“| think we are being exploited ”

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UE News Service

25 years ago...

BAR TRIBUNE SCAB PAPER ADMITTED

WINNIPEG — The day be- fore the TLC opened here, pub- lic relations director Leslie

ismer barred the Canadian Tribune from the press table. Wismer told the press that the Halifax TLC convention had Tuled that correspondents from the Tribune not be.allowed the usual press badge to sit at the convention press table. The Congress was opposed to com- Munism, Wismer pointed out to the daily papers, and did not recognize communists or their sympathizers as delegates. The Same Congress) policy applied to . the Communist correspondents. . However feeling that more Justification was called for by this transparently undemocratic act,

arring the only national labor weekly in Canada, Wismer de- tailed the usual canard about the

Ommunist press not being a free press, and the Communists

arring reporters from their Conventions. The Tribune August 25, 1952.

_ FLASHBACKS FROM | THE COMMUNIST PRESS

50 years ago...

WUHAN GOVERNMENT BRUTALLY CRUSHES LABOR UNIONS

WUHAN, China — During the last three days the bureaus of 28 labor unions have been oc- cupied by troops. All documents and everything in the bureaus were confiscated. The trades council of the Province of Hupe, has protested to the central committee of the Kuomintang and to the Wuhan government and demanded that declarations of the government and the Kuomintang promising the workers and peasants organiza- tions should be kept.

The University of Wuhan has

also been occupied by troops.

The occupation took place dur- ing the congress of the Chinese Students League. According to the statements of travellers who have arrived from the districts, the regime of terror introduced by the new authorities is worse than the terror of Chiang Kai- shek in Shanghai.

_ The Worker August 27, 1927.

4 editorial said “if the Fascists have not a

EIDUITORILALL COMIMUEINT

A coalition for jobs

The Canadian labor movement re- jected the government's invitation to join with it.in its destruction of the economy. Rather than being taken in as ac- complices, the CLC and its affiliates justifiably demanded instead that Ot- tawa immediately end its wage-cutting program and embark on a campaign to create jobs.

There is mass unemployment in this country — well over one million. There are countless other Canadians such as students and those on fixed incomes bearing the full brunt of runaway in-

flation, a shrinking jobs market, and the.

myriad of social problems a sick economy brings with it.

The CLC has replied to Ottawa. with proposals to ease the economic squeeze on workers and their families which, while not getting at the cause of our economic ills, can be supported and fought for. They include a massive hous- ing program, a reduction in personal in- come taxes, a $1-billion public invest- ment program to create jobs and a $50 per month increase in pensions.

In an urgent message to the recent

premier’s conference, the CLC urged the premiers to prevail upon Ottawa to take action to create jobs now. “We can no longer tolerate a government which

has made unemployment a way of life,” the CLC said.

Other militant examples of labor’s fightback against Bill C-73 and for policies to create jobs are seen in recent actions by the Nova Scotia labor move- ment and in Toronto where this year’s Labor Day march will take place on the theme of Full Employment to which all interested organizations are being in- vited to participate.

Such moves toward all-in unity in the fight for jobs should be expanded on a Canada-wide scale. The CLC should consider a “people’s coalition for jobs” to embrace the widest sectors of Canadians —unions, unemployed, churches, stu- dents, pensioners, political parties — all who are concerned with the need to turn our economy around.

The course is being set, the time is now for a massive counter-attack on Trudeau’s bankrupt policies.

Alarming fascist upsurge

The neo-fascist National Front in Bri- tain makes world headlines. It preaches racism openly, holds rallies and marches protected agairist public wrath by lines of British police.

In Illinois, we see the disgraceful spec- tacle of the American Civil Liberties

Union defending in court the “right” of .

the U.S. Nazi Party to “free speech”. Rome’s Gestapo Chief Herbert Kap- pler is spirited to safety in West Germany

amidst a surge of public sympathy. He |

was serving life imprisonment for war crimes in Italy. Over 60 nazi elite SS Guard reunions have been held in the FRG since last winter. A new spate of Adolph Hitler books and movies is born.

‘There are many more less publicized incidents — but what we are witnessing is a resurgence of neo-nazi activity which arises out of the socio-economic crisis in Western capitalist nations.

In spite of its multiple outward forms and covers, fascism is anti-communist, anti-labor and racist. It is an extension of monopoly-capitalism, its most brutal form.

Hand in hand with neo-nazi_ re- surgence goes the more “polite” debate about civil rights. During the 1930’s, when Communists and other democratic forces in Canada were battling the fas- cists and exposing their dangerous mes- sage, the daily press talked about “the Communist menace”. The police pro- tected nazi meetings and arrested anti-fascists.

Efforts to ‘enact group libel laws against fascist anti-Semitic attacks were criticized by the Toronto Globe in an

; editorial “Why be Touchy?” which called

such laws “not the British way, mischiev- ous and undemocratic”. The Globe

worthwhile idea in baiting the Jews it will die anyway... ..”

It didn’t die, but tens of millions o people the world over did.

Substitute Pakistanis for Jews; or Caribbean immigrants in Britain for Jews to update the fascist message. Sub- stitute the Toronto Star’s recent editorial attack on the “right and left menace in Britain” for the Globe’s 1930's rationale to take the heat off fascism and distribute it “evenly”.

Consider the connection between at-. tacks on non-white immigrants in Canada and the National Front’s call for the forced expulsion of non-white im- migrants from Britain — both defended because “they are taking our jobs”, in conditions of mass unemployment.

Wonder about the fact that nazi groups like the Western Guard here, the Ku Klux Klan in the U.S., the-National Front in the UK, the thousands-strong nazi organizations in FRG are permitted to preach their hatred and ask yourself why, 32 years after World War 2, this is still allowed, even defended as “free- dom of speech”.

History clearly shows that in a period of crisis the capitalist system requires scape-goats. It could be Jews, it could be Japanese immigrants, Italians, Pakis- tanis or Jamaicans. Added to this is one constant ingredient — anti-communism which is the major ideological weapon of fascism. Whether subtley hidden in Star editorials or openly brandished in vio- lent attacks, its nature is the same.

Democratic Canadians, the labor movement in particular, should be clear on this issue. The struggle for labor’s rights, an extension of democratic rights and for world peace is a’struggle against fascist ideology. Anti-communism, ra- cism, “big labor” notions and chipping away at our democratic gains all aid

capitalism and its right bower, fascism. - “PACIFIC: TRIBUNE~SEPTEMBER 2, 1977—Page 3