The Western Socialist
Vol. 29 - No. 225
No. 1, 1962
page 2
Port Alberni, B. C.
Dear Comrades:
I am now working, or more appropriately and a damned sight truer, slaving in a logging camp.
One of my fellow wage slaves was almost killed today. He was hit by a small tree and suffered near fatal internal injuries. He is an elderly man for logging, forty nine, and had once been a high rigger. He fell from a spar tree in 1951 receiving twenty seven broken bones. The compensation board gave him a monthly pension of $23.00. Not wanting to starve to death he had no choice but to return to the logging industry. From his previous accident he had a brace in his leg and therefore due to this disability and his age he had little chance of getting out of the way today.
Thus does the system of commodity production with its inherent lust for profits treat its productive people. To squeeze the labor power from a worker they will maim and even kill. To hell with safety. The important thing is profits. I witnessed the accident and can say it was inevitable. They have and are constantly intensifying exploitation by pitting division against division — an old, old capitalist trick. One foreman against the other — "more logs, more logs," they say while they consistently devise devious methods of employing fewer and fewer men.
Comradely yours,
DON POIRIER