Workers moum George Harris’ death
Left mark on labor’s history

By MIKE PHILLIPS

TORONTO — George Harris’
friends, fellow trade unionists,
and comrades gathered here May
23, in the words of Communist
y leader William Kashtan,
“not only to pay our respects to
an outstanding personality but

also to learn from him.”’ :

Kashtan, and Val Bjarnason,
Occupying the post in the United
Electrical workers union of
Secretary-Treasurer which Har-
Mls vacated shortly before his
death, recalled the 41-year con-
tribution and leadership he gave
to the working class movement,
and the Communist Party of
Canada, including the 37 years he
Served as one of the four top lead-
ers of the UE.

The meeting, held in the hall of
the Association of United Ukrai-
Mian Canadians was chaired by
Bruce Magnuson, labor secretary
for the Communist Party.

Val Bjarnason called Harris,
“‘the greatest agitational speaker
In the trade union movement of
this country in the last 25-30
years.”” Butthe man’s talents were

pees

“The record shows that wages
are not the cause of inflation!’

Ow, .guess who said that? Karl
Marx? Vladimir Ilyich’ Lenin!
Wrong!

It Was that hard-nosed, never-
Say-die, weather-bitten, U.S. of

“labor radical’? George

Meany, AFL-CIO chief.

Fresh from an eye-ball to eye-

all confrontation with Jimmy

arter, Meany was inno mood for
compromising.
Impossible!’’ said he, speak-

ing of the president’s request that

-S. labor accept wage controls
Voluntarily.

“Because when our people go
to the bargaining table and
Negotiate . .. they are negotiating
On the basis of the situation that
Prevailed at the time they were
Negotiating.”

Believing the President’s
Council on Wage and Price Stabil-
ity had so far-been more in-
terested in wage restraints than
Price restraints, Meany noted a
Tecently announced price in-
Crease of 3.4% by the Aluminum
Company of America. But, while

© price increase was small, it
Was the fifth of the year and
brought the total so far in 1978 to a

7.5% price hike.

The council, he said, had ex-
Pressed no alarm over this latest
aluminum increase.

“I wish our unions were in the
Same position that every time
they see the price has. gope up
they can go to the employer and
Say, ‘‘Let’s forget that contract.

Let’s add a few points’ ”’

Third Year of Controls
Canadian workers in this third

Year of mandatory wage controls

are familiar with this picture of
Capitalist crisis and develop-
Ments, f
Early in March the large Cana-
dian Steel producers announced a
Price increase of from 3 to 8% to
80 into effect last April 3.

deeper and many-faceted, the UE
leader recalled. George Harris
had few peers as a writer and
teacher, he said.

His column in the UE News
‘*‘Labor at home and abroad,”

‘Bjarnason recalled appeared in

every issue except one, for 29
years and was widely read for its
simple, direct and clear presenta-
tion of the working-class point of
view on the events and matters of
concern to it, and the way for-
ward. *“‘The scope of the subject
matter in these columns, like
George’s own knowledge was
positively encyclopedic’’, Bijar-
nason said.

He noted that in the last-week
of service to the UE, shortly be-
fore his death, Harris was work-
ing late in his office, as usual after
working hours, studying material
on nuclear energy because,
“‘energy is becoming increasingly
important and a union like the UE
will have an important role to play
in the field and must have a well
developed policy.”

Bjarnason noted the tremend-
ous dedication and discipline

Harris possessed. ‘‘This doesn’t
mean that George was a hard-
nosed machine, in reality he was

. the most humble, human type of

person you could possibly
know.”’ Bjarnason noted Harris’
devotion to his family, and the
pleasure he found in his moments
of relaxation: in gardening, lapid-
ary, (stone polishing), and
cross-Canada holidays with his
wife Ivy and two sons.

Harris was widely liked and re-

whole, Bjarnason said. In the un-
ion, where he was known as ‘‘the
Communist in the leadership of
the UE,”’ his leadership was re-
spected with the workers’ con-
fidence in him renewed at conven-
tions where for 37 years he was
re-elected to the top union post in
which he served until this year.
Communist Party general sec-
retary William Kashtan_ traced
Harris’ life as a miner from the
age of 15 in Wales, through the
General Strike in Britain in 1926,
to his leading role in the un-
employed struggles of the 1930s

Amerciless system

gouging the workers

Here, too, the price hikes were
expeditiously cleared by the so-
called Anti-Inflation Board
through its prenotification pro-
cess. A squeeze on profits ina soft
market was given as the reason
for approval.

Recently the Canadian
Government has announced a

plan to give $116-million to Gen- -

eral Motors and Ford to build
parts plants in Canada. But, as
one commentator stated, such
government incentives are un-
likely to bring about any signi-
ficant increase in North American
investment by the automobile
industry, but there will be signi-
ficant costs.

“Tn a competition of this kind,
each time a government is forced
to sweeten the pot for industries
locating within its jurisdiction,
there is an increase in costs rela-
tive to the benefits. Furthermore,
industry is put in the position of
being able to play off one
government against another. For
governments — and taxpayers —
this is a dangerous and inherently
self-defeating game.

“If current trade negotiations
result in a lowering of tariffs, plant
location decisions will become a
hot issue. This will require a con-
tinuing, broad scale program to
ensure that Canada is an attrac-
tive location for’ new plant
investment.”

Repay $2,500 Each

In other words, more give away
programs. And who pays the
bills? You guessed it! The work-
ing class and all working people,
that’s who.

It is a merciless system of tax
gouging, price gouging, rent goug-
ing, interest gouging, an
unconscionable squeeze on work-
ing men and women.

