° In 1931, woodworkers block railway tracks outside Fraser Mills where they struck for union security,
wage increases and overtime provisions.

History of the L.W.A.

Continued from page seventeen

Rosvall and Voutilainen, and to all the North-
ern Ontario Finns, “red” and “Wobbly, who
kept unionism alive in Canadian forests in
those tough years from 1926 to 1931.

ut on the West Coast, the loggers

who had held their first tentative

meeting late in 1928, met again in the

fall of 1929, joined by Eric Graf, Hjal-
mar Bergren, Joe Anderson, Ted Gunerad and
others. Interestingly, this second meeting was
held after the decision had been taken by the
C.P.C. to create their own revolutionary
Yabour central, the “Workers’ Unity League,”
but before it was “official.”

From the point of view of winning strikes, it
was not auspicious timing. The Great Depres-
sion was just beginning, thousands were al-
ready unemployed, and they were to be joined
by millions. Such strikes as were ventured
such as an eight hour one against Frank Be-
ban Lumber Co. at Extension, B.C. usually
failed because of bad economic times and
poor organization.

But the new revolutionary organization
worked well with the disillusioned, angry un-
employed (there was no “pogey” in those
days). They created the “National Union of Un-
employed Workers’ Association” (N.U.W.A.), of
which Arne Johnson was first secretary-trea-
Surer, and under the leadership of George
Drayton, the first W.U.L. organizer, conducted
campaigns that showed immediate results,
such as a December, 1930 action that won bed
and board tickets for 2000 members in ex-
change for one day’s work per week. More im-
portant, they won solid organizational gains,
prestige among Canadian workers, and some
very effective picketers for future strikes.

Is Life worth Living 2

IF NOT,

ORGANIZE

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and working conditions Join the 4

LUMBER WORKERS
| INDUSTRIAL UNION

Of the One Big Union. Branch Offices in
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Meadquarters: 61 Cordova St. W.- Vancouver, B.C.

eae

IW.A. Archives

Probably the first real success for the new
“Lumber & Agricultural Workers’ Union” began
on July 22 1931, at Barnett Lumber Co. The
strike was against a new “bonus system” which
would have entailed a 10% wage cut to 350
millhands, and it succeeded in restoring the
full wage, owing largely to the “sudden” ap-
pearance of a great many N.U.W.A. picketers.

A much longer and more important strike
began on September 16, 1931, at Fraser Mills,
in what is now Coquitlam, B.C., involving
about 700 workers. In the four months pre-
ceding the strike, three wage cuts of ten cents
per hour had been imposed by the Canadian
Western Lumber Co. That attracted the atten-
tion of the new union and of the W. U. L.
George Drayton reported. “After two or three
months of organizational work, a union
meeting was held to discuss the report of the
shop committee, and to decide whether to
strike for a 10% increase in wages...”° Also
demanded were time and a half for overtime,
a closed (union) shop.

The strike chairman was a 27 year old shin-
gle weaver named Harold Pritchett who was
guided by his recollections of 1919 strikes
mentioned at the beginning of this article, es-
pecially led by the steam engineers.”

At the beginning of the strike, Harold, much
to the consternation of the C.P.C., was a mem-
ber of the Independent Labour Party (I.L.P.). In
a W.U.L. article, George Drayton fumed: “In
this strike it has been mooted after four days
of militant leadership that the two medicine
men of the ILL.P. (McInnis and Winch) should
be invited to speak to a meeting of the strik-
ers. This was suggested by the Chairman of
the Strike Committee who belongs to the I.L.P.
This must be combatted to the limit. This is
when the I. L. P. are the most dangerous.”

Harold was a considerable prize, much
sought after by all left parties. He remem-
bered Ernie Winch visiting him, urging him to
avoid the C.P.C. “He (Winch) was so poor that
he tied his running shoes with store string.”
For whatever reason certainly a part of it was
the superior organizational ability of the
“Lumber & Agricultural Workers Industrial
Union,” the W.U.L. and the Unemployed
Workers, who, under Arne Johnson, once
again supplied sturdy picketers.

But Harold was also won over, as he re-
membered it fifty years later, by the overall
theory. Unions (and their strikes) had to be
guided by a political party with an all-encom-
passing, global view and strategic plan.

