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umberworkers on strike

The following article appeared one year ago in the Timmins Press. The event outlined in
the artide, is a black day in the recent history of the labour movement. It is graphic
evidence, that working people can not take for granted the rights won and fought for over
decades. There are still those out there who would like to see unions fold up and die.

The struggle may not be a life and death one now but, many of the issues are still the
same. We must always look forward while maintaining the ability to look to our past for

both inspiration and lessons.

KAPUSKASING

o sign is posted to tell you when
you get to Reesor Siding but you
know when you are at the infamous
spot where three died and eight were
injured. A monument now stands
overlooking the site where it
happened.

Jean Tanguy was there this past
Friday just as he was on the morn-
ing of Feb. 11, 1963. This time it was
not to protest against farmers and
other laborers but to replace the
tattered statue which has marked
the spot for 21 years.

It has been almost a quarter of a
century since the lumber and saw-
mill strike of 1963 became a violent
protest.

Today the 64-year-old lumber
worker remembers that black day in
union and Kapuskasing history. The
sights and sounds are etched in his
mind but he doesn’t like to talk
about it.

His only link with the past
remains the statue, first erected in
1966. The original statue, which was
replaced on Friday by Tanguy and

other union volunteers, was made
out of wood. The statue depicts a
lumber and sawmill worker carrying
a hatchet and flanked by his family,
a son to his left and his wife and
baby to his right.

After 24 years of sitting high up
on the concrete and plaster monu-
ment, it has been deteriorating. The
wood has begun to rot and some of
the plaster is flaking off.

“We are committed to the upkeep
of the monument,” said Lumber and

see page 7, STATUE

6/LUMBERWORKER/JUNE, 1988