tore of our members in the
j2d forces.

"homson suggested that we
jie Jewelers Association for
1 representation on the pres-
ycommittee and told us that
ould suggest this to the as-
p tion. 4
ker added that the union
}wited its international rep-
atative in ‘Toronto asking
fio request representation on
committee. :

a letter to Labor Minister

mi suggested that it be con-

Bphrey Mitchell this week the

ny
eople’s Bookstore

: n Plans Rehabilitation

A new development in the rehabilitation plan advanced by
international Jewelry Workers, Local 42, here was re-
ied by Karl Zuker, union secretary, this week, when he
sed that J. Thomson of the provincial labor department -
§| asked union representatives to discuss the question with

sulted and giyen an opportunity

~ to share in any proposed seheme

for returned men.

“We believe that-the jewelry.
industry could do its share in 4
national rehabilitation Program,”
Stated the letter, “but feel no
good would be served returned
men if they were to be trained
into industry which might not
be able to absorb them.”

Mitchell was urged to allow.
the union, through its interna-
tional representative, to submit

a brief on behalf of the organ--—
ized international jewelry work.

ers “before any program for a
jewelers’ trainings school is’ en-
dorsed by your department.”

she of the most informative and comprehensive books
# our new frontier that is on any bookshelf today. ..
ivery Canadian with an eye to the future; every Canadian
aterested in the future of Canada, should put Alaska and
ne Canadian Northwest on the must list.

—Winnipeg Free Press.

BH

on
—

)THER CURRENT NON-FICTION

INCH CANADA, by Stanley Ryerson

i PROBLEM OF INDIA, by R. Palme Dutt
4 SOVIET FAR EAST, by William Mandel
LTIC RIDDLE, by Gregory Meiksins
NATIVE LAND, by Louis Adamic

& SIEGE OF LENINGRAD,

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ny Tim Buck

sy Boris Shomorovsky _ $3.25
ST DAYS OF SEVASTOPOL,
oy Boris Voyetekhov $1.00
POPULAR PAMPHLETS
‘ROGRAM FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA 10¢
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JEVELOPMENT COUNCIL’S REPORT 15¢
NADA’S CHOICE—UNITY OR CHAOS, a
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ine 5836

_ NOW AT

420 West Pender Street

Vancouver, B.C.

Operators
Ask Wage

Increase

A brief has been submitted
to the Regional War Labor
Board by, the Bie. intenoe
Telephone Operators Union,
in application for a minimum

‘weekly wage rate of $18

with holiday and overtime
privileges, Dan O’Brien, CCL
regional director, announced this
week. :

The union contends that pres-
ent rates are not only low in
comparison to other telephone
companies, but are much Jower
than girls are receiving in the
Okanagan canneries.

Okanagan Telephone Company
formerly Paid 25 cents an hour
during the six months proba-
tionary period. Recently the
board granted a blanket ten per-
cent increase, but this was con-
sidered unsatisfactory as it only
meant 2% cents for the lower
brackets and made no provision
for split shifts or Overtime pay.

The brief also asks taat maxi-

mum rates of $25 a week be paid —

after three years instead of after
five years as at present, arguing
that if a girl is not competent
within three years she will never
be a telephone operator. ~

Wartime Wage Control Order
permits rectification of “gross
inequalities,” and the brief main-
tains that present rate of $12.45
for a 6-day week is a gross in-
equality.

Present maximum is only
$17.89 a week, which compares
with $24.65 at the B.C. Telephone
in Vancouver. ae

Contending that the com-
panies’ profits will more than
compensate for the wage in-
creases sought, the brief points
out that original bonds of the
company were reportedly of-
fered for sale at a premium.
Profits have increased from five
to six and a half percent in the
last few years, and according to
reports, $1,000,000 has been set
aside for depreciation.

O’Brien also reported that five

Okanagan unions are seeking
certification as sole bargaining
agencies. :

The unions are: CGivic Em-

ployeés Union, Vernon and Kel-
owna locals; Interior B.C. Tele-
phone Operators’ Union; B.C.
Woodworkers’ Union, Local 4,
covering employees of S. M.-
Simpson Lumber Company and
Kelowna Sawmills, and Truck-
drivers Local 273.

Eight other locals, affiliates of
the Fruit and Vegetable Work-
ers Union, are requesting union
shop and checkoff system of
dues in the Okanagan.

