of the I.W.A.

continued from page nine

— want a clean and healthy environment, com-
posed of both sexes. We want a home, family,
children...”

But there were limits to what they would do
for it. Those who became union activists, then
as now, could have become foremen, end
worked their way up the management ladder.
____ They chose not to. They could have adopted
another strategy, common then as it is now:
buy much more land than you need, then wait
: for the next wave of immigrants and sell a lot

or two at inflated prices. They chose not to.

They sought and struggled for a way out not
_ only for themselves, but for their workmates,

including and especially the “unskilled.”

hey knew the boss loggers had orga-
nized themselves earlier and better
than the loggers: the B.C. Loggers’ As-
sociation in 1902, following U.S.
Northwest efforts going back at least to 1891,
and the Canadian Lumbermen’s Asssociation
in 1908. These had started as “price-stabiliz-
ing” agencies, but proved to be very handy in
holding down wages and fighting unions.

From the minutes of the B.C. Loggers’ Asso-
ciation:

Mr. Hicks (who then ran the infamous “hir-
ing hall”) reported on Agency matters. The
use of the general wage scale was discussed.

“Recent difficulties between camps in
labour matters were discused. It was pointed
out that proper support for Mr. Hicks was es-
sential members should buck up and do their
share by regularly sending their dismissal
slips” (from which the “black lists” were
drawn up) and conforming to the other re-
quirements of the Agency” (that is, do whatev-
er had to be done, directly as employer and
politically, to resist unions, etc.)

So I suspect that most activists, whether
they thought of themselves as primarily Wob-
blies or not, welcomed the appearance, early
in 1919,o0f the first concerted, well-organized
attempt to organize the loggers, sponsored by
the B.C. Federation of Labour, and led by
such well-known Labour figures as Ernie
Winch, Burt Showler, Vic Midgley, Helena Gut-
teridge. For at least the first few months, the
new organization, the B.C. loggers’ and Camp
Workers’ Union, which “grew like wildfire” to
a membership of 15,000 in a single year de-
pended upon I.W.W. camp delegates, literature
and the sense of promise and excitement that
the Wobblies had. created in their “free
speech” fights and their activities in the U.S.
Northwest. No doubt Canadian forest work-
ers also wished to support a labour organiza-
tion that was under such a bitter, hysterical
attack, as exemplified by the murders on No-
vember 5, 1916, of five Wobblies , in the
“Everett Massacre.” There were many caus-
es; taken together, a great wave of determina-
tion to found a tough, militant union spread
across Canadian forests. Within the year, they
had opened branch offices in Prince George,
Cranbrook, Kamloops, Port Arther and Sud-

bury.

t was a time of great excitement in Cana-
dian labour. The revolution in Russia,
promising the world’s first “workers gov-
ernment” was happily welcomed by
everyone on the left, whether syndicalists or
Marxists of various degrees like Erie Winch.
The Western Labour Conference of March,
1919, in a resolution from the B.C. Federation
of Labour, conveyed its greetings and sympa-
thy to the new government in Russia and to
the German Spartacans, and B.C. loggers at
least discussed the possibiity of striking on
behalf of Russians who had been arrested and
threatened with deportation. :
Western delegates to the 1918 Convention
_ of the Trades and Labour Congress at Quebec
ty tried to make that body more radical, and
ling, determined to hold their own Confer-
e, as mentioned, in Calgary, which
inched the storied “One Big Union”, (the
U). The B.C. Loggers sent three delegates,
y Allman, a German speaking immigrant

&
3g
2
2
2
5
8
2
é

ALOGGER’S STORY - “Big Isak” Nedergard, (left) was born in Sundom Vasa, Finland, July 27, 1881 died there
May 7 1959. He was an experienced logger when 15 years of age in Finland, and wanted to go to the
U.S.A. His father refused permission so Isak borrowed a friend’s passport and hence had to assume the
name Isak Erickson. Isak’s brother was a ship’s carpenter on leave in Finland at the same time and when
he returned to his ship in Liverpool he put Isak aboard a schooner bound for New York. Isak’s brother’s
ship sailed for Africa where Isak’s brother went ashore and was never heard from again. Isak stayed at the
Lutheran Mission in New York for about a year before travelling to Eureka, California. There he met Eric
Jonson, on right in photo, who was from his home town and became his falling partner. “Big Isak” was a
trouble shooter and whenever there was a problem tree, he was called to fell it. He broke his hip in a log-
ging accident and was finished falling. He was given a job in the bootmaker shop in the 360 man camp. His
partner Eric Johnson returned to Finland where he got married. Jonson then came to Vancouver where he
died in the 1970’s. Isak eventually also returned to Finland where he became a shoemaker. He got married
and fathered several children among which was Henry Nedergard former officer of I.W.A. 1-85 Port Al-
berni. Henry worked at mining and logging before coming to Canada.

