Saturday, May 04, 2019

Mickleburgh’s take on BC unions

April 29th, 2019

The notion that workers should collectivize to support one another and prevent exploitation is increasingly viewed as arcane in the Age of Tweets. The Winnipeg General Strike happened 100 years—and few Canadians can tell you what it was, and what happened.
Society barely bats an eye as unionization of the workplace declines, and more and more workers are hired under contract with no job security and few benefits. Rights and conditions workers fought for years to achieve – some gave their lives – are being steadily being eroded.
Hence judges selected Rod Mickleburgh’s On the Line: A History of the British Columbia Labour Movement (Harbour $44.95) as the 2019 winner of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness.
The two runners-up were Chelene Knight for her second book, Dear Current Occupant (Book Thug) and Sarah Cox for Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand Against Big Hydro (On Point Press).

Rod Mickleburgh accepts George Ryga Award
Mickleburgh, formerly a labour reporter for both the Vancouver Sun and Province and a senior writer for The Globe and Mail, has documented the broad historical sweep of what has been Canada’s most volatile and progressive provincial labour force, re-educating British Columbians to why unions are essential for a progressive society.
The story begins back in 1849 when Scottish labourers went on strike to protest barbaric working conditions at B.C.’s first coal mine at Fort Rupert on Vancouver Island and continues into the second decade of the 21st century to recount the successful campaign led by the B.C. Teacher’s Federation (BCTF) to improve classroom conditions and class sizes.
The Ryga Award was presented to Rod Mickleburgh in Victoria—on Saturday, April 27th—at the James Bay Library branch, 385 Menzies Street. The City of Vancouver also declared Author Appreciation Day in his honour.
Here is Rod Mickleburgh’s acceptance speech.
*
It’s hard to put into words how honoured and pleased I am to receive this year’s George Ryga Award for Social Awareness.  But I guess words are my business, so here goes.
I’m honoured, first of all, because this award carries the name of George Ryga. In addition to being such a celebrated BC writer, he takes me back to my long-lost youth. I am old enough to have seen the storied Vancouver Playhouse production of The Ecstasy of Rita Joe, George Ryga’s powerful play about the plight of an indigenous woman in the big city. There had never been anything like it in the then tame landscape of Canadian theatre and it broke the hearts of all who saw it.
A year later, in 1969, when I began my so-called brilliant career as sports editor of the mighty Penticton Herald, I discovered the famous man lived just up the road in Summerland. A guy on the paper kept regaling me about the rambunctious, wine-enhanced gatherings he went to at George Ryga’s place, a place that welcomed anyone who aspired to write. I remember being so jealous. As a lowly sports guy writing about the local junior hockey team, I felt too intimidated to think I would fit in.
Now, irony of irony, here I am accepting the George Ryga Award. It’s a funny old world.

George Ryga
I can’t resist adding one more example of George Ryga and me. I noticed on Wikipedia yesterday, that as a young man, he attended the World Assembly for Peace in Helsinki in 1955. My father was at the very same conference.
More importantly, I am also deeply honoured and pleased that this is the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness, something that was fundamental to Ryga’s own writing. Given the way unions and their contributions to society are so often marginalized, social awareness is not something one might normally associate with a history of the BC labour movement, however well done it is. (smile).
But when you look at all those things we take for granted today – the eight-hour day, the five-day work week, paid vacations, overtime, sick leave, pensions, safe working conditions, maternity leave, pay equity and on and on – where did that come from? How did that happen? Not one was granted voluntarily by benevolent, Nice Guy employers. Each and every breakthrough had to be fought for by workers and their unions. And it was never easy, especially in the days when unions had no rights and bosses could pretty well do as they pleased, backed all the way by governments and police.
As someone who spent 15 years as a labour reporter, in the days when there WERE labour reporters, I thought I knew something about the sacrifices of those early union members and the heroic struggles of the past. I had no idea. What I didn’t know, until I began researching for this book, and this came as a total surprise, was that until World War Two when legislation finally compelled employers to bargain with their unions, just about every single major strike was lost. Time after time, from the 1870s onward, workers would take on unscrupulous employers, wanting only a decent wage and working hours, a safe workplace and recognition of their union, but the deck was always stacked against them.