The strike was a masterpiece of organiza-
tion. Most of the workers, and active union
members, were French Canadian, brought
from the Ottawa valley in 1909 by the devout-
ly Catholic McCormick family that owned the
mill. Although these French Canadian work-
ers were almost all strong Catholics, served
by a very conservative Priest named Father

U.B.C. Special Collections

Tech, most became strong union men, and
quite a few became communists. Leo Canuel
told me proudly that six members of the
church choir were members of the party, al-
most certainly a record for the Canadian
Catholic Church.

How did they reconcile these two conflict-
ing life-organizing principles? Working peo-
ple, as Harold and Tim Buck and many others,
including the author, were slow to learn, do
not need to reconcile their beliefs into one all-
encompassing system, Catholicism or Marx-
ism, or any other. “Father Tech is a good
priest,” one worker told an organizer, “and we
do what he tells us - on Sunday.”

The company, responding to very vigorous
picketing, had the grounds patrolled by an
armed “special watch” of foremen with ma-
chine guns mounted at the entrance to the
mill.“ Ten picketers were arrested, four of
whom were probably unemployed loggers,
two spent two days for “assaulting an officer.”

Space does not permit a description of the
extent and ingenuity
of the organizing
that won a victory in
the two and a half
month strike, held in | —
extremely tough ||
times. Suffice it to |
say that on Novem-
ber 20, 1931, the
company made an
offer of from four to
seven and a half per FF
cent wage increase,
the crew accepted
by a vote of 466 to
55, and returned to work on December Ist.

The victory was much diminished by the
fact that many on the strike committee, in-
cluding Harold Pritchett, were refused work
by the company, and the union lacked the
strength to keep their leaders, or to keep any
real organization in the mill.

But that was not the last that the forest in-
dustry, in Canada and the U.S., was to hear of
Harold and the new union.

NEXT ISSUE: The 1934 Loggers’ strike,
The “United Front” reappears, The Long
Cold March in northern Ontario, and how

H
&
<

¢ Harold Pritchett

“it came about that the close association

between forest unions in the west and in
northern ontario, that had lasted from
1919 to 1936, disappeared for the next
half century.

References

(1) Hak, Gordon, “B.C. Loggers and the Lum-
ber Workers Industrial Union, 1919 - 1922,”
published in “Labour/LeTravail”, Issue 23,
Spring 1989 pp 67-90. A good summary of
these events.

V.I. Lenin, “Collected Works,” Vol 10, Inter-

national Publishers, New York, 1943. Quot-

ed in Penner, Norman. “Canadian Commu-
nism: The Stalin Years and Beyond.”

Methuen. Toronto, 1988. p.79.

Taken from R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins.

National Archives of Canada. Author’s

Possession. Passages quoted from a

lengthy pamphlet “Shall Unionism Die?” by

Gordon Cascaden, a Canadian delegate to

the R.LL.U. conference who was protest-

ing these policies.

Penner, p 4

R.C.M.P., Vol. 4, p 652.

Hak, p 84 and Minutes, B.C. Loggers’ Asso-

ciation., C.O.F.I. Collection, Special Col-

lections, U.B.C. Library.

Penner, p 82.

Radforth, Ian. “Bushworkers and Bosses:

Logging in Northern Ontario, 1900 - 1980.”

University of Toronto Press, Toronto,

1987. p 122.

(10) Penner, pp 89 - 102.

(11) Penner, p 100.

(12) Radforth, Appendix# 9.

(13) Repo, Satu, “Rosvall and Voutilainen: Two
Union Men Who Never Died.” Published in
Labour/Le Travailleur, No. 8/9, Autumn -
Spring, 1981/82. pp 79 -102.

(14) Repo, pp 83-86.

(15) Repo, p 95.

(16) W.U.L. Leaflet. I.W.A. CANADA Archives.

(17) Interview of Harold Pritchett by Clay Per-
ry. I.W.A. CANADA Archives.

(18) Meyers, Jeannie. “The Fraser Mills Strike
of 1931.” Paper presented to Northwest
Labour History Conference, 1982. I.W.A.
CANADA Archives.

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LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1995/19