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All Labor Behind IWA

HE strike of 35,000 British Columbia lumber and saw-

mill workers is of paramount concern to every citizen, not

only of B.C., but throughout Canada. —
; The issues of the strike are the issues of a prosperous
‘G@anada, whether the vast wealth of this nation will be
shared among the common people who produce all wealth,
or whether it will go to swell the already swollen profits
of the monopolists and industrial barons. Wage increases
. . . to meet the rising living costs, intensified by the
abandonment of price controls; the 40-hour week which
will provide wider employment and greater leasure time,
and trade union security, without which no union or group
of workers can make their fullest contribution to the na-
tion of which they are a decisive part.

The strike of the IWA is therefore the spearhead
“action of the common people for a fuller measure of life
... for the realization of the fruits of victory to the greatest
number.

The big lumber operators refuse to meet with the IWA
representatives around a conference table to discuss prob-
‘lems. They hire a “mouthpiece” to do the job for them
... the Stuart Research Ltd., an institution paralleling the
high-pressure propaganda machine of the late Herr Goeb-
beis. In short, a stool-pigeon _pinkerton stooge agency,
hired, not to affect an amicable and just settlement, but
to obstruct, misrepresent and mislead. To “gull” the pub-
lic into supporting the feudal regime of the big lumber
barons.

This struggle of the IWA is YOUR struggle. Their
victory in-securing higher wages, shorter working hours
and union security, will be YOUR victory. Every local
union should signalize its undivided support of the IWA
strike in letters and wires to the provincial and federal
gevernments, to MP’s and MULA’s, demanding action to-
wards a just settlement.

Business men, who have everything to gain in higher
workingclass payrolls, should follow the lead of the Build-
ing Contractors Association, and call the feudal regime of
the boss loggers to account fer wilful obstruction of the
ptosperity and progress of B.C. Every citizen must make
his or her voice heard in support of the IWA. Do not
delay !

The trade unions, regardless of affiliation, must begin
to consider sympathetic strike action as a prime lever for
getting a speedy and just settlement for the IWA. Act

now! This is YOUR fight also!

King Ducks Out =

RIME MINISTER MACKENZIE KING has gone to

Europe to talk “empire defense’ which is the polite
way of saying to talk war. King departs for Europe, leayv-
ing behind him the wreckage of the Dominion-Provincial
conference—a sorry monument to broken pre-election prom-
ises Of social reforms and security.

Less than one year after Nazi Germany was smashed
en the battlefields by the unity of allied arms and purpose,
King has earned for himself the unenviable record of top
warmonger in Anglo-American anti-Soviet circles. King’s
handling of the espionage issue has brought him the plaudits
of world reaction.

Yens of thousands of Canadians
on burning issues, particularly the
controls to maintain the purchasing ;
dollar. King has gone to talk war, and his colleague, Fi-
nance Minister Ilsley, talks sauvely of “modest increases”
and a “return to normalcy,’ another way of saying that

are demanding redress
tightening up of price
power of the worker's

i the interests of monopoly capital price control is going
to be lifted, so take it and like it.

Labor across Canada is moving into widespread strike
action for increases, the 40-hour week and union

wage
security, the ideals labor defeated fascism to attain. Anoth-
er of King’s colleagues, Labor Minister Humphrey Mitchell
does less than nothing. He can only argue for the retention
of obsolete wage freezing legislation and the obstructive
machinery of national and regional war labor boards, as
bulwarks against increased payrolls.

It is time—and more than time—that the Canadian peo-
ple made it known that they demand a return to the unity
which won the war. Only the unity of the Big Three and
the common peoples who paid so dearly for that victory
ever fascism can avert another holocaust, the brew of
which King is now assiduously stirring in “empire talks.”

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 4

=

WHAT THE WORLD WANTS

Prob

By HAL GRIFFIN

Where’s the lumber going?

Veterans endeavoring to get enough two-b
running from mill to mill looking for shiplap
ago have had their own ideas for some time.
and miullworkers to give substance to these s
and to-express the popular demand for investi
ing by every one except the government and

is serving. 2

was the oper-
ators themselves who provided
the first revealing insight into
this situation. In a splash ad-
vertisement inserted in Vancou-
ver dailies last weekend, the
Stuart Research Service, repre-
senting the operators, gave some
figures on losses sustained as
the strike entered its fifth day.
Among the figures was one
showing that “18125000 board
feet in lumber production,
enough to build 1812 five-room
houses” hac been lost. Pre-
sumably this was published in
an effort to enlist the sympa-
thies of veterans and other
home-builders against the union.
But it was a piece of anti-
union propaganda that boomer-
anged.

