@ A PAGE FROM LABOR HISTORY

It has happened before

By TOM McEWEN

ON November 24, 1919, the first round of a lengthy bat-
tle to save a Canadian union from being destroyed, ended
in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

The yellowing pages of an injunction against ‘the
executive members of Local 213, International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, tells its own story.

« . each of them . . . hereby
enjoined and restrained from
selling, disposing of, dealing
with or using any of the proper-
ty and effects of Vancouver
Local 213... . each of them are
enjoined, and restrained from
acting and purporting to act as
officers of ‘the - said Local
213 until judgement in this ac
tion, or until further order from
_ this Honourable Court.”

Clearly the opening “legal”
round of this celebrated case
iiadn’t-gone so well for the nine

,executive officers and the 600

members who constituted IBEW
Local 213 in the year 1919. -

Weeks ‘before this injunction
was handed down, a shifty-eyed
individual had arrived in Van-
couver, assigned by the interna-
tional -union . officials of the
IBEW in the United States to
proceed to this city and institute
a “cleanup” of Local 213. His
name was Ernest Ingles, and he
probably knew and eared less
about Canadian workers than
Herbert Hoover.

A study of the legal records,
the detailed affidavits of the de-
fendants, together with the news-
paper coverage of events at the
time, all show that Ingles’ “in-
vestigations” followed the usual
pattern of jureaucratic union
wrecking. He gathered together
a small handful of stooges among
the membership — individuals
willing to help concoct and re-
peat any kind of a glib yarn
about the “perfidy” of Local
213’s executive, and he avoided
any kind of personal contact
with those members he was pre-
sumed to be “investigating”.

With his conclusions from his
“investigation” neatly tucked

-away in his briefcase, and with -
the able assistance of his high-~

priced attorney, W. deB. Farris,
it wasn't ‘too difficult, in the

political, climate of the times, -

for Ingles to secure the injunc-
tion he required to give “legal”
sanction to his suspension and
revocation of Local 213’s char-
ter. This enabled him ‘to get
his hands on the local’s funds.

It is worthy of note that Mr.
Justice Morrison, who granted
the injunction, against the union
officers, was by no means :im-
pressed with Ingles’ “investiga-
tions,” actions or policies. “I
have been a worker myself,” said
Morrison, “and I know how these
things work. The sooner this
case comes to trial, ‘the sooner
justice will be done.”

The prime argumentation in
ingles’. application for an injunc-
tion against the officers of Local
213 was based on the grounds
that “ ... the officers of Local
213 were spreading One Big Un-
jon (OBU) propaganda, and there-
by undermining the international
brotherhood . . .”*

Much has been written about
those stirring day of 1919 and
fhe struggles of Canadian labor.
Volumes are still required to
tell the whole story. The idea
of a One Big Union with its poli-
ey of “direct action” to secure
labor’s immediate postwar de-
mands, looked very attractive
when placed alongside the frus-
trating class-collaborationist, per
capita-collecting, marrow craft
policies of the American Federa-

tion of Labor (AFL) under the
strangling rule of Samuel Gom-
pers and Matthew Woll. Around

+918-19 the letters OBU had al-

most the same inspiring éffect
upon the workers as the letters
CIO 25 years later. :
There is no doubt, that among
the 600 members of Local 213,
as in other AFL unions, there
were many who were sympathetic
(and with good reason) to the
OBU concept of organization and
struggle. Thousands of Canadian
workers were disgruntled with
the sellout, union-wrecking poli-
cies of the Gompers bureaucracy.
Even the Vancouver Trades ‘and
Labor Council (TLC) went OBU

‘for a short period.

But there is nothing in the of-
ficial record as far as this writer

fas been able to ascertain, of

any motion or vote by Local 213
to “affiliate. with the OBU.
However,-Local 213 did vote and
act to strike in “sympathy” with
the Winnipeg General Strike —
an act on the part of many Can-
adian unions which Sam Gom-
pers and every last labor faker
in Canada and the US. branded
as “anarchism,” or “socialism”.
The IBNW international leader-
ship condemned Local 213’s sup-
port of the Winnipeg General
Strike as ‘“‘a violation of contract
with the B.C. Electric.” It would
seem that the eoncern of the
IBEW bureaucracy for the BC
Electric is one of those enduring
loves.

FE. 8. Morrison and his fellow

- executive members of Local 213

spared no effort in trying to
restore normal union ‘relations
and procedures in the local. They
wrote lengthy reviews and af-
fidavits (6ne exceeding 100 pages
of factual data) together with
numerous letters to the interna-
tional officers in the U.S: ap-
pealing for sanity and tolerance.
The local even sent. two dele-
gates, Morrison and Dubberly, to
the biennial IBEW convention in
New Orleans to present the lo-
cal’s case.

