ILE TiN i io oe Teamsters haul. a value. wages. for you, I’m\bringing you. Following you, || im memory Jof my grandfether, Harold Pritchett Coast trees offer shade meadow trees exhale oxygen trees on the mountain hold precious soil in place. People gathered at their mighty trunks and thought of uses for their heart wood. Loggers chopped Mills belched steam, electricity and lumber. The tree received from their labour a use and Need created production Lumber sales paid the people The price went up the wages down Surplus value, profits resulted. Inequalities resulted in wars. ‘ And my grandfather was born to tell me this story and help us back to our peaceful needs. Wl call you Quiet little phone call to the intensive care unit address where you're staying . . from the hall and through the door, by permission only. The machines of loving grace wont let you die. Your hollow body beckons. I searched on my bookcase for a restful, struggle on, pinwheel, poem. . . to give you comfort. But you reached for my hand and had me place it on your tired stomach, for some comfort, as the electric oxygen made you breathe. Just plain tired grandpa. You're bringing me. We bring each other. _ Toa point of tears a point of departure, forever. we must lead, now. . now. —David Pritchett Colussif ed Advertising ) —__ COMING EVENTS PORT ALBERNI Aug, 29 — Farmer Mosher's Fish fhe You catch ‘em, we cook ‘em Or your dinner. Bring your own : fishing tod. Kids’ races, horseshoe an hay rides, homemade pies, Chesnments. Rosewood Rd., off Srry Creek, Pt. Alberni. 9373, ees : SEPr. 6 — Celebrate the Labor Val holiday at the annual Fraser alley YCL mixed doubles badmin- n tournament. Starts 12 noon, Ontinues through afternoon. Free Mission, minimal entry fee for tourney. Barbecued food and Streshments available all day. Br- ‘ing the whole family (and your lawn pairs) to 12715-66 Ave. Surrey. © directions, ph. 585-9935. SEPT. 4 11 — Harvest sale. Fresh it, vegs, canning, baking plus ood new and used household Soe: Donations ph. 988-2501 ~Ponsored by Van. Region, CPC. LEGAL SERVICES > ee : RANKIN, McMURRAY & TOND, Barristers and Solicitors. 57 Alexander St., 2nd Floor, Van- COuver, 682-3621. -Pender St., COMMERCIAL CONDOR’S PAINTING & build- ing maintenance. Free estimate. Phone 433-1145. A progressive firm owned and operated by Chilean Canadians. Reasonable rates. ROOF REPAIRS — New roofs. Reasonable. Ph. 277-3352. ELECTRICAL, plumbing, appli- ance repairs. Don Berg. 7287. HAVING A BIRTHDAY PARTY? . Call Modern World Puppets. Pro- gressive, original, quality entertain- ment for children. Your home. Dis- count for grandparents. HALLS FOR RENT RUSSIAN PEOPLE'S HOME — Available for rentals. For reserva- tions phone 254-3430. WEBSTERS pone es eae Available for banquets, meetings, etc. For rates: Ozzie, 325-4171 or 462-7783 UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CUL- TURAL CENTRE — 805 East Vancouver. Available for banquets, weddings, meetings. Ph. 254-3436. As IWA leader, Communist he left an enduring legacy By HAL GRIFFIN In his Builders of British Colum- bia, published in 1937, the year the International Woodworkers of America was founded with Harold Pritchett as.its first international president, Bill Bennett described conditions in B.C. logging camps before the Lumber Workers In- dustrial Union emerged to challenge them for a few years after 1919 and as they persisted in the thirties until the rise of the TWA: . . . Slavish, backbreaking, soul- destroying labor, the vilest of food . . . overloaded bunkhouses . . .”’ And, he might have added, work that took a high toll of killed and maimed every year. These were the conditions in 1919 when Harold Pritchett, the man who led the long struggle to end them, got his first sawmill job, the beginning of a long career dedi- cated to the labor and progressive movement ended only by his death Aug. 10 at the age of 78. His father found work in a sawmill — 10 hours a day for 25 cents an hour — in 1912 when he brought his young family to Port Moody from Birmingham, England where Harold Pritchett was born on May 9, 1904. At the age of 15, joining his father in the mill, he worked the same 10-hour day, but his starting wage was 10 cents an hour. In 1925, having learned his trade as a shingle sawyer, he joined the AFL-chartered Shingle Weavers Union where he soon found himself challenging the policy of collaborating with the employers followed by the incumbent leaders. His insistence on raising the workers’ own demands for better wages and conditions found ready support among the members and in 1930 they elected him as their presi- dent. The resultant change of policy as the new president pressed those demands increasingly ired the employers whose influence was reflected in the order from AFL president William Green revoking ‘the union’s charter and expelling Harold Pritchett as a Communist. He found the militant leadership he was seeking when the Workers Unity League launched its organizational campaign to revive the LWIU, which at its peak in 1920 had 23,000 members before the stoolpigeon system and the blacklist organized by the employers and disruption from within by the ‘ “Wabblies? ’ virtually destroyed it, While he was oe at Fraser Mills the LWIU began organizing there and when the workers struck in 1931 they elected him chairman of the strike committee. The strike cost him his job, but as he used to say, ‘‘It gave me a political educa- tion.” Earlier he had joined the In- dependent Labor Party in which Emest Winch, himself a former LWIU secretary, was a leading figure. His membership ended with Winch’s refusal to support the strike. Winch went on to win a seat for the CCF in the 1933 provincial election. Harold pritchett, ap- proached by Arne Johnson, later elected LWIU secretary, joined the Communist Party. Only a decade later, in 1942, he was sworn in as president of the IWA’s Fraser Mills local. But in 1931 