mH

“ment point out that the

mereases, Gary Culhane, Secretary-

li ¢ to all
industrial Relations Committee,

forwarded a letter last week

® Twenty BC unions, repre
senting both ARI and CCL have
reached a joint agreement cover
img wages, working hours and
overtime rates of pay, with the
operators of five West Coast Steel
shipyards,

@® The agreement calls for a
general wage increase of 15c per

hour, the 40-hour week, and
Stipulated overtime rates for days
specified.

@® Both unions and manage-
“fifteen
cent per hour increase coupled
with the reduction in weekly
hours from 44 to 40 hours, con-
stitutes an increase in the weekly
‘take-home-pay of the worker of
only $2.00.”

The letter emphasizes recent
statements of Donald Gordon on
food index increases, and shows
that the $2.00 *take-home-pay’ in-
crease can not be considered in-
Hation by any standards of reas-

oning_ q :
Qn the competitive angles of
Shipbuilding, where B.C. ship-

builders have been represented as
haying to pay high labor costs,
making shipbuilding on the West
Coast “unprofitable” the letter of

| Shipyard letter pulls props from
Gordon-Mitchell ‘inflation’ chorus

VANCOUVER.—Cracking

through the Mitchell-Gordon 10-cent crust ceiling on wage

treasurer of the Shipyard General Workers’ Federation,
B.C. members of parliament, to members of the House
and to the daily press. The letter points out that:

1944 COMPARATIVE COSTS SHLPBUILDING—B C. & QUEBEC

Source: Census Report of Industry for 1944.
Dominion Bureau of Statistics.

Labor cost as % value of output
Materials

Remainder available for overhead
and profit

British Columbia Quebec
(31,268 employees) (24,714 employees)

+--+. 105,636,195 $130,208,952
-.. $ 65,009,582 $ 49,935,171
eek 41.77% 38.35%
--. $ 41,906,294 3 54,390,948
= 26.93% ~ 41.77%
vee 68.70% 80.12%
ae 31.30% 19.88%

or or
$ 48,719,689 $ 25,882,833

on Capital of

$ 49,570,908 $112,644,704

approx 98% approx. 22%

Thus B.C. has nearly twice the margin for overhead and return
on less than half as much capital as Quebec.

the Hederation gives the above
table.

The above table explodes the
“high-cost” theories that are used
to counter the demands of B.C.
Shipyard workers for wage in-
creases. The letter of the Feder-
ation submits that “there is no
foundation in fact for Gordon’s
thesis, and the continued reiter-
ation . . . that wage increases

bring about inflation.”

~A copy of the joint application
for the 15¢ per hour, 40-hour
week, and overtime rates, submit-
ted to the chief executive officer
of the NWLB, by the West Coast
steel shipyards and 15 AFI, and
CCL unions was attached to the
Federation letter to MP’s and
members of the Industrial Rela-
tions Committee.

Ontario LPP House leader will
address Victoria, Nanaimo rallies

Word has been received by the B.C. Peace Week Committee that A: A. Macleod,
diLabor-Progressive member for the Ontario provincial constituency of- Toronto-Beliwoods,
will fy te Vancouver for Peace Week. Peace Week, August 21-28, has been set aside by
the Labor-Progressive Party as the period during which the full energies of its members

Erepresentatives of the four big powers at the Paris peace con-
ference. (Top): President Georges Bidault of France and Prime

Minister Attlee of Britain.
eslay Molotov, Soviet

(Bottom) :
Union, and Secretary of State James

Foreign Minister Wyach-

Byrnes, USA. Ernest Bevin, British foreign secretary, did not
attend the opening session of the conference due to sickness,
‘but is now ‘on the job’ seeking to strengthen the Anglo-U's.

bloc against the USSR.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE — PAGE 3

will be poured into rousing the
Canadian people in @ fight to
head off projected Big Business
plans to make our country the
Belgium of a third world war.
MacLeod is known nationally
as an outstanding leader of la~
bor and democratic forces. First
elected to the Ontario House in
1943, he held his seat in 1945, and
is widely acknowledged to be,
along with J. B. Salzberg, MPP,
the sourse of the only fighting
opposition Drew is getting in that

body. Macleod is a familiar fig-

ure to Western audiences, to
Maritime coal-miners, and to the
Mackenzie-Papineau battalion dur-
ing the Spanish civil war From
1940 to 1943 he was editor of
the Canadian Tribune, the only
national organ fighting consistent-
ly to. overcome Munich policies,
and to replace them with the pol-
icies of all-out coalition warfare
that were to finally win the war.

Highlight of his visit will be
his address to the monster peace
rally to be held 8 pm., Sunday,
August 25, in the Capilano Stad-
jum (formerly Athletic Park) in
Vancouver. A striking silk-screen
“Ban the Bomb” poster has been
designed by a young Vancouver
artist, Emma Drieja.

On Wednesday, August 21, Mac-
Leod will speak at Nanaimo and
on Friday, August 23, at Victoria.

Climax of the campaign will be
a coast-to-coast CBC broadcast by
Tim Buck at 8 p.m. (Pacific Day-

light Time), Wednesday, August
28, and hundreds of neighborly
listeners’ groups are being or-

ganized throughout B.C. for this
broadcast Canadian fascists and
tories are straining might and
main to try to keep Tim Buck off
the national network. Those who
have demanded that it be banned
include Sir Elsworth Flavelle,
president of the National - Trust
Company, Donald Fleming, Tory
M.P., Norman Jacques, notorious
fascist member of the Commons,
“Ten-cent” Ftumphrey Mitchell,
Watson Kirkconnell, and others.

The mobilization of the biggest
listening audience ever to hear 2
political broadcast is seen as af-
fording sufficient guarantee that
Buck’s peace broadcast will not
be gagged.

