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‘THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

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Affiliated with AFL-ChO-CLC

Orive, Vancouver, B.C. Phone 874.5261

Advertising Representatives = Elizabeth Spencer Associates

WA in Western Canada in acterdance with convention decisians. Subscription rate for non-members $2.00 pér year,

EDITORIAL

WORKERS’ BEST FRIEND

MAGINE, if you can, that you have fallen overboard and are thrashing about in a choppy sea. Your moment of panic ends as a strong arm grips you tightly and lifts you to safety.

And then and there you repay your rescuer’s kindness with a punch in the nose.

Ridiculous? Of course.

Yet, whether or not you realize it, there is a concerted effort being made today to warp your thinking and guide you into just such an irrational course of action. ;

Those responsible would have you turn on one of the greatest friend’s the workers of British Columbia has ever had — the NDP Government.

Such action is understandable. For: -

more than 100 years The Power Elite held the province in the palm of its hand, squeezing at will in the name of easy exploitation. Where both human and mineral resources were concerned, it was a kind of legal rape to satisfy the voracious desires of powerful interests.

Then, on Aug. 30, 1972, came the dawning of a new era. The NDP Government of Premier David Barrett was in power and moving immediately to right the wrongs of the past with programs shaped to the needs of the people.

In the 33 months since the election the influential string-pullers of B.C. have found themselves in an_ unfamiliar, uneasy situation. They lust for the good old days when exploitation was unhampered. And it is becoming more and more evident that they will do anything to rid the province of the NDP watch dog.

The propaganda mills are hard at work. The people are being fed a daily diet of misleading pap. Irresponsible attacks — light on factual content but heavy on hysteria — are being launched in endless fashion by the daily press and a frantic official opposition.

The idea, of course, is to get the In- Party out and the Out-Party in — at any cost. In this respect, there is one amusing note. The desire is so great the out-folks don’t know what to call themselves. They could end up as the B.C. United Fence Jumpers, or Floor Crossers. Any label may do to further the cause of the political opportunists.

It is interesting to note, of course, that the critics of the present government

avoid any mention of the very positive picture that has been painted stroke by

stroke

by stroke in less than three years

by Mr. Barrett’s government — the virtual flood of legislation aimed at improving the lot of the little man.

Guaranteed income for people over 60, and handicapped people; free prescription drugs for people over 65, and social assistance recipients; income assurance for farmers; prohibition of discrimination on marital status, political belief and criminal record; realistic revenues from coal, natural gas and mineral resources; profitable govern- ment participation in the forest industry; government participation in house construction, low-cost auto insurance; increased access to education; freedom for a citizen to sue the Crown; right to vote regardless of property ownership; consumer protection legislation.

And the list goes on.

The streamlining of the labour Relations Board Machinery has not only produced a dramatic speed-up in remedying problems, but has given the labor movement a better chance than ever to find meaning in the word justice. Under the old system unions won only about 20 per cent of their cases; today the batting average is over 95 per cent.

There has, of course, been valuable government assistance not only to the working people, but to the small businessman. And this includes the small forest industry operator.

Without such assistance layoffs in the forests last year would have involved thousands of additional workers.

There has been much talk about the costs of such programs, little talk about the fact that they are people-oriented programs with a real benefit for the people.

Those who scream about the deficit of the government auto insurance program fail to mention that the big private in- surance companies in the East are also burdened with big losses.

. Neither do they point to the almost unbelievable differences in the costs to the person buying such insurance. Ask the man from Ontario who paid $252 for car insurance last year, and who was told he would be paying $335 this year, even though he hasn’t had an accident.

This should only serve to demonstrate to the B.C. citizen that everything his government has done has been strictly for the good of the people in this province.

The labour movement and the citizens of B.C. should recognize this fact and

not be blinded by the propagandists who are serving the Power Elite.

APRIL-MAY, 1975

Well I find if I roll me own. . . I don’t smoke so much

an’ will live longer!

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Editor’s note:

The following is a copy of a letter submitted for _publica- tion in The Sun by Jack MacKenzie, the former First Vice-President of the Regional Council. The Sun refused to publish the letter obviously because its contents were in opposition to the views and opinions of the paper’s ad- vertisers.

In my naivete I thought at long last, public television would arrive where one could look and listen to program- ming during meal hours with- out being subjected to insensi- tive advertising, such as cures for itching rectums; hemor- rhoids; halitosis; the gentle laxatives that work while you sleep; soap advertisements (that add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the pro- duct.)

Stupid milk toast husbands and their domineering wives; the assumption that the view- ing public is so stupid that the money the oil industry spends on exploration comes out of the oil industry’s pocket, etc., etc., etc.

To paraphrase Martin Luther King I thought, “free at last, free.at last, from insensi- tive advertising, free at last.” But alas, to no avail. Is it to be? I doubt it very much. |

To own a television station appears to be a licence to print your own money and “the establishment” has great diffi- culty allowing such a lucrative field to become public. Safety exists, though for the estab- lishment, as few if any voices will be raised in protest and the money grubbers will likely go merrily on their way.

Let’s have public television.

J. MacKENZIE:

Se eee R ee MORE LABOUR DISPUTES PREDICTED FOR 1975

Canadian workers lost nine point three million man-days through labour disputes in 1974. The statistics came from the federal labour department along with a prediction that things for 1975 look worse.

The 9.3 million is a record for Canada and the labour depart- ment says that although infla- tion looks as though it may start downward we should hope for no more than a level- ing off. The labour department researchers say that every- thing but food was cheaper in comparison at the end of 1974 compared to 1973.

What the federal department doesn’t outline is how much

consumer products have decreased. It also doesn’t point out that the two main problems for workers in this country are food and housing costs and it is doubtful that the housing costs

_ have come down over the last

year.

It would be a reasonably accurate prediction that Cana- dian workers will continue to

‘fight for improved wages until

the prices on basics, such as food and housing, come down to realistic levels. The very fact that these confrontations will occur during the rest of 1975 is a reasonably good in- dication that there will be more than the record 9.3 million man-days lost in 1975.

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