HARVEY MURPHY orful past deserves to be a fleeting chapter lost in history. Too often its im- distorted and maligned. ed at the hands of writers e and uninspiring. With ved to a lucrative market, historians pen flowery Canada’s greatness as the n of some ordained indivi- and always will stamp the progress across the pages wages, job security and than the miners. The ple who lived in that tur- it have set labor a course y today. It lives in the valu- ns garnered by the miners tperienced the bitter despair the sweet jubilance of vic- a tale that has no ending. inning could only unfold the reminiscences of miners from the past as told by one ly participated in them, a labor at its best in the face and intimidation. To stand with the proud dignity of free _win through when the odds cag ong a whole life- service in the labor move- miners leader for over 30 has tirelessly worked to bring in the ranks of labor. After of effort he achieved a sig- as a prime mover in bring- being the merger of the Mine, Smelter Workers and the United ers. This marked the adop- -new formula for labor, gain- acceptance by other unions a new stage in labor unity. y Murphy has a reputation of Shrewd negotiator at the bar- fable, a tribute earned by the unwavering confidence of the om this position of strength Orced the grudging respect of 8S. Unlike some labor leaders ere is Pan absence in his make- -up of € sleek professionalism so dear to the it Of management. ig him for the purpose of this Murphy impressed me as itant product formed in the By William Turner hurly-burly world of labor struggle. His physical presence is enhanced when he speaks. The language is direct, earthy and forceful. He possesses a vocabulary enriched with the colorful idiom that reflects the personality of the working- class. With the foregoing observations prompting my thoughts I decided that my list of prepared questions to ask Murphy were perhaps inadequate. I re- solved that in order to capture the real color of labor’s past, I should be an attentive listener quietly suppressing the desire to interject with a question. I was aware that he seemed constant- ly to anticipate my thinking through- out his story, which began: “I got my first taste of trade-union- ism when I was 19 working in a rub- ber factory in Kitchener . . , following the Winnipeg general strike the idea of the One Big Union grew. It was form- ed to organize the unorganized. It was what you might call a Canadian type of the IWW ... it opposed the AFL craft unionism. What finished the One Big Union idea, as great as it was, was its internal fights over policy. It split over the question of labor unity. Then, and now, this is the supreme question for workers . , . if we close our eyes to it labor is finished . . . and that’s just what happened to the OBU. “During the '20s the fight for labor unity and to organize the unorganized was taken up by the Trade Union Edu- cational League, Tim Buck was Secre- tary ...as a member of the Machinists Union, Tim with others, fought to unite the railroad unions . , . the TUEL did a good job in fighting for labor’s rights in spite of discrimination and a ban against us by the officialdom of the AFL . . . who lifted charters and ex- pelled workers. “Just after the depression hit in 1929 the Workers Unity league was form- ed . . . led’ by Communists like Jim MacLachlan, Charlie Sims, Sam Scar- lett, Tom McEwen, Art Evans. I took charge of the WUL when its secretary Tom McEwen was jailed with the other leaders of the Communist Party under that left-over from the Winnipeg gene- ral strike—section 98. Outside the AFL craft unions were thousands of un- organized workers ... so the WUL set its aim to organize in the main basic industries, steel, mines, lumber, auto. A life linked with the miners struggle We set out to prove long before the CIO was formed that industrial trade unions could be built .. . wage cuts could be stopped and we could even raise wages during the Depression. Of- ficialdom said no it couldn’t be done. We figured if companies can make pro- fits the workers must get more wages.” During the years of the Depression the stock-exchanges ticker-taped great- er company profits. Sudbury’s Interna- tional Nickel made $6 million net profit in the first six months of 1934... “You know, we proved that with militant leadership workers will sup- port you. The Workers Unity League showed the way ... it won 84 strikes out of 109 in 1934. . . we issued char- ters, one I remember well was to the Fraser Mill strikers in 1931 .. . it be- came the Lumber Workers Industrial Union led by a communist, Harold Prit- chett. The LWIU set the tone on the coast to organize B.C. lumber camps later. “In Ontario around Port Arthur the union fought a bitter strike . , . the Mine Workers Union was active in Glace Bay, Sudbury, the Crows Nest, Trail, Cumberland, Nanaimo, in every mining town . the boss fought us with police and ‘the courts, too, “The miners were a special field of work for me... we went through some really tough struggles together. For in- stance, the strike at Blairmore lasted seven months and 86 were arrested . the workers were made up of all na- tionalities . . . but they stuck and won. After the strike Blairmore elected a labor mayor and council. . . one of its first acts was to name the main street Tim Buck Boulevard. When I went to organize Michel, Corbin and Fernie I was barred at the B.C.