be

to aid the
Struggle

_BY DAN KEETON

Cultural workers:
progressive art

T he scene is Empire Stadium and the
.= occasion is the largest (to date)
Political rally against government policy in
| BC. history. From the stage, as thousands
| Oftrade unionists march in to fill the wooden
leachers to overflowing, a melodic voice,
Powered by several hundred watts of
} “Mplified power, floats across the milling
| Stowd and echoes off the stands:
} 0/6 Once was a union maid
} 10 never was afraid
Ofthe goons and the ginks and the company
| Sinks
And the deputy sheriffs who made the raids

r union miners faced guns and jail
) 24ndreds of us were held without bail
| But by August 1914, our labor was
quarantined

| But they blacklisted me.

The words were from labor songs out of the
) Past — the 30s, or earlier — but the time was
Aug. 10, 1983, when the newly formed
| Operation Solidarity jammed more than

,000 during a weekday into Vancouver’s
former football stadium.

On stage the folk quartet Threesome Reel
Was finishing up, to be followed by another
| %t. Collectively, entertainers comprising
| folk acts, rock groups and theatrical com-
+) Panies kept spirits up for more than one hour

€ unionists marched in, or left the stands
'0 parade around the field with their union’s
er

19 :

Less than two weeks later, the performers
| Would be forming a unique organization and
} Come part of the growing Solidarity Coali-
4on. With other entertainers, they would
“Stablish themselves as the Cultural Workers

the Budget and bring to participants
| 2! rallies, benefits and other shows of
tback against the Socred’s economic
) Pethaps, revived — progressive art that
‘Poke of and enhanced the struggle.
The first meeting of the Cultural Workers
ok place at the home of Rika Ruebsaat and
°n Bartlet. For years a professional folk
duet Specializing in labor and progressive
‘ lal, the two teachers have a history of
Orming at political events. Ruebsaat,
how a music teacher in Surrey, related the
f ns behind the formation of the per-
omers’ coalition. ;
Sag sicaly, it grew out of the Empire

lum rally. The organizers needed a
"Oster of performers, and among them was
Nyself and John, Threesome Reel, Com-

Mique, and Ash Street.
._ “There were about 25 of us at the (plann-
a) Meeting. We were told that it would be
hour and ahalf of music, and an hour and
rh Of speakers. We said, hang on, why
|, ' you put together a program that
tes More sense, with entertainers in-
aribersed with speakers, because people
of t Oing to sit through an hour anda half
Music,’’
nate Performers spent time knocking out a

» but, Ruebsaat related, it wasn’t follow-
_’ With the predictable result that speakers
lig ticularly those towards the end of the
the 2° dressed a crowd about one-tenth of
© Original size.
|g So Out of that grew a fair amount of

Used faction . . .our expertise had not been
_ “a8 effectively as it should have been.”
hig s Planning of the rallies following the
Nee Marches against the Socred budget
7 ange adrawback. Individual performers
3 their 8roups can relate experiences where
Wh Music was treated like ‘‘muzak,”’ used
“Never people were arriving or departing

When the un
the workers’
n

Cultural Workers Against the Budget form-
ed after the massive Solidarity rally at Empire
Stadium Aug. 10. Group members

_ Threesome Reel (above) and Jon Bartlett

and Rika Ruebsaat (r) have entertained at
several progressive benefits with their
blends of Canadiana and labor songs.

ught on working people a new — or °

various rallies, and “‘not given equal impor-
tance to the speakers,’’ said Ruebsaat.

That problem would later be ironed’out, :

and music would receive a hitherto
unrealized prominence when Oct. 15, and
the largest demonstration against the
budget, rolled around. But simply setting an
appropriate agenda was not the sole, or the
most prominent reason the progressive per-

‘formers organized.

: T he some 45 people who gathered in
Bartlett’s and Ruebsaat’s.living room
for the first meeting — ‘‘We had theatre peo-
ple, graphics people, folkie types, rock-and-
roll types’’ — adopted what Ruebsaat called
a “basis for unity. We had a big chart on the
wall, and hammered out the writing, and
basically decided why we existed.”