_ Bushworkers back wage
demands by strike ballot

TIMMINS, Ont.—An immediate strike vote in the Coch-
rane District of the Lumber and Sawmill Workers’ Union
(AFL) was authorized in the third annual convention of the
union at Timmins, Ont. Deadline for the strike will be Sep-
tember 15 and will involve approximately 25,000 bush and
Sawmill workers in Western and Northern Ontario.

The bushworkers’ convention
was sharply critical of govern-
ment wage and price policies, and
a resolution was unanimously
adopted demanding the immedi-
ate resignation of labor minister
Mitchell” A wire was also for-
warded to Chairman Lalonde of
the Industrial Relations Commit-
tee recommending the adoption

Teamsters’ union
hauling Province

VANCOUVER.—On orders
of international representa-
tive J. Rowan of Seattle, AFL
truckdrivers began hauling
papers of the Daily Province
last Friday.

Reg Atkinson, local teamsters’
secretary is quoted as Saying that
“as long as union pressmen stay.
at work on the Province, the team-
sters’ union is obliged to carry
out its contract.” Union officials
requested the removal of heavy
police cordons from the Province

building, stating that the union
“would not haul papers under
police guard.” Rank and § file

teamsters are bitterly opposed to
hauling the scab-produced Provy-
ince, and it is rumored they did
so only under threat of having
their union cards suspended by.
representative Rowan- ee.

Since the limiting “of the in-
junetion restrictions the ITU are
maintaining a picket line on the
Southam Publishers. This line is
now disregarded by the ~~ press-
men and teamsters. The Vancou-
ver, New Westminster and Dist-
rict Trades and Labor Council;
the Vancouver Labor Council, and
many CCE and AFI unions have
placed the Province on the “we
do not patronize” and “unfair to
labor’? list. Such decisions would
seem to lose much of their mean-
ing with AFI teamsters and
pressmen handling the typo pro-
ducts of imported strike-breakers,
which the Southam publishers
have ironically named ‘the “Ca-
nadian National Printing Trades”
Union.” The Province boasts of
having a “closed shop” contract
with this coterie of professional
scabs.

of the Lumber and Sawmill union’s
wages and hours proposals.

Strong condemnation of the On-
tario War Labor Board’s action
in accepting the Ontario operators,
wage proposals without consulta-
tion with union representatives
Was voiced, and a resolution was
forwarded to the board citing these
objections.

The battle against rising living
costs and for adequate wage
levels is correctly considered by:
the membership as a national
battle te determine the standard
of living in postwar Canada. The
big monopolies have thrown down
the challenge to labor.

fhe reason why labor’s program
is being so bitterly fought is of
course obvious, The organized labor
movement stands in the forefront
of the common people and re
flects their desire to realize the
fruits of victory. Union member-
ship in Ontario’s camps and mills
have been very patiently trying
to negotiate in good faith with
the employers on the basis of the
union’s program of postwar re—

forms. The representatives of
some of Canada’s largest mon-
opolies are to be found in the

Paper industry. These employers

have not dealt with orgenized
labor in good faith.
in Port Arthur the annual

meeting of lTLocal 2786, umber
and Sawmill workers, adopted a
Similar program of wage de-
mands. Proposals on wages for
monthly or day labor in camps
included: No worker to receive
less than °$5> per day for eight
hours, plus board; time and a
half for all time in excess of the
eight hours, with double time for
all work on statutory holidays.

A full schedule of piece rates
on various pulpwood, poles, ties
and other operations was adopted
by the convention.

Following the lead of the TWA
in B.C., the Ontario bushworkers
are taking action to halt the
practice of bushworkers toting.
their own blankets and linen, and
are demanding the operators supply
camp accessories as are conducive
to health and sanitation. Numerous
health and sanitation. Numerous
resolutions were passed at both
gatherings of the lumber and
Sawmill workers, giving support
to the steel, textile, and other
sroups of workers now on. strike.

Province-wide

campaign

to aid Southam pickets

From delegates to the third annual convention of the
B.C. Federation of Labor in Vancouver last weekend came
a call to the entire labor movement to tally to the defense
of 12 trade unionists arrested last month while picketing the
Daily Province and now awaiting trial on charges of un-

lawful assembly.

The convention unanimously en-
dorsed a resolution urging that
immediate representations be
made to Attorney-General Gordon
Wismer to have the charges with-
drawn. It also approved a pro-
posal that a province-wide cam-
paign for defense funds be
launched.

The sentence of three months
hard labor imposed by Magistrate
W. W. B. McInnes on T. S. Liso-
way, a veteran with two and a
half years’ service overseas and
one of three men already tried
on charges of obstructing a po-
lice constable, was denounced by
delegates, one of whom termed
it “a vicious attempt to intimidate
all fighting trade unionists.”

This week the International
Typographical Union, whose strike
at the Daily Province is now in
its eleventh week, also urged the
members of the Allied Printing
Trades to help in the defence of
the arrested men_

“fhe ITU printers of Vancou-
ver should pay tribute to the

members of other local unions
who took care of the picket
line while the Southam injunc-
tion restriction was in force,”
the 1TU bulletin stated. “Both
in Hamilton and Vancouver
unionists haye been 2:
jailed and fined, and others are
up for hearing at a higher
court, These lads did for us
what we were unable to do for
ourselves and the printers will
not forget.”

WFTU in fran

More than 300,000 workers now
belong to the Iranian WNational
Labor Federation, according to a
report by Louis Saillant, general
secretary of the World Federation
of Trade Unions. Saillant, who
just completed a tour of Iran, said
“living and working conditions
there are considerably inferior” to
most of Hurope.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1946