Did these delegates get a hear-
ing, an opportunity to state their
side of the case? The Supreme
Court of British Columbia record
shows they weren’t even “recog-
nized” as delegates of any kind;
that they received ahostilerecep-
tion and that the 1919 forerun-
pers of the McCarthyites hooted
when these two Canadian un-
jonists were shown the conven-
tion door — out!

There is no doubt that the
sweep of the OBU in those stir-
ring months disturbed the AFL
bureaucrats tremendously. The
“allegiance” of their per capita
paying membership in Canada
gave them a nightmare of wor-
ries. Doubtless it was such wor-
ries which drove them to the
desperate resort of suspending
and revoking hundreds of union

charters in Canada and the US.,

and expelling tens of thousands
of progresive trade unionists in
both Canada and the U.S. from
the very unions these progress-
ives had fought hardest to build.

In the final legal round against
Ingles and his locally-recruited
wrecking crew, Local 213 emerg-
ed with flying colors. The mem-
bers of its executive had been
vindicated in their fight to win
the local’s right to run its own
affairs, to make its own decisions’

‘

to determine what was in the
best interests of its membership,
without outside interference.
The decision of Mr. Jusice Me-
Donald, delivered in the Sup-
reme Court of British Columbia
35 years ago, touching upon the
evils of revoking union charters
and abrogating the rights of un-
ion members, carries some les-
sons for those engaged in simi-
lar activities today.
Said Mr. Justice McDonald: ,
“Ingles had investigated in
the absence of parties affected
and, not only had used the in-
formation to their detriment,
but on some points, which may
have affected his actions or
those of the international presi-
dent or other officials, he had
furnished evidence that was un-
true. 2
“T have found that members
of the local union had property
rights which were destroyed
(by revocation of union charter)
and are entitled to redress .. -
T feel no doubt that I can thus
declare the rights of the parties,

and should apply a remedy as
far as possible . . . there will

be judgement accordingly in apt ©

terms stating that the charter

of the local union is restored,
and was improperly suspended
and. revoked.

“As an injunction operates in
personam, I will enjoin and
direct Ingles; his action as a
representative of the brother-
hood against certain members
of the local union, and particu-
larly in connection with its
funds, fails... ”

The legal phraseology is form-
al, but the meaning is clear —
for the union wreckers.

Time and again, Ingles was
urged to conduct an honest sur-
vey of events. Even while _ar-
guing for his injunction against

Local 213 on the trumped up
charges of supporting the OBU,
Rubinowitz told him that had

“he conducted an honest up-and-up

investigation with the people con-
cerned, he would have had to
come to conclusions entirely op-
posite to those he used in an

\

«

effort to wreck a local uniot:
It remained for Mr. Justice Mc
Donald to restrain this gran
lodge union wrecker and very
crude liar. h
Thirty-five years. later, the
Ingles breed are still at ib The
stage scenery and the actors are
different but the “play” 3 a
same; smash a local union while
does not conform to the atom
gods of Wall Street and their ©°
war McCarthys: in the toP or
fices of organized labor. ‘ag
In 1919 it was the pankin
House of Morgan and company
which instructed the Tory 8 a
ernment of Arthur Meighen |
smash the Winnipeg Genet
Strike, at all cost. In this t a
trade union bureaucrats ioe
fakers did yeomen service i
the bankers and the monopolis®
Today “orders” still come spot
the same quarter, and the tt !
fakers and their union wreck
crews are still ranging f 913
wide, with embattled Loc
caught in the sweep --*

still surviving. oo

|Top man on B

By SID ZLOTNIK

MONG the “local boy makes
good” stories, none is more
remarkable or significant than
the story of A. E. @al) Grauer,
president of the B.C. Power Cor-
poration.

Linked with the U.S. interests
now seizing control of our Peace
River natural gas reserves, he
is also a kingpin in the taking
over of millions of acres of pub-
lice forest lands by U.S. mon-
opolies.