The new group decided on four aims: “To
promote culture as an agent of opposition to
the (then) proposed legislation; to broaden
the Solidarity Coalition through the inclu-
sion of (full time) cultural groups; to attract,
support and encourage participation of the
public in the activities of the Solidarity
Coalition; to ensure that the issues of spec-
tacle and participation are addressed in plan-
ning Solidarity Coalition activities.”

In Bartlett’s opinion, the latter two aims
have proven the most realizable: ‘I think
we've addressed the question of ‘spectacle
and participation.’ (The rallies are getting
better.) And I think we’ve been able to at-
tract the public to participate in Solidarity
Coalition activities.””

“On the other aims, we haven’t been as ©

ccessful, and the first aim we haven’t ad-
receed at all. We’ve yet to attract full time
cultural workers. Many have told us they re
all for us, but they won’t come out in a big
way because they’re afraid they'll lose
government funding.”
“But one thing we’’ve been successful in
— and it wasn’t one of our initial aims —
was to bring to the attention of trade
‘unionists songs many of them didn’t know

existed.”

ion’s inspira
blood she
0

SONGS FOR THE MARCH

Solidarity Forever

Bett, Billy Be
ES nnett,
© you? Wh ere are you?
you're phoney
‘Oney

Cut to the streets of Vancouver Oct. 15:
Some 60,000 people are marching a
horseshoe route that takes them past the an-
nual Social Credit convention in the Hotel
Vancouver. The sounds of the throng can be
heard inside the plush lobby, for thousands
have their voices raised in song.

Among the melodies is the now ever-

. present “Solidarity Forever,” but with a
‘Slight difference. The marchers are singing

all the verses, because all the words—and the
words to several other tunes — are printed
neatly on ahandy 8 by 14sheet, thousands of
which have been distributed.

Other songs have a familiar ring: they
were based either on innocuous but universal
melodies such as ‘“‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic”’
or labor standards. But new words accom-
panied the old tunes, so that when it came
time to sing ‘‘Which Side Are You On?”’, the
B.C. situation was front and centre:

The Socreds got elected, they told a pack
of lies,

Us citizens don’t have a chance unless we
organize.

The Socreds and their bankers, they just
don't give a hoot, -

They follow Michael Walker and his right-

wing institute.

““What we did was have a series, during
the weeks before, of songmaking
workshops, where we essentialy recycled
songs, some of which had been made up for

* the previous rally. And out of those

workshops came the songs that were finally
put on the sheet,’’ Ruebsaat explained., ~
Printing — free of charge by the B.C.

Teachers Federation — and distributing the ©

RIFFI

RIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN

PHOTO — NOLA JO!

song sheets was one task. Finding ‘‘song
leaders”’ was another.

“‘We divided up the list of the groups that
were members of the Lower Mainland
Solidarity Coalition and phoned every one,
and told them we were going to be having
this singing workshop and we’re going to be
singing the songs from the song sheet, so that
when you’re marching with your group
you'll be familiar enough with them to do

_ song leading.

“Not only did we have our own people
leading songs throughout the march, we also
trained other people.”

On stage, the rally went smoothly. For
some 45 minutes entertainers — including
Ruebsaat and Bartlett, who sang as part of
the ‘Teacher Singers’? — kept things mov-
ing until Solidarity leaders Art Kube and
Renate Shearer came on to address the
crowd.

Ruebsaat considered the experience
“gratifying”: Even at trade union marches
in England, there are songs they sing, and
that doesn’t really exist so much here.
There’s the Wobbly tradition of singing at
the union hall, but other than that, what
songs do you have?

“Maybe ‘Solidarity Forever,’ and you’re
lucky if people know the first verse and
chorus. . . afterwards, people were coming
up to us and saying, ‘Yeah, I’ve never heard
the full song before.’ And it’s a dynamite

song.
ivi ost of Cultural Workers membership

W&consists of part-time performers:
political rock groups such as Communique

See WORK page 17
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 21, 1983—Page 11