The day after the advertise-
ment appeared the Building
Contractors’ Association entered
the controversy with a state-
ment that a large part of the
province’s lumber production
must have been going to the
black market. That, according
to the Building Contractors, was
the only way they could recon-
cile the operators’ figures with
their own estimates of lumber
actually available for local con-
struction.

“It is estimated that there
are 6,000 semi-completed houses
in the Lower Mainland. As
many again must be built this
year to satisfy the needs of the
general public and returned
veterans,” the Building Con-
tractors stated in their press re-
lease. Then they made a point
which veterans’ and labor org-
anizations have been pressing
for months.

If Stuart Researcn Service’s
figures were correct, they said,
“about a week’s cutting would
complete all unfinished homes
and another fortnight would
take care of the local demand
for essential building next
year.” ‘

They commented that they
were mot particularly sorry”
that the situation had been

Tronically, it

into the open
by the strike.

out

brought

No one dis

putes the fig-
ures of the op-
erators. The
men in .the
woods and the
Mills, conscious
of the need
for construc-
tion of new

homes, have
maintained pro-
duction. The
only question
unanswer-
ed, and it’s a big question, is
where has the lumber gone?

This week the International
Woodworkers of America called
on Prime Minister Mackenzie
King and Reconstruction Min-
ister C. D. Howe for a long
overdue explanation.

They demanced appoint-
ment of “a royal commission
to investigate all phases of
the lumber business, including
the accusation that lumber is
going to the black market,
2nd to establish for the pub-
lic where B.C. lumber goes
and for what purposes it is
used.”

Coincident with this demand
for appointment of a royal com-
mission the union authorized re-
lease of lumber to veterans’ for
completion of Homes now under
censtruction, with distribution
of the lumber to be handled by
a joint committee of the TWA
and the Canadian Legion.

The operators’ reaction to
this, commendable move, ex-
pressed through Stuart, is that
it is “an intolerable situation
where a man, be he veteran or
Civilian, has to go to union of-
ficials and beg for lumber which
should be afforded him without
having recourse to such prac-
tices.”

As though thousands of veter-
ans and civilians have not been

going around for months, beg-
ging lumber yards for a little
lumber, only to be told that

there was no lumber! As though

C

acl: Meee

y-fours to begin building and workers
to proceed with houses Started months
But it has taken a strike of 37,000 loggers
tories of a vast black market in lumber
gation of a situation admitted to be shock
the big business circles whose interests it

aH the shoddy practices of the
black market have not been
forced on decent workers, slip-
ping this guy a ten or twenty
dollar bill, giving this guy a
bottle of whisky. And this in a
province, by Stuart’s’ own fig-
ures, which can produce 18,000,-
000 board feet of lumber in
four days. But Stuart saw noth-
ing intolerable in this situation
before the strike.

As IWA District President
Harold Pritchett placed it when
he announced the wunion’s de
cision:

“Veterans could get little
lumber before the strike and
now they can’t get any. We
feel that every consideration
must be given them.”

Much the same sentiment was
expressed by Canadian Legion
President Alex Walker in his
address to the Legion’s conven-
tion in Quebec this week.

We told delegates that he
was “not satisfied that every-
thing possible is being done
to remedy the drastic housing
situation.’

His statement was backed by
the recommendations brought
before the convention by the. re-
habilitation committee urging
inauguration of a national hous-
ing program to provide homes
for low income families at 2
rental not exceeding one-fifth of
their income and closer co-ord-
ination of all government hous-
ing bodies.

If the operators had hoped to
convince the public that the
IWA was responsible for the
lumber Shortage, they have been
trapped by their own figures.
The lumber workers are on
Strike for wages, hours and
union conditions without which
full production in the lumber
industry cannot be maintained.
Their demands, as the union
has shown, can be met out of
the operators’ excess profits
alone. But the shortage of Ium-
ber and the lack of housing—
that’s another question and one
both governments and operators
are being called upon te answer.

ERIDAY, BAY 24, 1946

rer HRCI recess