sie Sam Guthrie, CCF MLA for Cowichan-Newcastle, who 35 years ago was jailed for his part in the Nanaimo coal strike, is shown addressing a citizens’ rally in support of the laundry workers. Seated behind him (in light rainceat) is Herbert Gargrave, CCF MLA for Mackenzie. Stand- ing at left are Nigel Morgan, LPP provincial leader, Don Barbour and Bert Melsness of the IWA, and Alex McAuslane, CCL vice-president. of the townsfolk—the solidarity that drew from Judge How- ay the comment, “I find even your women singing ‘Drive out the scabs,’”— that enabled them to wage that struggle. And now the daughters and grand-daugh- ters of the 1912 strikers are themselves on the picket line. It was little wonder that the parade which left the Eagles’ Hall at the conclusion of the proceedings was even longer than the earlier one. Now, as in 1912, the sympathies of the townsfolk are with the strikers. “It’s a shame the way they are treating those girls,” said a little rosy-cheeked woman, who told me she came to Nanaimo from England 40 years ago. “Everyone knows that the laundry has been against the union ever since it started. Why don’t the government get after the laundry?” Tom Shenton, who served nine days in jail for his part in the 1912 strike, put it this way. “Labor has to stand up and fight this bill,” he said to me. “It’s the rottenest piece of legi- Slation I’ve seen in all my life.” Shenton is an old man now, but his labor convictions are still as strong as they were half a century ago when he was a leading figure in the Sdcialist Party, of Canada in Nanaimo, and his eyes still grow hot with indignation as he talks about labor’s struggles. His narrow de- feat as the labor candidate for Atlin in the 1933 elections rob- ‘bed the people of Nanaimo of a spokesman who could have fought well for them today. EMBERS of the government are now wishing perhaps that the opening struggle against Bill 39 had come almost anywhere else, and already attempts are being made to transfer the legal action to Vancouver, as_ the trials of strikers were ‘trans- ferred to New Westminster in 1912. Nanaimo, whose economic life is bound up with the mon- opoly - dominated mining and logging industries, has a_ politi- cal tradition that goes back to the beginnings of the labor move- ment in this province. The names of old pioneer families— the Bowaters, the Parkins, the Greenwells, the Mocres — that are associated with the early days of Nanaimo are also link- EAGLE HOTEL NANAIMO — B.C. COMMERCIAL ST. _ NANAIMO HOTEL NANAIMO, B.C. Lotus HOTEL —— NANAIMO — B.C. 121 BASTION ST. COMMERCIAL HOTEL NANAIMO, B.C. POR > PLAZA HOTEL NANAIMO — B.C. FRIDAY, JULY 11, 1947 ed with the first struggles for labor’s rights. And, as you would expect, many of the girls on the picket line proudly claim descent from the men ond wo- men who came to Nanaimo from Liverpool, England, aboard the Princess Royal in 1854. One of them is Frances Par- kin, a great grand-daughter of Mrs. Eliza Parkin, one of the 70 pioneers who made the long voyage around Cape Horn on the Princess Royal. The second girl in a family of six, she started work at the Imperial Laundry and City Dry Cleaners less than two years ago when she was 15 years old. “Yes,” she said, “I’m one of the juveniles. But I know what I'm. doing.” j When I drove out along the Island Highway to Ladysmith to see her father, James Par- kin, a member of the Inter- national Woodworkers of Am- ercia, his welcoming greeting to his red-headed daughter was, “Well, I see they haven’t sent you to jail yet.” “Not yet,” she broad smile. “What are they going to do?” he asked. “Fine yséu?” “I’m only a juvenile,” she re- tored. “They can’t fine me. And said with a } you’d better not pay any fine, either.” : The pioneers who carried their working class traditions from England and fought to establish them on the Canadian soil they farmed and mined would be proud to know how those traditions have flourished in the lives of their native Ca- nadian descendants. NOTHER of the girls is Ho- ; sanna Moore, whose father, uncle and grandfather all took part in the 1912 strike. On her mother’s side she is related to the Bowaters, one of the first three families to settle in near- by Extension, and, she will tell you, “My mother still doesn’t speak to some people because of what happened in that strike.” She also counts among her many cousins George Green- well, who stood as LPP candi- date for Nanaimo in the last federal election, and Archie and ‘Dusty’ Greenwell, both of whom are widely known on the Island as leading members of the IWA and UMWA. “Alice Bowater here’ — she introduced me to another of the girls on the picket ling — “is also related to me. Her. grand- father and my grandfatler were brothers. My grandfather’ went to work in the mines in \mng- land when he was nine years old and he was one of the first members of th: UMWA in) the mines at Extension,” \ Hosanna Moore is also carry- ing on a family tradition, for she was one of the charter members of the Nanaimo Laun- dry and Dry Cleaners Union, Lo- cal No. 1, when it was organ- ized in 1943. The obverse of this tradition is to be found in the few ‘first’ families of the Townsite, men like old Lionel WBeevor Potts who occupied ‘the magistrate’s bench for years before his son took over from him. As - the townsfolk describe him, old Magistrate Lionel Beevor Potts was a small-time lawyer who moved in the limited circle of his own little clique — Judge Fred Barker and A. E. Planta, remembered as “the man who put all the mortgages on us.” Planta, who was sentenced to a penitentiary term for embezzl- ing his clients’ money, was the mayor of Nanaimo who called in the militia during the 1912 strike and afterwards he receiv- ed his appointment to the Sen- ate from a grateful Conservative government. The other side of the tradi- tion is also personified by John Place, the one-time miners’ lead- er who is now acting as the provincial labor department’s in- vestigator in the laundry strike. Place went all through the 1912 strike with the miners ana in 1912 he was elected by the people of Nanaimo toc represent them in the legislature as a member of the Social Demo- cratic Party, a group which had split away from the Socialist Party of Canada in 1911 and counted a considerable follow- ing among the workers of Van- couver Island. Today, like Lionel Beevor Potts who can only take the consti- tuted law as it reads, Place must report his findings on the strike to his government de- partment, forgetful of his own earlier experiences with the fath- ers of the striking workers. It is doubtful indeed, if many of the workers he*is called upon to certify as members of trade unions know that he once was one of them. But the old-timers in Nanaimo have not forgotten. HIE story of the actual dis- pute, as the daily newspap- ers have presented it, is one of an isolated instance of two girls being fired for absenteeism, one in particular for having taken time off to attend the convention of the B.C. Federa- tion of Labor in Vancouver last — month. é But, as you listen to Percy Lawson, the UMWA secretary in Nanaimo who also acts as busi- ness agent for» the laundry workers, you get a different im- pression. The story he tells is not of -an isolated instance of discrimination but of a long fight against the union in which the. dismissal of the two girls was only the final injustice that pro- voked the walkout, The two brothers who run the Imperial Laundry and City Dry Cleaners, John and David Cook, are also members of a well- known Nanaimo family .. - -and that is their only link with the city’s tradition. The organization of the Na- naimo Laundry and Dry Clean- ers Union, Local No. 1, in 1943, arose out of the dismissal of 4 woman worker who asked for an increase in her hourly wage rate of 21 cents. When she was fired ten other girls walked out with her. The other girls won reinstatement after the provin- cial labor department interveD- ed, but the woman who was fired did not get her job back. The girls talked their experi ence over among themselves, de cided they needed a union to protect their interests and went to Percy Lawson, who obtained a Canadian Congress of Labor charter for them. Thereafter the company continued its fight against the union even more bit- terly than it had fought against organization of its employees union pressure forced it to in- crease wage rates from 21 cents to 40-47 cents an hour. One after another, for absen- teeism or some similar pretext, the members of the bargaining committee were dismissed. 4 case in point is that of Ella Campbell, the union’s former ‘president, who asked for time — off because she was sick and was refused. She was obliged to lay off and on her return was handed her dismissal slip. The girls at the plant wer not surprised therefore, when Vi Dewhurst was fired because she stood on her rights as ® | trade unionist and took, time off to represent her union as @ delegate at the B.C. Federatio of Labor after the company h@ refused to give her leave. The dismissal at the same time ® another girl, Helen Morgan, for absenteeism, was the action that. precipitated “the spontaneous walkout. (Concluded on Next Page) WARDILL BROS Bicycle Shop NANAIMO — B.C. PO aay ptt prot JOHNSON’S. Hardware NANAIMO — B.C. FOOT ate BOB SHAW CONFECTIONERY & CIGARETTES NANAIMO — B.C. maw JIMMIE KNIGHT CONFECTIONERY, CIGARETTES ‘and MAGAZINES | NANAIMO — B.C. wwe GLOBE NANAIMO — B.C. HOTEL | hee PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE