Internation’! Solidarity Made Clear Recognition by the Inter- national Woodworkers of America of the inter-relation of Canadian and world af- fairs, and of the need for a determined labor struggle for world peace, was shown in the adoption by delegates to the union’s ninth B.C. dis- trict convention of six key resolutions on international problems. United States policy in China was subjected to the sharpest kind of criticism in the first reso- lution presented to the conven- tion. The resolution pointed out that the sending of American troops to guard Manchurian rail- ways alongside armed Japanese troops -was a negation of Big Three agreement and “denied the Chinese people the right to decide their own destiny in a democratic fashion.” It called on the Canadian government, as a member of the United Nations Organization, to demand an end to the China intervention and ask for withdrawal of American troops. Similarly the convention took issue with British policy in Indo- nesia, demanded the withdrawal of British troops from Java and scored the Canadian government for loaning 65 million dollars to the Netherlands with which to purchase Canadian army sup- plies now in Holland for trans- shipment to the East Indies. The resolution commended the action of the Canadian Seamen’s Union in refusing to ship any war cargo from Canadian ports to Indonesia. Taking the floor in the dis- eussion, Darshan Singh Sangha, delegate from Victoria Local 1- 118, reminded the convention of the direct relationship between postwar imperialist intervention in Asia and Canadian labor’s fight for full employment. “So long as world gangster- ism goes unchecked, our fight for a stable, postwar Canada, with jobs and security for all, will be difficult if not impos- sible,” Darshan Sangha stated. “Canadian labor is most cer- tainly concerned with seeing ‘that the oppressed colonial peoples win their freedom. The war against such fascist horrors as that perpetrated at Lidice in Czechoslovakia was not fought only to see Lidice repeated at Bekasi ni Java, where British troops murdered the inhabitants of the entire village.” Other resolutions on world problems approved by delegates included: @ A demand for severing of relations betwen the Canadian government and the “bloody re- gime of Franco in Spain.” @ A proposal that the Canad- ian government exert its full in- fluence in the UNO to have the Moscow decisions regarding atomic power endorsed.. @ A proposal that the World Federation of Trade Unions be given official representation in the Social and Economie Coun- cil of the UNO, and urging the AFL Trades and Labor Con- gress. of Canada to abandon its present isolation in favor of af- filiation -with the WFTU. -- "1 inter: NeCal ment, to those thousands of The authority for that -state- ment comes from five men of the logging area around —Ptrince George, who were in Vancouver, last weekend as delegates to the | ninth district convention of the International Woodworkers of America. Representing IWA Lo- cal 1-424, with headquarters at Prince George, the five men are Grant. Bunce, Mike Freylinger, August Newman, Al Papke and Frank Petzinger. Amd their presence at the TWA convention bridged a gap of 25 years during which the open shop was king in that lumber center and trade unionism almost a forgotten thing. For it has been at least 25 years since the woodworkers of the Prince George district have been 1 i | | ERNIE DALSKOG IWA Int. Board Rep. _ Twenty-five years is a fairly long time in terms of labor history. It has seemed like 50 years, in terms of isolation from the general stream of the labor and progressive move- log’’ country east of the Cascades. the years 1919 to 1921, when the woodworkers of the ‘“‘short represented at a union conven- tion. The last time was during One Big Union had boomed its membership in the industry for a few months, and when the (¥3U was engaged in a hundred strug- gles for better wagese and work- ing conditions. Some of those struggles centred around Prince George. But when the One Big Union began breaking up in 1921 under the combined hammer blows of the lumbermen’s associ- ations and its own internal weak- nesses, unionism in Interior lum- ber, just getting under way, was more. quickly smashed, and unlike the situation on the Coast, every last vestige of organization dis- appeared. What happened during those unorganized years was sketched briefly for me by one of the Prince George delegates, Grant BERT MELSNESS . Candidate for Secretary Loggers Bring Under Union The increasing use of pow unanimously approved by the weekend. Delegates approved -@ That there be no ownership or participation in ownership of power saws by those who use! them. @ That at least three men be required for their operation. @ That. all power saws be op~ erated under day rates of wages, with abolition of existing sys- tems of contract work. The extended use of power saws for falling and bucking tim- ber has created an entirely new problem for the working logger. The operators have been, putting , into effect a system of selling | the power units to fallers and| buckers, putting all such work | on a strictly contract or ‘bushel- ing’ basis. The result is that power-saw operators ‘are being given the best-sections-of timber, leaving the hand-fallers and guidance of members in the use of the. power equipment: Power Saw Regulation ~ er saws in logging operations, with their threat to wage and working standards under pres- ent conditions, was the subject of a three-point resolution ninth annual district conven- tion of the International Woodworkers of America last the following rules for the buckers to rough ground and tough “shows,” and creating a serious threat to wage standards. Under the new IWA_ recom- mendations, no union -