GANADIAN GOVERNMENT ATTACK ON MARITIME UNIONS RUNS INTO SQUALLS
: TORONTO, Nov. 5 == A trusteeship imposed on five Great Lakes maritime unions by the government of Canada has not only brought U.S. unionists © working ports on the south shore out in protest demonstrations, but is acting as an irritant in relations between Ottawa _and Washington, between the top brass of the Canadian Labor Congress [CLC] and the AFL-CIO leader= ship in the United States, and now threatens to take on world-wide ramifications. _
The chairman of the three-man trustee body, which has been granted unprecedented powers-to administer union agreements, to prevent strikes — and boycotts, to fire union leaders, re-write union constitutions and con= trol all the assets of Canadats maritime unions, has appealed for aid to the International Transport Federation [ITF]. The federation, an international labor body of transport unions on both sides of the Atlantic, is -meeting this week in London,
The government-appointed trustees are asking the ITF to bring pres-~ sure to bear on U.S. unions which are picketing Canadian ships as they attempt to operate out of U.S. ports. The trustees have been emboldened to-do so by the fact that on the ITF executive are two top spokesmen of | the Canadian trade-union bureaucracy, who, almost to a man, have supported this government intervention in the internal affairs of the union movement phat snows no precedent in the history of labor on the North American con= inent.
The trustees have also in a sense been compelled to appeal to the ITF, Armed with the powers that have been granted them under the pretense of driving gangsterism off the Great Lakes, they have already ordered~RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] raids on union offices and have seized records, ,
(They had had SIU [Seafarers! International Union] boss Hal Banks arrested. Banks was imported by a previous Liberal government to "drive Communism off the Great Lakes." He shortly became notorious for a "dow noteship" list he used to discipline recalcitrants in the ranks, and for his sweetheart deals with the shipping magnates who openly, while several different governments looked the other way, flouted the labor act. He has now been charged with conspiracy to assault a person in an incident that dates back some six years, )
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‘The three-=man body is holding the threat of legal action against SIU ranks who, in protest against the trusteeship, “marched on the nation's capital and stayed out for a full week before returning to work,
But despite these far-reaching attacks that the trustees have leveled within Canadian jurisdiction, the opposition of U. Se port workers has seriously crippled their effectiveness. .
The difficulties now confronting the trustees were. , not unforeseen. Fear that the prescription of government trusteeship might only result in a further aggravation of the situation on the Great Lakes brought the U.S. _ government, in the person of Labor. Secretary Wirtz, into the drama, urging Ottawa to practice caution and restraint. No-.doubt opposition by the AFE- CIO top brass played an important part in this intervention, as the Kennedy administration is dependent on them to deliver the labor vote in the coming elections, =
George Moany, head of the AFL-CIO, to which one million of Canadats one and a half million unionists are affiliated, proposed & private trusteeship, at first with AFI-CIO. representation and then in a final attempt to forestall the government trusteeship, without even this proviso, . Meanyts correct position is the resultant of several forces == the tradition and strength of American labor, which not only doesntt seek but eschews government intervention in trade-union affairs; internal disputes in the top AFL~CIO hierarchy; and least, but not entirely missing, a me responsiveness to U.S. port workers who have a healtny reaction of opposi~ tion to government intervention in the Canadian section of their union,
Because of their solidarity actions, U.S. unions are having heavy | fines imposed on them by the courts, The U.S.National Labor Relations Board is now conducting an investigation as to the validity of unfair labor practices charges laid against U.S. port workers unions by the Chicago McCormick newspaper interests.
The Canadian union movement has been badly disoriented by the craven policy of its leadership which has failed to pose any alternative pole of attraction to the corrupt SIU Banks leadership to militants on the Great Lakes and has gone down the line with government trusteeship.
The parliamentary spokesmen of Canadats laborebased New Democratic party, with one notable exception, have also supported the trusteeship, Indeed, the Tories, Social Crediters and even the declining Communist party, all of them manipulating certain nationalist, some of it even healthy,. anti-American sentiments, have been holler ing together for increasingly more drastic action from. the three-man trustee body. The Liberal party government is anxious to have such a precedent in its antilabor armament but is painfully aware of the complexities of the situation,
The scattering of opposition to the trusteeship, which existed ‘right across the country from the very beginning, has not yet found its voice.
Dissidents in the Toronto Labour Council, the largest in the country, were headed off by a phony resolution that suggested opposition in prin=.. ciple but diverted the whole question into the idea of the CLC cong bi tubang
an "ethical practices committee" to settle internal union disputes. But this trusteeship does not come from any decisive change in relationship of class forces in the country and subsequent experiences with it will no doubt educate and mobilize new forces in opposition to it and to the treachery of the Canadian trade-union bureaucracy.
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NEXT WEEK | - 4.
"Ross Dowson Explains Algerian Revolution to Canadians,"
Following a visit to Algeria last summer, Ross Dowson, editor of :.
The Workers' Vanguard, made a trip across Canada, He was inter~ ; _
_ viewed on radio stations in various cities, including an hour i
-and a half over the popular Don Wilson program in Vancouver i
which features questions telephoned in to the station by listen-
ers. Look for extensive excerpts from this interesting inter-
view in next week's World Outlook. HF orwnenen en ennesenn:
ere cenaty sents!
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