David Lester has depicted the “Battle of Ballantyne Pier” when locked-out waterfront workers fought police in Vancouver in 1935.
The moment a union went on strike, the company would hire strike-breakers, protected by private security goons, police and sometimes even the militia. If the strikers tried to stop the scabs, guess who went to jail? As well, workers who went on strike were regularly blacklisted, meaning they could never return to their old jobs. With strike-breakers maintaining normal production and companies, under no requirement to bargain, supported by governments, police, the media and hysterical law-and-order citizens, there was virtually no way for a union to win. Yet, in spite of defeat after defeat, workers kept fighting back.
While most of us probably have this general awareness that unions had a tough time in the old days, it’s only when you examine events in individual dispute after individual dispute that you realize just how terrible the injustices were and what workers and their unions went through. What they sacrificed for rights and benefits that we enjoy today is truly remarkable. Some paid with their lives. Ginger Goodwin you probably know, but lest we forget, Frank Rogers, shot dead on the Vancouver waterfront in 1903 by a CPR security guy and, incidentally one of the subjects of Geoff Meggs’ recent book, Strange New Country, Joseph Mairs, a young coal miner and cyclist arrested for virtually nothing during the valiant TWO YEAR STRIKE by Vancouver Island coal miners who died in Oakalla, Bob Gardner, savagely beaten by a rogue cop during the fierce union Battle of Blubber Bay on Texada Island in 1938. He never recovered from the four broken ribs he suffered and died, like Joseph Mairs, in Oakalla.
Hundreds, if not thousands of other workers, were clubbed, beaten, jailed, fined, blacklisted, red-baited, and deported – all for the great crime of fighting for decent wages and working conditions and the right to form a union. It’s really a shocking history.
But over time, by fighting back, those basic gains were won that benefited all British Columbians, not just those in a union. We owe them so much.
So I applaud and thank the judges for recognizing On the Line, a history of the BC labour movement, for bringing to light unions’ contributions to society and enhancing our social awareness. And, dare we hope, perhaps ever inspire people to renew the fight for better lives in this debilitating gig economy.

Ellyn Goodwin’s graphic novel.
It’s mystifying why these courageous early trade unionists are not more known today. Some are true heroes. We now celebrate the suffragettes and other women activists, activists of colour, First Nations leaders, Louis Riel, and so on, as we should. But try and find a union leader on a stamp, on our money, on a street sign or even in the histories we teach in the schools. With the notable exception of Ginger Goodwin, it’s as if they never existed.
We now have Ginger Goodwin Way again, up near Cumberland, and hopefully this time it will be left in place, and not taken down by the next non-NDP government.
Otherwise, we have streets and landmarks named after politicians, ruthless anti-union capitalists (hello there, Robert Dunsmuir) and the likes of the notorious Joseph Trutch, who was responsible for reducing the size of BC First Nations reserves by more than 90 per cent in the 19th century. Why not union leaders. It’s time.
At this point, I should point out that On the Line covers 150 years of labour history, not just the bad old, head-bashing days. It’s a top to bottom chronicle that carries on right up the landmark Supreme Court of Canada in late 2016 that delivered victory to BC teachers after 14 years of fighting the stripping of their contracts by the Campbell government in 2002.

Uphill Amber Ale went on sale in 2017.
Oh, and it also manages to work in the recent unveiling of the Tom Uphill Amber Ale by a Victoria brewery, in honour of one of those great labour characters we should all know more about. In fact, maybe after this is over, we can all go and quaff a few.
Despite my extolling unions and those many heroes of the past. I don’t want to give the impression that On the Line is some sort of one-note pro-union propaganda screed. Unions and their leaders, like everything else, are not perfect and never have been.  This is reflected in the book. The Red-baiting, the bitter internal divisions and the racism directed against Asian immigrants that characterized the labour movement for years, an attitude shared by most of the white population in BC, are all addressed. This is a warts-and-all history.
But what a history. It’s a rollicking tale, full of colourful, larger-than-life characters and compelling stories. I did my best to make On the Line a narrative, not an academic tract, And I think I succeeded. It’s a good read, he said modestly. And the workers deserved no less.
At the same time, On the Line focuses deliberately on more than just unions and strikes and the accomplishments of dead white guys, however heroic. Diversity is a strong part of the book, bringing to light the struggles of exploited immigrant workers, the role of women and particularly, the contribution of BC’s indigenous people to the province’s economy in the 19th century.
Not many know that BC’s first workers, and a majority of the population until 1890, were from the First Nations. They discovered coal on Vancouver Island and were the first miners. They were also loggers, early sawmills workers, longshoremen, labourers, farm hands, horse packers, sealers and of course, they were particularly dominant in the fishing industry, on the water and in the canneries. Without them, few economic wheels would have turned in 19th century British Columbia. They even formed a union or two. But, like trade unions, they, too, have been excluded from BC histories.
I am also proud of another feature of the book not normally part of labour histories. I pay a lot of attention to workplace health and safety and the role of the workers’ compensation board, subjects that rarely make headlines. But I believer they are more important to individual workers than any number of strikes or good contracts. What could be more basic than going to work and coming back safe and sound?

