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Feature

By MAURICE RUSH
n Oct. 3, 1948, the B.C.
District Council of the
International
Woodworkers’ of
America voted by an
overwhelming
; majority to secede
from the international and to form a new
Canadian woodworkers union, the
Woodworkers Industrial Union of Canada
(WIUC), It proved to be a major and costly
Mistake by the communists and left
leadership of the IWA in B.C. which had
Negative repercussions on the whole trade
union movement in B.C.

_The secession has been the subject of
widespread controversy for many years and
the full history of the events leading up to
this action has not yet been written, although
the most accurate account is given in the
book One Union in Wood, written by Jerry
Lembke and William M. Tattam. TWA and
other labour historians have grossly distor-
ted the historic event, ignoring important
parts of the story and altering others. It is
important to set the record straight on what
really transpired, without for one moment
attempting to apologize for the major res-
ponsibility of the B.C. Communist Party
leadership (then known as the Labour-
Progressive Party) and its leading members
in the forest industry, for the serious error.

While acknowledging the mistake that
was made, it must also be pointed out that
the major work in organizing the forest in-
dustry in B.C. and achieving many gains for
woodworkers was done by the communists
and their militant supporters, often at tre-
Mendous sacrifice. The struggle to organize
the industry began long before the Com-
munist Party was formed in 1921. For many
generations militant woodworkers strove to
organize the industry, leading in many cases
to bitter strike struggles against the powerful
timber barons, which usually ended without
success.

The struggle to organize the forest in-
dustry and abolish the terrible conditions
existing in the camps achieved an historic
high point in the 1946 general strike in the
forest industry. During the war years, the
IWA, under the leadership of outstanding
organizers like Harold Pritchett, Nigel Mor-
gan, Emie Dalskog, Hjalmar Bergren and
scores of others, the IWA grew in strength
and made the first important breakthroughs.

The province-wide strike called for May
15, 1946 was joined by nearly 30,000 wood-
workers. Some 10,000 joined the IWA
during the strike which was called around
the demand: “25-40 Union Security.”

Immediately after the war, the federal
government and the big employer groups
decided it was time to crack down on labour
and hold the line on post war gains for
labour. The federal government, which had
frozen wage increases to five cents an hour
during the last stage of the war, decided to
continue the wage freeze after the war. The
first big challenge to the government-
employer policy was the IWA strike.

The demand for a 25-cent an hour in-
crease, the 40-hour work week and union
recognition and security was a major strug-
gle to establish labour’s rights in the post war
period. While the IWA did not win all its
demands, it forced partial union recognition
and an industry-wide agreement, it won a 15
cent settlement and agreement to move
towards the 40-hour week in the forest in-
dustry. It was a landmark victory for all
Canadian labour. In the elections that fol-
lowed in 1946, the left leadership received
an overwhelming mandate from the mem-
bership.

But even as woodworkers were celebrat-
ing the 1946 victory, behind the scenes plots

IWA, 1948: recalling a divided past

were afoot by right wing forces in the inter-
national and in B.C. (called the White Bloc)
to attack the communist and left leadership
in the IWA in B.C. where more than 50
percent of the left vote in international elec-
tions came from. The struggle between the
White Bloc and the left wing in the union
preceded the formation of the WA as a CIO
affiliate in 1937, but it was intensifieed after
Harold Pritchett was elected as the union’s
first international president.

Despite the bitter struggle, the left
retained the upper hand largely because of
the strong support for left policies among
B.C. woodworkers.

The post war period brought significant
political changes which favoured the right
wing forces in the union represented by the
White Bloc, whose aim was to oust the left
and capture control of the union. The main
change which took place was the launching
of the cold war and the whipping up of
anti-communist hysteria. Red-baiting now
became the major weapon of the White
Bloc.

The White Bloc was able to take ad-
vantage of the fact that the U.S. and Can-
adian governments had adopted anti-com-
munism as their main policy and all state
agencies, such as immigration, intelligence
services, labour ministries and legislatures
were put to the service of fighting com-
munism. McCarthyism entered the labour
movement and came to the aid of those who
for their own purposes wanted to destroy the
militancy of labour and oust left and com-
munist leaders.

All capitalist agencies able to mold
public opinion were opened up to those in
the labour movement fighting communism,
which gave the White Bloc in the IWA a
tremendous boost.

Falling in behind the anti-communist
campaign were the top officials of the trade
union movement in the U.S. and Canada.
The international union leaderships under-
took to destroy the militants in the U.S. and
in Canadian sections of international unions.
Officials of central union bodies in Canada
joined in the attack. Some unions were sus-
pended, dismembered, raided, expelled, and
some placed under trusteeships.