The tree in the photo was 21%’ Redwood. It took 2 days to make a bed for it and 3 days to fell it. The two
men in the undercut were Fins working nearby who wanted to be in the picture.

much feared by police, Tom Mace and Alex
McKenzie, who was to lead organizing activi-
ties in the Kootenays. At the founding conven-
tion of the O.B.U., opened in Calgary on June
Ath, they heartily endorsed the radical new or-
ganization, and affiliated, soon accounting for
about 40% of the total membership.”

In May of that year, Winnipeg building and
metal trades struck against employers who
declared that “labour had no right to orga-
nize” and that they would refuse to recognize
any union. The strike quickly spread to a
height of 35,000 and - precisely because it was
ran so well by the Central Strike Committee,
because it came so close to demonstrating
that all the layers of “leadership” over work-
ing people were not necessary - struck panic
into the elites first of Winnipeg, and then of
the nation. (Less well-known to Canadians,
but also important , similiar events took place
in Seattle, in February, 1919, and that general
strike provoked as much panic and repressive
legislation against “foreigners” as the later
Winnipeg version did.) Sympathy strikes
spread, especially in B.C., where Woods-
worth, Pritchard and Bray, leaders that were
arrested, were well-known. Loggers in Prince
George, Comox, Princeton joined, Winch and
sent a note to the Vancouver mass meeting
protesting the failure to call upon the Loggers’
Union to “take a more active part in the strug-
gle”.

From May 1919 to March 20, B.C. Loggers
struck in 46 different camps.“

In July, the Loggers adopted a different
name, first used by Wobblies, “The Lumber
Workers’ Industrial Union.” A top priority was
to organize the Northern Ontario Bushwork-
ers, and by 1920 had perhaps three to four
thousand members there, mostly Finns.“ But
they also expanded into the construction and
mining industries. Their first big strike was of
600 railway construction workers at Prince-
ton. And they also led mineworkers strikes in
B.C. and Saskatchewan, and organized farm-
workers in the prairies.”

And it was that expansion of “The B.C. Log-
gers’ and Campworkers Union,” and the con-
cern that it caused elsewhere, that was to de-
stroy the O.B.U.

The Wobblies carried on for some years, in

the Kootenays and especially in Northern On-
tario - where forest workers sometimes built
competing “Wobbly”” and “socialist” halls side
by side. But after the hysteria, hostility and re-
pression of the immediate post-world-war-one
period in the U.S., they were never to regain
the prominence or promise that they enjoyed
in the earlier period.

Next issue: The end of the O.B.U, the
rise of the “Red International of Trade
Unions”,the assassinations of Rosvall and
Voutilainen, the 1931 Fraser Mills Strike,
and the 1934 Loggers’ strike. Stay Tuned.

References

(1) B.C. Feb/Labour Pamphlet.

(2) Gordon Hak quoted in B.C. loggers and the
Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union, pub-
lished in Labour/LeTravail Spring, 1989,
pp. 67-89.

(8) Donald Avery “Canadian Immigration Poli-
cy and the ‘Foreign’ Navy, 1896-1914. Pub-
lished in “The Consolidation of Capital:
1896-1929”. Ed Michail Cross and Greg
Kealey, Toronto. McClelland and Stewart
Limited, 1983, p. 50.

(4) Quoted in W.J.C. Cherwinsky, “A minia-
ture Coxey’s Army: the British Harvester’s
Toronto-to-Ottawa Trek of 1924” in
Labour/Le Travail, Fall, 1993, p. 140.

(5) Ross McCormack, “Wobblies and Blanket
Stiffs”, The Constituency of the LW.W. in
Western Canada”, published in “Lectures
in Canadian Labour and Working Class
History,” Ed. W.J.C. Cherwinski, and Greg
Kealey, Toronto, New Hogtown Press,
1985, pp. 101-114,

(6) Radforth, Ian “Bosses and Bushworkers;
Logging in Northern Ontario, 1900-1980.”
Toronto University of Toronto Press, 1987,
pp. 111-120.

(1) Steeves, Dorothy “The Compassionate
Rebel” Vancouver, J.J. Douglas Ltd., 1977,
pp. 44-60.

(8) “The B.C. Attorney General on April 16,
1912 instructed the Superintendent of Po-
lice that the time has now arrived to pros-
ecute and imprison (the W.W.) on every
possible occasion.” (McCormack, p.113).

(9) Hack Op. Cit.

(10) Hak Op. Cit. p. 89.

(11) Steeves Op Cit. p. 52.

us} Radforth Op. Cit. p. 115,

13) Hak Op Cit. p. 77.

LUMBERWORKER/NOVEMBER, 1995/15