UNCIL’S- RESPONSIBIL Prompt Action Can Avert Move To Raze Urgently Needed Accommodation \CIFIC ADVOCATE Vancouver, B.C., Friday, January 11, 1946 ‘A Convention Sets iye For Higher Wage on Security Drive By AL PARKIN = > 11. 5 Cents = 1 national significance looms in the lumber = of British Columbia with the decision of | rnational Woodworkers of America to fight -dsion in its 1946 agreement of a 25 cents | wage increase; the 40-hour week and the 8 .op and dues checkoff. lirect challenge to the current low-wage, anti-union ig conducted by big business across Canada, the # oared to back up its wage and hour demands by | -g its officers to conduct a strike vote among its + of members and to raise an emergency strike 100,000, at the same time watning the members any wishful thinking that the demands can be labor struggle for postwar security that} lic welfare!” “The Canadian Pacific Railway consistent throughout its history. That This denunciation of CPR poli is pursuing IT isn't — THERE “Labor * iout a struggle”. = cisions, which high- * union’s ninth annual = t convention in Van- | weekend, were linked _ to launch an immedi- ® ce and nation-wide mpaign aimed at: “nvening by the Cana- Ess of Labor of a na- 2 policy ‘conference, * 3ed at by CCL presi- " Mosher, “as soon as “The reason that orders operators cannot her lost position General Workers Armament Race Canadian Shipbuil as Mistress of the Seas,’’ Seen Blocking ding Program placed with British shipyards by the Canadian shipping be filled is that Britain is now engaged in an armament race to regain ; charged Malcolm McLeod, president Shipyard Federation in an exclusive interview with P.A. this week. Mcleod was ring the support of ©: unionist in Canada © voodworkers demands = of pointing the way security for the rest . labor. lg the woodworkers’ ‘Dre the farmers, smal] €n and the citizens 7} delegates to the th district convention f-ware of their union’s a’ role in the fight to face was seen in the F of serious and con- ssion which preceded in of the 1946 wages <\rogram. after delegate from “1 Prince George and 5 Alberni and New sr, and from logging € way from Harrison “=.Queen Charlotte Is- y the floor to tell of | cut to the bone by wales an Pave 8) DWAR RARE ASS 6G 58 24 8 interviewed and asked to express his opinion on current charges that Canadian shipyards, especially those on the west coast, are being given the go-by by the CPR and CNR shipping lines and yet are maintainitg that British yards will not be in a position to replace present in- adequate shipping for two years. “The Shipyard General Work- ers Federation, speaking for hundreds of shipyard workers on the west coast, has been attempt- ing for eighteen months or more to pressure the Canadian govern- ment with a view to forcing the construction of ships for use by the Canadian Merchant Marine in Canadian shipyards,’ McLeod stated. “It is the expressed inten- tion of the CPR to give all orders for new shipping te British ship- yards, and it is obvious that the company intends to continue with present ramshackle ship- ping used on this coast until British yards are in a position to. start on their orders”. On being questioned as to reason for the delay in construc- tion, Mcleod told P.A. “During the war, the navy of the United Seen. Loe oelinced that of Bri- tain as the most formidable naval force in the world. In order to en- sure her maintenance of the posi- tion enjoyed before the war as Mistress of the Seas, Britain has granted top priority to naval construction, and it is for this reason that British yards are not in @ position to deliver any ship- ping for two years or more”. PRODUCTION COSTS McLeod exploded the CPR claim that excessive cost of pro- duction prevents the continuance of shipbuilding in Canada. “It is possible that wages are slightly lower in Britain and that costs are slightly lower as a result, but this is not the main considera- tion. We have all of the raw ma- terials readily available in Ca- nada and we have the people in Canada who have proven that they can build ships on 2a par with any country in the world. The CPR is a Canadian company, they gain their profits mainly by it is therefore quite fitting to expect that all orders placed for new shipping should be placed in (Continued on Page 8) See ARMAMENT RACE a policy which has been policy is: private property before pub- cy in blecking attempts to open the old Hotel Vancouver as a hostel for Vancouver’s thousands of homeless veter- ans was made this week by Austin Delany, Progressive Party city or- ganizer, during the course of a special radio address rally- ing support to the Labor- Progressive Party campaign to force action in securing the building to alleviate WVan- couver’s worsening veterans’ housing crisis. Pointing to the swollen profits of the mighty railroad empire during the war years, De- lany stated: “In the year 1944 the gross profits of the CPR were three hundred and- eighteen million dollars, and the net prof- its for that year were fifty-five million five hundred and thirty thousand dollars. This was a war year and like all other war years Canadiam servicemen were of- fering their lives in the titanic struggle to defeat Hitlerism.” “Thirty seven thousand young men died. Over a thousand were maimed or wounded’, Delany continued. “It must be apparent that the CPR has made some of the greatest profits in its long history of profit-making during the war years. The Labor-Pro- gressive Party feels that it is an insignificant sacrifice for the CPR to turn over the Hotel for a short period for the use of ser- vicemen’”’. Citing the case of one Vancou- ver family facing eviction this week, Delany stated “the father is a veteran of World War I, two of the sons served in World War Il. This family of eleven live in a five room house in the Fair- view district. The five boys, (Continued on Page 8) See HOTEL : Prince Rupert LPP Initiates “Jobs For All’’ Committee PRINCE RUPERT.—Prince Rupert’s unemployed are mobilizing themselves in an aggressive struggle against the sitdown strike of big business which is methodically strang- ling this vital north coast railhead. A mass meeting on layoffs, called by the George Henderson Club of the. Labor-Progressive Party, December 30, resulted in a spontaneous move to set up an organization among the unem- ployed present at the meeting, and the initiative committee, led by Jack Parker and Doris Blakey, immediately went to bat on ques- their operations in Canada. andlitions of rents which are increas. ed in wartime houses and staff houses as soon as shipyard work- ers are laid off, and on action te solve the problems of those ac- tually destitute. The workers are demanding that one of seven big staff houses standing empty be turned (Continued on Page 7) go... wWrIrevproes