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.