his first need was a job, for he had a young and grow- ing family, and to continue his work in the LWIU, of which he became vice-president in 1934. By that time the trade union movement was on the eve of far- reaching changes. The need for labor unity in face of the growing fascist threat and the readiness of Trades and Labor Congress leaders to adopt policies facilitating this unity, combined with the militancy engendered by the WUL’s organizational campaigns, culminated in the decision to merge WUL unions with their TLC- affiliated counterparts in 1935. Members of the LWIU went in- to the Carpenters and Joiners, to which jurisdiction in the lumber in- dustry had passed, and Harold Pritchett became president of the B.C. Coast District Council. In the bitter industry-wide strike of 1936, he was sent to the US. Northwest to seek financial sup- port for the strike, for not a cent had come from the Carpenters’ in- ternational headquarters. His tour coincided with a conference of union leaders from 11 districts to discuss formation of a single organization to cover the entire in- dustry. This initial conference at Cen- tralia, Wash. was followed by con- vention of lumber workers at ’ Portland, Ore., at which formation of a Federation of Woodworkers was proposed. The Carpenters refused to grant the proposed organization autonomous status within the international. The newly established CIO invited it to af- filiate and sent a $5,000 cheque ta cover organizational expenses. At a second convention at Tacoma, Wash. in 1937 the [WA was founded and Harold Pritchett was the unanimous choice of delegates as their first international president. Heheld the post and a seat on the CIO executive for three years and he was removed, not by the members, but by the Roosevelt ad- ministration. As a Canadian he had to return to this country every six months to renew his entry per- mit and in 1940 the U.S. govern- ment refused to renew it, despite appeals from U.S. congressmen, such union leaders as Phillip Mur- ray and Harry Bridges and Hollywood film stars Charlie Chaplin, Joan Crawford and Ed- ward G. Robinson. The IWA’s B.C. District 1 elected him as its president and with characteristic energy he threw himself into the formidable task of organizing a union whose member- ship stood at a bare 200in 1939 and still was only some 1,500. His outstanding ability, the rapid growth of the [WA and its rise to pre-eminence in labor’s councils, earned him election as first secretary-treasurer of the B.C. Federation of Labor when it was established in 1944. He entered the political arena, running as a labor candidate for Vancouver City Council in 1942 and 1943 and he stood as a Labor- Progressive Party candidate for Vancouver East in the 1945 federal election. In 1946 the [WA called its first industry-wide strike, the outcome _of which was establishment of the eight-hour day in the industry, for the next year when the issue of the 40-hour week went to arbitration the decision was that it should be introduced ‘‘gradually’’. The union organized shingle mill workers to take Saturday off and the companies were forced to capitulate. six HAROLD PRITCHETT ... decades in the labor movement. Again the political climate was changing. The concerted cold war campaign throughout the country and the Western world to transform ‘‘our glorious Soviet al- ly” into ‘‘the growing Soviet menace”’ reached into the trade union movement as it did every part of society. The [WA became a primary target of the drive to remove Com- munists from union office. Con- fronted by an international leader- ship working closely with a “‘white loc” opposition centred in New Westminster to place the B.C. district under administration, the district leadership decided to break . away and form the Woodworkers Industrial Union of Canada. _ Harold Pritchett was won over to the decision reluctantly as local executives approved it. But the ma- jority of IWA members failed to respond, the initial surge to thenew union was not sustained and the “white bloc’? acceded to IWA leadership. The effect of the breakaway was to exclude the Communists who had organized the camps and mills and placed woodworkers:at the top of the industrial wagescale. And in the years immediately following the break, their exclusion was to be reflected in IWA contracts as its members slipped steadily down the scale. Barred from the union he had led, Harold Pritchett returned to the shingle mills, setting an exam- ple of dedication to his Communist convictions as he devoted his energies to ratepayers’ and com- munity organizations and, after he retired, to the Port Coquitlam branch of the B.C. Old Age Pen- sioners Organization. Whether in the provincial com- mittee of his party, as its candidate in both federal and provincial elec- tions, or selling the Tribune, of which he was business manager for a year, at the gates of Fraser Mills, his influence continued to be felt. Too ill to participate in the May Day march when it was revived this year, he nevertheless insisted on at- tending the meeting, gaunt and drawn, but still with the familiar broad grin. ~ It was to be his last public ap- pearance. But in the words of the tribute prepared for his memorial service set for 10 a.m. Aug. 21 at Templeton Secondary School, the man who won the respect and af- fection of thousands left ‘‘an en- during record of a life devoted to the advancement of the working people’s interests and their ultimate fulfilment in a socialist Canada.” Speakers at the memorial service will be Communist provincial leader Maurice Rush and IWA regional president Jack Munro. Harold Pritchett is survived by his wife Jean in Coquitlam, five sons, Craig, Earl, Duane, Calvin and William, a sister Jessica in New Westmister, a brother Arthur in Long Beach, Cal., 12 grand- children and 16 great-grand- children. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 20, 1982—Page 7