As last Thursday’s horror feature played itself out on the television to a million or so stunned viewers, and the TV pundits made sure that none of us missed a step in the victory stomp in Kelowna, one newsman managed to draw a telling comment that, in a way, told the other side of the story. It was down at NDP headquarters and the newsman approached a still smug, but by then ex-attorney general, Alex McDonald with the question, “‘What went wrong?” “What went wrong,’’ McDonald grimaced back, ‘‘is that we lost the election.”

Right, except it was the people

' who were the losers and much | more than an election was lost.

“And why,’ the disillusioned could | justifiably ask the government,

“did you let it happen? Was social | progress to be gambled with the | roll of an election, and one that

didn’t have to be called in the first | place and when all the signs | pointed to the fated results?”

What went wrong canhot be isolated to December 11. The sour note of the year’s end had been puilding throughout 1975, and not only west of the Rocky, Mountains.

What a stark contrast this last year drew between the forward march of world events and the reactionary direction B.C. politics had been set upon. The liberation of Vietnam, the Helsinki con- ference and European security, Communist gains in Italy, freedom for Angola and Mozambique: could anyone fail to see the quickening pace of revolution?

But it was the other side of world events; the Israeli bombs on Palestinian refugee camps, the resurgence of cold war spokesmen

Labor Party in Britain which opted for wage controls and in Portugal which moved perilously close to counter-revolution. It was from this pattern that the'shape of things in B.C. was being cut.

Here was the dilemma for the labor movement.: A certain measure of progress was attained in three years of social democracy and then everything seemed threatened. The labor movement divided on whether to stand with Barrett or on principle; but as the debate was coming to a head, it was cut off by the election call. The armistice, however, had come too Jate. Three years of indecision

| week election campaign. .

All of this is not in hindsight. Throughout the year there was one consistent voice, that of the Communist Party, warning of the possible outcome. By the first week in March the CP had called its memberstoaspecial conference to discuss the danger of the right wing offensive.

Even by that time the law and order campaign, made _ par- ticularly strident by the hysterical demand for the death penalty, was

- well underway. In B.C., red neck ‘municipal politicians found a ‘special calling in clamoring for law and order. Conferences of mayors ‘declared ‘‘juvenile delinquents”

the government for liberal law’ reforms and for closing juvenile penitentiaries and. Brandon and Willingdon reform schools. All agreed that more police were needed, but not to _ protect | teenagers from goon-like vigilante | squads such as had been formed | around Vancouver’s Slocan Park. | Neither were the added police | intended to protect East Indians | -who were assaulted in a series of

in America, the weakness. of. the .,

could not be overcome in a five-..—

» menaces tosociety and condemned .

Its policies contrasting sharply with the American AFL-CIO and the British TUC; both of which accepted wage restrainsts, the Canadian labor movement made clear from the beginning its opposition to Trudeau's wage and price control program. Here, a unionist presents his terse message to federal labor minister John Munro in a campaign against the program which promises to continue well into 1976.

iN

AS

The first public employees to face attempts by municipal governments to cut wage costs, CUPE members adopted new strategies in 1975 bargaining put parity with provincial employees — the central demand — could not be achieved.

|

jee ie) ut A refurbished Social Credit Party, eager to take over government again, began its campaign early in 1975. These signs began appearing in February as some Socred wag took a shot at NDP education minister Eileen Dailly for her dismissal of Stanley Knight. | —Sean Griffin photos

racist attacks in south Vancouver during March. Law and order and racism teamed up like matching gloves. Tory MP Ron Huntington joined the clamor demanding the return of the death penalty and then claimed as the debate on the Green Paper got underway that too many East- Indians and Chinese were being admitted into Canada. His views on immigration were echoed by Vancouver mayor Art Phillips who proposed about the same time that Vancouver should double the size of its police force.

Spurred by the same right drive, but instigated by big business, the inflationary spiral reached new heights by mid year. In August, food prices in Vancouver were found to be the highest in North America, seven to fifteen per cent higher than Toronto or Montreal. The blame for the evils of the cost of living increasingly and ef- fectively placed on labor. It added the class edge to the hatchet.

Certainly it was all fitting together, a pre-fabricated struc- ture of events. The direction of the right was clear, but the left was preoccupied with more basic issues. From the first round of negotiations between organized labor and their employers, the bosses were coming out on top.

