as a courageous Negro who died for his race.
Let us remember him as one of the great
men in history who died for human beings, all
of us — stupid, blundering and struggling
for liberation from ourselves. His life will
help us to realize what man is and what he
can become.

ONCE YA GET USED TO IT WE’LL MAKE A KILLIN’! .. .
NOW KNOCK THIS‘N DOWN WHILE 1! SCOUT FER
MORE GAS.

PLANNING, EMPLOYMENT
GIVEN TOP PRIORITY BY CLC

In a 10,000 word policy
statement on economic affairs,
the Canadian Labor Congress
in convention May 5th to 10th
established economic planning
and full employment as the
top priority.

Citing the five major objec-
tives set forth by the Econo-
mic Council of Canada, tthe
CLC statement presented 'to
1,700 delegates to its 7th bien-

nial convention said that it
was “time to move on to the
action stage — to co-ordinat-
ed development and imple-
mentation of programs design-
ed to actually achieve in Can-
ada goals of full employment;
high rates of economic
growth; reasonable price sta-
bility; a viable balance of
payments and an equitable
distribution of rising in-
comes.”

Do You Know
What a Funeral
Costs

At Forest Lawn we feel that each family must decide for
themselves what is right and proper for their circumstances,
Forest Lawn Mortuary does provide all professional services

and facilities . .

. Removal, Necessary Documents, Registra-

tion, Preparation, Family Transportation, Reposing Room,

Chapels, Automobiles and Personnel .

. - All for $285.00,

To this is added the cost of the casket that the family selects
for use. In this way you exercise complete control at all times.

—_

AL A SF mn Memorial

Park and Mortuary

Royal Oak Avenue at Canada Way

Tel. 299-7714

fo" Coll Ctranges Ct"
nN

MEMBER, THE ORDER OF THE GOLDEN RULE