NO POWER GREATER by
Paul Phillips, published by
the B.C. Federation of La-
bour and the Boag Founda-
tion.

This book is a testament to
the birth and development,
the struggles, the failures and
the successes of the labour
movement in British Colum~
bia and to the inherent
strength of working people.
It is a testament to the asser-
tion in the old labour song:
“When the union’s inspira-
tion through the workers’
blood shall run, there can be
no power greater anywhere
beneath the sun.”
~The book needed to be
done. It has needed to be done
for a long, long time because
the present labour movement
is the product of a movement
that has gone before and, to
use a Santayana quotation
from the book itself, “Those
who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat
it.

The first thing to be said
about this book is that it rep-
resents a monumental re-
search job by Dr. Paul Phil-
lips, the research director of
the B.C. Federation of La-
bour. Its accuracy is beyond
question and this has been at-
tested to by local historians
who have some knowledge of
the passing scene in British
Columbia and who have held
the book up to some of their
own tests.

But this can be only part
of the story. So little of the
history of the development of
a labour union movement in
this province has really been
thoroughly documented that a
great deal of the book repre-
sents original research—that
is, the interviewing of the old
timers, the checking of cross-
references, the sifting of re-
membrances. The time in-
volved in the collation of a
welter of memorabilia and re-
collection and the marshalling
_of the material into a discern-
ible shape was alone a major
job and, on this score, the
book cannot be commended
too highly.

The value of the book is
put succinctly in a paragraph
from the foreword by the

IWA’s Grant MacNeil:

“All labour activists should
read this book and learn from
it. It is an invaluable work of
reference for all those who
must understand the labour
movement’s past in British
Columbia to interpret the
present. The author’s reveal-
ing account of the birth and
growth of trade unionism in
the province will yield a
keener appreciation of how
B.C. workers got what they
now have and of the funda-
mental purposes served.”

As a reference book it is in-
valuable because of its com-
pleteness and accuracy, be-
cause of the trends it deline-
ates and because of its appli-
cation to the personality of
the labour movement of
today.

It is amply documented and
footnoted and is replete with
references. This kind of nota-
tion has ben carried out, al-
most to a fault, for it tends
to cramp the style with which
Phillips apparently set out to
write the book.

The book is rather analytic
in style. It sifts as a student
sifts but shows an uncertain-
ty of touch when it comes to

-portraying the character of

the people who made the
movement. There is a need
for the union man of today to
know what kind of a person
his predecessor was, what
made him rage against his
condition, whether he was a
man who could temper his
dedication with a sense of
humour. While the struggles
themselves are framed in
some vivid passages, the col-
our of the movement, which
can only appear in the peo-
ple, doesn’t show as vividly
as it should.

One would have wished for
more anecdote — one of the
surest of the historian’s ways
to reveal a man’s mind and
manner — greater attention
to the individual, the same
sharp focus on people as there
is, in the book, one events.

However, one of the things
that shines clearly from the
pages is the extent of political
orientation in the B.C. labour
movement. The book traces
the political action with which

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

the unions appear to have
been involved from the earli-
est times — the assimilation
of a large oriental population
and the combatting of em-
ployer exploitation of this sit-
uation; the problem of an
economy based on the crea-
tion, largely through public
policy, of large industrial em-
pires; and the nature of a
primary economy where em-
ployment and the quest for
the workers’ share of indus-
trial wealth were subject to
the peaks and troughs of vola-
tile markets.

When it is realized that the
problems created by an econ-
omy of this kind have led
trade unionists to an appreci-
ation of the value of socialism,
which offers a more conscious
control of the human condi-
tion, the present predilection
of the unions towards the
New Democratic Party can be
readily understood.

It also puts into perspective
the gulf of distrust which
now exists between the la-
bour movement and the pres-
ent provincial government, a
government regarded as the
natural child of all the previ-
ous powers which helped
breed the policies that have
either been unsympathetic or
inimical to labour.

In a conclusion, Phillips
writes: “The nature of the
B.C. economy has not
changed materially since the
turn of the century and many
of the conditions (large indus-
trial empires in the primary
and transportation industries,
geographical isolation, harsh
working conditions) still ex-
ist. The government of British
Columbia has remained hos-
tile to organized labour as a
social institution. In addition,
the leadership of the B.C. la-
bour movement has remained
relatively young and _ ideal-
istic- and has not yet become
bureaucratized or disillu-
sioned. Under these condi-
tions, organized labour has
tended to remain militant.”

. In recent years, there have
been predictions that the pro-
portion of the labour force or-
ganized into unions has
reached its limit and will now
decrease. But Phillips sees a

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trend in the opposite direc-
tion. He says:

“Already in 1966 the trend
toward a decline in the pro-
portion of the labour force or-

ganized in B.C. has halted-

and labour militancy across
the country has been rising
against a background of close
to full employment and a mo-
derate level of price inflation.
Increasing availability of pub-
lic education will continue to
decrease the skill protection
of white collar and technical
workers. Expanding service
industries, larger production
units and technological inno-
vation in these industries,
may yet produce the condi-
tions necessary for another
surge in the labour move-
ment.”

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