History of the L.W.A.

Continued from previous page

campaign against the District leadership. Sekora
wrote a long letter for the International paper,
“The International Woodworker” of March 7, 1945,
accusing the District’s executive of being unwill-
ing to “offend the boss,” and denouncing their
wartime support of the federal Liberal govern-
ment.

George Brown travelled to B.C., and evidently
without advising District or Local officers, attend-
ed meetings, defending his decisions not to em-
ploy organizers who would spend their time de-
fending partisan political parties and policies. This
was too much for the District Officers. They ob-
jected strenuously to this interference. The C.L.O.
held an inquiry into the various charges and
counter-charges that followed in December of
1945. Unfortunately for the B.C. district officers, it
was chaired by an old foe, Adolph Germer.

The result was a set of recommendations,
signed by Brown and both International and Dis-
trict Officers which, while no victory for the B.C.
L.W.A., at least provided the basis for a strong
union effort in the 1946 negotiations.

PREPARING FOR INDUSTRY-WIDE STRIKES

With the end of the Second World War in 1945,
Communist-led union forces no longer were re-
strained by their “no-strike” pledge. The I.W.A. in
B.C. was armed with full support from coast log-
gers. A confidential report of the “Special Section”
of the R.C.M.P., dated April 30, 1946, said: “As far
as the camps are concerned the I.W.A. is probably
better organized than any other union in B.C... .
No difficulty is experienced in having new employ-
ees in this industry join the union. The benefits
which these workers have already obtained as a
result of belonging to the union are considerable.
There is not the slightest doubt that the negotia-
tons which their bargaining committee is now car-
rying on will receive their fullest possible support.
A strike, as far as the camps are concerned, would
be 100% effective.” ©

Support in mills and in the Interior, if less solid
than in the camps, was also growing, the result of
a determined organizing drive that kept up to
twelve organizers busy in the province. Altogether,
it was an opportunity for the union to confront the
industry for the first time on as a solidly orga-
nized, reasonably financed organization, and
armed with the strike weapon.

At the January, 1946 District Convention in Van-
couver, the union adopted as its immediate pro-
gram a wage increase of 25 cents per hour (a very
large percentage boost to wages that were as slow
as 45 cents) the 40 hour week (it was then 44 on
the coast, 48 in the interior), union security and
the automatic check-off of union dues. War time
wages and bargaining regulations were still in
force, but the union resolved to “by-pass” them,
refuse to appear before any of the Boards, and in-
sisted on direct negotiations with Stuart Research
Services, predecessor to Forest Industrial Rela-
tions.

The union then embarked upon a thorough pub-
licity program. Its C.J.O.R. radio broadcast, enti-
tled “Green Gold,” featured a series of talks on the
major demands. When Stuart Research responded
with announcements about how well-off forest in-
dustry workers were, the union countered with ef-
fective broadcasts by Mona Morgan (wife of Nigel,
sister of Emil Bjarnnason) talking about the diffi-
culties of raising families on existing wages, in-
creases in food prices, and so on.

Probably more important, they launched a pro-
gram to ensure support from the whole labour
movement (in part by contributing generously to
the Ford strikers during their historic three month
strike late in 1945), so that even determined foes
of the District officers, like C.C.L. Financial Secre-
tary Pat Conroy, were compelled to declare their
support, “to the limit” of the I.W.A. A special effort
was made to ensure the support of men and
women returning from war. Locals held special
meetings with veterans, promising them every ef-
fort to find them jobs as soon as possible. Jack
Henderson, president of the B.C. Command of the
Canadian Legion, was invited to speak to the 1946
Convention, and he took the opportunity to
promise every effort to avoid a reoccurance of the
post-World War One split between ex-servicemen
and labour. “You can’t rehabilitate one section of
Canada at the expense of another,” declared Hen-
derson. “We not only want homes and work for
veterans, we want homes and work for at all.”

Negotiations began in March, but in the now-fa-
miliar pattern, little was achieved for a long time.
Early in May, the operators offered a twelve and a
half cent hourly increase, but no movement on
hours of work or union security. The union said it
would offer a new position on wages and hours of
work, if the operators agreed to submit union se-
curity and the check-off to binding arbitration.
When the operators refused, a strike deadline was
set for May 15th. B.C. Chief Justice Gordon Sloan
was appointed to “investigate all phases of the dis-
pute.” Hearings were held, but no agreement
reached.

t 11:00 am on May 15, the strike began. It

was, at first, a total success. A confiden-

tial report of the R.C.M.P. advised head-

quarters “the strike which commenced
this morning has completely paralysed the lumber
industry.” The union had about 20,000 members,
but about 37,000 answered the strike call. A huge
rally of 3,000 forest workers and their families
trekked to Victoria on June 14 and lobbied all
provincial members for support. During the course
of the 37-day strike, about 10,000 new members
joined the union. Maurice Rush recalls visiting
Emie Dalskog on the first day: “He was ecstatic.
Camps we never heard of, didn’t know they exist-
ed, were coming out, we were swamped with re-
quests for membership cards...”

Early in June, Sloan recommended a settlement
based on a 15 cent increase, voluntary check-off,
and an important but limited recognition of the 40
hour-work week. The industry accepted, but the
union, confident of a total victory, turned it down.

