REVIEWS

The IWA:
anew look
ata
contested
history

One Union in Wood. By Jerry Lembcke
and William M. Tattam. Published simul-

‘ taneously by Harbor Publishing and Inter-
national Publishers, New York. 1984.
Paper, $12.95. Available at People’s Co-op
Books.

For a province whose labor history has
been so much shaped by the International
Woodworkers of America — the militant
tradition set by its early organizing cam-
paigns and its conservative business union-
ism of more recent years — it is surprising
how little has been written about it. There
are mainly two works, Myrtle Bergren’s
Tough Timber, an engaging personal history
of the first decade, focusing on Vancouver
Island, and Grant McNeil’s The IWA in
British Columbia, published in 1971 as the
official union history, although it hardly
qualifies as history.

The opening paragraph in McNeil’s
chapter describing the critical events in 1948
typifies the attitude that has prevailed over
the last 32-odd years.

“A Communist plot to wreck a union the
Communists could no longer rule was
foiled by IWA members who rallied to the
defence of their union when, in 1948, a small
LPP—Communist group manipulated Dis-
trict Council secession from the IWA. The
conspirators set up the Woodworkers
Industrial Union of Canada (the ‘wooies’)

and under this guise seized all the assets of

the IWA. Only the staunch loyalty of the

IWA membership saved the union from

complete disaster.”

Fortunately, particularly for the two gen-
erations who have grown up in the shadow
of that distorted account of events, there is
now a new history, One Union in Wood
written by U.S. authors Jerry Lembcke and
William Tattam and published by Harbor
Publishing in conjunction with Interna-
tional Publishers in New York.

McNeil’s official version of a “member-
ship revolt against Communist rule” has its
counterpart in the U.S. in a 1945 work on
the IWA, Lumber and Labor by Vernon

_ Jensen. And as they note in their introduc-
tion, it was to challenge and reconsider that
version that Lembcke and Tattam embarked
on their joint project.

The authors follow the early history of the
union on both sides of the border, tracing its
first militant traditions to the organizing by

_ the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) .
and, in this country, the One Big Union, to

which one of the predecessors of the union,

the Lumberworkers Industrial Union of

Canada (LWIU) was initially affiliated.
In 1929, the LWIU again emerged to

become the woodworkers’ affiliate of the —

Workers Unity League. Two years later, it
stood its first major test in the historic strike
at Fraser Mills led by Harold Pritchett, then
a 27-year-old shingle weaver.

In 1935, both-the Trade Union Unity

League in the U.S. and the Workers Unity
League announced their decision to dissolve
and to merge their constituent unions with
the AFL affiliates in the U.S. and in this
country with those unions in the Trades and
Labor Congress. :

Oddly, Lembcke and Tattam describe the
decision to disband the League as a change
froma policy of “dual unionism” to a policy
of “boring from within.” It’s not a description
which will aid in understanding the historical
period and it’s out of character because they

later quote Charles Campbell, AFL Building

Trades department secretary, who used the

1

Jerry Lembcke (|)
and William
Tattam, authors
of One Union in
Wood.

TRIBUNE PHOTO — SEAN GRIFFIN

term “boring from within” to attack
“Communist and adverse influences.”

The primary reason for establishing the
WUL was to overcome the refusal of the
conservative craft unions in the Trades and
Labor Congress to organize the unorganized
industrial workers in the resource industries
in the West and the manufacturing indus-
tries in central Canada. If there were “dual
unions” it was a claim made only by the
craft unions; for those in the industry there
was no union atall until the WUL began to
organize and to fight the wage cuts which
most craft unions were accepting.

The decision to disband the League was
based on the overriding necessity of promo-
ting unity among workers in the face of a
growing fascist threat. But just as important
were the mass pent-up desire for organization
which the decision to merge helped unleash,
and the demand for industrial organization
and the organizing experience which the
WUL unions took with them into the main-
stream trade union movement.

But that is a minor quibble. In fact, One
Union in Wood stands out most of all for its
assessment of the role of Communists in

organizing woodworkers and building their _
union into an effective fighting organiza- .

tion. And as the authors note, the decision
to bring the left unions into the offical AFL-
TLC affiliate — the United Brotherhood
of Carpenters and Joiners — set in motion
an organizational campaign and strike
movement that led quickly to the formation
of the TWA.

The Federation of Woodworkers that was
established as an industrial group within the
Carpenters soon found that the Carpenters’
leadership, if it had been compelled to accept
woodworkers, wasn’t about to accept indus-
trial unionism. In July, 1936, the Federation
voted to confirm an earlier referendum vote
and affiliate with the Congress of Industrial
Organizations which had been expelled the
same year from the AFL for its champion-
ing of industrial unionism.

That same convention elected Harold .

Pritchett as the first international president
of the union. i

From the outset, the problems faced by
the militant new union —led by a

“Communist — were formidable, Lembcke

and Tattam emphasize. On both sides of the
border, there were the employers who were
growing in strength and influence through
mergers and takeovers. There was the small
rump group within the union — it would
form the basis for what became known as
the right wing White Bloc — which would
-seek to destabilize the left leadership. And,
more than anything, there were the employ-
ers’ allies in government and the state appa-
ratus who would use'every possible tactic to
harass and intimidate the [WA leadership, a

campaign that was intensified, with assist-_

ance from within the trade union move-
ment, as the Cold War developed.