As a director of Canadian
Chemical and Cellulose Company
Ltd., parent company of Celgar
Development Company and Col.
umbia Cellulose; and as a direc-
tor of MacMillan-Bloedel, Dal
Grauer shares directly in the
huge profits being made from
timber steals at Prince Rupert,
on Vancouver Island, and at
Castlegar. : :

As president of one of the most
powerful. corporations in the
province, a director o f which is
Clarence A. Wallace, lieuten-

‘ant-governor of British Columbia,

and a contractor for which, Fred
Hume, is Mayor of Vancouver,
Grauer and the company he heads
have long dominated the politics
both of the city and the province.
e

What is the story of this man?
How did he rise in a relatively
short time to become director of

10 corporations, a member of the ,

executive committee of the Can-
adian Chamber of Commerce,
a member of the Senate of the
University of British Columbia
and. honorary president of the
Canadian Welfare Council?

Albert Edward Grauer was born
at Eburne, B.C., in 1906. He had
a brilliant scholastic career, dur-
ing which he became a Rhodes
scholar. He graduated from UBC
in 1925, the University of Cali-
fornia in 1927,. Oxford in 1930.
He was called to the bar in De-
cember 1930. He ‘became a
lecturer’ at the University of
Toronto in 1931. By 1937 he was
a full professor, and director of
the Department of Social Science
in the University of Toronto.

In that same year the Royal
Commission on Dominion-Provin-
cial Relations was set up. Grauer
was: given two assignments by
the commission, later embodied
in the Report on Labor Relations

and the Report on Public Assist-.

ance and Social Insurance. Al-
ready the young professor was

A. E. (DAL) GRAUER)

beginning to display those quali-
ties which later were to endear
him so much in ithe hearts of the
Wall Street and St. James Street
tycoons.

Apparently he was shocked by
the wage standards prevalent in
Canada in the era of the Hungry
THirties. Speaking in his re-

port, “Public Assistance and So- -

cial Insurance;? about wage
levels, he says:

“For all Canada, about one-
third of ‘the men and: one-half
of the women receive less than
$450 annually, while 58 per-
cent of the men and 80 percent
of the women receive less than
$950 annually.” —

But did the young professor
(he was only 32 years old then),
concerned as he appeared to be
over the appalling low wage
levels which still prevailed in
1938, propose wage increases?
The thought undoubtedly occur-

- red to him, but if so, he banished

this revolutionary idea resolute-
ly from his mind. For on pp.
55-56 of the report he says:
“Furthermore the nature of
Canadian economy seems to in-
dicate that a policy of stressing
high wages and ignoring social
insurance might be ill-advised.
To the extent that a persistent
pressure for higher wages cuts
into a satisfactory profit for the
business man it might dampen
business enterprise and cause
a flow of capital out of the coun
try.”

Little wonder that a few short
months later the B.C. Electric de-
cided that Grauer was a young
man worthy of a place in its or-
ganization.

His position as a staunch sup-
porter of the very system that

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 12, 1955 — fhe

CE totem

“Solicy with the public
ip icy 4 1 t

breeds misery and cha0® ui
never in question evel in Eel
most “objective” moments
witness this further passage °
the report, p. 54: ice (:
“These four tables viewing
the workers income ff0% “yg
ous angles shows that he rit
jority have little or n0 rectio®
to use for buying pro ee
against the major threah fact
their security. The basi? mi
is that the worker and 1S ion.
ly have little or n0 pre al B I,
against certain fundame? a ilk
gards. These are serio” ager
ness, unemployment, ©
premature death and 79°, 10
Most countries have mee “goat
the conclusion that it 6 ost
public policy to aid ines inst
in planning a defense “nese
the shattering impact ‘ 4 ie
hazards rather than allow en
and his family to remalD © ati
tial public charges:
tude has been supportet
only by humanitarian 29 7 he
omic arguments, uke ay er)
necessity of keeplDs :
political and social. system
tact.” j A
In 1939 Graver was es 10
executive position W? rom?
Flectric. In 1944 he was F
ed to vice-president. _ G. M :
on the retirment of V'. of Be
rin, he became preside? and
B.C. Power Corporation pomp?!
B.C. Electric Railway ene
Under his presidency et 49
pany introduced 4 new 2 and

employees. In 1947 “oe

waymen’s strike 0% ie Fen
The B.C. Electrics I
in civic life extends 1% “held
tions through the posts pro!
A. E. Grauer and other any
ent officers of the com vi
is a past-president oe ad
couver Symphony Socl ab ard
past-chairman_ of the en
Trustees of vancouvel rove,
Hospital. The compa? “le Ea
‘the most powerful sine ult 4
of support for the 1 :
Non - Partisan vancow lO
Council, and and a fe
company, Alderman
ningham, even sits °

np the

cil. }

Through the Tupper Cine
sion the public iis 2% d 2
glimpse of the ‘sor il
rupt government Wil | pat
BOE - dominated} Not add
political machine _ fs d
Vancouver for tvo dee 19

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