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THE FISHERMAN
January 22, 1960
THE FISHERMAN
10 cents per copy $3.50 per year
Published every Friday except the last Friday of each month by The Fisherman Publishing Society, 301 Powell Street, GEORGE NORTH, Editor      Vancouver 4, B.C.      Phone: MU. 3-1829
Authorised as Second-Class Mail by Post Office Department, Ottawa
CLC Official's Remarks Remove Barrier to Unity
//TVTEITHER the CLC, the BC Federation of Labor, nor -L^l the local labor council has authority to dictate policy to any of their affiliates. The CLC can make no decision that is binding on any union. It can only recommend."
These words were uttered last week by E. P. O'Connor, general secretary of the BC Government Employees' Association.
Not only is O'Connor an executive member of the BC Federation of Labor but he also holds the important position of vice president of the Canadian Labor Congress.
The UFAWU agrees with O'Connor's views but in defending the right to its own constitution, the Union was accused of non-adherence to that of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and subsequently suspended.
In May of 1953, the Trades and Labor Congress objected to a Fisherman editorial which condemned raiding, including that on the established Vancouver Outside Civic Workers Union.
The actual suspension order laid down the condition that the Union was out "until such time as the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union gives proof of taking all reasonable and necessary measures to rid itself of Communist leadership and leanings and is prepared to abide by the letter and spirit of the constitution of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada ..."
It has been repeatedly pointed out over the years in reply to this position that the Union constitution is paramount to the membership and can only be changed by UFAWU members themselves.
And it specifically provides that "Any person, male or female, regardless of race, religion, or political opinion, employed in any of the various operations over which the Union has jurisdiction, shall be eligible for membership in this organisation if otherwise qualified."
In fighting exclusion from the TLC, the UFAWU argued that individual unions had the right to differ with Congress policy, just as CLC vice president O'Connor is doing today.
In the UFAWU appeal against suspension in 1954, that very point was made in crystal clear terms.
"We must draw the attention of all trade unions to the dangers inherent in the executive policy of 'conform or get out'," the UFAWU said. "Instead of bringing greater unity at a time when unity is vital to the success of the trade union movement, it can only lead to further splits and divisions.
"Unions are not going to allow the TLC executive to ram policies down their throats. Union members are not going to allow the executive to pick and choose their officers."
Is there any essential difference between that statement and the one made by Ed O'Connor?
The last BC Federation of Labor convention endorsed a resolution urging the Canadian Labor Congress to "speed up the process of bringing all trade unions presently not affiliated with the CLC into Canada's trade union centre."
The United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union applied for affiliation more than two years ago. What is the roadblock?
If vice president Ed O'Connor is expressing a principle of CLC policy when he says the Congress cannot "dictate policy" to any affiliate nor make a decision "that is binding on any union," surely that leaves no real barrier to affiliation of the UFAWU.
Labor unity has been a cardinal and consistent aim of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union.
Unity of the Canadian trade union movement has always been essential to the welfare of the workers. In this new period, when the attacks on unions have intensified and labor laws have been sharpened on instructions from well organised employers, it is absolutely imperative that labor close ranks.
Next April's convention of the Canadian Labor Congress has a clear obligation in this matter.
Quit Loafing, Fellows Bring On the Clam Gun!
I^ISHERMEN are getting soft and it's all because of unem-- ployment insurance. That's the claim of the Fisheries Council of Canada which says, "Many instances could be cited of some of the effects of unemployment insurance for fishermen." It quotes an unnamed traveller to the east as saying "It is destroying the moral fibre of our fishermen,"
The Council, which consists of fishing companies across Canada, reprints an item from the Sun which claims a shortage of clams and states that "Fishing companies blame extension of unemployment insurance benefits to BC fishermen in 1958. Company spokesmen say this has had the effect of making the cold, back breaking work just not worth the effort for clam diggers on this coast,"
The Union has blamed low prices for the drop in production. Incidentally, we're still waiting to hear the companies say "high wages" are pricing clams out of the market.
Apparently it's those fancy unemployment insurance cheques that are doing the dirty work, and the companies can't afford to compete with that $30 or less a week fishermen are getting (when they can qualify).
Mind you, these ,fellows who accuse clam diggers of being lazy have a point. Here it is winter and they have to keep making toufh decisions, like whether to head off for Bermuda, Florida, or plain old Hawaii.
Clam diggers don't really know what hard wftrk it is, and how reassuring to the moral fibre of a man, spending hours clipping coupons. Ever see a guy with coupon clipper's calluses?
No sir, the clam digger has it easy. True, he too gets calluses but look at all the fresh sea air that goes along with them.  And he only works at low tide.
Come on, ye men of feeble moral fibre. Shoulder your clam guns and off to the beach. Bend that back, fire that gun, get yourself a sack, and pack away a ton. What difference docs it make if it pays less than unemployment insurance? It's the "moral fibre" that counts.