Jack Munro,1985. Craig Hodge photo.
I can’t thank the BC Labour Heritage Centre enough for choosing me to tell labour’s rich history. Jack Munro, the Heritage Centre’s founder, had a vision that the contribution of workers and their unions was shamefully unknown, and needed to be told. As someone who spent years covering labour, I couldn’t agree more. Really, the Labour Heritage Centre had me at hello.
I would also like to thank Howard White of Harbour Publishing who never lost faith in my ability to do the job, my forebearing editor Silas White, the tireless Ken Novakowski and Donna Sacuta of the Labour Heritage Centre, and the community savings credit union, without whose deep generous pockets, I would still be writing labour history on Twitter.
And a heartfelt thank you, with love, to my life partner, Lucie McNeill, who was so supportive of this disorganized, grumbling old codger throughout the close to three years this project consumed me, the basement and most of the dining room.
On behalf of those labour leaders, union members and ordinary workers who fought so long and sacrificed so much to make British Columbia a better place, I accept the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness.
A last postscript. For a number of reasons, unions today are not what they are. But they are far from a spent force, and they could be vital once again in combatting a new economy in which increasing numbers of workers are becoming virtual slaves to the gig economy – longer hours, short-term contracts, no job security, few benefits, part-time work as the new normal. It’s the next great challenge for unions. It won’t be easy, but then, when has it ever been easy for unions.
Solidarity, and thanks for coming out!
*

Rod Mickleburgh. Lucie McNeill photo.
During his long career, Rod Mickleburgh has worked for the Penticton HeraldPrince George CitizenVernon News and CBC TV, in addition to the SunProvinceand Globe and Mail. In 1992, he was nominated for a National Newspaper Award; in 1993, he was a co-winner, with AndrĂ© Picard, of the Michener Award.
Mickleburgh’s first book was Rare Courage: Veterans of the Second World War Remember (M&S 2005), a collection of 20 memoirs profiling Canadian veterans of World War II (with Rudyard Griffiths, executive director of the Dominion Institute) and he earned the 2013 Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize for The Art of the Impossible (Harbour 2012), co-authored with Geoff Meggs. It remains the definitive book on the early 1970s era of the NDP in British Columbia, in tandem with Dave Barrett’s autobiography, Barrett, A Passionate Political Life (Douglas & McIntyre, 1995), that was co-written with William Miller.
Judges for the Ryga Award were professor and author Trevor Carolan, Joe Fortes VPL branch manager Jane Curry and freelance writer and author Beverly Cramp.
*

Alan Twigg presents Rod Mickleburgh with a City of Vancouver proclamation in his honour.
“The eight-hour day, the five-day work week, paid vacations, overtime, sick leave, pensions, safe working conditions, maternity leave, pay equity and on and on – where did that come from? How did that happen? Not one was granted voluntarily by benevolent, Nice Guy employers” — Rod Mickleburgh
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Bill Pritchard, Revolutionary Socialist
Bill Pritchard
Revolutionary Socialist
Life in the Socialist Party of Canada and the OBU, 1910-1922
Bill Pritchard is probably best known for being jailed under a bogus conspiracy charge in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike. He was also a militant of the Socialist Party of Canada, the editor of its newspaper, The Western Clarion, and a founder of the One Big Union. After the demise of the SPC, he was an early member of the CCF and was Reeve of Burnaby for a number of years. Later in life, he returned to the "Impossibilist" socialism of his roots.
"Bill Pritchard - Revolutionary Socialist" - was taken from a talk he gave in 1973. It describes his adventures - and often hilarious misadventures - as a pioneer Socialist on speaking tours of Western Canada more than 90 years ago. He reminisces about a host of fascinating characters and also gives crucial eye-witness evidence about the murder of Ginger Goodwin.