Guild Certified

Vancouver Newspaper Guild,

Local 2, has been certified as the -

sole collective bargaining ag-
eney for News-Herald employees,
A. J. Heide, union president, an-
nouneces. The Guild is the first
union in this province to be cer-
tified under the new federal la-
bor code.

22
JOHN STANTON

Barrister - Solicitor - Notary

502 HOLDEN BLDG.
16 E. Hastings St. MAr. 5746

GH me fh fm me Cd

their smiles

Labor Personalities—37

_ John McPeake

By CYNTHIA CARTER

4 ee factors had a lot to do with bringing John McPeake

into the progressive labor movement. First of all, when
he was very young, the city he lived in was in the cold clutches
of depression and unemployment. Second, he spent several
years in one of the toughest company towns in Canada, where
you either lived and died according= to the company’s rule
book, or looked for a job somewhere else. Third, he worked
in several clubs and hotels.

There is a saying among hotel employees, “You always meet
the best people—at their worst.’ And so John McPeake, forced
into hotel work by the depression, found it.

There was, among other
things, the system which de-
creed that a busboy must not
assume friendship with a
Waiter, who in turn looked
up to the captain, who had
to bow before the maitre de
hotel. Wages, until the open-
ing of defence industries
provided an out for exploit-
ed hotel workers, were piti-
fully low. Bellboys, waiters
and busboys had to depend
almost entirely on tips for
a living. And those so-
called glamor girls, the hat-
check workers, never saw
one cent of the large tips
brought from
rich customers. For the tips
were put in a sealed box
which was sent to the owner
of the hatcheeck concession,
while the hatcheck girl. re-
ceived a salary as low as
the law allowed. Worst of all, there hovered over hotel work

an air of servility. The customer was always right—and he-

Was usually wrong!

“All this,” declares McPeake, “is sufficient to create a feeling
of antagonism between workers and those they serve. Without
organization, without enforced minimum Wage scales, 4 hotel
or club employee has no security, and often enough, not much
self respect.

Jom McPEAKE got his first job in Paisley, Scotland, where

he had been born in 1906, as a packingease maker in a
soap factory. In 1928 he decided to come to Canada. In May,
1929, he got his first job in Canada, aS a steward in the new

-Royal York Hotel. From 1929 until the low point of the de-

pression he worked in clubs and hotels. In 1933 he went on
relief and became active in the unemployed movement.

When the Hepburn government in Ontario decided to cut
relief allowances it found on its hands a number of strikes or-
ganized by the Unemployment Association throughout the prov-
ince. And in Toronto, where the men walked off the Tod
Morden Park project singing “Down in Tod Morden Park,
where they work you from dawn fill dark,” and where McPeake
had become a militant strike leader, the battle raged for
several weeks. Resistance was broken, however, when relief
was cut off entirely, leaving strikers a choice between giving
up the strike and watching their children starve.

After that, McPeake set out, by way of most of the large
cities in northern and eastern United States, travelling by
thumb and boxcar. One night he caught the wrong freight,
and instead of ending up in Seattle he found himself near
Trail, B.C. It didn’t take him Jong to sense the attitude of
the miners and their families. But under the fear of the black-
list was burning a great hope that some day things would be
different in the mining country, that someday the huge smelter
on the hill wouldn’t look down like an evil eye on a town
where the word “union” was whispered, but on a town where

solid union organization had restored the dignity of the men ~

who worked there. :

So from 1936 until 1942 McPeake worked to bring the union
to Trail. Under the capable leadership of Art Evans, sent in
to organize in 1938, educational work was carried on and in
1938, Local 480, International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter
Workers, was established. McPeake became first international
representative.

While much good work was done at that time, laying the
grounds for the recent successful organization of mine and
smelter workers in the district, lack of funds made the work
very difficult. To support his wife and daughter McPeake had
to return to Vancouver in 1942 to a shipyard job. A year later
he left the yards, and since then has spent most of his time as
organizer for the 5000 Homes Now Committee in Vancouver,
and he can take credit for much of the success of that com-
mittee’s campaign for decent housing accommodation.

As to the future, McPeake isn’t exactly sure about what
he’s going to do, except that he knows he will always be part
of the labor movement. At the present time, aS a member of
South Hill Labor-Progressive Party Branch, and executive
member of the LPP Vancouver City Council, McPeake is as-
sociated with progressive activity in every phase of community
life.

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