-Alberta border by the police. We travelled another route to reach Nanaimo and Cumber- land and bring them back into the union ... Tom Uphill MLA and myself interviewed Premier Patullo and Attor- ney General Sloan, on why I was pre- vented from going into the Crows Nest area, They said you kncw why. The why was that Cominco was behind this move to prevent union organization. “A few years later Sloan was made a judge of the B.C, Supreme court... we did organize the mines in the Crows Nest . . . and the big breakthrough at the Trail smelters, the heart of Comin- co’s empire years later. You know, to- day a lot of those mining towns are gone .. . some are still here with no mines to keep them going . . , like ghost towns too without miners . . .” My mind’s eye saw mining camps silent, abandoned. Stilled machines rusted with the scars of time, the hol- low ghosts of past wealth and men’s lives. Harvey continued his story, “Winning a strike in those days didn’t come easy . . , the companies used police, scabs, stool-pigeons, all the time. Who used violence? Take the strike I took part in at Port Arthur with the lumber workers union . . . two Communists who were union organizers, Rosvall and PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 24, Voutilainen, were murdered, that was in 1929... In Estevan in 1931 the moun- ties shot and killed three miners and thirteen were wounded , . . Annie Bul- ley a Communist woman organizer was arrested and jailed for two years . . but those who murdered the miners were never charged. “In B.C, at Corbin seven women on the picket-line were injured when trac- tors ran them down .. . the company mounted machine-guns during the Fraser Mills strike ,. . At Anyox miners were arrested and deported without trial, foreign born and English... When miners struck in Princeton the police kidapped Art Evans, the miner’s union organizer, and jailed him in Vernon a hundred miles away . .. These are some bloody strike struggles workers will always remember .. .” As Murphy spoke we were both con- scious of the passing noise of traffic from a nearby highway; the peremp- tory summons of a telephone ring to be answered. “The boss never forgets the mili- tancy of the workers . . . today he uses new methods and new tricks . . . like Bill 33 in B.C, and the Rand report in Ontario, To confuse and divide labor's ranks he buys out some of its leaders . .. a kind of psychological tactic. He don’t discriminate. They could be right- wingers, centrists or so-called leftists all looking for a fast buck at labor's expense...” Listening, I thought the lines of a Robert Browning poem were fittingly appropriate, written upon the news of a close friends’ betrayal of a cause: “Just for a handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat.” “The B.C. government has appointed Baskin, Sims and Stewart to its Media- tion Commission for Bill 33 . . in spite of tactics to buy over labor leaders there'll always be new leadership com- ing from the workers, The government might buy out a labor leader but can’t buy out the workers he represents... Sam Scarlett once said the boss is al- ways prepared to emancipate one worker at a time but has a hell of a job to emancipate the whole working- class.” We both laughed, relishing this earthy witticism of sound working- class logic, as our interview drew to a close, Before leaving I ventured to ask one question of Murphy. What did he consider were some of the miners’ greatest achievements? “In 1952 when Mine, Mill brought Paul Robeson to the Peace Arch on the U.S.-Canada border to sing to 40,000 people. This terrific demonstration broke the Cold War ban on Robeson imposed by the U.S. State Dept. ... big victories too were the first Mine, Mill agreements at Sudbury and Trail.” I viewed the treasured gifts from his fellow-workers, from the mine locals of Riondel, Trail and Kimberley. We shook hands with Murphy’s parting words I'll remember, “So long, I'll be seeing you.” They seemed to hold a promised pledge to the whole labor movement as well and to the miners that special breed of.-men who bared the riches of the earth, and fought hard for labor’s rights. Given the power of labor in mili- tant struggle the future has everything going for it. Make no mistake about ipod er will be around, too. 196¥—Page’/