After 37 days, the strike had to be called off
when federal Labour Minister Mitchell intervened
to direct sawmill box factories, and the logging
that supported them, back to work, at pre-strike
wages, with Chief Justice Gordon McGregor Sloan
appointed to arbitrate the remaining issues. Box
inventories were still down owing to wartime
shortages. The farmers from the Fraser and
Okanagan valleys mounted (or at least supported)
a populist campaign against the strike to get boxes
with which to ship their products.

In a candid appraisal of the strike strategy pub-
lished in the July 8, 1946 issue of the Lumber
Worker, Harold Pritchett conceded that the
union’s rejection of Sloan’s recommendations was
a “major error...(that) tended to isolate the union
from a large section of public support.”

Still, the gains, in addition to the 10,000 new
members, were substantial. They won a 15 cent
wage increase - an average of 18.7%, the highest
post-war settlement in Canada - union recognition
and a voluntary check-off system. The forty hour

¢ In 1946, bushworkers in northern Ontario pulled a general strike. Pictured are members from Mountjoy
Timber company, when they arrived in Timmins at the beginning of the strike.

week was essentially established for loggers in
that strike - a major breakthrough.

NORTHERN ONTARIO

As I.W.A. members on the West Coast were re-
turning to work in June of 1946, Northern Ontario
bushworkers, led by the Lumber and Sawmill
Workers’ Union, were gathering for their test of
strength with the industry.“”

Representing forest workers during the war had
been largely a matter of dealing with the (federal)
Regional War Labour Board. But bushworkers
there benefited from a more severe wartime
labour shortage, which forced companies to pay
more than the maximums allowed by the legal ma-
chinery. Other companies were forced to follow
suit in order to get men into their camps.

Thus when Bruce Magnuson was released from
detention (after serving two years for his member-
ship in the Communist Party), and resumed his
presidency of Local 2786 (Pt. Arthur), the union
found receptive ground for their agitation, and
bushworkers and a pub-
lic that acknowledged
Lumber and Saw as the
legitimate representa-
tive of forest workers
throughout the region.
Demands for improve-
ments in camp condi-
tions, much worse than
in B.C., were strongly
supported by bushwork-
ers and won widespread
public sympathy.

As the war drew to a
close, the union began
to prepare the ground.
Pamphlets were distributed calling for union
recognition, full collective bargaining rights, a 25%
wage increase and major improvements to living
conditions, especially elimination of the hated
double bunks.

When preliminary talks proved fruitless - the op-
erators insisting on cumbersome provincial gov-
ernment machinery - the union set Oct. 12 as a
strike deadline. The companies dithered, refusing
to negotiate until the union “called a truce.” So on
the set date, about 12,000 bushworkers, from the
Manitoba to the Quebec border, walked out.

In “Bushworkers and Bosses” (p.147), Ian Rad-
forth captures the success of the strike with a
quote of Gordon Godwin, woodlands official
speaking to his counterparts from other compa-
nies: “The strike was 100% effective...The union is
strong and its strength will increase.”

On Oct 29th, Union and Company officials were
called to Queen’s Park. On October 30, eighteen
major forest industry employers signed an agree-
ment that provided an increase to $6.20 per day
($5 plus board), union recognition and single deck
beds. The agreement was ratified, and members
returned to work on November 4, after just a three
week strike.

It was a classic case of a union striking at the
right time. Pulpwood inventories were down. Over
8,000 German prisoners of war who had been do-
ing forced labour in the camps were being sent
home, creating a serious labour shortage. Also im-
portant, and in contrast to B.C., the union had won
the support of most small farmers, many of whom
worked part time in the bush, and none of whom
needed pulpwood.

But it was also a very considerable feat of orga-
nizing and publicizing, and of conducting a strike.

Next Issue: The Big Split of October 1948

e Bruce Magnuson

FOOTNOTES
(1) R.C.MP., Records from National Archives.
LW.A. CANADA Archives, Vol. 12, p 491.
(2) Canadian Tribune, April 25, 1944.
(8) R.C.MP., Op cit.
(4) R.C.M-P.Op Cit., Vol. 13, p 464.
(5) B.C. Lumber Worker, Oct. 22 1945.
(©) R.C.MP. Op Cit, Vol 12, pp 581, 82.

(7) Proceedings. Ninth Annual Convention,

District #1, I.W.A. I.W.A. CANADA
Archives.

(8) R.C.MP. Op. Cit., Vol 12, p 544.

(9) Rush Maurice, “We Have a Glowing
Dream.” Center for Socialist Education.
Vancouver, 1996. p 102.

(10) See: Radforth, Ian “Bosses and Bushwork-
ers.” University of Toronto Press, 1987. pp
144 to 148, and Magnuson, Bruce, “The Un-
told Story of Ontario’s Bushworkers.”
Progress Books. Toronto, 1990. pp 65 to

78.
For the B.C. Union during the war, Lem-

beke and Tattum, “One Union In Wood.”
Harbour Publishing, Madeira Park, 1984, is
a good, but not neutral, source.

EEE eee

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER, 1996/19