THE B.C LUMBER WORKER

With this issue the union organ
celebrates its tenth anniversary
as a printed paper. Some mem-

ories of those .

past years are

recalled here by its first editor.

pes years ago, in the Vancouver printshop where it is still

being issued, the “forms” for a small, eight-page newspaper
were given a last-minute checkup and a big, flat-bed printing
press began to churn out copies of volume one, number one, of
The B.C. Lumber Worker—the first printed edition after three
years as a mimeographed sheet, and then, as now, the official
voice of the organized loggers and sawmill workers of British
Columbia. By present standards it was not much of a ‘paper.
The makeup was clumsy, its stories were by no means gram-
matically correct, it lacked the professional finish the trade

unionist of today expects in his
publications. But it possessed one
outstanding and important fea-
ture—it belonged to the men in
the industry, it was launched and
was to be maintained by them,
it reflected their ideas and aspir-
ations, and because that was so
it became one of the most suc-
cessful publishing ventures in
Canadian trade union annals.

ff that last seems like a tall
statement, let’s look at the record.
This fall the B.C. Lumber Work-
er is celebrating its tenth birth-
day as a printed paper and its
thirteenth year as a publication.
No other trade union paper.
in Canada can boast such a rec-
ord. There were perhaps two or
three labor papers issued. prior to
1934 by trades and labor councils
in Canada—notably Vancouver's
own Labor Statesman. But the
B.C. Lumber Worker was first
in the field as the organ of a
single trade union. But even
more oustanding, the Lumber
Worker has lived to see its orig-
inal stated objective—the smash-
ing of the open shop and organiza-

AL PARKIN
. First editor of the B.C. Lumber
Worker, later an organizer for

the IWA. Parkin’s long associa-
tion with the IWA, his active
participation in its earlier

struggles, and his continued in-
terest in its development has
won him many lasting friends
among the woodworkers of B.C.
Recuperating just now from a
serious illness, Al consented to
do a special article for this an-
niversary issue, a task he is par-
ticularly qualified to do.

tion of B.C.'s lumber industry into
one powerful» industrial union —
achieved, has in fact been a lead-
ing factor in that achievement.
And that’s worth an anniversary
celebration!

°

4 pete writer was present when

that first printed issue came
off the press back in 1934, was in
fact the very anxious and worried
young man responsible for the ed-
iting. It was my first venture into
the field of newspaper work; the
Lumber Worker was, in a manner
of speaking, my “first-born,” and
because of that I followed its pro-
gress through the years with more
than a casual interest. And if you
take the time to read, as I have
recently, through the back files of
issues covering those ten years,
you can read in review the great
events of the period—men and
women in the province and across
Canada just beginning to fight
their way out from under the
crushing burden of the great de-
pression, the battles against un-
employment and Tory Bennett's
slave camps, union struggles, many

JOHN EKLOW

First business manager of the
B.C. Lumber Worker, Eklow is
now back in his native Finland
and has not been heard from
since early in the war when com-
munications with Finland were
discontinued.

of them successful, for higher
wages and improved conditions in
lumber. Those pages give you
some of the flavor of the times—
the victories and defeats, the high
hopes and bitter disappointments,
the parade of men and personali-
ties who have made the union and
the labor movement so full of in-
terest and greatness, And always
the underlying current and theme
of progress, always, through the
paper's pages, the fight for a union
in lumber, the constant pounding
message that unionism pays off,
that without organization we are
nothing, can do nothing.

e

I THINK especially of some of

the men who helped make The
B.C. Lumber Worker an effective
weapon for the union.

“Johnny” Eklow, the paper's
first business manager, whose job
was by far the most difficult since
he had to find money for the paper
at.a time when nickels loomed as
a large dollar does now, Eklow is
back in Finland now. We haven't
heard from him
for several
years, and we
can only hope
he escaped the
Savagery of
Mjan ner hei m’s
fascists. And
who among the
old timers will
-forget that fine
man, Eric Graff,
also business
manager, dead now, and literally
as a result of his self-sacrificing
efforts for the paper and the union,

Among the editors of the paper
were, as I remember, Barney Beau-
mont, now somewhere in Europe
with a Canadian transport regi-

Arne Johnson

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AFFILIATION TO 6.1.0 PROPOS a

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ment; George Brown, now a lead-
ing figure in the shipyard unions;
Bert Farrell, best remembered as
the Roving Reporter; and in more
recent time Nigel Morgan, who
was editor from 1939 to 1942, Bert
Melsness now
on active ser-
vice, and fin-
ally Jack
Greenall,

Other names
made their ap-
pearance “fre-
quently in the
pages of The
Lumber Wor-
ker of those
days — Arne
Johnson, first
Secretary of
the Lumber
Workers Industrial Union; Mack
Mackinnon, LWIU President; Ted
Gunrud, a leader of the 1934 strike;
Hjalmar Bergren, Jack Brown,
Carl Palmgten, Bert Flatt, Ed An-

drews, Tod McLennan, a host of
others.

Mack Mackinnon

I ate too, of the difficulties
we had those first years. T
distribution of the 20,000 Soe
The B.C, Lumber Worker is just
a matter-of-fact problem of mail-
ing to the correct address, Back
in 1934, editing and publishing
the 2,000 copies of ti

0 the paper was
the simplest task, The big job

was getting them into the hands
of the readers in camps and mills.

Those were’ the days whey i
Majesty’s mails were Tames
Violate in the hands of an anti-
union camp Superintendent or
timekeeper, and because Wwe found
that many bundles of Papers were

“~ferendum Ballot on Affiliation to

“ae for Industrial Organization

pied ty the Federation of Wood Wesker was,
Reranch beer Mortar og

TF

dumped into the office stove,
erous subterfuges were adopte
evade the
“censorship,”
Bundles were
sent into camp
with loggers
returning from
town. Some-
times sympa-
thetic crew
members of
the- Union
Steamship Co.
put papers
ashore. They
were mailed
inside daily
Papers or magazines, And fo
toughest camps, we collected
bearing the firm names of |
couver department stores, je¥
ers, men’s clothing shops,
The Lumber Workers in

colored ribbon around th
then called on members |
Women’s Auxiliary to add
packages in their feminine
writing. I’ve heard th

though I’m dubious about
thenticity, that “Johnny”
once sprinkled perfume 0!
ender-colored bundle des
Elk River Timber. I do
he would at times
even insure such parcels
certain they would get
the company office, and m
one camp delegate al
salesman later told how |
ly packed such a part
bunk in the mistaken
was from his best girl
the very difficulties
served to hearten us
we knew that the
Position was a good
the paper's effective

Ted Gi

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