Sets IWA history straight YY AIALMAR BERGREN |t was Castro who said, “history will absolve “tg” and I think that these ““W words can well apply ; the men who laid the “indations for the build- TR of the union of B.C. Woodworkers. ’ fue Sketchy and distorted Me of the building of the odworkers union in a re- "tt copy of the B.C. Lumber- ,tker hardly represents the Or the spirit of this movement. The organ- tion of the woodworking Ustry was accomplished ty hard work, devotion to a a and reflected the spirit Phen determination of the Ble of this industry. Be- awe no one should fool | = that it was done ny one man. It was a col- = Wve movement. in which inat Y; many people partic- nd as time went on. : © chaos and abuse used o tea lumberworkers in the 8nd ’30’s brought out the , “d for organization. Speed- Io *S Tampant. Wages were 4 and many logging camps Tee crews at once, one : “fom; Mp, one going, and one Ng. The 1934 strike was | | Bteat Ug * first real test of the B.C. tm 2 Struggle, its main vict- ting that it emphasized Pbell River. 1a, 4 Jag Picture of the 1934 loggers’ the © bo which scared the daylights out of tikin °Ss loggers. Photo shows hungry as) ng loggers waiting for lunch at One of the leading ih is the union committee and the §gy ag who signed the first IWA ingcment in April, 1943, * Yancouver Island. Third from HJALMAR BERGREN the need and demand for or-. ganization. “WHITE BLOC” DISRUPTION The ’34 strike raised very sharply the employers’ fear of organization, and the re- sults were that large numbers of agents were employed, sup- plied by Pratt’s Private De- tective Agency in Vancouver. Their job was to inform against union men, to send in a report once a week as to what workers in the camps talked about, what they were doing, their names, etc. The “white blocs” were the disrupters. Pratt’s agents were the nucleus of the white blocs. I had the honor at Oyster: of being met on the railroad track here in Lake Cowichan in 1938 by Walter Warner, foreman at Camp 9 at that time. He said, ‘‘Hjalmar, you are wasting your time organ- izing. In this: business there is no place for you. The lum- ber industry has lots of money, and you can’t win. This industry has a complete- ly new lot of men every 10 or 15 years.” He went on, “you may succeed now, but the companies can hire men to take over the union, and they will do the job for them.” With relationship to in- formers, this is something that is as old as capitalism itself. There are people who will scab, just as those who will stool on their fellow workers, and the lumber in- dustry has had its full share of such individuals, who were always deadly opposed to progressive leadership in the union. As the industry became or- ganized, the paid informer became less important, al- though he still had his func- tions. He was used not only for the purpose of keeping the employer informed of what went on in the councils of the union, but for the pur- pose of misguiding and mis- -representing the facts, par- ticularly in relationship to the attacks on the progressive organizers of the loggers strike was a leading Communist, Jack Taylor , who was later killed in World War II fight- ing fascism. | A aig left is Nigel MOLEan: IW ‘ett and now B.C. leader of the Com- munist Party. FORMER WOODWORKERS LEADER ANSWERS VICIOUS ATTACK ment to the theme: to take credit for it. and period of organization. The Communist plot - that never existed he September issue of the ‘“‘Western Canadian Lumber Worker”, organ of the International Woodworkers of America Regional Council No. 1, devoted a special supple- “The Communist Plot That Failed’. The articles in this supplement, issued on the 25th anniversary of the union, are unsigned. Obviously, nobody thought enough of this treatment of labor history to want The articles are a vicious, distorted and untrue account of the history of the union and the role played by the Communist and militant leaders, who laid the foundation for union, and led it through its most difficult struggles On this page one of the outstanding Communist and militant leaders of the woodworkers during this period, Hjalmar Bergren, analyzes the Lumber Worker articles, and writes about the problems, experiences and mistakes, during the period in question. organizer in the woodworking industry for 20 years. Bergren was a leading leadership of the IWA. And it is evident now that these methods are used today. THE’386 STRIKE The 1936 strike involved approximately the same num- _ ber off people as the ’34 strike, and it can be called the great teacher. It again emphasized the need for unity, for indus- try-wide organization. It al- so underlined the fact that the woodworking industry could not be organized with- out a policy and program laid down in convention. So, not without a struggle, this was brought about at the end of 1938. A stable organization must have a policy and pro- gram, and further, organiza- tion can not be built on senti- ment and spontaneity. Anybody who took on the job of becoming a field repre- ’ sentative had his work cut out. I was one of those who put in many years in the struggle to establish the union, and we were not just up against the opposition of. the employers, but perhaps the worst was the apathy on the part of the majority of the people, who lacked an understanding. This was not because of any opposition, but because of the prevailing be- lief that it was too big a job, that the woodworkers could never be organized, mainly because of the large turnover. HOSTILE BOSSES In my own case, like many others, the main means of transportation was foot slog- ging, walking many miles over railroad ties into the out- lying camps, anywhere from ten to thirty miles from the nearest community. Or row- ing twenty miles down the lake from Camp 3 or Camp 6 to the foot of Lake Cowi- chan, or the Alberni Canal, -after a meeting, in the dead of night, often in the rain. And if you did have motor power it usually broke down and you had to row or else beach your skilff and walk the rest of the way. Sometimes you would start out on your journey to the different camps with food in your packsack, and the people would feed you. Other times you’d start out with no food, and nobody fed you, and you returned home very hungry. Sometimes on these never- Oct. 26, 1962—_PACIFIC. TR ending journeys into the log- ging camps of Wancouver Island, you found a shelter at night, and sometimes you just had to bed down on the ground wherever you hap- pend to be, rain or shine. Sometimes -you’d start out with a hundred pound pack on your back, with twenty or thirty miles ahead of you to walk, or row, and you might have a good ending to ‘your trek, gaining a few more new members, and collecting $15 or $20 in dues. Or you might not get anything, but you had to keep on. Wherever you went, you met with hostility from the management, and police in- terference. As for wages, there was no such thing. Your “stipend” or allowance came out of what dues you were able to collect, and it some- times covered the bare neces- sities of life, and just as often it didn’t. That was how the. B.C. lumber baron’s “open shop” was toppled. And don’t let any of these “Johnny-come- latelys” tell you otherwise. The union first became firm- ly established in the logging end of the industry (where the first agreements were signed). On this basis union- ization was extended to the sawmill and manufacturing section. Here too, the real history is replete with similar experiences, as the old-timers who carried the historic Fras- er Mills strike in 1931, the heroic struggle at Blubber Bay, Robertson and Hackets, Lemon Gonnason’s, Sigurdson Sash and Door, the numerous shingle mill strikes, B.C. Ply- woods, Youbou and Chemai- nus will recall. What a lucrative plum the IWA has become today. We started out with 25c dues structure and hardly any members, You didn’t see any “white blocers” then aspiring to leadership of the union! They were among those who hid behind a stump until the last minute or ran away from the union. Today the dues of tens of thousands of members are in excess of $3.00, which makes a con- siderable difference in the revenues, and as a_conse- quence decides whether you See IWA HISTORY, page 8.