In Canada the offensix2 against the left
was led by the Canadian Congress of Labour
(CCL) and its top officers, Pat Conroy and
Aaron Mosher. They assigned the job to
“clean out the reds in B.C.” to William
Mahoney, a Steelworkers organizer, who
was given the title Western Canadian Direc-
tor to oust the leaderships of central labour
bodies in B.C., with special emphasis on the
IWA and Mine Mill. He was to rely heavily
on the White Bloc to do the job in the IWA.
: he first sign that this new
alliance of right wing
forces with the White Bloc
was in operation came with
the moves by the U.S.
government to bar Harold
- Pritchett permanently from
entering the U.S. in 1947. For years,
Pritchett had been able to carry out his
duties as international president on
visitor’s visas, but now he was barred
completely, forcing him to give up the
presidency of the TWA.

The action coincided with the adoption
by the U.S. of the Taft-Hartley Act which
John L. Lewis, head of the CIO, described
as “the first ugly thrust of fascism in
America.” The Act required all union of-
ficers to take oaths that they were not mem-
bers of the Communist Party. Failure to do
so disqualified the union involved from
recognition by the National Labour Board.
Those signing the affidavits were subject to
perjury charges.

It was no coincidence that at the TWA

Harold Pritchett (r), first international president of the IWA, with Mine-Mill president,

Reid Robinson (centre) and Internationa

international convention held in St. Louis in
August, 1947, at which the Taft-Hartley Act
was to be considered, and at which the White
Bloc forced through compliance with the
Act, the U.S. immigration department
barred all left wing delegates from B.C. from
entering the U.S. Immediately following the
convention the international officers,
headed by president James Fadling, ordered
all IWA officers to sign the Taft-Hartley
affidavits or resign. The order was to apply
to all elected officials.

The attempt to compel Canadian trade
unionsts to comply with American anti-
labour laws was a violation of Canadian
sovereignty but it brought no condemnation
from the Canadian government, its labour
department or from top Canadian union of-
ficials.

Shortly after that, the White Bloc in Be.
opened a new attack on the leadership of the
IWA in the B.C. District by charging that
district funds were missing. Much was made
of this charge by the big business media,
especially the Vancouver Sun whose labour
reporter at the time was Jack Webster. In his
recently published autobiography he ad-
mits: “Mahony would feed me details about
money missing from union treasuries.” The
charges are dealt with in the book One Union
in Wood which reports the findings of two
auditing firms which “produced no evidence
that the funds had been misused.”

Every effort was made to attack the B.C.
district officers and to create doubt and con-
fusion among the membership. Despite that,
in the March, 1948 elections, the district
officers won re-election overwhelmingly,
and every local except the New Westminster
local retumed left wing and communist of-
ficers. But that did not stop the White Bloc
from continuing their attacks, including the
launching of a weekly radio broadcast.

In 1948, the U.S. immigration depart-
ment again denied entry into the U.S. of the
entire left wing B.C. delegation to attend the
IWA intemational convention in Portland.
About this time, Mahoney attended an inter-
national executive board meeting in the
same city to plan joint strategy between the
CCL and the IWA international to oust the
B.C. IWA leaership. Many reports came
back to the B.C. district officers that the

| Longshoremen’s president Harry Bridges.

intemational was planning to seize the
district’s assets and put it into receivership.

In July the B.C. district wamed the inter-
national to cease its campaign of disruption
or face the possibility of secession, but it was
ignored by the international.

& eanwhile, the left and
communist leadership
in the TWA undertook
discussions on how to
meet this attack and
decided the only
"= course open to them
was to secede from the international and
form a Canadian woodworkers union. The
B.C. District Council meeting with delegates
from all B.C. locals was coming up on Oct.
3, 1948 and it was felt that if any action was
to be taken to fight off the attack on the B.C.
district and save the union from a takeover, it
had to come at that meeting.

Just before the meeting took place, the
provincial executive of the Labour Pro-
gressive Party met to discuss the sitiuation
in the forest industry. The party leadership
supported the proposed action which was
recommended by the labour committee of
the party and endorsed by a meeting of the
caucus of communist and left leaders in the
IWA.

The executive meeting instructed B.C.
provincial leader Nigel Morgan to phone
Tim Buck, national party leader, and inform
him of developments in B.C. Morgan
reported back to the meeting that Buck had
questioned the action being proposed but
when the situation was explained to him,
Buck had acknowledged that the people in
B.C. were closest to the situation. In any
case, he said that they had obviously made
up their minds that this was the best thing to
do, but he urged caution in whatever action
was undertaken.

Shortly before the District Council meet-
ing was to take place, a large caucus of
leading members of the IWA, including the
top and secondary leadership, met to discuss
the crisis the union faced. I attended that
meeting as an observer and didn’t hear a
single disagreement with the proposed
secession. In fact, there was considerable
enthusiasm among those present for the for-
mation of a Canadian woodworkers union.

see SECESSION page 12
Pacific Tribune, December 17, 1990 « 17