“The strike was successful, but
there was no organization to repre-
sent (the strikers),” McKnight notes.
But the wage settlement became
the provincial standard by legisla-
tion and union organizing followed
shortly after. The strike action at
Great Central Lake became the gen-
esis of the I.W.A., McKnight asserts.

Some of that history was outlined
in articles carried in the local Alberni
Valley Times newspaper last Octo-
ber. In that edition, several Alberni
firms published congratulations to
the local on its 60th anniversary.

1.W.A. Local 1-85 was chartered
in 1937, within a year of the inter-
national union’s founding after
members quit the Lumber and
Sawmill Workers Union, an affiliate
of the American Federation of
Labour run by the Carpenters Union.
The newly formed Federation of
Woodworkers, which subsequently
became the I.W.A., was chartered to
as the more militant, rank-and-file
'|8 Congress of Industrial Organiza-
§ tions. Local 1-85 went on to fight
$ several battles for wages, benefits
Wl g and job safety, including lengthy

<j strikes in 1946, 1959, 1972 and the

° Port Alberni, B.C. Local 1-85 President Larry Rewakowsky (right) chats with local union oldtimer Frank Cyr.

by Dan Keeton

ramed phctosnaphs line
the hallway leading to
offices in I.W.A. Local 1-
85’s building. Downstairs,
dozens more adorn the
perimeter of the assembly hall. From
the frames come the sounds of the
past: the whine of steam donkeys,
the rasp of hand-held saws, the ral-
lying cries of marching strikers.

They’re part of the history of the
Port Alberni-based local that marked
its 60th anniversary this year. Along
with other locals on Vancouver
Island, the establishment of Local
1-85 marked the beginning of the
LW.A.

Local 1-85 marked the anniver-
sary this year at its annual ban-
que attended by former local presi-

lent and now national president,
Dave Haggard, and at the annual
meeting where more than 200
attended.

Local president Larry Rewa-
kowsky is too young to have been
part of the initial organizing efforts
in the early Thirties. But he has his
own experiences which he says gave
him a sense of what union organiz-
ing must have been like in the days
before trade unions in the woods.

Rewakowsky worked in the mills
of Port Alberni from the early Sev-

enties but left to become an I.W.A.
organizer in 1977. He recalls talk-
ing union to workers in Alberta and
northern B.C. It was tough building
a union consciousness.

“You got an idea what it was like
for those organizers in the Thirties.
It was just like those days. People
figured the boss was the boss.

“It was a real eye-opener. There
were a lot of things people took for
granted. The boss would tell them
he'd have to close shop if the union
got in.” But in his organizing work,
“there were a hell of a lot more suc-
cesses than failures.” Rewakowsky
returned to Port Alberni and the
plywood mill in 1988.

Retired mill worker George McK-
night functions as a kind of histo-
rian for the local. The author of a
recent book, Saw Logs on Steel Rails,
an account of rail logging in the
region, McKnight is well-versed in
the events that led to the establish-
ment of the union.

In 1934, McKnight relates, “A
handful of guys were on strike in
Campbell River and the strike
spread like wildfire along the coast.”

The logging companies associa-
tion decided to break the strike by
hiring scabs to work at Bloedel,
Stewart and Welch’s Camp No. 3 on
Great Central Lake. In response,
loggers from other regions of the

province came to help them out.

“Guys marched into here 300-
strong,” says McKnight. Several
photos survive of the line of strikers
filing down Johnson Avenue and
through the town. The mayor,
backed by armed police, “met them
on the flat and read the Riot Act.”
The strikers and supporters retired
to a nearby camp.

Many of the strikers were from
Scandinavian countries and were
steeped in the traditions of trade
unionism and union organizing.
“They rested a day and then marched
towards Great Central. The police
met them on River Road.” Avoiding
confrontation, the strikers turned
around and headed for Stamp Falls
provincial park, where trails through
the bush had already been blazed
by relief camp workers. “They came
into the camp from the back. (Even-
tually) the whole crew came in and
surrounded the camp,” McKnight
relates.

What followed was a harassment
of the scab workers until they finally
downed their tools. The effort was
supported by women blocking the
docks where the scabs boarded boats
to take them to camp, and Vancou-
ver loggers picketing the airport
when the company tried to fly in
scabs. The conflict ended in the
strikers’ favour.

122-day strike in 1986.

In 1983, a problem of a different
sort reared its head. Mass layoffs at
MacMillan Bloedel put more than
2,000 of the locals 6,400 members
out of work.

Local 1-85 was instrumental in
organizing a community conference.
Participants from labour, church
groups, community organizations,
the school district and regional dis-
trict, and the councils of Port Alberni
and Tofino attended. The confer-
ence zeroed in on MacBlo’s moves to
high-tech plants and its transfer of
some operations from B.C. tolow- -
wage ghettos around the world. Par-
ticipants called for the development
of secondary, value-added indus-
tries in wood.

The local also supported a grass-
roots unemployed group, the Orga-
nization of Unemployed Workers.
More than just an advocacy organi-
zation, the OUW promoted an alter-"
native agenda including a six-hour
working day and a supplementary
unemployment insurance plan paid
for by employers. The group helped
organize a trek of the jobless work-
ers from Nanaimo to Victoria that
year.

Local 1-85 pressed its case with
MacBlo management that year. The
local argued for continued extended
medical and dental benefits for laid-
off members. It also called on the
multinational corporation, which
had made much of its concern for
the welfare of the community, to
open a nursery operation in the val-
ley and to hire union members for
tree-planting. The company, for the
record, hired an outside non-union
firm.

Automation in the industry has
taken a heavy toll, Rewakowsky
observes. “At one time we had in
excess of 6,000 members. Now were
down to 3,000.”

Grapple yarders have replaced
towers and halved the work crews,
he notes. Operations at Franklin,
Sproat Lake and Somass Cedar have
seen their numbers reduced by con-
siderably greater percentages. The
Kennedy Lake operation and the
city’s plywood mill are only memo-
ries today.

Young people are leaving town

2 while the company imports techni-
g cians from back east, Rewakowsky
¢ notes, asserting that local people
$ should receive training here to take
8 those jobs.

g McKnight first started in the
« industry in 1941 after arriving

i f Labour are Local 1-85 delegates (1. to r.) John Squire, Stanley
1955 convention of the Canadian Congress o 5 ae

, Maurice Corbeil, James Sled, Frank Allen, George McKnight and Fred Whipp.

LUMBERWORKER/DECEMBER 1997/31