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FISH AND SHIPS
WE'VE been asked if we know any fishermen's songs. Native BC songs that are sung in the fleet. Eiran Harris, who is collecting folklore, asked us and all we could come up with was "Virgin Sturgeon" and as a matter of fact, that's all we could think of during a stag evening in Japan. We were embarrassed then and are now. Surely someone must have run across a ditty, a chanty, or some song connected with the BC industry and originating from it. In Nova Scotia, we know, there are songs aplenty but in BC, just what have we got? We would appreciate receiving the words of any fisherman's song any reader might know, and a rough idea of the tune, if possible. We along with Mr. Harris would feel much better if we got only one . . . just one native British Columbia fisherman's song.
* * • Eagle-eyed Reg. Payne, troller Saturnina, spotted two front page errors in last week's issue (he missed a third, the most glaring). In the story on the memorial service for Nanaimo's Peter Good, we said his boat had been heading for Cape Mudge instead of Mudge Island and mentioned that John Schule had attended memorial services on behalf of the Union. His wife calls him Johnny but almost everyone else calls him Charlie Schule (Charles John). Reg. did not notice that Joe Whitmore's name, correctly spelled in the story was "Whitemore" in the headline. Even at that, Reg, we weren't as bad as The Sun on January 8 when it said that "Wicks produced figures to show there were 25 fatalities in 1958 in Vancouver Island and coastal logging areas, and last year there were SO'/i". Just where did the Vi come from? Incidentally, Reg
is fishing dogfish and it's a pretty grim show. He's issued an open invitation to fisheries minister J. Angus MacLean to come out for a day or longer and see just how tough it really is to make a dollar at the 10 cents a pound the government pays (plus the nickel or less paid by the companies). Damned hard scratching. •      * *
Conrad Envoldsen is at home recovering from his recent illness. He hopes to be going out on halibut, but that decision will be up to his doctor.
;• *      * *
Fred Itvelt has his troller Yu-Kon 3 up on the ways at McKay Cormack Shipyard in Victoria. He is installing a new 84 h.p. Gardner six cylinder diesel. Fred is one of the old timers, a UFAWU member, and a high liner in the west coast fleet.
Not only does it pay to advertise in The Fisherman, but it pays so well we have lost one of our advertisers. Elgin Neish and the editor dropped in to Outer Wharf Grocery in Victoria last week to see about renewing the ad that used to run. One of the proprietors said they can't handle the business they got out of the last ad. Fishermen complained, they were told, that the ad said "prompt service" and the rush was so heavy the firm couldn't keep its word.
There are many fine people in Campbell River but none finer than Jack and Millie Hewison who go out of their way to make visiting UFAWU members feel at home. Jack is secretary of the Quathiaski Local of the Union.
Roy Van Dusen, our waterfront reporter, is still in the Hospital, hence the shortage of news in recent weeks.   He  is recovering
What is Alternative To Military Spending?
IN a recent article which appeared in a West German publication Periodikum Fur Wissen-schaftlichen Sozialismus, Dr. J. M. Gillman, former US government economist and author of The Falling Rate of Profit, again raises the question as to what would take the place of wasteful, unproductive arms expenditures in a peacetime economy.
What civilian-type expenditures might there be. he asks, to replace armament expenditures if we are to avoid falling into a chronic depression? The answer lnUoi oe:
"Increase the portion of the social surplus that gci»s to the state and for the  social services:   Expand   the school, health,   recreational   and cultural facilities of the community and similar communal projects. Build and extend a social security  system.   In   short, as Keynesians would have it. build the Welfare State. "There  are  no  other visible means of preventing a mature capitalist economy from falling into  an  ever-deepening depression once the props of military expenditures are removed. Fiscal and monetary measures can be shown to have but feeble effects in business decisions which determine the rates of production and employment."
But Gillman contends further that the Welfare State, highly desirable as it is from a humanitarian viewpoint, cannot be built in a capitalist society as a means ttf establishing full employment on a continuing basis.
THE   JUROR   WAS TRYING
to' get himself excused from service.
"I owe a man $25 I borrowed," he told the judge, "and he's leaving town for good today. I want to catch him before he gets to the train and pay him the money."
"You're excused," the judge announced. "I don't want anybody on the jury who can lie like thai."
THE THIN, PALE LOOKING
young man was having a checkup from his physician. After the examination was completed the patient asked, "Well, doctor, how do I stand?"
"Darned if I can figure it out," answered the doctor. ."It's a miracle."
"It contravenes the vital interests of the economically dominant class. Whether paid for by direct or indirect taxes, the cost becomes a charge on surplus-value, on the profits of the capitalists."
Hence the sharp resistance of the capitalists to any new taxes and their continual efforts to shift the burdens onto the workers. And if this is done the workers' real wages will decline. This kind of "Welfare State" thus becomes a hollow pretense"—and professors who propose it are "guilty of deluding the people."
