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Ong Issue
September, 1962

The Blubber Bay strike 1938-39 was the first
and most bitter strike fought by the newly-formed
IWA. With the possible exception of the Nanaimo
miners’ strike of 1912, it was a fight waged
against the most brutal police and company tyr-
anny known in British Columbia. It stirred the
whole trade union movement into action and
roused public opinion to the need for legislative protection of
legitimate trade union activity.

| know. | was there. | stayed at the home of Bob Gardner,
who was beaten by the police within an inch of his life, and later
died — murdered. Bob was Vice-President of the Local, a quiet,
mild-mannered man, who had worked for the company fourteen
years. Bob dnd his bonny wife had built a charming home, off
the company property, and overlooking a quiet bay on Texada

Island. It is sad to recall that their happy home was wrecked by
order of a rapacious New York company.

| was with the Abercrombie family when they were evicted
from a company house, and attempted to establish themselves in
makeshift quarters at Vananda, some miles distant, in order to
stay on the Island and fight company tyranny. | well remember
Mrs. Abercrombie Sr., who in poor health, nevertheless stood by
her men, and tried so bravely to “make do” with what could be
salvaged from the home she had patiently built around her in
Blubber Bay throughout 14 years.

Stan. Abercrombie (Local 1-80) and | have often agreed that
the full story of Blubber Bay should be written and placed on the
IWA records before its survivors pass from the scene. But mere
words are inadequate to pay tribute to the quiet courage of the
men and women who fought that battle, for they displayed. the
highest qualities of physical and moral bravery.

| nominate Bob and Mrs. Gardner, Mrs. Abercrombie Sr.,
Joe Eng of the Chinese workers of Blubber Bay, and many others
to the IWA Hall of Fame.

The quarry workers of Blubber Bay had been organized 100
per cent by the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union. Later they
affiliated with the IWA as Local 163.

In July, 1937, the Pacific Lime Co. refused to negotiate with

AT BLU

the employees, who had a long list of outstanding grievances,
many of which concerned the needless and extreme hazards of
the job. One hundred and fifty employees struck in July, 1937,
whereupon the Company attempted to organize a company union
of scabs. The Manager claimed that both the AFL and the CIO
were Communist-led. The fact was that the plant had been fully
erganized on an industrial union basis. The Vancouver Sun de-
scribed the strike as a fight between the AFL aid the ClO. Ship-
ments from Blubber Bay were boycotted by the Maritime Federa-
tion.

The first strike at Blubber Bay ended when the Company
agreed, under pressure of the boycott, to parley and promised.
the workers a 3¥2-cent an hour wage increase. This brought their
pay to 50 cents an hour, with 75 cents an hour for overtime.
Union members were forbidden to affiliate with any outside union.
Like other agreements of that day, its terms were vague and 80
men remained unemployed. Both white and Chinese workers
stood shoulder to shoulder against all forms of racial discrimina-
tion practised by the Company. Finally company “stooges” were
used to undermine the Local's solidarity. The company union was

. defeated and the “finks” were ousted. In February, 1938, the work-
ers requested a Conciliation Board under the new ICA Act but the
Company ignored all the legalities. It took a five-day strike, March
1938, after the employees voted for the same, 87-30, to bring the
Company to the bargaining table. Mr. Justice Macintosh was
named Chairman of an Arbitration Board, Harold Winch, MLA,
undertook the presentation of the Union’s case. The award did
not approve collective bargaining, but proposed that company-
controlled committees be set up. A wage rate of 75 cents an hour
was recommended, with time and one half for overtime. The
employees rejected the award, as not offering a genuine union

agreement. In any event, the Company refused to accept the

award, and a strike was called on June 2, 1938.

‘The situation quickly deteriorated into one of violence.
Terrorist tactics were employed by Company officials, and their

1s, dressed up in Provincial Police uniforms. The Chinese work-

ee

WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

ers were evicted from the quarters under threat of clubs and tear
gas. All white workers were evicted from company-owned houses,
and in many instances their personal belongings disappeared.

All the IWA could do was establish a militant picket line
on the Blubber Bay docks, reinforced by IWA members from Van-
couver and the Pulp and Sulphite workers from Powell River,
across the strait. Trade unionists everywhere scoured the country-
side for food to sustain the strikers who were scattered through
small outlying communities.

Blubber Bay was under a police dictatorship. Colin Cameron,
MLA, was held in police custedy because he protested on behalf
of the Chinese workers whose plight was pitiful. | was then a
member of the House of Commons, but | was not allowed to move
in the area, to the post office, to the telegraph office or to the
phone without a police escort of two acting as a Gestapo for one

of the “dangerous reds”.

As the eleven-month strike proceeded, time and again the
strikers and their families were ambushed by either the scabs,
imported from Vancouver, or the police and stoned.

The men on the picket line on the docks contrived some clever
parodies of popular songs with which they taunted the police

' stationed in the vicinity. Finally, the police lost patience and

pickets were singled out and arrested. The gaps were quickly
filled by the Union from Vancouver. Singing rude songs was the
worst offence on a well-disciplined picket line, whose members
had to use rowboats from adjacent points on the island to take
their stations.

Bob Gardner was arrested on a flimsy charge at 3 a.m. when
reused from sleep, over the protests of Mrs. Gardner, who ex-
tracted from the police officers the promise that Bob would be
fairly treated. He was taken to the temporary police station and
so cruelly beaten by Constable Williamson that on the following
day he was hospitalized in Powell River. While still weak from
his injuries, he was sentenced to four months in Oakalla. When
he was serving his sentence, the Union discovered that he was
seriously ill, and induced the authorities to place him in the Gen-
eral Hospital under police custody. Some time later he died in
Nanaimo as a result — the first IWA labour martyr. Some day, |

By GRANT MacNEIL

hope, the IWA will place a plaque in Woodworkers’ House to
the memory of Brother Bob Gardner, as decent a guy as ever
walked, whose only crime was loyalty to the Union.

The Union brought Williamson to trial, and with ironclad
evidence, saw him sentenced to six months for his brutal assault
on Bob Gardner. Twenty-seven other members of the police and

scabs were brought to trial by the Union, but were acquitted on

questionable evidence. Fifteen strikers were charged with rioting
and unlawful assembly and were given a total of 49 months in
Oakalla. It is ironical to recall in 1962, that most of them served
with distinction in the war which broke out soon after.

The strikers were charged and found guilty in the Vancouver
Assizes. Under the section of the Criminal Code dealing with un-
lawful assembly, it was only necessary to prove that three or more
persons had caused fear in the minds of those in the vicinity. A
row of company houses, occupied by scabs and their wives, over-
looked the docks where the pickets were stationed. In court, these
wives quite readily testified that they were scared by the singing
on the picket line, and on this evidence men went to jail.

Colin Cameron returned to the Legislature to assail Attorney-

General Gordon Wismer for the illegal brutality of police tactics.
It was my privilege to tell the story in the next session of the
House of Commons, and move an amendment to the Criminal
Code which would prevent the use of the “unlawful assembly”
section of the Criminal Code to break strikes. The Bill, which won
some support from lawyers in the House, was “talked out’ by the
Hon. Mr. Lapointe, then Minister of Justice, who promised that its
obvious injustice would be corrected. But the section of the Code
still stands. ;

The strike dragged along for more than eleven weary
months. | wish I could write that the strikers won a settlement
that they deserved. | can’t. | do say, with emphasis, that it was
fought magnificently by the strikers and their families. Their gal-
lant fight won for the workers of British Columbia a greater
measure of justice in the laws of the province of British Columbia.
It that respect, it was a glorious victory.

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