The Impossibilists: 

the Socialist Party of Canada and the 

One Big Union, selected articles 

1906-1938 - 

Larry Gambone

The Impossibilists - The Socialist Party of Canada and the One Big Union, Select
Selection of articles about the Socialist Party of Canada and the One Big Union. We do not agree with the political perspective but reproduce this text for reference.
Impossibilist was the name sometimes given to the old Socialist Party of Canada. This name was not unique to Western Canada, but was also used to describe “all or nothing” type socialists in other parts of the English speaking world.
The US Socialist Labor Party and its affiliates in Australia and Scotland held somewhat similar beliefs. Ao too, the Socialist Party of Great Britain. Beyond the rejection of reformism, lay a libertarian ideal of socialism, one that saw workers running the means of production and not the state. The left-wing factions of German and Dutch Social Democracy, like the Canadian Impossibilists, favored anti-statist socialism. Then there were the Australian OBU, the IWW, the French CGT and a host of other revolutionary syndicalist unions, all libertarian socialists

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A BLOG DEVOTED TO MY INTERESTS WHICH INCLUDE ANARCHISM AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS, HISTORY, ARCHEOLOGY, AND ANYTHING ELSE I CHOOSE TO WRITE ABOUT.
Jan 21, 2016 - In the summer of 2015, Larry Gambone marked his 50th year of social activism with a reunion of dozen Comox ban-the-bomb campaigners at ...

Yours for the Revolution : 

Communication and Identity

 in the Western Clarion

Western Clarion Historical Materialism
English Studies in Canada June/September 2015
This article describes and analyses one of the most influential socialist newspapers of the early-twentieth century in Canada, the Western Clarion (Vancouver, 1903-25). Emphasis is placed on the selective use of various literary forms to define community interests and popularize the platform of the Socialist Party of Canada, and on how such communication practices shaped and were shaped by the maintenance of identity and group formation. At stake is a more complete record of Canadian literary history as well as a better understanding of literature and the politics of progress during a critical period of nation building.

Vancouver Socialists Canada 1913
A history of the Socialist Party of Canada, written in 1973. We do not agree with all of the politics of the party but reproduce this history for reference.
Socialism in Canada had its origin in Ontario, the industrial heart of the country. It came to the fore in the 1890s. The Socialist Labor Party, an offshoot of the SLP of the United States, appeared in the early 1890s, established several sections in the eastern provinces, in Winnipeg and Vancouver and contested elections after 1898 in Ontario constituencies.



Riot police keep peace as Bill 21 protest draws hundreds from both sides in MontreaThe confrontation took place three days before a National Assembly committee is to begin hearings on the bill.




 A protester holds a flag in front of riot police as a group of Bill 21 protesters chant outside TVA offices in Montreal on Saturday, May 4, 2019. CHRISTINNE MUSCHI / MONTREAL GAZETTE
ANDY RIGAUpdated: May 4, 2019


A group of Bill 21 protesters chant outside TVA with riot police watching in Montreal on Saturday, May 4, 2019. CHRISTINNE MUSCHI / MONTREAL GAZETTE

For two hours Saturday afternoon, supporters of Bill 21 faced off against counter-protesters in downtown Montreal, separated by a phalanx of riot police.

Hundreds of supporters of the bill, which would ban some government workers from wearing religious symbols, assembled outside the offices of the TVA television network for a “vague bleue” rally organized by a sovereignist group calling for the establishment of a “citizen’s constitution.”

They were met by a smaller group of people, some with their faces covered by bandanas, who had heeded a call for an “anti-racist demonstration against the xenophobic ‘vague bleue’ rally.” They said the rally was the work of the “identitarian right” and ultra-nationalists.
At least one rally-goer was wearing a jacket featuring the logo of Storm Alliance, a far-right group.





























Under Bill 21, proposed by Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir QuĂ©bec government, some Quebec public servants, including teachers, police officers and judges, would be barred from wearing religious symbols such as the Muslim hijab, the Jewish kippah and the Sikh turban.

The confrontation took place three days before a National Assembly committee is to begin hearings on the bill.

On Saturday, dozens of police officers swarmed the area around TVA’s headquarters at Maisonneuve Blvd. and Champlain St.

As the two sides yelled slogans and taunted each other, police pushed back counter-protesters so a pair of police buses could be placed between the adversaries.