Early March saw _ the longshoremen strike over wages and the container issue. But by the end of March the federal govern- ment had forced them back to work — with NDP MPs supporting the legislation. “‘It’s the most repressive legislation we’ve seen,”’ ILWU president Don Garcia commented, ‘‘We’ll groan under it for two years.”

Not far from the waterfront, in downtown Vancouver, another bitter confrontation was _ taking place. At radio station, CKLG, workers had organized into CUPE and had been on strike since mid February for a first contract. By the time the longshoremen were sent back, the CKLG strikers had been supplanted by scabs, had criminal charges pending against picketers and had received an ex- parte injunction to limit their numbers on the picket line. In May, it seemed victory had been won with the signing of a contract, but the long struggle had taken its toll. Union members were. forced out one by one, until in November only

‘a handful remained and a decer-

tification vote was pushed through.

Two weeks later the anti-labor crusade found its reflection in B.C.

_ with the passage of Bill 84, the new

labor code. The B.C. Federation of Labor announced it had lost con- fidence in labor minister Bill King.

The entire salmon fishing in- dustry was struck by the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union on July 25. Overcoming

_ company-inspired divisions within

the union and the splitting tactics of the employer dominated Native Brotherhood, the UFAWU led a united'strike and won wide support with its public salmon sales. The effort was undercut, however, with the serving of four injunctions in the fourth week of the strike. ‘Injunctions are flying thick and fast in a province where they are supposed to be a thing of the past,” UFAWU secretary Jack Nichol exclaimed. The courts are making a farce of the labor code.”

In the meantime, a major battle had been taking shape. No increase in wages was the arrogant position

- of the Forest Industrial Relations.

Workers in the IWA and the two pulp unions responded with 82, 77 and 78 per cent strike votes. A joint strike deadline was set for July 16,

but when the day came only th pulp unions went out. Although th IWA leaders retreated from th fight, the combined effect ¢ layoffs and roving pulp unio pickets shut down almost the er tirety of B.C.’s major industry.

Enter into the picture the lockot of retail food workers and th closing of the supermarkets by th newly formed Food Council for brief period it seemed that th province was strikebound. Th fishermen settled in late Augus after 27 days, but there was still th OTEU strike at ICBC and th disputes at the B.C. Sugar Refiner and at Seagrams Distillery showe no signs of resolution.

The stage was set for ‘th dramatic events of Octobe: Employers united as never befor to impose a wage freeze and th B.C. Federation of Labor warnin that ‘‘workers will not bear th burden of inflation,’’ somethin had to break. The governmer made the break with the labo movement and the principles ¢ free collective bargaining. Bill 14 sent 60,000 trade unionists back t their jobs without so much as on cent increase in pay. ‘‘Bill 14 represents a complete betrayal ¢ the principles of the NDP. N government has ever engaged i strikebreaking on such a massiv scale,’’ declared Len Guy i condemnation.

Bill 146 sent out a signal and th black Tuesday in Victoria wa complemented the followin Tuesday with the wage freeze. An when Barrett gave his stamp ¢ approval to the wage contre program, it was like a twist of th knife.

It was clearly a year of bi defeats and little victories eve before Barrett sought to mak quick political capital out of hi anti-labor record. Semehow, made sense to the premier that th left could claim an election victor by adopting the policies of th right.

The whole story brings t memory the statement adopted < the March 1 conference of th Communist Party. “‘We believe th prerequisite for haltin: monopoly’s offensive and blockin the return of a _ big busines government lies in energeticall working to advance an anti monopoly program and forgin unity in action around the ir mediate pressing needs of th people,’’ the CP expressed. It wer on to stress the need to “‘expos and eradicate all tendencies t class collaboration or retrea before monopoly pressures.”

Those who understood th processes at work are not amon the disillusioned today. In fact they can look back upon the year a one in which elass consciousnes grew substantially. They can poin to the determination of the labo movement for its political ir dependence from the opportunisr of the NDP. And it can be said wit! pride that the Canadian labo movement stands out in un compromising opposition to wag controls, -while other labo movements have buckled under _As for the Communis movement, the struggles of th year brought new recruits. Thi newspaper, as well, felt th benefits of struggle and the 40t

‘anniversary year was one o

successes, not least the raising o $48,000 during the financial drive

Much went wrong in 1975. Yet no a single issue is final. They al remain to be fought again, and in: certain way, with the experience of the year well understood, we ar farther ahead.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 19, 1975—Page §