It is in outlining the anti-Communist
campaign against the IWA and particularly
its militant leadership that One Union in
Wood breaks new ground, both in its histor-
ical research and its analysis.

22 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 19,1984 —

In the first place, they put the campaign

against the left leadership in the context of

political events: the “red scare” raids in

Washington and Oregon in the late 1930's; -

the intervention of U.S. immigration
authorities against Pritchett; and, following
World War II, the ferocious anti-Communist
assault launched by the U.S. Chamber of

_ Commerce against left-led trade unions and
by the U.S. administration which brought

in the hated Taft-Hartley Act.

They also re-assess the supposedly neu-
tral role of the CIO leadership and, in this
country, the increasingly anti-Communist
role taken on by the leaders of the Canadian
Congress of Labor and’ the CCF whose
national leader, David Lewis, is quoted as
having urged the party’s trade union com-
mittee in B.C. in 1943 to “concentrate its
efforts on wresting as many of the locals as
possible from Communist control.”

At no time was the pressure on the left
leadership in the B.C. district of the TWA
more intense than in 1947 and 1948 in the

events leading up to the October 1948 seces- _

sion of the District and the establishment of
the short-lived Woodworkers Industrial

Union of Canada (WIUC). Lembcke and
Tattam spend considerable time analyzing
those events, challenging the official view
that has prevailed since 1948.

Faced with an international which had
fired their appointed organizers and an
international trustee from B.C.; which
accepted the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act,
(contrary to MacNeil’s claim); which
actively organized through the only White
Bloc-dominated local (in New Westmins-
ter) against the District leadership;
which appeared to be.moving towards trus-
teeship, the District Council officers
resolved at a delegated meeting Oct. 3, 1948
to take the dramatic step of breaking away
from the international and setting up the
WIUC. .

The new union, although it clearly-com-
manded membership support, was faced
with obstacles — an official IWA cam-
paign, aided by ferocious anti-Communism,

against it as well as refusal of employers and -

the CCL to recognize its legitimacy —
which ultimately proved insurmountable. It
survived for a little less than’ two years
before its leaders advised locals to “join
hands” with the [WA. ;
But whatever the problems that ulti-
mately appeared, the authors argue, there.
really had been no other route to take. “It’s
difficult to see that the District’s leaders had
any choice,” they state. “Had they waited
for the trap to close tighter, their defeat
would have been even more certain.”
Defeat perhaps, but not decimation
which was the outcome of secession. Signif-
icantly, althougi the documentary evidence
presented by Tattam and Lembcke con-
firms what Communists have maintained
over the years — that the international,

Books

together with sections within the Distr

conspired against the left leadership —

would question the certainty of the conclt
sion that the District had little choice.

The major Communist leaders in the
trict at the time, including Pritchett
president Ernie Dalskog (as well as
Labor-Progressive Party itself) assessed
episode in later years and concluded t
serious tactical error was made which
anti-Communist forces within the unio?
international and the Congress a ta
made issue on which to press their attac
the long run, it led to the isolation of
munists from the union membership.
isolation which has not yet been overcom

That the decision was taken with the bé
interests of woodworkers in mind is bey:
question. But hindsight has suggested
they would have been better to stay with
IWA, even it if meant trusteeship, and!
their demonstrated membership support

. continue the fight for democracy and au
nomy. Even if they lost the leadership,
could have maintained their connec
with the rank and file.

But whatever the conclusion, the |
dence is there for the record. Lembcke é
Tattam show that the left leadership had!
full. confidence of the membership am
was precisely because of that fact that
campaign against that leadership becamt
vicious, with trumped-up charges of ft
embezzlement and relentless red-baiting

With the demise of the WIUC and
purge of Communists from the ranks of
IWA, the_right. wing leadership on ©
sides of the border consolidated. As”
authors state, it “offered managemen
less evil of business unionism.” .

In a final chapter, Lembcke and Tatt@
also consider two later strikes — in Né
foundland in 1959 and a decade latef
Laurel, Mississippi — to review the
left by business unionism and to exal
the effect on the union of social chang
is only a glimpse of the larger picture 0
IWA in a time of growing monopoli

-and crisis in the wood industry and I c#
help wishing there was more. But it pr
bly would have been beyond the sco:
the book. :

As it is, One Union in Wood is a land
study that has been 35 years in comi
shows, with relentless documentation
Communists took the initiative to o
woodworkers into a unified ind
organization and won the right to leé
ship by their efforts on behalf of the n
bership. When they were ousted fro
that leadership, it was not becau
membership repudiated them (as
McNeil and Jensen claim) but beca
employers wanted them out, the
wanted them out and certain trade um
leaders wanted them out — and spare
effort, in the midst of Cold War hyst
achieve that objective. ;

One Union in Wood deserves to be w!
read — not just by those interested
IWA but by anyone wanting to und
the labor history of this province.

. 2 ee Sean