If the workers were able to force the capitalists to be taxed for all the welfare equivalents that are usually listed as possible after abolition or a sharp reduction of the present military budget, Gillman says, such an extension of the Welfare State would "mark the beginning of the end of capitalism. It would deny its essence as a system of the private accumulation of capital. The social welfare of such dimensions can be achieved only under socialism."
Gillman emphasises again at the end of his article that "the alternative to military expenditures would be the building of the Welfare State. The capitalist class will not make that substitution. To achieve peacetime full employment at stable prices must be the job of the workers themselves, in the same way as the social legislation of the New Deal was achieved."
For the basic premise of his paper is that "the workers will not again accept a major depression as their unavoidable lit. They may not again accept war as a solution to depressions as they had done in the past. A new world war is now, unthinkable, unless we arc willing to do away with mankind along with depressions."
As to how workers and other people can move toward a war-less, full-employment economy, Gillman says he will discuss this in a forthcoming book. He agrees with British Professor J. D. Bcr-nal who wrote in his Science in History:
"Man can now gain for the first time, without anv need for supernatural support, a full confidence in his power over destiny. All that has happened up to now he can regard as pre-history; the new stage of real history is the conscious control of social and material forces by men themselves."
again after his "dive" and told us that Les Jacques from West-viwe was among his recent visitors. He's in room 267, St. Paul's Hospital.
A note to the Union from Phillip Shannon, whose father Henry Shannon passed away. Phillip and his guardians, S. and A. Harasen, thank the Union for the funeral and salmon welfare benefits.
*      * *
Bob McKay, Co-op oyster "rancher" of Fanny Bay, was looking slightly pale Sunday morning (January 17). He had spent a very enjoyable evening at the housewarming of his neighbor Ole Olsen, long time resident of Prince Rupert. Ole, a Union member and one of the Co-op pioneers, moved down from Prince Rupert last fall. He owns the troller Horizon and Bob reports that he (not Ole) was nearly horizontal before the evening was over.
Harold Malyea of Heriot Bay, president of the Quathiaski Local, is towing logs this winter. He missed the Local meeting last Saturday and the boys missed his presence. We hear he has some good jokes up his sleeve, but figures they may be a mite raw for The Fisherman. Knowing Harold, we'd say they're pretty tame, so let's have them, Butch.
Bill Law tells us one we've an idea we published once before. A fisherman is walking along a trail on Quadra Island during the winter and picks up a number of frozen pellets of deer droppings. He puts them in his pocket, goes to Campbell Rirer, and does some shopping. He puts three or four of the pellets on the counter and the clerk, curious, wants to know what they are. The fellow tells him they're "smartening up pills." "You take one or two and you smarten up," he says. The clerk asks if he can try them out. "Sure," the fellow replies, and the clerk starts chewing on one of them. "Migawd." he says after a minute, "those things taste like manure." "See, what did I tell you," the fisherman says, "you've smartened up already."
Win jo Writes
Why Wait So Long?
CONGRATULATIONS to those of you who took the time and effort to write the editor of The Fisherman, even though I was on the receiving end of the missives (or should I call them missiles?).
The letters were very interesting. Some of you have written before and some perhaps for the first time. Nevertheless, all of you did a mighty fine job.
But I have a question: "Why did you wait so long?"
It's all very well and important to sit down and pen a letter to show your displeasure about something that might rub you the wrong way. »| On the other hand, did you ever stop to think that there might be times when a letter should be sent commending a person or per-s o n s for the good work they may be doing on your behalf?
There are men in every local on the coast who are putting in a lot of time to make the fisherman's life just a little better.
It's bad enough that others should stand by and let them do it without a word of praise bu' unfortunately, the hardest workers are often the butt of abuse, usually in the wrong places.
The least they should get is the occasional word of praise, but even that seems to come hard for some of the boys.
There is a much bigger responsibility than- just patting people on the back, and that is taking part with them in doing the countless jobs that must be done.
Criticism is easy; you just need a loud voice and some strong opinions. I have criticised others, but I have also given credit when I thought it was due and was never afraid of having my opinions published.
IREAD what "oldtimer" had to say in the last issue of 'The Fisherman. His slogan, "All for one and one for all" is a good one. But you wonder, "oldtimer," where I fit into it.
Well, I've been a Union member for quite a long time. Since I moved to Vancouver, I have had to travel 28 miles to attend a Union meeting. I have remained a member of the Steveston Local and it's 14 miles there and 14 back, something that's been going on for some time.
During the fishing season, I attend scheduled meetings if I am operating on the Fraser and in winter, it is seldom I miss meetings, good weather or bad.
I have learned a lot from some of these meetings, and nothing from others. I travelled all the way out some days and there weren't enough members for a qrnriim.
If "oldtimer" reads The Fisherman regularly, he must have seen that favorite slogan of mine. It's nothing fancy and it doesn't sound as good as his.
It goes like this: "There are always a few who are willing to wcrk. and there are a lot who are willing to let them."
So, "oldtimer," I will ask you the same question you put to me, "Where do you fit into that slogan?"
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