Like the 31 workers at Bendix
Heavy Vehicle Systems Ltd. in
London, Ontario, who were or-

dered to repay an average of
$2,500 each: which the AIB
claimed they received in over-
payment following a.wage. roll-
back. This total of $78,000 to be
repaid by the end of the year
would reduce these workers’
wages to $52.80 per week for six
months. How could a worker do
this and keep alive and work at
thé same time? Just think of it.

_The ‘AIB Administrator says
that the Anti-Inflation Act makes
such an overpayment ‘‘a debt to
the Crown for each individual’’.
Even if the workers quit to seek
other jobs they could have their
wages garnished, or even their
unemployment insurance.

Canada Even Worse

Here in Canada, the situation is
even worse for workers than it is
in the USA. This is so because of
higher taxes, higher interest rates,
higher housing costs, higher
prices for food and other con-
sumer goods, and also on account
of the lower value of the Canadian
dollar. In the U.S. mortgage in-
terest rates are not only lower,
they are also tax-deductible along
with property taxes.

It has been estimated that the
average Canadian worker would
need at least 30% more than his
American counterpart to enjoy
the same standard of living.

And, yet, wage settlements in
the first quarter-of 1978 have pro-
vided an annual average increase
in base rates of only 6.7%, the

lowest rate in five years, accord- :

ing to the federal Labor
Department.

~It will take much firmer and
more militant leadership, plus
unity and solidarity along the
whole front of labor struggles to
turn this situation around. Unless
this is done we can expect nothing
but a much deeper crisis, with
more inflation and unemploy-
ment, and lower living standards
for all working people.

i

spected inside and outside the UE §'
and the labor movement as a&

Val Bjarnason,

UE secretary-treasurer delivering eulogy at George

Harris Memorial Meeting. Communist Party labor secretary Bruce Mag-
nuson and Party leader William Kashtan also addressed the meeting.

and his stewardship of the UE
until his ‘death this year.

Kashtan said Harris ‘“‘left a
mark on the pages of the
working-class movement which
will not be forgotten.’’ With
others, he helped build a union
which, “‘became a model of rank
and file leadership, a model of
militancy and of progressive
policies in the whole trade union
movement.”’

The principled working-class
struggle waged by the UE and
Harris as one of its leaders, to
restore trade union unity through
the UE’s successful re-entry into
the Canadian Labor Congress
after being excluded during the
cold war, ‘“‘created a new basis to
advance class struggle policies in
the trade union movement, as it
created a new basis for advancing

_ the struggle for a sovereign, inde-

pendent and united trade union
‘movement in Canada’’, Kashtan
said.

As.a-Communist,for. 41..years,
Harris fought ‘‘consistently and
well to bring the ideas of socialism
into the working class. He under-
stood, Kashtan said, “that with-
out a strong party of socialism the
workers could be misled by
monopoly, its press and by
right-wing elements in the work-
ing class and trade union move-
ment. That’s why he strove to
build the Communist Party, un-
derstanding that the stronger the
Communist Party, the stronger
and more effective the working
class would become.

As a member for many years of
the party’s Central Executive
Committee, George Harris ‘“‘was
a tower of strength for the party’’,
Kashtan said, who “not only
helped formulate the party’s labor
policies, but our general policies
as well, fought for these policies
in the broad labor movement, and

Tan as a candidate in many elec-

tion campaigns. As usual he did

credit to our party and to the
working class.”

Kashtan said George Harris left
the working class a rich legacy
and his passing away “‘is a great
loss for the party,and for the prog-
ressive Movement generally.”

City council
knocks neutron

WELLAND — The City of
Welland has officially added its
name to those of other com-
munities which have voiced their
opposition to the neutron bomb
and have urged the Canadian
Government to oppose its man-
ufacture and deployment.

In response to a letter from the
Ladies’ Auxiliary of Local 523,
United Electrical Workers, Wel-
land City Council voted May 2,
for a resolution stating:

‘Welland City Council hereby
endorses the resolution ofthe
City of Toronto, calling on the
Parliament of Canada to oppose
the deployment of the neutron
bomb; said resolution having
been forwarded for our endorsa-
tion by Welland UE Ladies’
Auxiliary.’’

The Toronto motion, moved by
Alderman Dan Heap and sec-
onded by Mayor David Crombie,
resolved to ‘urge the Prime
Minister and Parliament of
-Canada to oppose the deployment
of the neutron bomb by NATO
and to ask President Carter to
stop its production.”

In putting the motion before
Welland Council the trade union
auxiliary said: ‘‘In the name of life
itself, the neutron bomb must be
banned.” It urged council to en-
dorse the Toronto motion. The
motion was moved in Council by
Alderman Antony J. Triano and
seconded by Alderman John
Trufal.

Feds sell out jobs

OTTAWA — In a statement
May 19, the Public Service Al-
liance of Canada (PSAC), re-
vealed that contracting out of pub-
lic service jobs by the federal gov-
ernment has grown eight times
faster than the growth of public
service jobs.

The PSAC noted that while the
government has been continually
and repeatedly drumming into the
public’s thinking that the public
service is expanding enormously,
getting out of control” etc., the

same sources have been strangely-
silent on the extent of contracting

out of public service jobs to the
private sector.

“The facts are that there were
246,362 continuing employees on
strength as of Sept. 30, 1973,” the
PSAC said. ‘‘Three years later,
this number had grown to 282,510
-.. an increase of 5% per year,
slightly higher than the growth of
a sluggish economy, but hardly
uncontrolled.’’

In contrast, the PSAC pointed
out that in 1973 the government
spent $340-million on contracts
for services. By 1976, the gov-
ernment was dishing out
$739-million, as the Alliance
notes: ‘‘an average increase of
39% per year.”’

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 2, 1978—Page 5