by Irene Lanzinger, president, BC Federation of LabourOn the Line: A History of the BC Labour Movement is a must-read for anyone involved in or interested in the labour movement today. It helps us to...
Sponsoring Partner’s Message
Community Savings began in the imagination of woodworkers attending a union meeting. Following a guest presentation from the treasurer of the Common Good Credit Union, ten IWA members from the New...
Preface
by Ken Novakowski, chair, BC Labour Heritage CentreIn early summer of 2013, Jack Munro, then chair of the British Columbia Labour Heritage Centre, convened a meeting at the West Georgia Street White...
Introduction
A militant labour movement has been part of British Columbia’s identity going back to earliest times. The region’s resource-based, frontier economy produced a toughened brand of worker, the...
1. Beginnings
The rich culture and societies of British Columbia’s First Nations did not collapse the moment British explorer James Cook sailed into Nootka Sound on a blustery March day in 1778. In fact, for the...
2. British Columbia and Canada Take Root
The heart of the slow but steady expansion of BC’s emerging capitalism in the last half of the nineteenth century lay in the bounteous coalfields of Vancouver Island. And nowhere was working-class...
3. A New Century and New Labour Awareness
With the newly European-dominated population of 170,000 people, the province’s industrial muscle was in full swing. Settlers, workers and entrepreneurs poured in. Exports had soared from about $3...
4. The Great Vancouver Island Coal Strike
Vancouver Island coal miners had not lost their burning sense of injustice over their treatment by the Dunsmuirs. Their deep-seated hostility had been further powered by another dreadful gas...
5. The Great War and Canada’s First General Strike
The outbreak of the ghastly “war to end all wars” in 1914 had a profound impact on the BC labour movement, as it did on almost every aspect of provincial life. Among the fifty-five thousand...
6. One Big Union
When World War I finally came to an end on November 11, 1918, the spirit of resistance was soaring in Western Canada, especially among industrial unions. Despite double-digit inflation eating into...
7. The On-to-Ottawa Trek
No era in Canadian history is as well-defined as the Depression. Even the dates are precise, from the spectacular Wall Street crash on October 29, 1929, to the beginning of World War II on September...
8. Ballantyne Pier and Other Battles
The harsh putdown of the On-to-Ottawa Trek was the last nail in the political coffin of R.B. Bennett. On October 14, 1935, William Lyon Mackenzie King and the federal Liberals cruised to a crushing...
9. Blubber Bay, Bloody Sunday
Labour history is often a tale of the unpredictable. Certainly, no one could have foretold that a former whaling station on Texada Island with the unglamorous name of Blubber Bay would be the site of...
10. World War II
The assertion is often made that Canada came of age as a nation during the Great War of 1914–1918, but it was World War II that profoundly transformed the country. On September 3, 1939, Britain and...
11. Postwar Politics
When IWA contract talks got underway in 1946, the union’s demands were ambitious, but familiar: a forty-hour week, union security and dues check-off, plus a wage hike of twenty-five cents an hour....
12. Bad News Bennett
Outside the conflict raging in BC union halls, a political shock loomed that was to consume and bedevil the province’s labour movement for the next two decades. After ten years in office, the...
13. A New Nationalism
The 1960s ushered in a new sense of nationalism and confidence, capped by the outstanding success of Expo 67 to celebrate Canada’s centennial. The inferiority complex of the postwar years, when the...
14. Jailings, a Fired-up Fed and Public-Sector Fightback
In addition to serving as a reminder that BC trade unionists could not be relied on to always follow the dictates of their leaders, the Lenkurt dispute was also a key event in labour’s growing...
15. That Seventies Socialism
The BC labour movement entered the 1970s in fighting trim. While court injunctions and anti-labour bills had taken a toll, the province’s trade unions had proven to be durable combatants, regularly...
16. Inflation for the Nation
As they awaited their fate under Social Credit, BC unions had more pressing concerns. On Thanksgiving, October 14, 1975, fretting over cascading inflation and soaring wage increases, Prime Minister...
17. New Tactics and Workplace Tragedies
Much to Bill Bennett’s surprise, Social Credit almost lost the 1979 election. A rewarming of voters toward Barrett and the NDP and a lacklustre campaign left the Socreds with only a narrow,...
18. Operation Solidarity
Canada’s long run of postwar abundance came to an end in the early 1980s. The country found itself mired in the worst economic downturn since the Depression. The malaise was particularly hard on...
19. Expo 86 and a New Premier
Bill Bennett’s third term continued to be difficult terrain for unions. While his government never quite found the gumption to bring in right-to-work legislation to end both the union and closed...
20. War and Peace under the NDP
The volatile Vander Zalm years, which had British Columbians and Canadians across the country shaking their heads over some of the antics that went on, came to an end in 1991. After forty years as a...
21. Picking on the Public Sector
The BC Liberals who took over government from the NDP had little in common with their federal Liberal namesakes. They were a centre-right coalition united, like the BC Social Credit Party, by a...
22. Back to School
The extraordinary court victory by the health-care unions gave great heart to BC teachers. They too had had their contract ripped open by the Campbell government. But their court challenge to Bill 28...
23. The Golden Tree and Fighting for Workplace Safety
Beyond making organizing more difficult and gutting apprenticeship programs, the Campbell government did little to hammer unions in the private sector as they had those in the public sector. Even the...
24. The Struggle Continues
After more than 150 years of struggle marked by death, hardship, sacrifice, many bitter defeats and eventually a long period of solid gains and achievements, the British Columbia labour movement has...
Acknowledgements
On the Line was commissioned by the BC Labour Heritage Centre, and I am grateful to members of the book’s steering committee for their faith in me. Their comments were helpful and encouraging...
Bibliography
BooksAbella, Irving M. Nationalism, Communism and Canadian Labour: the CIO, the Communist Party, and the Canadian Congress of Labour, 1935–1956. Toronto: University of Toronto Press,...
Men and women workers at Vancouver Plywood gather for a union update toward the end of World War II. Courtesy Gary Wong, IWA Local 1-217 Archives.