Waving Quebec and Patriotes flags and chanting “In QuĂ©bec, secularism!” “QuĂ©bec, a country!” and “Legault, Legault!” the pro-Bill 21 rally drowned out the anti-racist, anti-fascist slogans of the counter-protesters.

The anti-Bill 21 group also targeted TVA, the TV network owned by the Quebecor empire of former Parti QuĂ©bĂ©cois leader Pierre Karl PĂ©ladeau. “Shame, TVA!” they yelled.

After two hours, those in favour of Bill 21 were allowed to march down Alexandre-DeSève and La Fontaine Sts., where some boarded buses.

Montreal police said two people were arrested during the event — a 39-year-old man for allegedly assaulting a police officer and a 16-year-old boy for allegedly scrawling graffiti on a police car.

No physical altercations were reported and police said there were no injuries. However, at least one person was taken away by ambulance after feeling unwell at the rally.

As the marchers walked down La Fontaine St., a Montreal police officer told a Montreal Gazette reporter and photographer not to follow the demonstrators because a private security company hired by organizers did not want them there. When the journalists insisted on proceeding, the officer allowed them.

Private security was provided by men wearing black, military-style uniforms with a logo for the Groupe de sécurité patriotique (GSP).

The debate over Bill 21 is expected to be played out on the streets of Montreal again on Sunday when opponents of the proposed law are planning a “Human Chain Against Bill 21.”

Organized by a group called Coalition Inclusion Québec, the event is to begin at 1 p.m. Sunday at Champ de Mars, a park in Old Montreal.


Several hundred flag-waving Bill 21 

supporters here, outside TVA offices
12:12 PM - May 4, 2019

Montreal police reportedly clashed 

with counter-demonstrators
 earlier. The anti-Bill-21 protesters
 are now gathered in a nearby square.
12:17 PM - May 4, 2019

Montreal police seem to be bracing for

 a confrontation between pro and 
anti Bill 21 activists. We’re being 
pushed behind a police line
12:29 PM - May 4, 2019

Group that appears to be anti fascists
 is now pretty close to the pro Bill 21 rally.
12:32 PM - May 4, 2019

Insults are being exchanged.

#bill22 #pl21
12:36 PM - May 4, 2019

Bill-21 supporters also yelling

 pro-sovereignty slogans at
 counter-protesters
12:40 PM - May 4, 2019

Ambulance here, apparently because 

of a malaise within the pro-21 ranks
12:45 PM - May 4, 2019

Antifa protesters are being drowned 

out by the much bigger pro-21 rally
12:54 PM - May 4, 2019

Police are pushing back anti-21 protesters 

so they can separate the two sides with 
a couple of police buses.
1:06 PM - May 4, 2019


The debate over Bill 21 will be played out

 on Montreal streets again tomorrow

Protesters are planning a 'human chain against Bill 21' on Sunday
Organized by a group called Coalition Inclusion QuĂ©bec, the event 

is to begin at 1 p.m. at Champ de Mars, a park in Old Montreal.
montrealgazette.com
See Andy Riga, Montreal's other Tweets


Anti-21 protesters are yelling « Honte TVA ». 

The pro-21 rally is taking place in front 
of the Quebecor TV network
1:17 PM - May 4, 2019

Pro-21 group quite likes Premier François Legault
1:20 PM - May 4, 2019

But some aren’t big fans of the media
:23 PM - May 4, 2019

Bill 21 standoff continues at 

Maisonneuve/Champlain, 
though tension has dropped now 
that the two sides are separated
 by the police buses
1:35 PM - May 4, 2019

Some are still exchanging taunts.
1:48 PM - May 4, 2019

There’s a rumour police are going to 

allow pro-21 group to march.
2:10 PM - May 4, 2019

Organizers are asking pro-21 group 
to disperse and not wave Quebec flags 
as they walk away “to avoid being attacked”
2:18 PM - May 4, 2019

Apparently, pro-21 group is not 

dispersing or putting away their flags
2:23 PM - May 4, 2019

A confrontation, apparently over the 

taking of some photos
2:33 PM - May 4, 2019
Montreal police officer asked me and 

photographer to leave the pro-21 
march because organizers’ private 
security didn’t want us there.
 But he let us go on when we insisted.
2:44 PM - May 4, 2019

Most of the pro-21 marchers have gone

 but many police officers are still swarming
 the area. Just saw these chasing a man
 who appeared to me an antifa protester

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